Talk:Scanian (linguistics)/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Claiming that the Scaninan language is a separate language in itself is POV. Most linguists will hardly classify it as being more than Swedish dialect. Changing Mälardalen-r's to Uvular R's and adding dipthong's were other Swedes would not use them is not sufficient for it to be labelled a separate language. If the article is to maintain that there exists a separate language called Scanian which is different from the dialect of Swedish spoken in Scania this should at the very least be made more clear.—Gabbe 20:43, Jul 16, 2004 (UTC)

  • sigh* Every single language post in which this is debateable seems to have someone claim X is a dialect of Y. There is no such thing. Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, could all easily be said to be dialects of Danish, and, I believe, have been, at some point or another. This does not make it right. Also, calling it a distinct language is also POV.
We could add "Whether Scanian is language or a dialect is disputed."
The observation that the Scandinavian languages could be classified as one language is correct. Since Scanian is obviously less distinguishable, this is an argument for classifying Scanian as a dialect. --Etxrge 06:56, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for both your contributions. Be Bold in updating but make sure to Wikipedia:Cite Sources. --Fred-Chess 10:06, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Contents

Dispute Neutrality

This article I do not believe is neutral. While I'm sure the author had good intentions, it classifies a separate language as a dialect, which it is not. There is a large ethnic group that speaks this language, and I'm sure Scanian Wikipedians would find this offensive. Swedes have long considered Scanian a dialect, so perhaps the author was misled?

Distinctions between "language" and "dialect" is controversial, as is pointed out in these articles. /Tuomas 07:01, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The totallydisputed-template was removed, it seems, by User:Karmosin. I can not see any agreement here to do so, which is why I returned the banner again. I would be tempted to revert at least some of his other changes, but refrain from doing that now. I leave this to someone with a better understanding of the issue.
Ruhrjung 16:17, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

Another problem is: the Danish article on Danish classes this as part of Danish. I have changed this about halt an hour ago in the article on the Danish language.

Sarcelles 21:10, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I also have added a list of Dialects the Danish article on Danish classes as Danish. This is not

only Scanian, which is an argument for considering Scanian as a dialect. Sarcelles 22:21, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Really, Danes don't consider Scanian much of a language, if I recall correctly (I'm Danish, but this isn't exactly the most discussed subject).... rather, it's more of another variant of Swedish. To determine whether it's an actual language or a "mere" dialect, why not look at how much it differs from Standard Swedish?

M. S. Andersen

Classification

Ethnologue report uses the classification Indo-European, Germanic, North, East Scandinavian, Danish-Swedish, Swedish. for Skånska; perhaps we should consider a classification using Danish-Swedish rather than only Swedish.

Also, we should probably note in the article that 100% of Skånska speakers read and write either Swedish or Danish; even though we in the Swedish case should note common spelling differences to Swedish. Right now however, the only spelling difference I can think of as common is fjor as opposed to Swedish fjol (means yesteryear). ✏ Sverdrup 18:13, 8 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am from Scania, and I guess I speak Scanian. I (and all my friends) certainly don't consider Scanian as a language, it's just a dialect. Spelling doesn't differ, and only old words that are only used by older people differ from "normal" Swedish (which in itself is extremely hard to define, since no one speaks it naturally). I'd say, but I'm no language expert, that it's Swedish spoken with a Danish accent. /Grillo 03:00, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
(Jag är också skånsk!); Visst finns det ord som skiljer som massor med folk använder. Fjor/fjol är ett reellt exempel (sydsvenskans stavning). Dessutom: Balle/Ballar är ett vanligt slangord som inte betyder samma sak på skånska som på uppsvenska. (I'm sorry for writing this-all in swedish, I just got into it) ✏ Sverdrup 01:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Also, it's pretty funny that the link above says that the first release of the "Scanian" bible was 1523, when that in fact is the first Swedish translation of the bible, done because of Gustav Vasa becoming king. /Grillo 03:03, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Yes this is very wrong. I think it's correct to say that the bible has never been translated to Skånska. ✏ Sverdrup 01:47, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)
http://www.ethnologue.com/ is authoritative enough to be referred to, but I would hope that we don't try to avert from the NPOV policy. It's much better to state what different authorities argue, and (of course) to note that most linguists avoid making the distinction between language and dialect, than to elevate any of these authorities to the sole source of truth. --Ruhrjung 19:06, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)
I would really like to know which linguists actually consider Scanian as a dialect and Scanian as a variety of Standard Swedish to be the same thing.
Ethnologue is actually not always the best authority in these matters. A good example is Flemish, which is considered a seperate language by SIL while speakers of Flemish consider their language to be a dialect of Dutch. There hardly even seems to be any nationalist sentiment about it. I would recommend that ISO 639 should be used rather than SIL when defining what constitutes a language. Peter Isotalo 15:54, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Language or dialect?

I know that Ethnologue for some reason considers Scanian to be a seperate language with over a million speakers, but this would mean that every single major variety of Swedish would be a seperate language. That SIL has a seperate code for Scanian should not be taken seriously unless there is good evidence to support it. SIL has done similar classifications with dialects like Flemish. There would be at least two or even three other languages to describe and I shudder at the thought of having to decide which one should be considered to be the "real" Swedish language.

