TY - JOUR

T1 - Translocated Danish in Northern Europe: The case of Faroe Danish and Dano-Norwegian

AU - Kühl, Karoline

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - The paper contains a descriptive analysis of the development of translocated Danish in historical Norway and the Faroes within a framework of postcolonial linguistic development, namely the ‘Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes’ (Schneider 2009), originally proposed to cover the evolution of postcolonial varieties of English. The paper compares the socio-political development of the two territories and their relationship with Denmark, the identity constructions of the speakers, the sociolinguistic setting with regard to attitudes and language contact and, finally, the linguistic characteristics of the local varieties of Danish. Despite the fact that neither the Faroes nor Norway had actual colonial status, the development from historical Dano-Norwegian to today’s Bokmål follows a postcolonial path closely in that it shows a completed advancement from a translocated Danish to an indigenous variety, Bokmål. In contrast, the comparison with Norway and the other postcolonial situations which the ‘Dynamic Model’ is based on, shows that the evolution of Faroe- Danish does not follow a postcolonial path. This local variety of Danish seems to be best characterized as a lingua franca learned as an (early) L2 that is entrenched within the Faroese society which shows but few signs of nativization.

AB - The paper contains a descriptive analysis of the development of translocated Danish in historical Norway and the Faroes within a framework of postcolonial linguistic development, namely the ‘Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes’ (Schneider 2009), originally proposed to cover the evolution of postcolonial varieties of English. The paper compares the socio-political development of the two territories and their relationship with Denmark, the identity constructions of the speakers, the sociolinguistic setting with regard to attitudes and language contact and, finally, the linguistic characteristics of the local varieties of Danish. Despite the fact that neither the Faroes nor Norway had actual colonial status, the development from historical Dano-Norwegian to today’s Bokmål follows a postcolonial path closely in that it shows a completed advancement from a translocated Danish to an indigenous variety, Bokmål. In contrast, the comparison with Norway and the other postcolonial situations which the ‘Dynamic Model’ is based on, shows that the evolution of Faroe- Danish does not follow a postcolonial path. This local variety of Danish seems to be best characterized as a lingua franca learned as an (early) L2 that is entrenched within the Faroese society which shows but few signs of nativization.

U2 - 10.1515/soci-2017-0005

DO - 10.1515/soci-2017-0005

M3 - Journal article

VL - 31

SP - 57

EP - 72

JO - Sociolinguistica: Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik / International Yearbook of European Sociolinguistics / Annuaire International de la Sociolinguistique Européenne

JF - Sociolinguistica: Internationales Jahrbuch für europäische Soziolinguistik / International Yearbook of European Sociolinguistics / Annuaire International de la Sociolinguistique Européenne

SN - 0933-1883

IS - 1

ER -