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Posted on 06/13/2011 12:52:39 PM PDT by WesternCulture
Almost 100 years after the great Swedish migration to North America, dialect researchers from Gothenburg are heading across the Atlantic in hopes of learning more about the evolution of the Swedish language, The Local’s Karen Holst explains.
Wild myths that solve the mysterious birth of language and its dispersal often include floods, catastrophes or punishment by the gods.
In Hindu stories it was a tree being humbled, in North American Indian folklore it was a great flood, in east Africa it was starvation-induced madness, in the Amazon it was stolen hummingbird eggs and in aboriginal Australia it was a goddess’ gift of play for children.
Regardless of how language really sprouted and then diversified, it is certain that it is not a static or fixed phenomenon.
As the world witnesses an era of unparalleled change and transformation, the question of how languages evolve as words are invented, borrowed or dismissed, becomes ever-more relevant.
To that end, a group of five Swedish researchers are set to spend more than a week in Minnesota, a northerly mid-western state known to be a part of the heartland for Swedish-American communities, to conduct interview with anyone they can find who speaks Swedish.
The researchers are hoping their efforts will help shed light on how the languages spoken by Swedish migrants a century ago has evolved over the decades of being spoken on the prairies of the Midwestern United States.
“When people move abroad and have contact with English in their every day, it begins to affect how their native language is spoken, especially across generations,” says Jenny Nilsson, a member of the research team from Gothenburg’s Institute of Language and Folklore.
“We are interested in how the two languages, Swedish and English, have affected each other and how the Swedish language has changed over time.”
The team will compare their findings to an extensive study carried out in the 1960s and 1970s when two Swedes spent almost a year travelling the US by bus.
The men recorded more then 600 Swedish speakers throughout the country that included first generation Swedes up to third generation.
“They were lucky because they were able to speak with the first Swedes who emigrated to the United States in the late 1800s – they were still alive. And to hear how they spoke after living there for a few decades, well that’s really cool data if you’re into this,” Nilsson says.
During a fifty-year span that began more than 100 years ago, a tidal wave of Swedes, amassing to about 1.3 million, left a country plagued with hardship for the shores of opportunity in the United States.
The American frontiers, with their inexpensive and fertile land in the Midwest, were a magnet for the poverty-stricken Europeans who were drawn to reports of its earthly paradise, political and religious freedoms and limitless opportunities.
The migration throng reached its peak in the years following the Civil War and by 1890 the US Census reported a Swedish-American population of nearly 800,000.
By 1910, Chicago had become the Swedish-American capital, with more than 100,000 immigrants making it the second largest Swedish city in the world, next to Stockholm.
In fact, the rising Swedish exodus triggered a national alarm back at the Baltic Sea.
In the early 1900s Sweden instituted a parliamentary emigration commission that later advised extensive reforms to reduce emigration by ‘bringing the best sides of America to Sweden.’
Nowadays, according to a US Census report in 2000, about four million Americans claim to have Swedish roots.
The true number is thought to be considerably higher, and self-identified Swedish Americans in the US are expected to soon outnumber the nine million Swedes in Sweden.
Minnesota remains by a wide-margin the state with the most inhabitants of Swedish descent—9.6 percent of the population as of 2005.
The ongoing rush of new words into the English language makes it a rich field for investigation into language change, despite the difficulty of defining precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English.
Throughout its history, English has not only borrowed words from other languages but has re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings, whilst deleting out-dated words.
During their upcoming journey to the United States, the researchers, who either come from the Institute or the University of Gothenburg’s Swedish Language Department, will set out to interview and record as many Swedish speakers as they can find, talking about everyday life.
“We will listen to how they pronounce words, structure sentences, choose words and to how much English is mixed in,” says Nilsson.
For example, the phrase ‘to sit on the fence,’ in regards to having difficulty making a decision, is often translated and used in the US by American-Swedish speakers as ‘sitta på staket,’ but in true Swedish, this phrase can only be interpreted literally, explains Nilsson.