There have been comparisons to the other minority languages of Sweden in other articles, but this can be deluding, since Tornedalsfinska is in itself a good example of a dialect of Finnish that has been defined as a seperate language purely by a political decision. Though the decision is a very good way of protecting the rights of minority langauges, it should not be used as proof of proper terms in linguistic articles. It's just too POV to abide by political decisions of individual countries that have different purposes than to define linguistic terms.

The whole concept of Scanian seems to be one based almost entirely on politics. The amount of speakers that actually speak what Swedish linguists define as true dialects (variants with a history that dates back to Old Norse) are very few and are mostly older members of rural communities. The vast majority of Scanians speak a variety of Standard Swedish differing from other forms of Standard Swedish in pronunciations to some extent, but far less in either grammar och vocabulary. This is most likely true also for the speakers of dialects when they speak to members from other communities or social groups. Peter Isotalo 15:59, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

The reference to Terra Scania is definetly not appropriate either. This would mean that the entire west coast including Gothenburg spoke Scanian, which is obviously wrong. Peter Isotalo 16:35, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)
I've been Googling a bit for any claims of Scanian as a seperate language, but I can't really find anything but nationalistic essays on the matter. This grammar section of this one is particularly entertaing. I think the discussion at Talk:Ethnologue pretty much sums up the reason not to rely on SIL on how to define seperate languages. Peter Isotalo 23:05, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

As someone pointed out, the distinction between language and dialect is disputed. I don't mind calling it a dialect, and I don't know who of my fellow Scanians that would mind. But if linguists do classify it as a language, be it only for formal reasons, then we have to mention this.

You also make some good points that I of course agree with since I put forth the same points in the article.

So in essence, I consider the article fine the way it is, everything is mentioned that should be mentioned and everyone's POV is taken into consideration. --Fred chessplayer 00:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am happy to agree with Fred. (for once! :-)
Isotalo again reveals his lacking knowledge. Terra Scania did not include Gothenburg, but the language of Halland was of course East-Danish as in the rest of TS/Tuomas 09:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Terra Scania includes Bohuslän. Gothenburg is in Bohuslän. If you look at the map it runs along the entire west coast of Sweden. Either the map is inaccurate or it has to include Gothenburg, which is on the west coast.
That's not really the issue here, though. I'd like to know if there's anyone except SIL that actually considers Scanian a seperate language. Since SIL is not a reliable source (see Flemish and Talk:Ethnologue) for what constitutes a language, and since the vast majority of the inhabitants of Scania don't speak anything but a variety of southern Standard Swedish, I'd like to see a quote from a linguistic authority that actually agrees with SIL. If anything, the figure of 1 million+ speakers is just flat-out wrong, since SIL's figure is 80,000 and is obviously refering to the proper dialect rather than just the regional variety. Peter Isotalo 11:10, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
The idea that Terra Scania should have included Bohuslän is totally new for me. Where have you found that? Your term "proper dialect" seems also to be somewhat unusual to say the least. What would un-proper dialects be? Ebonics? Ruhrjung 16:27, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)

The following sentences were removed. I'm not quite sure I agree or see the reasons for this removal.

A Scanian language is not officially recognized in Sweden, nor is more than an elderly and rural faction of the Scanian population generally held to speak any kind of "proper" Scanian. In fact, all Scanians are held to speak and understand Swedish, albeit with a distinguished dialectual pronunciation and a couple of lexical differences.

--Johan Magnus 06:42, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am a native Swedish Speaker, 48 years old. I have studied linguistics for about 2 years at Stockholm University and SIL in Horsleys Green, England. I hereby state that the Swedish word "Skånska" as in everyday use, does not designate a language. It designates a dialect that is understandable without additional effort by any proficient Swedish speaker.

There are groups who speak so differently that I have difficulty understanding them. But these groups contain definitely less that 80 000 people. Whether the difference is sufficient to warrant designation as a separate language, I must admit I do not know.

Overall, the discrepancy between the picture painted in this article and my own conception of the "Skånska" is such that I am deeply worried about the Wikipedia process. --Etxrge 20:22, 4 May 2005 (UTC)


