Are there apprehensions about the English language displacing or influencing your country’s native language?
July 17, 2025
Many Europeans speak English and increasingly so have grown up consuming English-language media. Is there a concern that any acquired Anglicisms will affect the local language?
31 comments
Yes there are.
Dutch has always borrowed heavily from English but it has only become more.
Here’s the thing though, language always evolves. If you listen to the earliest recordings you can hear that quite clearly within any language in that they sound entirely different to the way language is spoken now.
On the one hand I’m very keen that my native languages (Dutch and Frisian) are preserved and protected, on the other I’m not naive enough to think that they are not subject to constant change and evolution. That is just how language works.
Yes there is, but the general public does not (yet) treat it as a threat to our own language, and it is not a political talking point.
Slovak did absorb pretty much loanwords from German but also Latin or French or other languages. The same way like it absorbs English words now. Those loanwords do affect vocabulary, but not grammar, as it’s pretty different.
The funny thing is, common “directive linguist panic” by official institutions is usually aimed to Czech loanwords, not English
Its growing worrying tho its only TV that sometimes brings it up (at least as far as I noticed)
In the past one of the most popular Polish shows was a linguist Professor Miodek (literally honey) giving fun facts and lecturing how polish language works
Now there is often some random english word used even if there is no reason as polish has the same term (one that I was most annoyed was an advertisement using english ,,trade”)
Spain is one of the weaker countries when it comes to English proficiency.
However, on the news (and pretty much everywhere) you can see English words being used constantly.
People would have failed English at school, but they’d be using the most random words in their normal conversations without really knowing their meaning…
It’s the oddest thing.
As a Catalan I have a different perspective, with the massive increase in migrants and tourists i found english has made spanish basically useless in my daily life to the point i have no use for it which is, frankly VERY liberating
Yes and no. While for some politicians it’s a concern in reality it doesn’t matter much and is a personal preference.
In 2023 the leading political party proposed fines for whoever used english words in official documents in the government. Of course it never went through and in typical italian right wing fashion they went ahead and created the “Made in Italy” ministry, and no, that’s not a translation, they called it “Made in Italy”.
Language evolves and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Yes. Although Czech has a truckload of loan words, the everyday use of singular english words that replace perfectly common czech words is just staggering.
Well at an official level there is. In reality I think French is robust enough to not be subsumed by English.
Although I don’t particularly care, there are some specific influences that bother me a lot.
The verb *’perform’* doesnt have a direct translation from English to Spanish, depending on the context, different verbs are used, such as ‘actuar’, ‘ejecutar’, ‘realizar’.
Well, young people have ‘castellanised’ the verb into Spanish as *’performar’* (yo performo, tu performas, el/ella performa…) and kids, especially youtubers, lets say from 25yo and under, use it compulsively and it annoys the hell out of me, because it’s not about new concepts like, for example, wifi or bluetooth. Using performar sounds almost unnatural and like they don’t know how to speak their own language 🤷🏻
Mostly that ship has sailed.
But yes, even now.
I have an annectdode about that from a person I met from the tiny town of Falcarragh in remote NW county Donegal:
The town used to be in the formally-recognised Gaeltacht, a vanishing rare Irish-speaking area. And I do mean vanishing.
He said some decades ago the town went to the government begging for more funds to promote Irish, because by the late 20th century English had become the language spoken by most people there and they wanted to reverse it.
In great Irish fashion, the government balked and stripped them of their existing money and special protected status since they weren’t actually speaking it anymore.
Fin.
There have been concerns for a long time. This is why French legislation demands that almost all media are translated into French, generally dubbed, with few exceptions. The main exception being radio playlists, but a significant percentage of songs still have to be in French. This means that exposure to English in the population has been very limited, and before the Internet, used to be close to zero outside of school and music. This results in low English skills in France.
Not really, but I think many young people find Bulgarian more lame compared to English so they prefer English. Especially, when abroad, if it allows them to not have to tell people they’re Bulgarian. LOL
Yes, definitely. That being said, they have existed for as long as I remember and I don’t think much has changed for better or worse. As a matter of fact, I believe proficiency of English has improved dramatically over let’s say, last 20 years, and Latvian hasn’t gotten much better or worse.