Other such findings include the Swedish word långsam, or slow, which has been substituted for lonesome instead of the accurate Swedish term ensam.
Nilsson agrees that it's easier today for people to maintain contact with the language through online news sources, buying Swedish books, listening to Swedish music and online chats, all things unavailable to the first few generations.
She and her other US-bound colleagues will compare their findings to that of the data collected during the previous decades and will use it to determine new leads that further their research.
“We have no idea what we’ll find. I would think the variation in Swedish is even greater today after ten to fifty years has passed,” explains Nilsson.
Cool data? This specialized scientific terminology always throws me for a loop.
Perhaps we’re related. :~) I have a relative named Svenborg Jonsson born 1848 in Fjalkestad, Kristianstad, Skane, Sweden.
If I remember right, that first wave of Swedish survived into the 1750s in some rural areas of South Jersey. But it was already well on the way out. I tried to find some vestiges of it in the dialect of the Delaware Valley but didn’t really turn up much. Dutch had a more lasting impact.
I'd say Sweden and also the rest of the Nordic Countries have become closely affiliated with Britain and the US because of the history we share.
European history, as we all know, isn't all rosy.
My Sweden, a major supplier of iron ore to Nazi Germany, is often criticized for her role in that conflict.
But it feels good to know at least some people in Britain, America, France and elsewhere understand that Sweden contributed a lot to fending off Stalin by backing up Finland - the bravest of all really small nations on Earth..
Today, large parts of Western Europe display a very high standard of living.
People over here today worry more about storing exclusive wines at appropriate temperatures than finding their loved ones in heaps of garbage in what once was a London neighborhood.
If I was to stick one single label over all of the Western World of Today it would read “Perfect Idyll” - and seriously, what's wrong with driving a nice Beamer or Audi?
Naturally, this has a lot to do with the fact that the US, with all of her resources, came to dominate global business life (as well as World politics) during the era of 1945-1970, but I'd also say Europe and America are even closer allies now than we used to be 70, 100 or 150 years ago because of the tragedies of the 20th and 19th Century. We must never forget about what comradeship could evolve by the forging of “Blood, toil, tears and sweat”.
What America has done for Europe will never be forgotten.
If you think we don't care; - Please don't think we don't, just because we Europeans sometimes talk like we don't.
Welcome over here for a holiday in Paris, London or Stockholm and a glass of wine, Ale or aquavit. It'll make you adopt a more sober approach to European-US relations.
Very interesting.
Thanks for posting.
My grandmother came over to America in the 1890s as a girl, my grandfather came over in 1902 as a young man. They both lived until the early 1970s (when I was in my late teens), and they both spoke with a Swedish accent, my grandfather especially so.
By 1910, Chicago had become the Swedish-American capital, with more than 100,000 immigrants making it the second largest Swedish city in the world, next to Stockholm.
That number included my granparents. There is a nice Swedish-American Museum on the north side of the city (where I grew up), devoted to the Swedish migration to Chicago.
Minnesota remains by a wide-margin the state with the most inhabitants of Swedish descent—9.6 percent of the population as of 2005.
Perhaps by percentage, Minnesota would be the largest. But in terms of absolute numbers, I would say Illinois.
Oh, unless you were posting the not hating Europeans to others, I hope you didn’t mean me! ;) I have many European ties, and love to travel there when I can. Not too much right now, but definitely in a few more years. My travels and living in Europe (Scotland as well as Sweden) make me see what is very good about both places, as well as things I would like to change in them.
Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
“I read a book about the origins of the English language, and so much of the basic stuff came from the Vikings...”
I believe linguistic historians will reveal the closest to English is found on the north coast of Holland, eg. the Frisians.
All Germanic languages have common origins. Modern English has incorporated MORE words, the most notable being French/Latin, American Indian, Spanish, etc.
My grandfather grew up in Sweden as Karl Viktor Henriksson. When he came through Ellis Island, it was changed (by the immigration official?) to Charles Wiktor Henrickson.