Disputed-banner removed

I've explained exactly why I think the figures are wrong (confusing the dialect with the variety of Standard Swedish), why Terra Scania is inappropriate to mention (only regionalists and seperatists use the term). So I'm putting the {{totallydisputed}}-sign back up. Please do not remove it unless you've actually adressed these issues. You can revert without proper argumentation, but you can't remove disputed signs just because you don't feel like having them. Peter Isotalo 08:34, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Please do not put up and down such banners whimsically! They are to be used after attempts to work around serious conflicts. Your disagreement on the usage of Terra Scania is far from sufficient. Please start discuss the issue at the talk page, and please use these banners with greater consideration in the future. You may want to study Wikipedia:Accuracy dispute more carefully.
--Johan Magnus 10:10, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
You're reverting the banner despite my claim that it's not neutral or accurate without claiming any sources or argumentation. That's what I'd call a good way to start an edit war since you're basically violating NPOV.
Why aren't you commenting the validity of SIL as a source? They're the only ones that seem to claim that Scanian is a seperate language besides the Scanian nationalists. And if the 1.5 million figure should be true, then Standard Swedish should mention that Scanian is not included. Either this article is about the dialect (group) or the regional variety of Standard Swedish. It can't be both at the same time, because they're entirely different concepts.
Also, it's not really my job to provide sources to refute claims that aren't properly supported. SIL is the only source, but they're inherently unreliable, even if they might be right about this. If they are right they're bound to be supported by serious linguists. Peter Isotalo 11:34, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
I am commenting on the banner. Not on the content.
I say (write) that you should not put up and put down banners several times a week. You have to show more respect for the banner, quite simply, and not use it as a sign of personal disagreement.
You are perfectly correct in your statement that there is a relation between the concepts in the article on Standard Swedish and in this article, however, that is no reason for a accuracy-banner, but for improvements of the articles. You may also remember that you yourself created the article on Standard Swedish most recently, and that you can not expect congruence to be achieved at once.
--Johan Magnus 15:20, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Recent changes

Johan Magnus... you have removed material I have written... could you tell me what is wrong with this: Scanian is one of the most distinguished dialects in Sweden. ([Along with] Gotlandia, Jamska language and Dalecarlian language). In an ongoing internet poll, Scania is currently the second dialect people think is beautiful, but also the singular dialect people consider ugly. http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/nyheter/story/0,2789,254290,00.html [link to aftonbladet poll] A poll where more than 30.000 Swedes have been voting is not interesting to you?

Secondly you removed this little symbol: (IPA /ʁ/) . Why?

Thirdly you changed "there is a not insignificant number of separatists" to "there is an insignificant number of separatists", thus stating something totally opposite from me. Do you think that Skånepartiet is an insignificant number of people? http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sk%E5nepartiet --Fred chessplayer 19:30, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, that was me. Saying that "Scanian is one of the most distinguished dialects" can mean two things: either it is a prestigeful dialect in high regard among speakers of Swedish or it is a very distinct dialect. It just didn't seem to actually mean anything since the wording is so ambiguous, but you're welcomed to reinsert it if you feel like it.
The "insignificant" was also my edit actually, since I didn't see any references of any kind. I checked the homepage of Skånepartiet and they don't seem to have any ideas of applying for minority language status on their agenda. I did find some other sites from other organizations putting up some sort of manifest to claim the right of Scanian as a minority language, but this didn't seem to be affiliated with Skånepartiet. How big is Skånepartiet in terms of percentage of votes in the last election?
As for the poll, what exactly is the point? Only Swedes can read the source and I really don't see the point of mentioning what dialects or regional variations Swedes find it ugly. I think it needs better NPOV-wording if it's to be included.
The IPA was removed because I linked to it instead. The "fricative" links to voiced uvular fricative. Peter Isotalo 20:41, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying!
1: Instead of distinguished i propose the term distinguishable. I'm sure that you will agree with me on this one and that it will be reinserted at one time or another. As proof that this term is correct, I presented the poll.
2: True, I can not back up how many people there are who think that Skånska is a supressed minority language. The part about recieving legal status was not my idea though because I have never heard that being expressed. But I have heard people express that Skånska is a "supressed language" (as opposed to a dialect), which is what I wrote. Eventhough Scanian is by most regarded as a dialect of Swedish, there are a not insignificant number of Scanian separatists who hold the view that Scianian is a supressed minority language in Sweden. The term separatist is bad though, to call them regionalists would be better. And that this sentence is otherwise correct I am not doubting.
Yes , I will insert this at one time or another. But there's no hurry... :-) Best Regards and good night, --Fred chessplayer 22:12, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)
For the future, I advise both you, Peter, and you, Johan Magnus, not to remove material just because you consider it unimportant. The writer may not consider it unimportant. It makes little sense to spend time writing a section just to see it being removed. But do rephrase it, change it, modify it, move it, change inaccuracies, etc. This is according to wikipedia editing policy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy .
Best Regards, --Fred chessplayer 15:22, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
"If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly and redistributed at will, do not submit it."
That doesn't say that I support either of the changes Fred criticizes.
/Tuomas 23:03, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
(For a more elaborate statement, see: User:Tuomas#View of Wikipedia)
For the future, I advice all of you to remember that we as contributors only propose wordings that are then evaluated by other readers and contributors. There may be many reasons why texts you consider good are not considered wikipedia:encyclopedic by others.
It may be more advantageous both for oneself and for the general atmosphere here if we try to understand how and why others have come to their judgments. That way, it may be easier to write a new version that takes the raised objections into consideration — also when one thinks that the other has outlandish views and presumptions.
--Johan Magnus 17:40, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, then I'm very curious why this article should be about the dialect of Scanian and the variety of Standard Swedish at the same time. One is recognized as a seperate language at the very least by SIL, but the other doesn't seem to have the recognition as a seperate language by anyone except a few Scanian regionalists. Clearly SIL did not intend to classify literally all people living in Scania as speakers of what they consider to be Scanian, which this article seems to do.