On one side, the older generation had just as much if not more influence of Russian barbarisms in the language, a bunch of them have still stuck around to this day. Now there’s something similar with younger generation consuming a lot of English language content and finding their own words to plant into the vocabulary, but in reality both are kind of similar in nature, they just don’t really understand the other side.
I think the concerns are fairly valid, and there always should be a movement that keeps it in check. Not being a self-sustaining language in a sense that we aren’t like Spanish/French or maybe even Polish with the amount of available media/content and what not, a lot of people will consume it in English. Many people learn the language that way, and do so early on, these days even in preschool age. The most concerning thing is that this way people learn a lot of words and concepts that they just don’t really know translation of in Latvian, and therefore just insert the English word in a sentence. I’ve been guilty of it too, but do try to make a conscious effort to find an alternative word. It does feel like the teens of these days do this even more, but I have to remember we were the same 10 years ago.
What’s really tragic is just people not reading books anymore. That’s where vocabulary comes from. So unless we find a way to substitute that or get people back into reading, the trend will be prevalent.
No, most people can speak their native language AND a second one. Even a third.
Learning a second language is a very common practice.
Yea I would say that due to social media and Norwegians constantly consuming English content, it is already a reality. There are definitely apprehensions, particularly from older people.
To some extent. It’s not a real threat as such, but it is noticeable in the way particularly younger people speak. (And, consequently, older people complain about.) It also features heavily in advertising and commerce (*Coffee to go* is a very common expression, e.g.) If there is a new development or an international trend, chances are we won’t translate it into proper German, but use the English term instead. Our government just introduced legislation to outlaw the sending of *dick pics,* e.g., and while the actual bill uses different terminology, this is what’s talked about in the media.
Heck, we even make up our own english-sounding (yet nonexistent) words at times, or at least use them incorrectly. *Handy* (as a noun) for cell phone, *Beamer* for projector … the list goes on. This, again, is not a new development, however. We’ve had *Smoking* (tuxedo) or *Pullunder* (think *pullover*, but not quite – a sweater vest) since basically forever.
Italian is already a made up language which is basically a Frankenstein monster built on top of 14th century Tuscan (German bros will relate to this), being defensive about its “purity” is ridiculous.
Italians who get mad at people who use anglicisms have, almost universally, an understanding of languages that is stuck in middle school.
This phenomenon is actually common in many aspects of life, for example the people who viciously attack foreign influence in “Italian cuisine” and are obsessed with its purity are almost always people who can’t cook for their life.
Chill, bro, engelsk har maybe influenca norsk litt, men det er jo basically bare fancy ord for å spice opp språket. Mad cope å ha lowkey issues med at noen liker å chatte mens de bruker engelske ord.
(Relax, friend, English might have affected Norwegian to some degree, but they’re essentially just cool words that are used to have a more flowery language. If you get angry that someone uses English words while they talk then that’s on you)
Seriously, though, people have been writing concerned articles about English’s influence on Norwegian since at least the 80s.
They worry not only about borrowed words, but also about Norwegian words taking on new meaning. For example, the word «tenker» means «thinks», as in the process of having a thought in your head, but Norwegians have started saying «jeg tenker at» – «I think that» to express their opinion even though you traditionally couldn’t use the word that way in Norwegian.
Another worry is whole phrases being imported, like when people say stuff like «når det kommer til» – «when it comes to». Changing prepositions are also a worry. People might say «i min mening» («in my opinion») when in Norwegian it used to be «etter min mening» («after my opinion»).
Generally, though, the stuff that people worry about is anything that’s new. English has influenced Norwegian for centuries. Words like OK, cool, and alright have been here for a long time (cool and alright have even acquired a Norwegian spelling – «kul» and «ålreit»). They’re not the words people worry about. And in 50 years time people probably won’t worry about words like «basically» or «influencer» as there’ll be new words to worry about, and the world will keep turning.
Always has been an issue, with other languages as well (speaking for Belgium here, Flanders).
My dialect has a lot of French words or words derived from French in it.
I wasn’t allowed to say etui in primary school for example.
Can imagine it’s the same for English now.
There’s a whole literary movement against the adoption of words from other languages lol
Polish language has been influanced by foreign languages for centuries. German, French, latin, Italian, Russian, Yidish … Its just that now its English. Nothing unique tbh if you look at the history of the language.
