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Scandinavianise England

Make English more Scandinavian to reprogramme our brains
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Many people see Scandinavia as a near-utopia. I am not one of those people because I'm aware of certain heavy- handed attitudes taken by their officials and government and it also seems rather excessively white, which is fine for countries without a history of global viking like England and also an appropriate mutation for the latitude, but I'm not necessarily a big fan of huge income tax either. Nonetheless, I am aware that many people on the Left do idealise the region and for the purposes of this idea I'll run with that.

According to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which I don't agree with incidentally, language determines world view. Presumably it was first evoked to explain why Klingons are so belligerent. Anyway, we are confronted with a situation where the more politically liberal, and also boozy, countries are closer to the Arctic than the more politically conservative and less boozy ones, so for example Latin American and African nations are quite conservative, speaking Arabic and the Arabic-influenced Spanish and Portuguese. Then we have the less conservative French- speaking and West Germanic bits, and finally we get the liberal and alcoholic Scandinavian nations near the North Pole, where Nordic languages are spoken. This can be seen in the UK, where the more Scandinavian Scotland is more liberal and contains more alcoholics than the less Scandinavian England.

I will get there.

It's been theorised that, rather than the usual view that the English language is a West Germanic language influenced by the Viking invasions, the truth is that we are really speaking a Nordic language influenced by the West Germanic language which used to be spoken here along with the mutterings of those ex-Vikings, the Normans.

We should capitalise on this possibility by turning English into a more obviously Scandinavian language, with post- positive definite articles, a tone accent and the rest, in order that England become a more clearly liberal and left- utopian nation, because clearly the reason Scandinavia is so "nice" is that their languages are actually a form of Newspeak which stops them from thinking naughty, greedy, freedom-oriented thoughts like the rest of us.

So...:

Manye see Skandinavien at an naer-utopi. Ag ar ikke af dem, forti ag ar upmarksom pon certe hardhandede holdinger, at deres ombudsmen ek rickringen ek dat sims oso timelig overdrivent hvite, hvilk ar fine for lande uten an historie af de globale viking likesom England ek oso an passinde mutation for broadegrade, but ag ar ikke needvendivise an store fan af enorme inkomstax eider. Ikkedeless, ar ag klar over, at manye mennisker pon finsterfloyen dor idealiser regionen ek i forbindels af dis idea, ag vil korse mid dat.

Infolve Sapir-Whorf hypotesis, at ag ikke ar any mid ovry sprok bestimmer vorldenspike. Formindli ver dat fyrst fromkolde at forkleare, hverfor Klingonerne ar so gettisk. Anyway, ar vi konfrontet mid an situation, hver de maer politisk liberale ek oso booxy, lande ar nekste pon Arktik and minore boozy, so for eksempel latinamerikanske o afrikanske nationer ar kvite konservative, talker arabisk ek arabisk-ponvirket spanisk ek portugisk. So have vi de minore konservative franktalkinde ek vest germaniske bits, ek endly for vi de liberale ek alkoholholdye skandinaviske nationer near Nortpolen, hver de nordiske spik talks. Dese kan sees i England, hver den maere scandinaviske Skotland ar maere liberal ek inholder maer alkohollikere dan the minore skandinaviske England.

Eg vil komme der.

Dat ar beent teoriset, at i stead for den seedvenlye idea at dat engliske spik ar an Vest Germanisk spik ponvirket af Viking invasioner, trut ar, at vi virkly talker it nordisk spik ponvirket af Vest Germanisk spik, at ver til at been talkt her gadert mid de mumlinger af dise ex-vikinger, normannerne.

Vi skulde utnide disne maylighood vid at dreye engelsk til it maere openlyst skandinavisk spik, mid post-positive bestemmte artiker, an tone accent ek resten, for at England be an maere kleart liberal ek finster-utopisk nation, fordy kleart grunden Skandinavien ar so "nice" ar, at deres spik ar faktisk an form for Newspeak, dat stopper dem fro at tinke feklesse, gridige, frihood-orienteerede tinker likesome resten af us.