I also noticed the references to the works of Helmer Lång, an associate professor of litterature. Lång himself is not a linguist but seems to be a very avid supporter of campaigns to grant Scanian official status as a minority language. Here is a link to a appeal signed by Lång at SSF, a Scanian regionalist organization [1]. His books do not seem to be peer reviewed and have been published by Kulturtjänst, a small-scale publisher in Ängelholm (in Scania). Almost all of Kultutjänt's titles have been written Lång. Peter Isotalo 14:21, Apr 26, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah. Isn't that fairly indicative?
As for what people perceive as spoken standard language and spoken Scanian, the concepts clearly overlap. The article is not about the South Swedish Standard (that for the time being is the term we seem to have agreed to use). The article just notes that Scanian (or "Skånska") in some contexts may be used to include that variety. --Johan Magnus 22:37, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I took the liberty of merging your answer and unmasking the parts you had hidden in the second paragraph. If you don't want the previously masked replies to show, I recommend simply not including them.
Ahhh! You saw a chance to annoy another Wikipedian. Why leave such a chance idle?
--Johan Magnus 16:29, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Either you insert comments that are supposed to be answered, or you send them privately. How could one possibly be annoyed by having one's own comments revealed and replied to on a talkpage? Peter Isotalo 11:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Unfortunately the Wikipedia project as a whole, not only you, suffers when Wikipedians get annoyed by you. --Johan Magnus 13:40, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
  • All standard languages are (more or less) abstract. They are often just inofficial generalizations, but that's really all they are unless you start loading them with ideology.
  • Lång is not a linguist, his books are not academic, they are not peer reviewed and I'm wondering if Lång actually ever intended them to be used in this manner. He is also clearly biased in terms of Scanian regionalism and is simply not a reliable source.
  • The following is true of perceptions of Scanian:
    • SIL considers the dialect Scanian is a seperate language spoken by 80,000 people. They do not consider the variety of Standard Swedish to be a seperate language which is obvious if you read their own report.
    • There is no indication that anyone but a very small group of Scanian regionalists consider even the Standard Swedish variety to be a seperate langauge.
    • Swedish linguists draw a very clear line between the dialect and the regional variety, and for a very good reason; they're simply two entirely different concepts.
Mentioning the regional variety here is fine and all, but when these completely seperate ideas are literally merged in the same article, eventhough it's about two completely seperate things, it makes for an article that is POV, confusing and completely unverifiable. SIL as a source is unreliable as it is, and the completely unfounded and mostly non-academic statements and writings of Lång and Scanian separatists (not including Skånepartiet) do not make it more credible. I really can't see why anyone would want to use such pointless and often very provocative rhetoric to keep such obviously biased and untruthful statements. Peter Isotalo 14:45, Apr 29, 2005 (UTC)
Methinks you make too much out of the difference you see between languages and dialects, and I hope you've misinterpreted the role of the word language in the title of this article. I believe the word language in the title be a so called natural disambiguator that Wikipedians put on article titles that otherways could have been or become ambiguous, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions#Languages, both spoken and programming.
The article does not endorse one or another usage of the term Scanian — it registers current use. Do you think Wikipedia should act judge and tell which used definitions are right or wrong?
--Johan Magnus 16:29, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It's clearly using the infobox that is intended for seperate languages, which would seem as a very obivous and unambigous statement of fact even if the text would be less precise. The Scanian in the 1.5 million-version is a dialect only in laymen's terms and a seperate language according to virtually none except political excentrics. The Scanian spoken by 80,000 people (according to SIL) is a dialect even the narrowest sense of the word, but a language seperate to Swedish only according SIL and the regionalists. You're not addressing the issue of the sources and obvious contradictions and instead you're focusing on my non-commital to the larger dialect/language dispute. What constitutes a language is often decided from case to case, and in the current wording, the article is more confusing than helpful. Trying to make this into some sort of pilot case for the much more general dialect vs language-debate is not helpful to the discussion. Especially not when there are no linguists who seem to agree with the decision made to proclaim Scanian as a seperate language. Try to keep in mind that the actual article title is only intended to be a disambiguator for the purpose of practicality to seperate it from Scanian.
How about simply writing a disclaimer at the top? Something along the lines of: "For the regional variant of southern Swedish, see Standard Swedish". It would then be a lot easier for outsiders to get a grip on the duality of this term instead of presenting them with the clearly misleading and political biased opinions of a few regionalist (which includes Lång) and presenting them as commonly held beliefs among both scholars and laymen. It's certainly worth mentioning that a small minority wants all types of Scanian to be a completely seperate entity from Swedish, but right now this minority view is clearly dominating the article making it precariously POV. This includes the quite dubious reclassification as Danish, instead of East Scandinavian. Peter Isotalo 11:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Doesn't the first sentences and indeed sections give a rather good picture of the volatility of the concept? "There exists no common understanding of what is to be considered Scanian and what is not. The notion of Scanian as a separate language is controversial: Scanian is regarded as a dialect of Swedish by most speakers; and also by most Swedish speakers..." Of course the article could say "a large majority of"... Whould that make you any happier? Since it is really stated already (and since the article on Standard Swedish is no more specific, and will not become more specific than this article) I hope you won't insist on such a banner.
The infobox clearly demonstrates what you aim for. It states "(disputed)" and the difference between the two given figures is huge!
I hope you understand that in my view it is you, Peter, who tend to lead the article in the direction of some sort of pilot case for the much more general dialect vs language-debate, which I am convinced is not within the scope of this article. Why don't you write an article about Karl P Herslow, Skånelandsrörelsen, Skånsk Framtid, and Skånepartiet?
Finally, Wikipedia reports even extreme views, but may try to counter them by reporting also the less extreme views. It is not Wikipedia's purpose to judge Lång et consortes. If you have some quotation that demonstrates anti-Lång or anti-Scanian points of view, just present them. Hopefully, you'll be taken seriously.
--Johan Magnus 13:40, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Then you haven't read either Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Cite your sources or Wikipedia:No original research carefully. Wikipedia does not accept that pseudo-science be presented as mainsteam academia and this is no exception. Neither does Wikipedia describe extreme views as being equally valid to widely accepted notions. There are plenty of crackpots who claim that NASA is hiding the fact that there are archeological alien remains on Mars, that UFOs abudct people on a regular basis and perfectly intelligent and reasonable people often claim that everyone before the turn of the 16th century believed that the Earth was flat. Claiming that Scanian (as the southern Standard Swedish variant) is a seperate language is the linguistic equivalent of these absurd claims. In fact, not even the 80,000-figure can be confirmed since SIL is awfully sketchy about details and makes fairly odd decisions on what to consider a dialect or language, but at least it's reasonable. 1,5 million is just a seperatist's fantasy backed up by pseudo-linguists like Lång. It assumes a definition of the term "language" that is so broad and general that it could include anything. If Scanian as spoken by over a million Scanian is considered a seperate language by an insignificant minority of regionalists, then the article Swedish language is no longer practically useful. Either the criteria that is used to define the Scanian variant is applied to all variants of Swedish or not at all.

