The great controversy over plural forms of verbs

Nils Ahnlund was anything but happy when he opened the newspapers on October 28, 1945. He was a history teacher, a member of the Swedish Academy, and he was completely overwhelmed. The dissatisfaction would lead three weeks later for the Academy to break with the Swedish Language Care Board. The newly established board would work to achieve uniform standards for the written Swedish language. Instead, the cooperation failed in the first test.

By January, Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå, TT, had mapped the language in 134 Swedish newspapers. The survey showed that 22 newspapers had switched to using only the singular forms of verbs, We converted Y They were had replaced the old plural forms we stayed Y gingo. Therefore, the singular forms were used regardless of whether the subject was singular or plural.

In the fall of 1945 TT approached the Swedish Language Care Board for guidance on the matter. The committee’s working committee gave the go-ahead for the transition. When the reform took place this cold Sunday in October, Nils Ahnlund wrote in Svenska Dagbladet that the change could be attributed to technology, among other things: somehow related to a diminished sense of clarity of language in this machine age. to write “.

Author Carl Jonas Love Almqvist wrote in 1840 that plural forms would disappear from spoken language “perhaps in just fifty years.”

Nils Ahnlund never delved into the connection between the advance of the typewriter and Swedish verb forms. The plural forms had been inherited from Old Norse. They began to disappear from spoken language in the seventeenth century, while serial production of typewriters did not begin until 1870. He himself had searched for notes from a lecture at Uppsala University in 1751, where an audience sneered at the use of the singular form by a teacher drug instead of the plural form expensive: “So they went here, so they went there, and so and so all the time.”

Then the change began much earlier. The author Carl Jonas Love Almqvist wrote in 1840 in “Swedish Linguistics” that plural forms would disappear from the spoken language “perhaps in only fifty years”. But many of the authorities at the time were remarkably conservative. In “Rules and Advice on the Treatment of the Swedish Language in Speech and Writing” of 1886, the linguist Nils Linder stated that the written language “in the not too distant future” will certainly “develop in conformity with the spoken language “. However, he considered that plural forms should be maintained in “written language and solemn oral speech.”

Nils Linder knew he was in trouble after pushing back an opponent. At the same time, singular forms became more common in literature. Not least, they were used in the theater to give language a realistic tone.

It wasn’t long before it started blowing even harder. In 1901, Selma Lagerlöf was commissioned to write “Nils Holgersson’s Wonderful Journey Through Sweden”, which would become a reading book in elementary school. The novel became a messenger of the 1906 spelling reform, good turned good Y spell out turned outstanding.

Those who abandoned the plural forms were accused within conservative circles of writing in Bolshevik Swedish.

But the time for a verbal revolution had not yet come. After consulting with the language teacher Adolf Noreen, Selma Lagerlöf chose a compromise. Eliminated plural forms in lines, but kept them in other text. This meant that principles sometimes collided in the same sentence: “‘Yes, we can try then, but they probably won’t even let us in,’ ‘the two girls said and they went up to the house and called.”

The poet Ture Nerman, who debuted in 1909, was one of the first writers to take the plunge. The choice was controversial. Using only singular forms was considered an undemocratic intervention in language. But he was soon joined by, among others, Karin Boye, Gunnar Ekelöf, Moa Martinson, Vilhelm Moberg and Elin Wägner. Those who abandoned plural forms were accused in conservative circles of writing Swedish Bolshevik. In practice, the change was equated with a kind of linguistic betrayal that deprived the Swede of nuance and precision. In DN, the firm Age på Namn & nytt in 1940 angered the Bolshevik Swede “who rudely uses the verb in the singular when the subject is in the plural.

The journalists were not as fast as the authors. But in 1943, DN editor-in-chief Sten Dehlgren found the case for change to carry more weight. He asserted that singular forms dominated in spoken language and were about to impose themselves on the script.

