Scandinavian-American English - Tracing Influences of the Scandinavian Immigrants Languages on English in the United States

Contents

1. Introductory notes

2. Scandinavian immigration
2.1 Immigration and settlement patterns
2.1.1 Historical-political background
2.1.2 The Danes
2.1.3 The Norwegians
2.1.4 The Swedes
2.2 Characteristics of the Scandinavian immigrants

3. Studying bilingualism

4. Features of Scandinavian-American language mixing
4.1 Development of language contact
4.2 Phonetic interference
4.3 Syntactic and grammatical interference
4.4 Lexical interference

5. Concluding remarks

References

1. Introductory notes

Within the framework of language varieties, language contact and bilingualism in the United States, the subject to be studied closer in this paper will be the kind of English that has been spoken in the areas of the U.S. that are characterized by large-scale Scandinavian immigration. The question will be if the English language that already prevailed in these areas might have been influenced in any way by the language of the new settlers and what exactly can be traced of this interference.

As there are a lot of different aspects to this subject, some restrictions regarding which of these to concentrate on will have to be made. The most important restriction is that focus will lie on Norwegian and Swedish aspects, though Danish issues are considered in passing rather than in depth. With respect to a limited extent of this paper Icelandic and Finnish issues will not be dealt with at all. These and some other considerations will be resumed after a more general introduction to Scandinavian immigration to the U.S. In the next chapter a short account will be given of the historical development of the immigration process, settlement patterns as well as characteristics of the people and cultures that have come into contact during this process.

The third chapter treats some theoretical ideas and concepts which are useful in this kind of study, whereas the fourth chapter eventually deals with findings and conclusions made by researchers in this field of study.

An overview of researchers’ opinions and descriptions of this linguistic phenomenon will round off this report.

2. Scandinavian immigration

In order to understand the process of cultural and linguistic contact and interference between the American and Scandinavian cultures, it is necessary to view it on the historical background of immigration and settlement.

2.1 Immigration and settlement patterns

2.1.1 Historical-political background

The three Scandinavian countries, Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, were in the first half of the 19th century characterized by traditionally agrarian structures and vast and thinly settled, poor areas, often in a harsh climate, contrasted by generously designed capitals where political, economic and cultural power concentrated. Denmark, with its capital Copenhagen, and Sweden, with its capital Stockholm, had been the most powerful nations in the north of Europe. Norway, with its capital of Christiania (now Oslo), however, had been part of Denmark over the centuries. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars Norway gained its temporary independence in 1814, but was soon ceded under Swedish rule. Thus, Norwegian life was determined by a foreign power for another century. Norway eventually gained national independence in 1905.

2.1.2 The Danes

The first immigrants from Denmark settled in the first half of the 17th century in the Dutch settlements of New Amsterdam (today the area of New York).¹ In a second wave from 1735 Danes of Moravian pietist faith settled in Pennsylvania. A century later, beginning in the 1840s, more Danes were forced to emigrate due to religious repression in their home country, many of them settling in Utah. For about 70 years between 1860 and 1930, the Danes constituted the second largest ethnic group in Utah.²

Danish mass immigration, however, set in later than in other countries. Political unrest and repression led to large-scale emigration from the 1870s, with peak years in 1882 and between 1903 and 1905. The total number of Danish immigrants to the United States from 1820 through to 1975 is about 363,000.³

2.1.3 The Norwegians

After the modest beginnings of modern Norwegian immigration to the United States in the 17th century, large-scale emigration from Norway was set in motion during the 1820s on the back of political, economic, and demographic pressures. The total number of inhabitants doubled between 1815 and 1860, a process that led to increasing poverty and social dissatisfaction among the more and more landless laborers.

The immigration movement consisted roughly of five waves. “Statistically regarded, the course of Norwegian migration has not been a smooth one. It presents the familiar picture of a series of camel’s humps, with the largest in the middle. The movement may be compared to a pageant in five acts, where the intermissions were created by two wars and two depressions.” ⁴

The first “act” began with the settlement of some 50 Norwegian people south of Lake Ontario in what is today the state of New York. From the 1830s settlements extended farther west to Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Up to the Civil War ten thousands of Norwegians had followed. By 1860 there were about 44,000 inhabitants of Norwegian descent in the United States. The Civil War was a short intermission in immigration flow, but after 1862, when the Homestead Act opened huge areas in the West for settlement, large numbers of Norwegians moved into the new territories. “Well established settlements of their own people assured them of bases from which they could investigate the unknown lands of the frontier.” ⁵ At the same time Norwegian churches and schools already had a strong position, and further cultural institutions and newspapers were founded. The depression of 1873, though, made many Norwegians hesitate to emigrate.⁶

