The prince, the glamour model and the Vikings’ lost language
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Version 0 of 1. The impending marriage of Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip to a former glamour model has generated rare excitement among Scandinavian professors of archaic Germanic languages. Unlike conservative royalists, who thoroughly disapprove of Sofia Hellqvist’s appearances on the Paradise Hotel reality TV show, and her posing topless with just a boa constrictor to cover her modesty, the linguists are enthusiastic about her social elevation. A confession by the tattooed future Duchess of Värmland of cavorting with American porn star Jenna Jameson in Las Vegas in 2005 matters not a jot. What’s significant is that Miss Slitz 2004, as Hellqvist was crowned by readers of the eponymous Swedish lads’ mag, hails from Älvdalen, a rural town that is the font of the once-banned language, Elfdalian. The academics hope this endangered language will benefit from a little royal stardust, and that Sweden will upgrade it from the lowly status of “dialect” to enable it to revive and prosper. But they suddenly go shy when asked to expand. “I need to be careful if we want to be taken seriously by the authorities,” said one campaigner, who asked to remain anonymous. “But I think the fact that Miss Hellqvist comes from Älvdalen increases interest in the region and that way people discover the language, too.” The academics’ reticence is partly a result of the intransigence of this most libertarian of nations towards Elfdalian. They believe Sweden is discriminating against a genuine Viking language that dates back to biblical times while recognising five other minority tongues. “Elfdalian is a linguistic treasure trove,” says Guus Kroonen, a researcher from the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen. “It is something you are more likely to encounter in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings rather than in a remote Swedish forest. It is one of the last strongholds of an ancient tongue that preserves much of Old Norse, the language of the Vikings.” “Some of the cases of nasal vowels go back to before the birth of Christ,” enthuses language historian Bjarne Simmelkjaer Sandsgaard Hansen. “Elfdalian is the only language to preserve those nasal vowels.” Grants of £300,000 are available to help protect recognised minority languages that match Stockholm’s criterion of having been spoken unbroken for a century by three generations. These are Finnish, spoken by up to a million Swedes; Meankieli, a derivative of Finnish used by 50,000 northerners; Romani, the language of the Roma people; Yiddish, introduced by Jewish immigrants three centuries ago; and Sami, the language of reindeer herders. State funding would help to provide dictionaries and grammar books to consolidate the footprint of a language that is only spoken by about 3,000 people, only 60 of whom are children. “It’s important to preserve the mother tongue and one should not be ashamed of it,” says Yair Sapir, an Israeli languages professor in Copenhagen, who is spearheading the fight to persuade Sweden to give Elfdalian minority language status. He was astonished that as recently as the 1970s Sweden prohibited Elfdalian from being spoken in schools. “The aim in Sweden was to have a standard official language and to diminish the importance of local linguistic varieties. Elfdalian is of great importance to researchers.” The Council of Europe has asked Stockholm to clarify its position on Elfdalian. “The standpoint of the Swedish government is that Elfdalian is not a minority language to be recognised in accordance with the European Charter on Regional or Minority Languages,” culture ministry spokesman Kristoffer Talltorp told the Observer. “The primary reason for this is that Elfdalian does not meet the criteria for a minority language under the charter.” In its response to the Council of Europe, the government said: “The Swedish authorities nevertheless consider that Elfdalian should be preserved as part of the Swedish cultural heritage and should be passed on to the younger generation.” Despite the lack of official financial and moral support, small shoots of revival are emerging from Älvdalen in the forested hills, 40 Swedish miles – 400km – northwest of Stockholm. A kindergarten where only Elfdalian will be spoken will be opened there in 2016, and a local high school has a musical group where children who speak Swedish and English are learning Elfdalian folk songs. Elfdalian has a certain cachet for pupils of guitar and violin teacher Lena Egardt, who, like her charges, performs in a rustic costume that would be totally alien to Sweden’s next princess in her previous incarnation. From a red floral skull cap trimmed with lace to an ankle-length skirt, covered in a candy-striped apron, the style of dress is almost Amish in its modesty. “Elfdalian is much softer, more musical than Swedish,” says Egardt. “I learned it as a child, and I have passed it on to my children, but my grandchildren no longer understand me.” Another campaigner, Lid Ulla Schutt, a retired special education teacher, believes the opening of the kindergarten is a significant milestone. “Fifty years ago, they thought Elfdalian was not good for the children. But children can learn many languages when they are small and they are good at it.” Schutt learned Elfdalian when she was 15. “It gives you a clear cultural identity. We have many words that belong to the area where we live, to our farming and our landscape. We have a lot of words for a mountain that I wouldn’t find in Swedish. “It’s a harsh area. People have had a tough life, which has given them chance to stick together, to preserve their language, their music and their traditions.” Such pride has inspired Eleni Johansen, aged 13, to join Egardt’s ensemble. “It’s fun,” she said. “I think Elfdalian will be useful in the future. It won’t disappear. It won’t die.” Älvdalen is planning eight days of celebrations to coincide with the wedding, including champagne lunches, concerts and dancing. “Sofia’s grandmother speaks Elfdalian, I think her mother does, too, and I guess Sofia understands it,” says Egardt. “The couple have visited Älvdalen many times, but people here leave them alone.” As for the future princess, Hellqvist told Swedish TV: “The past is pretty boring. I’ve moved on with my life. But no regrets. Experience shapes a person.” The linguists hope that erasing the past does not extend to Elfdalian. |