Same region anyway. Kristianstad is a bit north and east of the our old home ground near Skanör.
Nice meeting you.
Yes, and my 13th-generation grandfather on my mother's side was among those first Swedish settlers who came over on the Kalmar Nyckel around 1640. In fact, he was one of the founders of the New Sweden colony: Peter Gunnarsson Rambo. (Yes, the Rambo movie character is named after him.)
My grandfather was born in 1883, the son of Henrik Johansson. Thus his name was Karl Henriksson. But that was the generation when the patronymic switch stopped. All the family in Sweden then stuck with Henriksson.
“By 1910, Chicago had become the Swedish-American capital, with more than 100,000 immigrants making it the second largest Swedish city in the world, next to Stockholm.”
- From what I’ve come to understand (never having visited Chicago though), the Andersonville area of that city is known for being among the most Nordic/Swedish settlements of all places in the US. Later on, as Swedish newcomers got wealthier and got tired of local tax policies, they fled to the ‘burbs, or moved away from the Chicago area for good.
A link dealing with Chicago Swedes:
http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=1,7,1,1,46
The Swedish-American Museum is right in the heart of Andersonville. I grew up about two miles from there. When I was a kid (in the 1960s), most all the shops were Swedish--bakeries, restaurants, travel bureaus, etc. Now, not nearly as many.
The Swedes lived on the north side of the city, but in the '50s and '60s, most moved out to the suburbs. Not us, though!
- Sorry if I perhaps wasn't all that clear in that particular outburst.
Just let me say that I wish all of us good folks here remain good friends and sober Conservatives.
Best of regards from a (by other measures) not overly sober Conservative thinker in Gothenburg, Sweden,
WesternCulture
Apologies.
“The Swedish-American Museum is right in the heart of Andersonville. I grew up about two miles from there. When I was a kid (in the 1960s), most all the shops were Swedish—bakeries, restaurants, travel bureaus, etc. Now, not nearly as many.”
- I will most definitely visit Andersonville one day in my life, even if I’m aware the place has changed much throughout the decades.
Best of regards to everyone here! On Wednesday morning, I’ll start a new job, so I guess I’ll better quit drinking home made apple wine now and go to bed.
En stor, varm, kärleksfull kram till Amerika från Gamla Sverige!
"A big, warm, love-full hug to America from Old Sweden!"
My Swedish is rusty, but I still can manage that! ;^)
“- Are you sure? Andersson has since long been way more common than Andreasson over here.”
100% verified. A few years ago I was in contact with cousins in Sweden, who independently verified genealogical reseach that I obtained from family members, here.
“Anders” is nordic (north Germanic) and “Andreas” is common in Germany, Switzerland, etc. It is closer to Latin, as well. (In Italian, it is “Andrea”). All of course for the English “Andrew.”
I think some in Scandinavia were or tried to be identified with continental Europe, through Latin, for the sake of status, etc.
For example, Latinized names were/are found among university professors, religious figures, etc.
Perhaps you know more about this?
My greatgrandfather’s family was from near Karlstadt, and to the west just slightly into Norway.
My greatgrandmother’s family was from Hovmantorp, and nearby. Eg. the very people that Moberg researched and wrote about.
My greatgrandmother was half-sister to the real female which inspired Moberg’s “Kristina” character.
My uncle, US Army career officer, renaissance man, Mormon, studied, as did his son when on his mission in Sweden.
Together they got the records from the Lutheran church, before those records were microfilmed by the Mormon church.
Then decades later, I got the data verified by a cousin in Granna, Sweden-retired Pharmacist, genealogy hobbyist.
My uncle recommended Moberg’s books and movies, which are fascinating.
My grandfather was a Swedish cowboy from Wyoming, on his own from his teen years, who married a 20 year old Mormon gal, when he was 40 and she was 20.
He was raised speaking Swedish at home, learning English at school. His parents sent him to Baptist school, which was in English, whereas Lutheran school was in Norwegian.
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