Svorsk
Encyclopedia
Svorsk or Svorska is a term describing a mixture of the Swedish
and Norwegian language
s.
The term "svorsk" is used to describe the language of someone (almost exclusively a Swedish or Norwegian person) who mixes words from his or her native tongue with the other language. The phenomenon is not uncommon, especially in light of the close business and trade ties between the two countries and the mutual intelligibility
between the two languages, the latter in its turn being due to the common ancestry and parallel development of both Norwegian and Swedish from Old Norse
(see North Germanic languages
). The term originates from the 1970s.
Individual Swedish loanword
s and phrases that are assimilated into the Norwegian language are called svecisms (svesismer). This trend has been ongoing since the dissolution of the Dano-Norwegian Union
in 1814, however it gained momentum substantially after the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 and has been an ongoing phenomenon of Norwegian linguistics, and still is. Indeed, the prominent Norwegian linguist Finn-Erik Vinje
characterizes this influx since World War II
as a breaking wave.
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...
and Norwegian language
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...
s.
The term "svorsk" is used to describe the language of someone (almost exclusively a Swedish or Norwegian person) who mixes words from his or her native tongue with the other language. The phenomenon is not uncommon, especially in light of the close business and trade ties between the two countries and the mutual intelligibility
Mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is recognized as a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related languages can readily understand each other without intentional study or extraordinary effort...
between the two languages, the latter in its turn being due to the common ancestry and parallel development of both Norwegian and Swedish from Old Norse
Old Norse
Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
(see North Germanic languages
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages, the languages of Scandinavians, make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages...
). The term originates from the 1970s.
Individual Swedish loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s and phrases that are assimilated into the Norwegian language are called svecisms (svesismer). This trend has been ongoing since the dissolution of the Dano-Norwegian Union
Denmark–Norway
Denmark–Norway is the historiographical name for a former political entity consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, including the originally Norwegian dependencies of Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands...
in 1814, however it gained momentum substantially after the dissolution of the union between Norway and Sweden in 1905 and has been an ongoing phenomenon of Norwegian linguistics, and still is. Indeed, the prominent Norwegian linguist Finn-Erik Vinje
Finn-Erik Vinje
Finn-Erik Vinje is a Norwegian philologist. He was a professor at the University of Trondheim from 1971 to 1975, and at the University of Oslo from 1975 to 2006. He was a language consultant for the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation from 1971 to 1992. He has written several books on...
characterizes this influx since World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
as a breaking wave.