The Language Question Becomes A Major Political Issue: 1860–1907
The Language Question Becomes A Major Political Issue: 1860–1907
Aasen’s and Knudsen’s programmes, representing conflicting sociolinguistic bases, contained an inherently explosive sociolinguistic opposition: while Aasen’s programme had its social basis among the peasants, the social origin of Knudsen’s programme was amongst the upper classes. The upper classes saw no reason to change the Danish standard inherited from the time of the union. Slowly however, Knudsen’s language programme became more acceptable. When the Landsmaal policy (Aasen’s programme) became directly threatening following important political victories by the Landsmaal movement, e.g. in 1878 (when dialect use was allowed and encouraged in schools), and in 1885 (with the ‘Language Equality Resolution’), more people realized that something had to be done to meet the imminent threat of a sociolinguistic revolution. The social and national struggle continued into the early 20th century, though over time the struggle changed in character. In 1901, the authorities authorised the first official Landsmaal standard.
Keywords: conflicting sociolinguistic bases, Landsmaal movement, Landsmaal policy, threatening sociolinguistic revolution, Language Equality Resolution 1885, first official Landsmaal standard 1901
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