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Western nations have for decades been subject to the relentless tide of globalisation, that has opened borders, outsourced industry, and undermined national sovereignty. One of the often ignored developments that is resulting from this openness to the world is how it affects language. For a long time the effects of a new, global lingua franca have gone under the radar for even the most hardline nationalists, but recently there has sprung up a debate in Sweden about the state of the Swedish language in the age of globalisation.
But this debate has not exactly been raised by the usual parties involved in pointing out the critical flaws of globalism and boundless liberalism; this time the criticism has come from academia, which is often quick to embrace most other aspects of the times we live in. The issue at stake here is the advance of English into everyday Swedish life, and how it globalises – and homogenises – technology, science, business, and culture. What then, one analyst recently asked in a leading liberal newspaper, remains of the Swedish language in Sweden? Is it to be reduced to a vernacular, replaced by English as the language of song, literature, commercials, academia and politics?
This conflict exists in just about every country outside of the Anglosphere. In many countries, the native or national language has been safeguarded through various institutional means, due to the perceived threat of increasing English dominance. In France, the dignity and continuity of French is one of the state’s interests. In Iceland, there exists a strong tradition of avoiding foreign loanwords, and using native terminology to give name to new concepts. In Norway, the relatively recent history of the standardisation of Norwegian also fosters a culture of care and lingual conservatism.
Sweden’s “openness” so absurd even liberals can see it
In Sweden, there instead exists a strong culture of maximalist embrace of openness and globalisation. This has been responsible for the significant immigration to the country since the 1970s, but it is also likely the reason behind its low resistance to “Americanisation”. American, and other English-speaking, media has made significant inroads in the Swedish collective consciousness, and the development of Sweden into what has sometimes been derided as “America’s 51st state” only accelerated with the advent of the Internet and social media.
The pre-eminence of English in several domains, such as popular music, has been questioned across Europe throughout the 20th century, including in Sweden. But as English has cemented itself as the obvious language of popular culture, the public has become increasingly unwilling to point out the perhaps undue influence this foreign language has on our daily lives. Reverence of the national language in film, music, and other creative works has more often than not been mocked, and has been taken as an admission of illiteracy in English more than anything else. But young people use more and more English slang and loanwords when speaking, which in turn undermines their literacy in their native language.
With the contemporary wave of nationalism, there may have come a growing awareness of this across society. Even to the point where academic profiles and media figures, who otherwise may have dedicated their careers to undermining conservatism and nationalism, have raised the alarm about the decline of the standing of Swedish in the public.
“We can tighten the Language Act and introduce strict requirements for public institutions and businesses. We can create support functions for terminology work and subsidize translations. […] The only thing that seems to be missing is politicians who care about what kind of linguistic environment their children and grandchildren will live in”, writes columnist Aron Lund in the left-leaning liberal daily Dagens Nyheter, in a tongue-in-cheek matter calling for “language fascism” from the Swedish government.
It makes sense that the media class, who tend to profess higher language proficiency than most common people, would react negatively to the Anglification of the country, regardless of what their politics on globalisation and “openness” are. Their status in society comes from having mastered the language of the sun that is now setting.
For many people who profess conservative, and perhaps populistic politics, concern about the purity of their language may on the other hand not be so obvious. For the working class, which is often more culturally susceptible to influences from the United States, discipline in language may be seen as a sort of elitism, or ineffective symbolic posturing. Among young people who base much of their lives around the Internet it may be considered out of touch. These are paradoxically also the groups that are more likely to support nationalist policies.
It would be wise for nationalists and conservatives to formulate strategies for language conservation. Sometimes this may be done in order to curb the consequences of mass immigration, which mostly focuses on preventing the native language from being replaced by an immigrated tongue in various contexts. But they must also be wary of how the Anglification of Europe, through the Internet and cultural imports from the United States, affects their cultural continuity and their long-term political goals. In many ways the debasing of the native languages of Europe in their own nations threatens the economic prospects and security of said countries.
Impoverishment of native languages
To have future generations speak a language corrupted by a foreign cultural hegemon is a humiliating scenario for any nation. But the concrete effects here and now of having English be the ubiquitous language of culture, business, and science, is that it limits these domains for the native population. Increasingly, higher education is only offered in English at Swedish universities, partly to accommodate the inflation of foreign exchange students (another urgent but separate topic), but also in order to ‘globalise’ the academy for integration with foreign institutions. Many companies do the same, adopting English terminology for their organisations, and perhaps even their brand names.
As Sweden simultaneously also invests heavily in foreign labour and increasingly in foreign expertise, this risks creating a situation where the highest cadre of science and technology in the country need not ever be fluent in Swedish.
Swedish culture thus risks becoming bereft of talent, as English becomes the prerequisite for advancing in the financial, technological, and scientific sectors. Nations with smaller populations are much more vulnerable to these developments, since they cannot compete with the megaculture that the English-speaking world constitutes. We may be facing an impoverishment of the languages that are marginalised from the elite corridors, which will impoverish their native speakers as well.
The pros and cons of having one language
Science and technology has of course historically had its own language in Europe, that being Latin (with a significant amount of Greek influences). This helped facilitate knowledge spread across the continent, but it largely kept the general population outside the academic institutions in the dark.
In the early modern period, national languages became far more sophisticated and standardised to the point where they too could serve as official languages of universities and administration, which was instrumental in building the modern nation-states, and making higher education more publicly available. Sweden is a perfect example of this, as the country underwent a scientific miracle period from the Enlightenment up until the 20th century, the effects of which still linger in institutions today. This became a source of national pride and of international prestige, both of which translated into national security in the long run. Today, we are instead seeing the dismantling of these nation-states under the auspices of globalisation, and the Anglification of nationally important sectors is part of the same trend.
Now, some leniency towards the latter can be afforded; the scientific community and businesses can benefit more people in different societies if they are more mobile, and united by a common faculty language. It can also be operationally positive for universities and employers to widely open themselves up internationally in the way they have for the last few decades. Language barriers may inhibit knowledge from spreading fast.
But all of this, as everything else, comes at a price. When Western culture and nationhood is under attack on multiple fronts, they need to defend not only their borders, their values, and their democracies – they need to defend their unique languages as well. Globalisation and convergence are not natural laws.