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🇸🇪 Sweden /Culture & Society

Loanwords don't kill languages, argues linguist Mikael Parkvall

From Svenska Dagbladet · () Swedish

Translated from Swedish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

Opinion Named sources Context piece
  • A Swedish linguist argues that loanwords do not cause languages to die out, citing examples of languages with extensive foreign vocabulary.
  • The article critiques a report about Iceland's efforts to create native alternatives to English loanwords, questioning the premise that language death is imminent.
  • The author suggests that factors other than loanwords are responsible for language extinction.

Linguist Mikael Parkvall challenges the notion that loanwords threaten a language's survival, asserting that languages do not "borrow themselves to death." He points out that many languages thrive with a vocabulary heavily influenced by foreign terms, often containing more loanwords than native vocabulary.

Parkvall's commentary appears to respond to a report in DN about Iceland's initiative to develop indigenous alternatives for English loanwords. The report suggested that Icelandic, spoken by only 350,000 people, risks extinction if it continues to adopt English terms. Parkvall seems to dismiss this concern, implying that such efforts are misguided or based on a flawed understanding of language dynamics.

He suggests that the reasons for a language's decline are more complex and unrelated to the adoption of foreign words. The article implies that focusing on loanwords as the primary threat to a language like Icelandic is a misdirection, and that other factors are at play when languages face extinction.

DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Svenska Dagbladet in Swedish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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