Sten Dehlgren was a reserve officer in the navy. Among conservatives, his decision on the hottest linguistic issue of the time was seen as a betrayal. A person with a past in defense was expected to be on guard against language changes.

DN was the first major newspaper to abolish plural forms.

The trend was so strong that the Mother Language Teachers Association the same year appealed to the National Board of Education to approve the consistent use of singular forms, a position that some critics said was a concession to sheer laziness on the part of students. In 1944, freedom of choice was introduced into senior high school graduation theses. As early as 1947, most preferred singular shapes.

DN was the first great the newspaper that abolished plural forms. Expressen made the same decision when it was founded in 1944. Örebro-Kuriren, Arbetet, Stockholms-Tidningen and Social-Demokraten were other newspapers that followed in DN’s footsteps.

At the end of World War II, TT delivered articles to more than 200 newspapers. Therefore, a linguistic change in the main news agency of the country would have a great impact on the publication. Linguists often describe the TT path choice as the event that actually passed the plural forms into the archives of history.

TT ended up on the battle line between the linguistically conservative and liberal press. Liberal newspapers pushed for change, mostly for practical reasons. As TT stuck to plural forms, many felt compelled to remove news agency texts from a language they had cleaned up themselves.

The discussion also divided the Academy: Bo Bergman, Hjalmar Gullberg and Pär Lagerkvist reserved against the decision.

Therefore, the decision to abolish plural forms was made on the advice of the working committee of the Committee for the Care of the Swedish. Nils Ahnlund was the representative of the Academy. But he was not part of the working committee and therefore was not allowed to speak. Handling the issue triggered a crisis of trust that caused the Academy to abandon the collaboration just one year after the board was founded.

The discussion was also divided Academy. Three of the members, authors Bo Bergman, Hjalmar Gullberg, and Pär Lagerkvist, who used unitary forms, reserved against the decision.

Nils Ahnlund had many allies. In Trelleborgstidningen, journalist Gustaf Palmquist wrote about how the Swedes found themselves “in one supposed spelling reform after another”. Among other things, he accused DN of forcing change: “Until now, elementary school has been at the forefront of linguistic corruption. This time it is Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå, which has been infected by some radical dragons from newspapers in the country, completely stubborn decided to carry out a ‘reform’. “Gustaf Palmquist claimed that the reform reflected a linguistic and social decline:” Death to linguistic culture! Long live misunderstood democracy! “

That Nils Ahnlund chose Svenska Dagbladet as a channel for his discontent was fitting. The conservative editorial page of the newspaper became one of the last strongholds of the conservatives linguistically. There, plural forms had a strong presence well into the 1960s.

But in common parlance, they became increasingly rare. It wasn’t just the school, the press, and established writers who contributed. In 1945, Astrid Lindgren had her breakthrough with Pippi Longstocking, a book in which language bubbled, crackled and exploded with life, and completely in Pippi’s rebellious spirit, she used singular forms.

Inside the Academy, the dispute continued. In the 1950 edition of the dictionary of the Swedish Academy, SAOL, editor Pelle Holm wanted to recommend singular forms. But he was forced to surrender to the conservative phalanx. It was necessary until the 1973 edition before SAOL began to defend singular forms.

Used today the plural forms of verbs when writers want to give texts an old feeling. However, it is not uncommon for the habit to shine and go wrong rather than solemnly. A few years ago, a friend received a Christmas card with the text When Santa’s lantern was lit, he even sent a Christmas greeting. As the plot Y have is singular had the plural forms light Y Send was not right even before 1945. Then, as now, there was only teeth been correct.

75 years after the choice of the TT path, plural forms can best be described as linguistic cultural heritage. Clues live on posters like Entry prohibited to unauthorized, in expressions like scholars argue about it as well as in songs like We are musicians Y We walked on dew covered mountains. They function like a nostalgic gust of wind reminiscent of one of the most important reforms of modern Sweden.

Anders Svensson is the editor-in-chief of Språktidningen.

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