It affects vocabulary but not gramma. Also Rada Języka Polskiego or Polish Language Council, our authority on Polish generally seems to belive that language is a living orgamism that changes and evolves. When asked to clarify correctness of some newer patterns of speach they tend to be rather liberal. So appart from some purists most people accept that this is happening and is normal.
Will English displace Polish? That’s not a danger at all. We may spend the whole day at work talking in English but between each other in private life we converse in Polish. Immigrant kids also tend to learn it. My kid has an Indian colleague at kindergarden and she seems to be trilingual : speaks Polish, English and Hindi. On 4 years old level but still.
So no, I am not concerned.
Of course. Especially from the nationalistic groups.
But considering the fact that our land was generally constantly under some other nations occupation it’s nice we managed to keep anything resembling national language.
Ok it was a bit specially selected to prove that point but in general you can easily see which are the original words and which ones cames from German, Turkish, Hungarian or Latin. Or french. Lots of words about clothes or cosmetics are french.
Also I feel like English is pretty easy language to learn for my countrymen especially considering others in that class we learn so it will be even more popular.
Everyone learns it now because how else can you leave…
Many teenagers use a lot of really heavily butchered English words and it sounds ridiculous. I think the source are mainly youtubers who stream while gaming, the games are usually in English and they don’t understand fully the meaning of the words or don’t know proper Czech equivalents so they start using butchered English words during gaming sessions but eventually they put them also into daily conversation.
The same happens with IT when most of the materials/manuals are in English and not all IT guys are proficient in English so they use a lot of English words without translating them again because they likely don’t even know the Czech equivalent. For example in IT network you can hear people speaking about routers and switches but you will never here Czech “směrovač” or “přepínač” that are proper translations but basically nobody uses them and it even sounds 90’s archaic to me.
In German not really.
Old people might complain, but otherwise we just go along with it. It’s not a big deal, German language consists of a large percentage of French and Latin expressions anyway. Also English and German is pretty close so we actually share quite a few words.
It used to be annoying in a business context, but a couple of years ago I just decided that it is what it is
The main concern in the UK seems to be American terms taking over. It enrages some people to the point of obsession, we regularly see it on UK subs – the idea a person did something as shocking as say “sidewalk” or “driver’s license”. But it is all language evolving, English has taken words from all over from the beginning. Plenty of our words are French in origin to start with.
Half of the kids speak German-German alternating with English in the same sentence, which is quite annoying to listen to and seems to be influenced by TikTok and Youtubers (and the other half of the kids speak some sort of arabian-balkan-german jumble that is influenced by rap music).
Austrian German is ceasing, especially in urban areas.
Around here, there’s no real concern of the language *displacing* our native languages. It has certainly influenced Dutch to a great degree, because we’re both too lazy to come up with our own words and not purist enough to bother making up new ones, but that’s mostly limited to tech.
We have been getting into the habit of just switching to English when speaking to someone from the other language community though, because it’s something both parties have studied and leaves them on somewhat equal footing. But that’s another thing entirely.
English is certainly changing both the grammar and vocabulary of many speakers of Swedish. Some changes may only apply to very specific demographics though, and is perhaps not likely to be lasting.
Here are some more or less common changes in Swedish that are direct result of (recent) English influence:
* Usage of *hans/hennes* instead of *sin/sitt* as English doesn’t really have reflexive possessive pronouns that work this way. This can cause unnecessary ambiguity as the sentence *Olov åkte med Sven i hans bil* in correct Swedish only can be understood as Olov went with Sven in Sven’s car. If the speaker however ment that the car was Olov’s, *sin* should have been used.
* Usage of *de/dem* as gender neutral pronoun in singular in the same way as English *they/them* is. I see this all the time in writing in my job, and I have heard about Stockholmers using it in speech. In Swedish the pronoun *hen* was coined in the 1960s as a gender neutral alternative to *han* and *hon*. The word was popularised in the 2010s, but has since sen somewhat less usage.
