Published 2026-05-15
Keywords
- Anglicisms,
- Linguistic Convergence,
- Neighbouring-language Comprehension,
- Scandinavian Languages
Copyright (c) 2026 Henrik Gottlieb
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Many young Danes, Swedes and Norwegians prefer to communicate in English rather than in their native tongue (Gooskens 2006; Bacquin and Zola Christensen 2013), and a major part of the new words in the Nordic languages are based on English (Gottlieb 2020). Will English prevail as a lingua franca in the Nordic region? With that question in mind, this study analyses some recent English-induced developments in the Scandinavian languages. While Anglicism dictionaries present the three languages as moving in different directions, the present study – by exploiting large contemporary text corpora – shows cross-linguistic convergence, suggesting better chances for mutual understanding among Scandinavians.