Or something.

nineteenthly, Feb 08 2017

Vikings told to avoid Scotland http://www.telegrap...avoid-Scotland.html
everyone should pay heed to this warning [xenzag, Mar 07 2017]

[link]






       Didn't you just invent the Dutch? Only with fewer gratuitous j's? And in which case, didn't the idea actually get implemented, albeit softly by William of Orange circa 1688?
zen_tom, Feb 08 2017
  

       Not to mention his successor, Wilhelm of Fruit Cocktail.
not_morrison_rm, Feb 08 2017
  

       Dutch might work but is significantly different. It doesn't use suffixes for "the", has more diphthongs - Scandinavian cleanliness and purity you see - doesn't do the tone accent/glottal stop thing, has fewer cognates with the Scandinavian languages than it has with West Germanic languages and so on. That said, it is quite like Danish and we see further evidence for that in the fact that the Netherlands also have a liberal reputation. Thanks for the corroboration though.   

       [not], do successors' names work that way? You kind of turn up the settings on the predecessor's name? I suppose that would explain why monarchs have numbers after their names come to think of it, so yeah, I see your point.
nineteenthly, Feb 08 2017
  

       Yes, I think the Dutch deserve greater credit in their liberalness - likely introducing a fair amount of it to the UK in the course of our shared histories (plus, likely inventors of Gin, so booze). Language wise, I'm less aware than I ought to be regards differences, but there do seem to be some similarities, at least to the untrained eye.   

       [nmrm] Nor his successor's successor, Guilliome de Cheese Von Pineapple Chunk.
zen_tom, Feb 08 2017
  

       Clearly this is so.
nineteenthly, Feb 08 2017
  

       I see connections with this idea and what is currently happening in the language=kultur world of '140 chrctrs r less' texts and tweets... minus the extraneous 'e's. Nobody uses silent e anymore. Plus haitches; everybody loves the fun of misplaced or unpronounced 'h's.   

       Hi suggest [nineteenthly] creates a list of kinder, gentler Scandinglish words we can himmediately start slipping hin to casual twitts and hemails...as part of our casual, relaxed Halfbakery World Domination scheme.
Sgt Teacup, Feb 08 2017
  

       We should all be more like Noggin the Nog
hippo, Feb 08 2017
  

       //suggest [nineteenthly] creates a list of kinder, gentler Scandinglish words//   

       or even adult ones...   

       Okay [Sgt_Teacup], I'll get right on it.
nineteenthly, Feb 08 2017
  

       The way things are going, the USA will soon be able to get by with a language base of about 25 words: awesome, tremendous, terror, torture, shut down, bad; alternative facts, Kardashians, pipe, wall, hombre, lies, fake news; shut up, first, 'nucular', water-boarding, Bible, Mexicans, pussy. That's about it.
xenzag, Feb 08 2017
  

       I keep reading this as scandalize England
theircompetitor, Feb 08 2017
  

       Did Scandinavia invent trolls ?   

       From an Online dictionary   

       "Early 17th century: from Old Norse and Swedish troll, Danish trold. The first English use is from Shetland; the term was adopted more widely into English in the mid 19th century."
popbottle, Feb 08 2017
  

       Okay, here are some, although I'm not entirely happy with them:   

       Ponley - contents of a sandwich   

       Sunkat - reflection of a sun dog   

       Faen - pure swearword without politically incorrect connotations.   

       Batkrok - someone who won't take a dip in the Serpentine on Juldag.   

       Attitudinkontinens - [vernon]-like online behaviour.   

       Kabelsalad - the tangle of cables behind PCs, home entertainment systems etc.   

       Knollruffs - post-coital hair.   

       Sailenkausema - (from the Sami serfs of the Shetland Isles) the distance a hedgehog can travel before it needs to urinate. The standard measure of length in Engmark.   

       Klamdag - working day between two holidays.   

       Totsmaer - sufficient clotted cream on a smaergasbord sc*ne to retain the impression of one's incisors.   

       Kommauzziah - (from the aforementioned serfs) grammar Nazi.   