* Usage of obscure, out of date or overly formal Swedish vocabulary analogue to related words that are common in English. One example of this is the word *dock*, that is quite formal and mostly used in written language, but has however become more frequently used in casual spoken language, like English *though*. Another word is *konfirmera* which in spoken language almost always is related to the Christian confirmation. The word is also used for *confirm* in general, but that is perceived as *very* academic and formal. Typically *bekräfta* is used, but nevertheless (younger) people use *konfirmera* very casually every now and then. I have also heard people making up new words that they *think* have a Swedish cognate, but does not (I am also guilty of this). One that I’ve heard is *pagansk* for *pagan*, pronounced in the most cursed way [pai̯ˈgɑːnsk].
* Using wrong prepositions and making calques of English phrases in general. An example would be *för någon anledning* instead of *av någon anledning* which obviously is influenced by English *for some reason*. Also just straight up translating English idioms are increasingly common for example *inte min kopp te, kasta under bussen, det var allt för nu*.
* Just using the English word for things. I’ve know many that just simply use the English words for things, sometimes it might be a brain fart, but for some, it very obviously is not. One word I have noticed is *reminder*. The Swedish word is *påminnelse*, but for some reason several I know refuse to use it. Do they think using plain, normal Swedish is too aggressive? I have heard myself, as well as heard from others, about people saying *thigh* for *lår*, *forehead* for *panna* and *ass* för *röv* in normal conversation. Also *confused* instead of *förvirrad* is common in my experience.
There is much more but I’m avoiding writing a book about it.
Some Swedish people seem to think they’re above everyone else because they talk Swedish and not ‘svengelska’ which is a mix of Swedish and English. I just think they’re dorks and it’s nice when they’re quiet
Definitely! Anglicisms are already peppered through Danish more often than is popular in a lot of languages. Then, because there is such a high rate of English fluency, there is not a huge incentive to really become fluent in Danish but also social/film/music media has already had a huge effect on how people communicate.
Example of a phone conversation you may hear on the train:
“[DanishDanishDanish!] Like what the fuck bro? Right?? [DanishDanishDanish…] You know?”
There are huge government efforts to make Danish classes free for foreigners to encourage the protection of it as a piece of heritage and daily life. Thousands of people use these programs, but it is still not a priority for people to become fluent because of how much English is used. Even tourists sometimes come without teaching themselves the word for thanks and hello.
Look at it from the view of English natives. Our language has passed out of our control. Americans think they own it, others speak it very well (I even had a chap from Netherlands trying to correct my English in a document!). But it’s our language, originated here and we can’t control how it’s used any longer.
31 comments
Yes there are.
Dutch has always borrowed heavily from English but it has only become more.
Here’s the thing though, language always evolves. If you listen to the earliest recordings you can hear that quite clearly within any language in that they sound entirely different to the way language is spoken now.
On the one hand I’m very keen that my native languages (Dutch and Frisian) are preserved and protected, on the other I’m not naive enough to think that they are not subject to constant change and evolution. That is just how language works.
Yes there is, but the general public does not (yet) treat it as a threat to our own language, and it is not a political talking point.
Slovak did absorb pretty much loanwords from German but also Latin or French or other languages. The same way like it absorbs English words now. Those loanwords do affect vocabulary, but not grammar, as it’s pretty different.
The funny thing is, common “directive linguist panic” by official institutions is usually aimed to Czech loanwords, not English
Its growing worrying tho its only TV that sometimes brings it up (at least as far as I noticed)
In the past one of the most popular Polish shows was a linguist Professor Miodek (literally honey) giving fun facts and lecturing how polish language works
Now there is often some random english word used even if there is no reason as polish has the same term (one that I was most annoyed was an advertisement using english ,,trade”)
Spain is one of the weaker countries when it comes to English proficiency.
However, on the news (and pretty much everywhere) you can see English words being used constantly.
People would have failed English at school, but they’d be using the most random words in their normal conversations without really knowing their meaning…
It’s the oddest thing.
As a Catalan I have a different perspective, with the massive increase in migrants and tourists i found english has made spanish basically useless in my daily life to the point i have no use for it which is, frankly VERY liberating
Yes and no. While for some politicians it’s a concern in reality it doesn’t matter much and is a personal preference.
In 2023 the leading political party proposed fines for whoever used english words in official documents in the government. Of course it never went through and in typical italian right wing fashion they went ahead and created the “Made in Italy” ministry, and no, that’s not a translation, they called it “Made in Italy”.
Language evolves and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Yes. Although Czech has a truckload of loan words, the everyday use of singular english words that replace perfectly common czech words is just staggering.