The third “act”, beginning around 1880, saw a further westward movement into southern and western Minnesota and the

Dakotas. At the same time Norwegian-American life was flowering. In the 1890s another depression reduced immigration rates. The fourth period of immigration from the turn of the century to World War I was characterized by an exodus from urban areas in Norway to the urban settlements in the United States, e.g. Brooklyn and Seattle. Norwegian settlers did also reach the most western frontier of the mountain regions of Oregon and Washington. In post-war America, Americanization hysteria and strong restrictions in immigration politics led to noticeably less immigration. Between 1820 and 1975 more than 855,000 Norwegians emigrated to the United States.⁷ “Even at its height, in the 80’s, the Norwegian stream was no more than 3.1 per cent of the total European migration. But no country except Ireland had a higher rate of emigration: in the 80’s eleven out of every thousand Norwegians were leaving annually, compared to sixteen Irishmen, [...].” ⁸ Still in 1940 these original patterns regarding the settlement areas are visible:

States with greatest percentage of first and second generation Norwegians in total population (1940)⁹:

Abbildung in dieser Leseprobe nicht enthalten

2.1.4 The Swedes

The flow of Swedish immigration to the United States went in a rather similar way as with the Norwegian immigration process. Karstadt mentions of a similar movement, in respect for the state of Minnesota, where a large proportion of the Swedish settled.¹⁰

The very first settlers from Sweden came already in 1638, when Swedish tradesmen founded a colony called New Sweden on the site of what is today Wilmington, Delaware.¹¹ Swedish immigration during the 18th century was rather insignificant. Large-scale immigration had its beginnings then in the 1840s. The year of 1846 is considered the official year of take-off.¹² Peak years were during the 1880s, when about half a million people left Sweden for the United States, this constituted 40 per cent of the total transatlantic emigration at that time.¹³

Concerning settlement areas, Swedish preferences were similar to those of the Norwegians. Since many Swedes were farmers, they settled throughout the rural areas of the Midwest, especially in Minnesota and Illinois.¹⁴ Until 1870 Illinois’ Swedish inhabitants constituted one third of all Swedish-born in the United States.

From the 1860s onwards Swedish settlers concentrated further north in the region between the Mississippi and St. Croix rivers in Minnesota/Wisconsin, an area called the Swedish Triangle. Later their movement continued further west to the state of Washington which had the second-largest percentage of Swedish residents by 1930.¹⁵

But immigration to the United States was also a process of urbanization for many of the Swedish emigrants. Large proportions of them moved to bigger cities such as Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Chicago.¹⁶ In Minneapolis e.g. the Swedes were the largest ethnic group still in 1930 (15 per cent of the population).

During the last 150 years between 1.2 and 1.4 million Swedes emigrated to the United States.

[...]

¹ Cf. Dorothy Burton Skårdal: “Danes“ in: Thernstrom, Stephan, Ann Orlov, Oscar Handlin (eds.): Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980: p. 273.

² Ibid., p. 274.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Einar Haugen: The Norwegian Language in America. A Study in Bilingual Behavior. 2 vols. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1953: p. 24.

⁵ Ibid., p. 26.

⁶ Ibid., p. 27.

⁷ Peter A. Munch: “Norwegians“ in: Thernstrom, Stephan, Ann Orlov, Oscar Handlin (eds.): Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980: p. 750.

⁸ Haugen, 1953: p. 29.

⁹ Extract from table in Haugen, 1953: p. 31.

¹⁰ Cf. Angela Karstadt: “Relative Markers in Swedish-American English: Evidence for a Contact Language Phenomenon?“ in: American Speech, vol.71, no.1 (1996): p. 30.

¹¹ Cf. Ulf Beijbom: “Swedes“ in: Thernstrom, Stephan, Ann Orlov, Oscar Handlin (eds.): Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980: p. 971.

¹² Sweden celebrated 1996 as Migrationsåret (the year of migration), marking the beginning of mass migration 150 years ago. Cf. Angela Karstadt: “Swedish-American English. Immigrant Language Mixing Across Time and Space.” in: Muliethnica, no.20 (1997). Uppsala: Centrum för multietnisk forskning, Uppsala universitet: pp. 16-20. (taken from: http://www.multietn.uu.se/Karstadt.html, p.1).

¹³ Cf. Beijbom, 1980: p. 971.

¹⁴ Cf. ibid., p. 973.

¹⁵ Cf. ibid., p. 974.

¹⁶ Cf. ibid. See also Karstadt, 1996: p. 30.