       Fyke - meet up for tea and sc*nes.
nineteenthly, Feb 09 2017
  

       You're missing some sorely needed ones, like the 20 different types of fog, 25 terms for snow, 143 varieties of reindeer meat dishes...
RayfordSteele, Feb 09 2017
  

       Ah, but this is Engmark. We need words for twenty types of drizzle.
nineteenthly, Feb 10 2017
  

       My favourite Scandiwegian word is "hyddekropsellen", which means the triple-whammy of emotions you suffer when, in the middle of trying to deal with a burst pipe, you realize that you're missing a very important meeting, then realize with relief that it's actually not until next week, then realize that your relief still leaves you having to deal with the burst pipe.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 11 2017
  

       I think viking ended up being called something else, [Ian], and I imagine nowadays it's mainly conducted in boardrooms and stock exchanges.
nineteenthly, Mar 06 2017
  

       "Vik" in Norse languages means "bay", "cove", or at a push, "fjord", hence "Sneckviken" in Sweden is "Seashell cove" and "Reykjavik" in Iceland is "Smoky bay", "Reyk" being the word for smoke or vapour - perpetuated in the appellation "Auld Reekie" ("Old smoky") given to Edinburgh.   

       So it isn't possibe to "Vik", because it's a noun, not a verb. Vikings were "Bay" or "Sea" people, and the fishermen of Norway, Fair Isle, the Shetlands, Orkneys and East Scotland are still quite literally "Vikings".
8th of 7, Mar 06 2017
  

       Well, frankly, [8th], if they were so damned keen to keep it as a noun, they shoudn't have added the -ing, should they? They've nobody but themselves to blame, at least that's my inkling.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2017
  

       "They" didn't. The "ing" was added by the Anglo-Saxons, based on their limited understanding of what the Norsemen called themselves.
8th of 7, Mar 06 2017
  

       Yes, but that's probably because the Norses insisted on using some weird foreign language instead of proper English. I'm surprised you didn't think of that, [8th].
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 06 2017
  

       It's possible, as I think I said although I'm too lazy to scroll up, that English is foreign to us and we actually speak a strange version of Danish.
nineteenthly, Mar 07 2017
  

       Learnt some Danish on kibbutz, not terribly useful. English, on the other hand, is completely bonkers.   

       I was pondering 'arch' and 'architect' apparently 'arch' is derived from 'arche' (a bow), but 'architect' is allegedly derived from 'chief builder'.   

       This makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.
not_morrison_rm, Mar 07 2017
  

       The root of "tect" is the Greek word "Tekton", a worker in wood and/or stone.   

       Interestingly, in the earliest Greek versions of the bible, Joseph (father of Jesus) is referred to as a "Tekton", commonly translated as "carpenter" but which can equally be interpreted as "mason" ....
8th of 7, Mar 07 2017
  

       One thing about Viking boats is that they had excellent bouyancy. You can take a Norse to water, but you can't make him sink.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 07 2017
  

       See last link..... even the Romans were terrifed of the Picts, and knew to stay clear, building Hadrian's wall instead to protect themsleves from total slaughter.
xenzag, Mar 07 2017
  

       You don't quite hear about as many Viking shipwrecks near Scottish or Irish storm-ridden shores, as compared to the Spanish Armada for example.
4and20, Mar 08 2017
  

       That's because by your 16th century there were such things as written records, and the crews of the ships were more numerous... more chance of at least one being able to escape and report back that their shipmates have been killed and eaten by savage proto-human Celts ...
8th of 7, Mar 08 2017
  

       The Celts were a feeble race, and nothing to worry about, but the Picts would eat stones when they ran out of human flesh.
xenzag, Mar 09 2017
  

       So, not the smartest tribe, then?
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 09 2017
  

       Maybe they were just silicon-based life forms [MB].
nineteenthly, Mar 10 2017
  

       Trolls ? Yeah, that figures ...
8th of 7, Mar 10 2017
  

       I'm pretty sure the Jpegs used to beat the crap out of the Picts on a regular basis.
MaxwellBuchanan, Mar 10 2017
  

       I heard it was a bit of a tiff.
bs0u0155, Mar 10 2017
  
      
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