And, no, I'm not making this into a pilot case whether you want to or not. This is about Scanian and the regionalist views imposed on this article. If you want to keep leading the discussion in that direction, you're on your own.

I'm going to make some changes to the article and try to really make all the views (even the truly bizarre ones) NPOV. I encourage you for once not to revert, but try to actually work with me here, since I don't think you're objective is to make this article into seperatist cruft. Peter Isotalo 14:28, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

The following footnote was removed:
Note 1: Affirmed by for instance Claes-Christian Elert, Allmän och svensk fonetik, 7th edition (1995) page 39, where the chosen distinctive characteristic however is the South Swedish pattern of vowel diphthongization that is the norm for a somewhat larger area including also Gothenburg in the North
Elert's mention of this is rather passing and I don't think we need a full-fledged footnote for such a basic fact. I do give kudos to Johan for making his claim quite verifiable.
Otherwise I tried to stick to simple rewording and clearing the infobox of disputed or irrelevant information. Infoboxes, when describing modern languages, are supposed to inform on currently relevant information. I reworded terms like South Swedish Standard since it seems rather too specific. Since the article title is really meant to be a disambiguator rather than an official name, I changed Scanian language to just Scanian in the intro, which is more consistent with the text as well as the infobox and other language articles. Peter Isotalo 15:40, May 1, 2005 (UTC)
Peter I don't understand this crusade of yours. I see you don't like separatists, its OK, but what does bother me is that you assume that you can make the judgement in all matters as to what things are and are not. You seem to know for a fact that Lång is a non-academic, that his works are non-academic and that only separatists think Scanian is a language. Maybe you are correct -- but I really question how you can be so sure of this. Wikipedia is a consensur project, and all the editos views should be taken in account, as none of us are stupid or malicious. If you want to mention that Lång is a Scanian patriot (I think this is what he calls himself, not a separatist, which is why we have changed it in the article) and that his works have not been peer reviewed -- the two facts you mention that are both true and verifiable and are of importance to NPOV -- then insert this in the article, and let the reader themselves make the judgement. --Fred chessplayer (talk) (edits) 15:54, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
I don't label sources in the actual article text and I'm certainly not doing that here. I tried to explain here, on the talkpage, that Lång is simply not to be considered a reliable linguistic source and should be used with caution. This means that SIL is still the only source that considers this a seperate language and SIL is certainly not completely reliable.
Is there anything in particular about the last edit that you feel is incorrect or out of place? Peter Isotalo 16:19, May 1, 2005 (UTC)

Anonymous revert

The latest unexplained revert of my last edit was made by user:130.235.174.105 who is most likely a sock puppet of the user E70, who was one of the main reasons I gave up on Swedish Wikipedia. He's an outspoken Scanian regionalist and if you look at his contributions as the anonymous IP-number, you can see that he has made edits to Swedish language that have been aimed to introduce non-relevant information to the infobox. An identical dispute occured around the same time at the Swedish article, where he stubbornly reinserted irrelevant facts despite failing to produce a single source or even valid argumentation and has participated in several very one-sided edit wars.