Well at an official level there is. In reality I think French is robust enough to not be subsumed by English.
Although I don’t particularly care, there are some specific influences that bother me a lot.
The verb *’perform’* doesnt have a direct translation from English to Spanish, depending on the context, different verbs are used, such as ‘actuar’, ‘ejecutar’, ‘realizar’.
Well, young people have ‘castellanised’ the verb into Spanish as *’performar’* (yo performo, tu performas, el/ella performa…) and kids, especially youtubers, lets say from 25yo and under, use it compulsively and it annoys the hell out of me, because it’s not about new concepts like, for example, wifi or bluetooth. Using performar sounds almost unnatural and like they don’t know how to speak their own language 🤷🏻
Mostly that ship has sailed.
But yes, even now.
I have an annectdode about that from a person I met from the tiny town of Falcarragh in remote NW county Donegal:
The town used to be in the formally-recognised Gaeltacht, a vanishing rare Irish-speaking area. And I do mean vanishing.
He said some decades ago the town went to the government begging for more funds to promote Irish, because by the late 20th century English had become the language spoken by most people there and they wanted to reverse it.
In great Irish fashion, the government balked and stripped them of their existing money and special protected status since they weren’t actually speaking it anymore.
Fin.
There have been concerns for a long time. This is why French legislation demands that almost all media are translated into French, generally dubbed, with few exceptions. The main exception being radio playlists, but a significant percentage of songs still have to be in French. This means that exposure to English in the population has been very limited, and before the Internet, used to be close to zero outside of school and music. This results in low English skills in France.
Not really, but I think many young people find Bulgarian more lame compared to English so they prefer English. Especially, when abroad, if it allows them to not have to tell people they’re Bulgarian. LOL
Yes, definitely. That being said, they have existed for as long as I remember and I don’t think much has changed for better or worse. As a matter of fact, I believe proficiency of English has improved dramatically over let’s say, last 20 years, and Latvian hasn’t gotten much better or worse.
On one side, the older generation had just as much if not more influence of Russian barbarisms in the language, a bunch of them have still stuck around to this day. Now there’s something similar with younger generation consuming a lot of English language content and finding their own words to plant into the vocabulary, but in reality both are kind of similar in nature, they just don’t really understand the other side.
I think the concerns are fairly valid, and there always should be a movement that keeps it in check. Not being a self-sustaining language in a sense that we aren’t like Spanish/French or maybe even Polish with the amount of available media/content and what not, a lot of people will consume it in English. Many people learn the language that way, and do so early on, these days even in preschool age. The most concerning thing is that this way people learn a lot of words and concepts that they just don’t really know translation of in Latvian, and therefore just insert the English word in a sentence. I’ve been guilty of it too, but do try to make a conscious effort to find an alternative word. It does feel like the teens of these days do this even more, but I have to remember we were the same 10 years ago.
What’s really tragic is just people not reading books anymore. That’s where vocabulary comes from. So unless we find a way to substitute that or get people back into reading, the trend will be prevalent.
No, most people can speak their native language AND a second one. Even a third.
Learning a second language is a very common practice.
Yea I would say that due to social media and Norwegians constantly consuming English content, it is already a reality. There are definitely apprehensions, particularly from older people.
To some extent. It’s not a real threat as such, but it is noticeable in the way particularly younger people speak. (And, consequently, older people complain about.) It also features heavily in advertising and commerce (*Coffee to go* is a very common expression, e.g.) If there is a new development or an international trend, chances are we won’t translate it into proper German, but use the English term instead. Our government just introduced legislation to outlaw the sending of *dick pics,* e.g., and while the actual bill uses different terminology, this is what’s talked about in the media.
Heck, we even make up our own english-sounding (yet nonexistent) words at times, or at least use them incorrectly. *Handy* (as a noun) for cell phone, *Beamer* for projector … the list goes on. This, again, is not a new development, however. We’ve had *Smoking* (tuxedo) or *Pullunder* (think *pullover*, but not quite – a sweater vest) since basically forever.
Italian is already a made up language which is basically a Frankenstein monster built on top of 14th century Tuscan (German bros will relate to this), being defensive about its “purity” is ridiculous.
Italians who get mad at people who use anglicisms have, almost universally, an understanding of languages that is stuck in middle school.
