Language Research

5. Costs: What does it cost in terms of money, time and government resources to police the country's language restrictions?

Norway has two official written languages, standard Nynorsk and Bokmål. They have equal status, in that they are both used in public administrations, in schools, in churches, and on radio and television broadcasts. Books, magazines and newspapers are published in both languages. The inhabitants of local communities decide themselves which language is to be used as the language of instruction in the school attended by their children. Officially, the teaching language is called "the primary" and the other language "the secondary". Students read material written in the second language and at the upper secondary level they should demonstrate their ability to write in that language. It is a requirement of a public employee to answer letters in the language preferred by the sender.

In Norway two different laws regulate language use. Firstly, there is an Act of Language Use in Public (governmental) Services, stating that the two written standards of Norwegian stand on an equal footing and have to be used in defined contexts. In the second place, the Act of the Sami Parliament contains paragraphs about the use of the Sami language in public services. That law mainly applies to an administrative region in Northern Norway. So ostensibly there are three official languages.

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Updated (March 2008)

A GOVERNMENT DECLARATION ON THE SURVIVAL OF THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE

Culture Minister Trond Giske is preparing an official government declaration aimed at ensuring the survival of the Norwegian language as he worries that the ever-expanding use of English in Norway is threatening its existence.

Giske plans to launch what is known as a “stortingsmelding” (or “white paper”) on the Norwegian language at the end of April. The Minister says that Norwegian is under entirely new pressure than it was just a few years ago, especially because of the development of the Internet and the media. He wants to make sure that a full Norwegian vocabulary is upheld within business and the academic world. Those are the two areas which, he feels, are particularly subject to too much influence from English.

At present, it is common, for instance, that business journals and people active in the business world use the English word instead of the Norwegian. Some companies in Norway already use English as a working language, and the use of English terminology is widespread.

At the same time, some classes at Norwegian colleges and universities are taught in English, not Norwegian. Students can be required to submit papers in both Norwegian and English, or simply in English.

At the time when Giske was Education Minister, the decision was made to allow classroom teaching in English. Now he still feels that it was unavoidable. But that does not mean Norwegian should be overlooked, he explains. He criticizes companies like airline SAS, for example, which stresses English on its website even though it is part-owned by the Norwegian Government.

Sylfest Lomheim of the State Language Council (Språkrådet) says a government declaration on Norwegian will be the most important document on the language in the past 40 years. He says it will represent an attempt to create a new language policy that Norway have not had before.

Source: Aftenposten, News, March 25, 2008 by Nina Berglund/NTB http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article2326641.ece

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Updated (May 2008)

NORWAY TAKES ACTION TO REVERSE DECLINE IN THE NORWEGIAN LANGUAGE USE

Norway takes action to reverse the decline in using its national language. For years, it has promoted the use of English to enable people to be part of the globalized economy. English has been compulsory at schools for decades and universities have been able to teach classes only in English to attract foreign students and staff. Consequently, English has become so predominant that now the Government says it is threatening the existence of Norwegian.

To tackle this problem, next month the Culture Minister is to present to the Parliament a “white paper” declaring that the survival of the Norwegian language is becoming a policy priority.

As reported earlier, the white paper will focus on two areas where English, especially its written form, has overtaken Norwegian: business and academia.

“In business, all the top international Norwegian firms already use written English day in day out,” explains Sylfest Lomheim, director of the Norwegian Language Council. “Norwegian colleagues will talk in Norwegian to one another, but when it comes to writing reports or sending emails, they will do it in English.”

“In academia, 30 percent of social sciences theses were written in English in the early 1990s. Now it is 70 percent. It is possible that in 30 to 40 years’ time Norwegian will no longer be used in higher education. Do we want that to happen?”

Therefore, the focus of the white paper will be on written English, not spoken. They say it is necessary for Norwegians to speak good English but it is highly important to preserve the written form of Norwegian to be able to discuss central issues of public debate in the national language. And if there is no vocabulary for it, it cannot be discussed.

Source: The Guardian Weekly, May 23, 2008 by Gwladys Fouché http://education.guardian.co.uk/tefl/story/0,,2281720,00.html

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Updated (July 2008)

PUBLIC SERVANTS TO LEARN SAMI

The Norwegian Government wants to promote learning of the Sámi language within society and calls for public servants to learn at least a little of Sámi.

In the past, there were tendencies in Norway to replace the Sámi language with Norwegian, or make Sámi more Norwegian. In 1902, a controversial law was imposed that allowed only those who spoke, read and wrote Norwegian to legally own land. Norwegian teachers from Oslo, for instance, were placed in Sámi boarding schools in the north.

Fortunately, the Sámi language survived and at present, the Government puts more effort to strengthen the language and expand its use.

According to the Aftenposten newspaper, people are more interested in learning Sámi than years ago; especially those who discover their Sámi family roots are keen on learning it. Nowadays, townships are obliged to offer Sámi courses if there is a demand.

“All public agencies will be responsible for taking the Sámi language into consideration,” said cabinet Minister Bjarne Håkon Hanssen last month. That means an elderly Sámi resident of a nursing home, for example, can demand to be understood and communicate in Sámi with nursing home staff. All agencies from the tax office to the building codes department should have written information available in Sámi as well.

This however does not apply strictly to northern Norway