If you take a look at the contributions of the IP-user, you'll see that he's sharing E70's interest in all things road-related.

I have listed this article at RfC and I'm advising everyone to please stop inserting blatantly pro-regionalist or even false information into the article and reverting attempts to make it more NPOV. Peter Isotalo 14:15, May 2, 2005 (UTC)


To start with, user:130.235.174.105 is per definition an "anonymous account" in Wikipedia lingo, not a wikipedia:sockpuppet. Regardless of which, the edits are to be judged on their merits. Your prior strife with the user in question is of very peripheral relevance.
As far as I can judge, the user 130.235.174.105 has no prior history of disruptive behaviour, vandalism, excessive reverts, or quarrelsomeness.
I do assume you are right about the identity between E70 and 130.235.174.105. For matter of simplicity, I will refer to the user in question as E70.
E70's revert was in my opinion merited. You, Peter, has repeatedly been informed and warned that your lack of Wikipedia:Wikiquette and Wikipedia:Civilty is not only to the disadvantage of your standing but also to the disadvantage of the involved articles. Your behaviour does now start to approach the limit after which at least I would begin to consider collecting examples suitable for a Wikipedia:Requests for comment.
It is true that E70's revert was unexplained. This, I agree, was not ideal.
However, your reverted edits were, like some of your earlier edits to other articles, sweeping to their character and similarly unexplained.
Furthermore, you not only introduced a couple of obvious errors (as the number of speakers, where you changed a prior range of 1,500,000–80,000 to 80,000), you also removed a reference to a serious source, which in the light of your own repeated requests for scholarly support of facts you disagree with looks quite bad in my eyes.
I would like to point out that I have no interest whatsoever in the issue as such, but by now I have come to the conclusion that your behaviour, Peter, is disruptive for Wikipedia, and that you urgently need to understand that this is not acceptable.
I therefore revert your changes.
The standard disclaimer applies, that this is not an endorsement of all of the wordings I hereby restore, instead I make the judgement that the overall quality of the article was decreased by your edit taken as a whole. Some of your edits, Peter, might well have been worth being kept, but for the time being I do not have sufficient time at my disposal to sort those out. This I regret. Maybe someone else would like to do this?
You are more than welcome to present proposals that are backed up by scholarly support, for instance worded along the line of "the Swedish dialectologist Gösta Bruce proposes (in Bruce & X, 1994, pp12-14) a definition of...". You are also, of course, more than welcome to make further changes to the article, but it may be advisable to keep in mind that the better and more convincing you motivate your edits, the greater the possibility that other Wikipedians will agree with your changes.
I do also strongly advice you not to try to change too many things at each time — at least not if you have the slightest suspicion that your changes will get opposed by someone.
--Ruhrjung 16:02, May 2, 2005 (UTC)
You clearly aren't interested in editing because you want to improve the article, but rather simply auto-revert because I made the edits. If you can't be bothered to check through the changes I made, then you shouldn't revert at all. It's that simple. You're basically provoking a revert war instead of trying to be constructive. If you would just bother to put some effort into checking the facts as you always demand of me when I make edits, you'd probably have a lot less reason to be so suspicious. I'm not going to accept auto-reverts on the basis of mere suspicion of wrongdoing. Peter Isotalo 12:09, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I reverted back to NPOV-version. Peter Isotalo call me regionalist. He maybe don't know what a regionalist is? I reverted Isotalos anti-Scanian version to NPOV. /E70 12:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

This is a translation from E70s user page at Swedish Wikipedia:
I live in Lund. I like it here very much and I believe that I live in the best town there is. I could never imagine moving from Skåne [Scania], that I love.
On E70's user page there is also this image of a Scanian flag.
I think I'm aware of what a regionalist is. It's like being a nationalist, only a lot more localized. Nationalism/regionalism is not to be completely supressed in texts, but it should not be allowed to dominate. The factual support from SIL and Lång is very weak as it is and your reverts requires some very good sources. Could you please present some of these? Or at least some form of argumentation. Peter Isotalo 14:14, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
Isotalo is talking about it like i'm a faschist or something like that. I'm not nationalist and i'm not faschist but Isotalo wants me to look like something like that. What is wrong to like the place where you live? I also think the Scanian flag i have at my userpage is not relevant here. Isotalo has many times talked about Scania very negative and it loks like he is very anti-Scanian. I still think Isotalo don't know anything about regionalism. /E70 16:13, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
Relax. No need to stir this up even more. --Fred-Chess 16:28, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

"Skånska" is a dialect, references

The entry for "Skånska" in Nationalencyklopedin reads

skånska, dialekt, se ¤Skåne (Dialekter).

