Our weekly column Inside Denmark looks at some of the stories we’ve been talking about over the last seven days. This week, the government denies being ‘cringe’ in its efforts to keep loan words out of the Danish language.
The government launched a plan this week to protect the Danish language from intrusions by loan words from foreign languages.
Words from other languages – think of popular terms as diverse as ‘onboarding’ to ‘inshallah’ – should not be used in Danish without careful consideration, the government argues.
How is Denmark, a self-proclaimed champion of free speech, going to influence the words people use to express themselves?
Minister of Culture Jakob Engel-Schmidt has a plan, and opposition parties from both sides of the aisle, including the Socialist People’s Party (SF) and Conservatives are on board.
The parties are set to support the government in a reform which Engel-Schmidt says will protect the Danish language from being “watered down” by foreign influences.
“There are just over six million Danes who speak Danish,” he said. The many foreign nationals who are also fluent in the language didn’t get a mention.
“It is not a given that the Danish language will survive in the future unless we are conscious about protecting it,” the minister continued.
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“I have no objection to language evolving, but in recent years a large number of new expressions have crept into Danish,” Engel-Schmidt said.
The parties called journalists to a short briefing on Friday to present the new policy – ironically, the type of briefing that is usually referred to as a doorstep in Danish media speak. Engel-Schmidt said he prefers the term pressemøde.
The proposals will include a number of measures which the parties believe will help maintain the quality and standard of the Danish language.
That includes giving the Danish Language Council (Dansk Sprognævn) a “more active and protective role” that stretches beyond its current mandate of updating the lexicon, providing guidance on spelling and grammar and monitoring linguistic trends.
This would mean allowing Dansk Sprognævn to intervene if, for instance, an educational institution announced plans to call itself a “university college.” In such a situation, the language council could instead strongly advise using the title professionshøjskole.
“This would be a suggestion from Dansk Sprognævn. It’s not the language police,” Engel-Schmidt said.
Another measure would be to place requirements relating to Danish language usage in the public service contracts of broadcasters DR and TV2. These contracts are, of course, referred to in Danish as publicservice-kontrakter.
READ ALSO: Grammar guide – When to use compound words in Danish
Engel-Schmidt told news wire Ritzau ahead of Friday’s briefing that “if we don’t do something, I’m concerned the Danish language will be slowly devalued.”
That could mean the language eventually becomes “threatened,” he said.
Ritzau’s journalist must be more on the button with Gen-Z slang than I am, because they followed up by suggesting to the Minister of Culture that the proposed reforms might be lidt cringe (“a little bit cringe”).
“That is an expression that is really thriving among our young people and means a mixture of embarrassing and misguided,” Engel-Schmidt responded, giving a definition no-one asked for.
“And no, I don’t think our language proposals are embarrassing and misguided,” he said.