This phenomenon is actually common in many aspects of life, for example the people who viciously attack foreign influence in “Italian cuisine” and are obsessed with its purity are almost always people who can’t cook for their life.
Chill, bro, engelsk har maybe influenca norsk litt, men det er jo basically bare fancy ord for å spice opp språket. Mad cope å ha lowkey issues med at noen liker å chatte mens de bruker engelske ord.
(Relax, friend, English might have affected Norwegian to some degree, but they’re essentially just cool words that are used to have a more flowery language. If you get angry that someone uses English words while they talk then that’s on you)
Seriously, though, people have been writing concerned articles about English’s influence on Norwegian since at least the 80s.
They worry not only about borrowed words, but also about Norwegian words taking on new meaning. For example, the word «tenker» means «thinks», as in the process of having a thought in your head, but Norwegians have started saying «jeg tenker at» – «I think that» to express their opinion even though you traditionally couldn’t use the word that way in Norwegian.
Another worry is whole phrases being imported, like when people say stuff like «når det kommer til» – «when it comes to». Changing prepositions are also a worry. People might say «i min mening» («in my opinion») when in Norwegian it used to be «etter min mening» («after my opinion»).
Generally, though, the stuff that people worry about is anything that’s new. English has influenced Norwegian for centuries. Words like OK, cool, and alright have been here for a long time (cool and alright have even acquired a Norwegian spelling – «kul» and «ålreit»). They’re not the words people worry about. And in 50 years time people probably won’t worry about words like «basically» or «influencer» as there’ll be new words to worry about, and the world will keep turning.
Always has been an issue, with other languages as well (speaking for Belgium here, Flanders).
My dialect has a lot of French words or words derived from French in it.
I wasn’t allowed to say etui in primary school for example.
Can imagine it’s the same for English now.
There’s a whole literary movement against the adoption of words from other languages lol
Polish language has been influanced by foreign languages for centuries. German, French, latin, Italian, Russian, Yidish … Its just that now its English. Nothing unique tbh if you look at the history of the language.
It affects vocabulary but not gramma. Also Rada Języka Polskiego or Polish Language Council, our authority on Polish generally seems to belive that language is a living orgamism that changes and evolves. When asked to clarify correctness of some newer patterns of speach they tend to be rather liberal. So appart from some purists most people accept that this is happening and is normal.
Will English displace Polish? That’s not a danger at all. We may spend the whole day at work talking in English but between each other in private life we converse in Polish. Immigrant kids also tend to learn it. My kid has an Indian colleague at kindergarden and she seems to be trilingual : speaks Polish, English and Hindi. On 4 years old level but still.
So no, I am not concerned.
Of course. Especially from the nationalistic groups.
But considering the fact that our land was generally constantly under some other nations occupation it’s nice we managed to keep anything resembling national language.
Ok it was a bit specially selected to prove that point but in general you can easily see which are the original words and which ones cames from German, Turkish, Hungarian or Latin. Or french. Lots of words about clothes or cosmetics are french.
Also I feel like English is pretty easy language to learn for my countrymen especially considering others in that class we learn so it will be even more popular.
Everyone learns it now because how else can you leave…
Many teenagers use a lot of really heavily butchered English words and it sounds ridiculous. I think the source are mainly youtubers who stream while gaming, the games are usually in English and they don’t understand fully the meaning of the words or don’t know proper Czech equivalents so they start using butchered English words during gaming sessions but eventually they put them also into daily conversation.
The same happens with IT when most of the materials/manuals are in English and not all IT guys are proficient in English so they use a lot of English words without translating them again because they likely don’t even know the Czech equivalent. For example in IT network you can hear people speaking about routers and switches but you will never here Czech “směrovač” or “přepínač” that are proper translations but basically nobody uses them and it even sounds 90’s archaic to me.
In German not really.
Old people might complain, but otherwise we just go along with it. It’s not a big deal, German language consists of a large percentage of French and Latin expressions anyway. Also English and German is pretty close so we actually share quite a few words.
It used to be annoying in a business context, but a couple of years ago I just decided that it is what it is
The main concern in the UK seems to be American terms taking over. It enrages some people to the point of obsession, we regularly see it on UK subs – the idea a person did something as shocking as say “sidewalk” or “driver’s license”. But it is all language evolving, English has taken words from all over from the beginning. Plenty of our words are French in origin to start with.
