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7.6.6 Culture

<This section by Malte Lewan>

Lately, the Danish red sausage, the "pølse", has made it into the outdoor food commerce. It was for a long time not allowed in Sweden due to the added ingredients making the sausage red. When it finally became allowed, this was looked upon like a great success of the local politicians. Maybe because of the Scanian habit of eating this sausage when visiting København, it has now become very popular in Scania too. In Lund, there is another sausage called "lundaknake" that has reached fame, at least locally.

The willows that edges many Scanian roads give the landscape a characteristic outlook. Scania is like Denmark very flat and without much of forests except in the north (in fact, this was the natural divider before 1658 between Denmark and Sweden). The willows are supposed to shelter against the wind in an environment where no other natural shelters exist. Also, the Scanian mills ("möllor") are typical for the province. Often situated on hills, they too characterize the horizon in the Scanian scenery.

Being a region containing one eighth of the population in Sweden, there exist of course a great number of nationally famous Scanians, some of these comedians and singers. There will not be a list here, but the maybe most famous Scanian, the most Scanian Scanian will be mentioned. His name was Edward Persson and was the main character and very much dominating personality in a number of film comedies taken place on some farm in south western Skåne, in Söderslätt. He more or less established the image of the Scanian person: fat (!), slow, content with life, feeling secure and of course having the accent considered strong in those days of television. He's dead since some years now.

Scanians have often got a bad reputation in Sjælland for going there to get drunk. The background is different state policies when it comes to the selling of alcohol. While this is harshly regulated in Sweden and only sold in certain stores with high prices, it's cheaper and much more easily accessible in Denmark. The result is irritation between the former fellow countrymen.

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7.6.7 Language

<This section by Malte Lewan>

Until the 19th century, the language was unaltered by significant influence of both Danish (until 1658) and Swedish (from that year and onwards). But in the middle and end of that century, the Swedish language started to persuade vital parts of the population. In the beginning of the 20th century most people still spoke the old language, but that majority diminished faster and faster. Today, the percentage is probably in the one digits and this group of inhabitants consists mainly of older people though there are some young bilingual people as well. The language these persons speak is even usually softly Swedified (where for example the most Swedish of two alternatives in the old language regularly gets chosen) and examples of folks today speaking an untouched old Scanian is probably very scarce.

What is spoken by most today is a dialect of Swedish, but many speakers show differences that are more or less noticable depending on the person. For example:

• Intonation
• Pronunciation of the "r" is made by the root of the tongue in the "French way". Like the Danes do it.
• When Swedes use t, k and p, Scanians often use d, g, and b. Like the Danes.
• Like in Danish, t and k are pronounced very hard in beginning of words whereas in Swedish, they are softer.
• None of the vowels are pronounced exactly in the same place of the mouth they are in Swedish, and you could say that standard Swedish "o" and "u" simply do not exist.
• Every long vowel in Swedish is a diphthong in Scanian. The Swedish language lacks diphthongs entirely.

Scanian     English         Swedish

hutta     = throw            (Sw: kasta)

klyddig   = complicated      (Sw: besvärlig)

lässa     = load, put up     (Sw: lasta, lägga upp)

mölla     = mill             (Sw: kvarn)

nimm      = neat             (Sw: praktisk, lätt)

påg       = boy              (Sw: pojke)

rälig     = ugly, mean       (Sw: ful, stygg, otäck)

sammedant = likewise         (Sw: likadant)

titt      = often            (Sw: ofta)

töj       = clothes          (Sw: kläder)

Sources: Newspaper articles from "Sydsvenska Dagbladet", 1992-95

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