Er skånsk så svært endda?

Danskeres forståelse af skånsk og rigssvensk i et sociolingvistisk perspektiv

Abstract

You often hear Danes say they find it difficult to understand Swedish people with a Scanian dialect, although that is the dialect spoken in the region of Sweden that lies closest to Denmark and whose inhabitants have a great deal of contact with Danes compared to other Swedish regions. But is it really that difficult? This paper seeks to answer two questions: Do Danes actually have more difficulty in understanding Scanian dialect than Standard Swedish? And can Danes actually tell the difference between the two? The experiment was conducted on 22 young Danes who listened to a group of native Swedish speakers, of which three spoke with a Scanian dialect and four spoke Standard Swedish. The conclusions were surprising: Young Danes underestimate their own skills when it comes to recognising and understanding Scanian dialect. It turns out that those who say they don’t hear a difference between the two varieties of Swedish are actually better at recognising them. Furthermore, Danes who rate Scanian dialect to be more difficult to understand when asked, actually find the dialect relatively easier to understand when tested. So, as it seems, Danes judge Scanian dialect to be more difficult than it actually is.