Half of the kids speak German-German alternating with English in the same sentence, which is quite annoying to listen to and seems to be influenced by TikTok and Youtubers (and the other half of the kids speak some sort of arabian-balkan-german jumble that is influenced by rap music).
Austrian German is ceasing, especially in urban areas.
Around here, there’s no real concern of the language *displacing* our native languages. It has certainly influenced Dutch to a great degree, because we’re both too lazy to come up with our own words and not purist enough to bother making up new ones, but that’s mostly limited to tech.
We have been getting into the habit of just switching to English when speaking to someone from the other language community though, because it’s something both parties have studied and leaves them on somewhat equal footing. But that’s another thing entirely.
English is certainly changing both the grammar and vocabulary of many speakers of Swedish. Some changes may only apply to very specific demographics though, and is perhaps not likely to be lasting.
Here are some more or less common changes in Swedish that are direct result of (recent) English influence:
* Usage of *hans/hennes* instead of *sin/sitt* as English doesn’t really have reflexive possessive pronouns that work this way. This can cause unnecessary ambiguity as the sentence *Olov åkte med Sven i hans bil* in correct Swedish only can be understood as Olov went with Sven in Sven’s car. If the speaker however ment that the car was Olov’s, *sin* should have been used.
* Usage of *de/dem* as gender neutral pronoun in singular in the same way as English *they/them* is. I see this all the time in writing in my job, and I have heard about Stockholmers using it in speech. In Swedish the pronoun *hen* was coined in the 1960s as a gender neutral alternative to *han* and *hon*. The word was popularised in the 2010s, but has since sen somewhat less usage.
* Usage of obscure, out of date or overly formal Swedish vocabulary analogue to related words that are common in English. One example of this is the word *dock*, that is quite formal and mostly used in written language, but has however become more frequently used in casual spoken language, like English *though*. Another word is *konfirmera* which in spoken language almost always is related to the Christian confirmation. The word is also used for *confirm* in general, but that is perceived as *very* academic and formal. Typically *bekräfta* is used, but nevertheless (younger) people use *konfirmera* very casually every now and then. I have also heard people making up new words that they *think* have a Swedish cognate, but does not (I am also guilty of this). One that I’ve heard is *pagansk* for *pagan*, pronounced in the most cursed way [pai̯ˈgɑːnsk].
* Using wrong prepositions and making calques of English phrases in general. An example would be *för någon anledning* instead of *av någon anledning* which obviously is influenced by English *for some reason*. Also just straight up translating English idioms are increasingly common for example *inte min kopp te, kasta under bussen, det var allt för nu*.
* Just using the English word for things. I’ve know many that just simply use the English words for things, sometimes it might be a brain fart, but for some, it very obviously is not. One word I have noticed is *reminder*. The Swedish word is *påminnelse*, but for some reason several I know refuse to use it. Do they think using plain, normal Swedish is too aggressive? I have heard myself, as well as heard from others, about people saying *thigh* for *lår*, *forehead* for *panna* and *ass* för *röv* in normal conversation. Also *confused* instead of *förvirrad* is common in my experience.
There is much more but I’m avoiding writing a book about it.
Some Swedish people seem to think they’re above everyone else because they talk Swedish and not ‘svengelska’ which is a mix of Swedish and English. I just think they’re dorks and it’s nice when they’re quiet
Definitely! Anglicisms are already peppered through Danish more often than is popular in a lot of languages. Then, because there is such a high rate of English fluency, there is not a huge incentive to really become fluent in Danish but also social/film/music media has already had a huge effect on how people communicate.
Example of a phone conversation you may hear on the train:
“[DanishDanishDanish!] Like what the fuck bro? Right?? [DanishDanishDanish…] You know?”
There are huge government efforts to make Danish classes free for foreigners to encourage the protection of it as a piece of heritage and daily life. Thousands of people use these programs, but it is still not a priority for people to become fluent because of how much English is used. Even tourists sometimes come without teaching themselves the word for thanks and hello.
Look at it from the view of English natives. Our language has passed out of our control. Americans think they own it, others speak it very well (I even had a chap from Netherlands trying to correct my English in a document!). But it’s our language, originated here and we can’t control how it’s used any longer.