Translation to English is probably not needed, but here is one anyway:

scanian, dialect, see ->Scania (Dialects). --Etxrge 13:50, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Other sources confirm the NE articles on the matter. Olle Engstrand (a professor of phonetics at Stockholm University), "Fonetikens grunder" ("The basics of phonetics"), 2004, page 120 (my translation):
All languages have more or less significant regional variations in pronunciation. In Swedish there are differences in the spoken varieties of the standard language ("Scanian", "Gutnish" or "Dalecarlian") as well as variations specific to certain cities ["stadsmål"] like "Stockholmska" or "Göteborska". By "dialect" Swedish dialectologists are refering to those local dialects ["bygdemål", "landsmål"] that have a straight lineage that can be traced back to Old Norse, a history shared with all other Scandinavian dialects - these form a continuum while the distinct "national languages" like Swedish, Danish and Norweigan are relativly recent constructions.
This is confirmed by Claes-Christian Elert (professor of phonetics at Umeå University 1969-1988) in "Allmän och svensk fonetik" ("General and Swedish phonetics") on pages 34-35. Here are some selected passages (again my translation):
For a long time there has existed speech varieties within the Swedish language area which are used only in certain communities and which have only been slightly influenced by the spoken varieties of central Sweden or by the written language. These are the genuine dialects [the bold font is in the book].
[...]
The variety of language that a visitor to a community encounters most of the time is not the genuine dialect but a regional speech variety [again Elert's bolding]. Sometimes the standard language is spoken with regional influences. Contrary to the genuine dialects, the regional varieties are almost identical to the central standard language ["det centrala riksspråket"] in terms of inflection and syntax. Vocabulary is usually also more or less identical, though some local deviations do exist. It is above all the pronunciation of vowels and consonants as well as prosody of the regional variations that deviate from the standard language. Generally these are similar to the genuine dialects within the same region. The regional standard varieties do not differ as much from one community to another as the genuine dialects.
If you interpret these quotes very generously (that is, not according to what the writers intended), you might be able to support SIL's claims, though not the figures. The claims that Scanian as a regional variety is a seperate language is supported only by Lång and a handful of Scanian regionalists who use completely bogus arguments [2] and often claim the name should be skåneländska (roughly "Terra Scanian"). That it would be a dialect of only Danish is also extremely speculative, and it should at the very least be classified as simply "East Scandinavian". For all practical purposes it is most likely a lot more easily understood by Swedes than Danes.
Peter Isotalo 14:39, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it seem true enough. The only contributors who seem to think that Scanian may be called a language are Tuomas (who claimed it might be called a language) and the original editor Gelgamesh who wrote this page in the first place. No one else actually seem to hold the view that Scanian is anything but a dialect. My references to Lång were not written as proof of the language theory. I've written to Gelgamesh's talk page, and in a few days he will hopefully tell us what his sorces were. If he doesn't, then we consider his material unreliable and may, if no one objects, move the page to Scanian dialect and remove the references to it being a language, except that it still should be mentioned that SIL considers it a language. --Fred-Chess 14:54, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Sounds like a very reasonable solution to me, though Scanian (linguistics) is the appropriate title according to standard practice and naming guidelines. Like Cantonese (linguistics) or Mandarin (linguistics). Peter Isotalo 15:03, May 5, 2005 (UTC)
I agree. Maybe retain this page with an article on the language spoken by 80,000 that SIL is referring to, but move all other relevant facts about the Scanian dialect to another page, named Scanian (linguistics) or Scanian (dialect). Maybe use the first as a disambig with a description on the differences between the two and the second as a main article. --Elisson 15:48, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

A passage in "Nordisk Familjebok" Skåne (1917) reads:

Folkspråket i S. är en af de tre hufvuddialekter, i hvilka redan forndanskan splittrat sig. Det röjer sin släktskap med danskan, med hvilken det haft en lång utvecklingsperiod gemensam, såväl i ljudförhållanden som i ordförråd och böjning, i synnerhet i södra och västra delarna af provinsen. I olika trakter mycket skiftande, kännetecknas dialekten af bl. a. följande drag.

Notice that the word "dialekt" is used twice. In rough translation:

The folk language in Skåne is one of the three main dialects into which already the old Danish was split up. Its relatedness to Danish, with which it has had a long period of common development, is revealed by sound circumstances (?) as well as vocabulary and inflections, especially in the southern and western parts of the province. Being very different in different tracts, the dialect is characterized by, among others, the following traits. --Etxrge 15:06, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

I used Ethnologue as a source. Besides, language is often a political distinction. Are Hindi and Urdu separate? Are Serbian and Croatian separate? What about Finnish and Meänkieli? Linguistically, they are quite mutually intelligible dialects. But politically, they walk a line. Dialect is also a political distinction; look at all the Chinese dialects which have been completely unintelligible with each other for centuries. I see no reason that distinct dialects cannot be called "language." Afterall, Scanian is the traditional language of Scanians. Is it entirely separate from its neighbors? No. It is transitional between Danish and Swedish. But many languages are transitional between each other, and language is a distinction of awareness, identity and distinction, however small. Let us not politicize language and dialect more than they have already been politicized. It is a Wikipedia convention to classify a region's distinct speech as "language," whether or not it is entirely separate from its neighbors. Notice that in Europe, there are many zones of transition (rural France, rural Germany, rural Italy, etc.), and yet regions across subnational and international boundaries still have no problem calling their speech "language," so long as they become aware of it. - Gilgamesh 01:21, 6 May 2005 (UTC)

