Scanian on UNESCO list - five months too late in Swedish media

In February this year I wrote about Scanian is being regarded as so called 'unsafe' (now 'vulnerable') according to UNESCO's listing of endangered languages.

How is it that Swedish media in general and Swedish media in Scania in particular has missed this news five months?

Did they have to report it now due to pressure from international organizations? Were there other external pressure?

Could it, in particular, be because of the Swedish presidency in the EU perhaps? I think it might.

Let us hope the Reinfelt government get pressured for the regionalization of Sweden as well, preferably according to the historic regions (see picture)

In any case, several news media (1, 2, 3, 4) and several blogs (5, 6, 7) have reported on the Scanian language 'news' the last couple of days.

Many of the news media are trying their common tricks of right-wing guilt-by-association strategies. No surprise there. Furthermore, many journalists unfortunately totally missed the issue that it is old Scanian and not the Swedificated Scanian most people in Scania talk today that is regarded as unsafe.

In addition, there have been several accounts of censorship on Sydsvenskan commenting service for people who has another view than the official Swedish. Not surprising coming from one of the major Swedification media though.

The other Swedification institution (originally placed in Scania for Swedification reasons): The Gothic Carolinian University alias Lund University also put forward a Swedification academic, Ola Svensson, to discredit UNESCO's list. He thinks it is 'political' to call Scanian a language.

Scanian is unique in many ways. To call a way of talking that is based on an Olddanish variant a 'Southswedish', what is more political than that? This politics has been going on the last 350 years. It is also called Swedification.

Regardless of Swedish sentiments the reason for UNESCO's listing is based on facts however.

Why is it so hard to understand that we in Scania want the same kind of rights as everybody else? It is not to much to ask for.

PS. Since this 'news' were published Sydsvenskan has relinked its article. That means that twingly cannot find the blogs correctly. DS

Read more about Scanian: En Sydsvensk dialekt?

Läs även andra bloggares åsikter om Scania, Skåne, Skånska, Danmark, Sverige, Försvenskning, UNESCO