{"id":17,"date":"2008-07-08T00:26:11","date_gmt":"2008-07-08T04:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/?p=17"},"modified":"2008-07-08T00:26:11","modified_gmt":"2008-07-08T04:26:11","slug":"a-little-bit-about-skane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/swedish\/a-little-bit-about-skane\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Bit About Sk\u00e5ne"},"content":{"rendered":"

I promised you that we would talk about Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> today. And depending on how we do, we may have to spread it over several posts. Why? There\u2019s much to talk about!<\/p>\n

Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> is a very odd part of Sweden. And some may argue that it\u2019s not even Sweden at all. Well, once upon a time it was called Sk\u00e5neland<\/strong> (Scania<\/em> in English) and was one of the three lands of Denmark. The city of Lund<\/strong> was its center. So those who say that if you scratch a sk\u00e5ning<\/strong>, you\u2019ll see a Dane underneath, are kind of sort of right. And those sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong> may even say that as far as the historical details go, the province is a quite recent Swedish acquisition.<\/p>\n

In order to learn more about the event that gave Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> to Sweden, I started to read about the Northern Wars<\/strong> (1655-1661) and the Treaty of Roskilde<\/strong> (February 26, 1658) but the overload of war-mongering kings, conquests, and who did what to whom was slowly putting me to sleep.<\/p>\n

Roskilde is in Denmark, by the way, and today is more known for its music festival than for some old historical treaties.<\/p>\n

And why am I telling you all this boring stuff? Because it\u2019s hard to understand what Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> is all about without a little bit of background research. It\u2019s closer, much closer in fact, to Copenhagen than to Stockholm<\/strong>, people talk funny there, and even the climate and nature are different from the rest of Sweden.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So just how close is Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> to Copenhagen? So close that some people who live in Malm\u00f6<\/strong> go to work in Denmark. It\u2019s just a short train ride across the \u00d6resund<\/strong> strait, and boom, you\u2019re in Copenhagen, the other Capital of Scandinavia. There’s even a nice, long bridge across the \u00d6resund<\/strong> to make the trip to the motherland easy and painless. Sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong> use the international airport in Copenhagen, go to Denmark for cultural events, music concerts, and shopping. If I sound just a tad bit jealous, I am. I live a day\u2019s drive north of Stockholm<\/strong> and I\u2019m slowly forgetting what a civilized world looks like. And I think Copenhagen is definitely civilized.<\/p>\n

But all this proximity of Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> to Denmark has left a hideous mark on the local people. They talk funny. Why? They speak sk\u00e5nska<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The question of whether sk\u00e5nska<\/strong> is a dialect of Swedish, or a dialect of Danish, or a whole separate language altogether, has been keeping the linguists busy for a bigger part of the last century. To this day some radical sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong> say that sk\u00e5nska<\/strong> is a suppressed minority language and should be treated as such. It\u2019s all fine by me, the language, or dialect doesn\u2019t even sound like Swedish to my delicate v\u00e4sterbottniska<\/strong> ears.<\/p>\n

Take the \u201cr<\/strong>\u201d sound, for example. While we in northern Sweden think that \u201cr<\/strong>\u201d should not be tampered with and do our best to pretend that sometimes the sound doesn\u2019t exist at all, those sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong> dredge up their rs from a deep, hidden place where only phlegm should reside. And they don\u2019t stop there. They mess with \u201csj<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cch<\/strong>\u201d sounds and scores of others. They abuse the vowels, too. And did I mention they use a whole bunch of words that nobody else does?<\/p>\n

So how can you tell if someone is speaking sk\u00e5nska<\/strong>? The easiest way is to ask the person to say something, anything, that contains those problem sounds:
\n Kerstin och Christer \u00e4r arga. <\/strong>(Kerstin and Christer are angry.)
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

And if the speaker appears to be clearing his throat in a very violent manner, then you got, it\u2019s sk\u00e5nska<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here is an example of several sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong><\/a> clearing their throats on youtube.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s this issue of where Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> should belong. Last December a Danish politico expressed a burning desire to see Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> reunited with the motherland. Needless to say, it caused quite a stir on both sides of the \u00d6resund<\/strong> strait. Local and national newspapers held opinion polls regarding the fate of the province. Should it stay or should it go? The results were not all that surprising at all. About half of sk\u00e5ningar<\/strong> wanted to be reunited with Denmark. The other half wanted to stay in Sweden. And on a national scale, the opinion was divided more or less equally, too. 50% was in favor of giving it back to the Danish, 50% against.<\/p>\n

So there you have it. That\u2019s Sk\u00e5ne<\/strong> for you.<\/p>\n

Here are some useful words:<\/p>\n