Ethnologue is certainly a reasonable source. However, in this instance it has been proved wrong by several more reliable sources. The question Are Serbian and Croatian separate? Should be rephrased: Are Serbian, Croatian and Serbo-Croatian separate? The answer is obviously NO. It then becomes evident that the wikipedia process has gone astray in this case. Two of the articles describe objects that the third article describe as one object. Regardless of whether we think this is about one or two languages, they should not be represented by three language articles. --Etxrge 06:54, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
Gilgamesh has not presented any concrete arguments in favor of his viewpoint. Arguments against his viewpoint include:
* That Scanian has no standardised language; there is no common understanding of what exactly Scanian is or how to spell in Scanian.
* There are no written books in any standard Scanian language
* Scania is neither a state nor a country.
* Scanians only write in the Swedish language, and they all understand proper Swedish, and the vast majority speak a language fully understandable by other Swedes. Thus the Scanian speakers can not be excluded from speakers of the Swedish language.
* Most Scanians and most Swedes do not refer to Scanian as a language but as a dialect, and Wiki does suggest that we should name articles according to what is the most used term.
This page may probably be safely moved to Scanian (linguistics) in 24 hours from now unless someone opposes. --Fred-Chess 13:21, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
I'd like to concurr with Gilgamesh to some degree. Pointing out the contrasts between Urdu/Hindi, and Serbian/Croatian is a valid argument. Eventhough it's very clear that these langauge don't differ more from one another than most Swedish dialects, they still have seperate orthographies and are officially recognized as seperate languages. Urdu uses a Persian script while Hindi uses Devangari; Croatian uses a modified Latin script while Serbian still uses Cyrillic (as far as I know). I dislike the fact that people who speak such obviously similar languages have to be so stubborn about asserting their nationalist that they produce such obviously false dichotomies. But in these cases it is such a widely accepted fact that they deserve seperate articles (with some reasonable disclaimers).
The problem with Scanian, however, is that it lacks virtually all reasonable criteria to be considered a seperate langauge as pointed out by Fred and Etxrge. And the fact that the speakers themselves certainly don't view their own speech as a seperate language is enough to prove this point. Besides all this, this article mentions almost nothing of the genuine dialects it was supposed to cover. Almost all the information is on Scanian as a variety of Standard Swedish and a lot is just Scanian history with a regionalist tilt. It's not useless information, but most of it doesn't really belong in a linguistic article.
The objection about Meänkieli is not really valid either. The reason for Meänkieli being defined as a minority language seperate from Finnish is for purely political reasons. It's mostly due to the fact that the Finnish speakers of Tornedalen (in northern Sweden) were forced by the Swedish state to use Swedish in school earlier this century that when they finally got recognition of their native language (which is really just Finnish dialect), they decided it was "their language", which is what Meänkieli literally translates to. The Swedish state screwed these people royally and the result is this sense of regionalism. It's lamentable, but it's hardly fair to blame the Tornedale-Finns for this. That Scanian or Scanians have been supressed in a similar manner is probably not even claimed by those few crackpot seperatist regionalists that do demand that Scanian be given official minority status.
My suggestion for solving the confusion of the two very seperate linguistic terms is to use a disclaimer at the top of the article that would look something like this:
This article is about the dialect of Swedish. For the regional variety also known as Scanian, see Standard Swedish.
That way people will most likely take the hint and not confuse these two distincly seperate meanings of the word. Peter Isotalo 14:33, May 6, 2005 (UTC)
Ok, I moved the article from Scanian language. I think we should get cracking on making this article concern itself mainly with linguistics and of the actual dialect, not the Standard Swedish variant. I think we should remove the infobox, since it is not intended to use for obvious cases of dialects, like Flemish or American English.
And let's not forget to stay NPOV. :-) Peter Isotalo 12:03, May 8, 2005 (UTC)

Page move and new edits

I have removed this from "Specific features" as I don't think there are references for it: [...], much to the amusement of proper Swedish speakers, but to the pride of the native Scanians. Often, the level of Scanian is decided by how heavy the diftong is. The more vowels used, the better; and how the diphtongs are used are what seperates different Scanian areas apart. The word har is for instance in Scanian pronounced "haur", and Scanians in general make frequent use of the vowels "u" and "e" which they in the pronounciation of almost every word.

Another unmistaken feature is the pronounciation of the word yes; it is spelled ja, and pronounced ja: all over Sweden (which has been featured in Bergman movies, and is often used to parody Swedes in American movies), while in Scanian, the word is pronounced short as já.

Additionally, the prosody of Scanian differs from (other) Swedish dialects; and overall Scanian is most closely related to the east Danish dialects spoken on the island of Bornholm, which is why some linguists prefer to classify Scanian as a variety of Danish --Fred-Chess 13:05, 8 May 2005 (UTC)