We investigated the intelligibility of written Danish for Swedes, and in particular the role of inherited words compared to non-Germanic loanwords. To assess whether shared loanwords are easier to understand than inherited words, we conducted two experiments. First, we tested the intelligibility of isolated Danish words (inherited words and loanwords) among Swedes. Second, we constructed two versions of a reading test, one with a large percentage of loanwords and one with few loanwords. Our results show that it is easier for Swedish listeners to identify and understand Danish cognate loanwords than inherited words and that texts with many loanwords are easier to read than texts with few loanwords. We explain these results by the fact that (recent) loans in Swedish have diverged less and are therefore more similar to the Danish counterparts than inherited words.

Despite the early establishment of Easy Language in Sweden in the 1960s and a growing interest in producing Easy Language materials, linguistic research on Easy Swedish remains scarce. This literature review aims to describe how Easy Swedish has been understood in previous research, bringing together a wide range of perspectives and approaches. Applying a meta-narrative method, we investigate terms and definitions, descriptions of the target group, and ideologies, discourses, and values that justify Easy Language. Our results show an exclusive focus on written language and use of the term lättläst (Easy to Read), and a lack of a universal definition of the term. The results also show general agreement on the heterogeneity of the target group. Controversy arises from different perspectives on reading as well as the breadth of the concept, and the conceptualisation of Easy Swedish varies depending on the aims, discipline, and studied material.

This article aims to introduce new insights to further the understanding of easy language (EL) and plain language (PL) as examples of tailored language and place them within a broader context of linguistic varieties. We examine EL and PL in relation to standard language, and we consider the degree of conscious effort required in tailoring and the compliance with the codified norms of standard language. Both EL and PL are used in asymmetric communication: PL to mediate between specialists and the general public and EL in communication with people with language barriers. We argue that while these varieties have similar purposes and methods, they also have significant differences; for example, the tailoring moves in opposite directions, as PL seeks general comprehensibility and EL aims to reach special and vulnerable groups. The differences between PL and EL are primarily linked to social prestige and the potential risk of stigma related to their use.

Are some languages universally seen as beautiful? And if so, what are the linguistic traits that make some languages sound more pleasing than others? This paper addresses these two questions. We do so with results from two listener experiments that use speech samples from a bilingual Danish–Swedish speaker in a matched guise test, where the listeners are ‘previously unexposed’ students from central China. Our results indicate that listeners from Central China with no previous exposure find Swedish more pleasing sounding than Danish. This finding provides evidence that there could be features of language that sound more beautiful to listeners cross-culturally. In a follow-up experiment we remove the intonation contours of the speech to see whether this prosodic trait plays a role for evaluations. The results show that the difference in evaluations between Swedish and Danish disappears when both speech samples are monotonised. We discuss the importance of our findings for language attitudes research.

The paper investigates the use of PPs, specifically prepositions and the case marking on their DP arguments, in moribund North American (heritage) Icelandic (NAmIce), using data from a map task experiment. Since prepositional phrases combine semantic properties with morpho-syntactic properties, PPs allow us to investigate the relative vulnerability of both domains at once. Our results show that while the prepositional inventory of NAmIce is not reduced as compared to Modern Icelandic, the choice of prepositions is subject to crosslinguistic influence from the dominant language English. For case, we find an increase in the use of nominative and accusative case at the expense of the dative; prepositions may take over case functions too. Our results are in line with previous research on case in heritage languages as well as studies on language change, while partially contradicting the assumption that loss is reversely related to acquisition.

The paper discusses whether easy-to-read (ETR) German can be classified as a ‘variety’ and/or a ‘register’. It appears to be very difficult to capture the variational status of ETR German within the system of language variation due to its rather artificial, rule-based character. On the other hand, the question of whether the notion of variety or register, or any other notion modelling language variation, is suitable for the linguistic classification of ETR German very much depends on how these notions are defined. Thus the article reveals general difficulties in capturing the functioning of language variation with clear-cut definitions and concepts due to the dynamics and complexity of language variation as such. Nevertheless, the explanatory frameworks of concepts such as variety and register prove to be useful for describing the special variational status of ETR German.

In this paper, I examine a case of vowel insertion found in Savo and Pohjanmaa dialects of Finnish that is typically called “epenthesis”, but which demonstrates characteristics of both phonetic excrescence and phonological epenthesis. Based on a phonological analysis paired with an acoustic corpus study, I argue that Finnish vowel insertion is the mixed result of phonetic excrescence and the phonologization of these vowels, and is related to second-mora lengthening, another dialectal phenomenon. I propose a gestural model of second-mora lengthening that would generate vowel insertion in its original phonetic state. The link to second-mora lengthening provides a unified account that addresses both the dialectal and phonological distribution of the phenomenon, which have not been linked in previous literature.

This paper discusses pronominal demonstratives (PDs) in homeland and heritage (American) Norwegian and Swedish. We establish a baseline approximating the language of the early emigrants, based on 19th/20th century Norwegian dialect recordings and Swedish texts. Baseline Norwegian had a fully established PD expressing psychological distance (see Johannessen 2008a). In Swedish, however, PDs do not quite behave like (distal) demonstratives: they can combine with a definite determiner or a regular demonstrative, and they do not fully have the pragmatic functions that demonstratives have. We propose that the Swedish PD is a pronoun rather than a demonstrative, without the full set of regular pronominal features, but with logophoric features that activate knowledge shared between the speaker and addressee. Data from AmNo show that PDs are preserved in this heritage language, across several generations. On the assumption that PDs are indexical and that speech act participants are represented in narrow syntax, it comes as no surprise that they are retained (Polinsky 2018:63–65), although this may, on the face of it, appear to be at odds with the Interface Hypothesis (e.g. Sorace & Filiaci 2006, Sorace 2011).

Language for all is a method developed in the Netherlands for providing information in such a way that as many intended readers as possible both comprehend and accept this information. Readers include people with a large variety of reading abilities including people with low literacy skills. Language for all can be characterized as a more accessible variant of plain language with some characteristics of easy language.

In three studies the comprehension and acceptance of and preference for texts written in Language for all was evaluated, comparing original texts with a version in Language for all.

Information written in Language for all was significantly better understood and accepted, and was preferable to the original version.

In conclusion, Language for all is a promising effective, inclusive, and comprehensive method to provide information to people with and without low literacy skills. Further research is recommended.

Non-finite complementation strategies found in American Norwegian (AmNo) (made available by the Corpus of American Nordic Speech (CANS)) reveal unique and diverging patterns when compared to both standard and dialectal Norwegian and English. We argue in this paper that the majority of these divergent structures are the result of overextension (Rinke & Flores, 2014; Rinke et al., 2018; Putnam & Hoffman, 2021; Kupisch, 2014), where heritage language speakers produce structures that differ from both grammars in an attempt to generate forms that are distinct from the more dominant language. Our treatment of these nuanced structures in AmNo shows that this heritage grammar significantly restricts bare (or naked) TPs (Situations) serving as non-finite complements. To avoid bare TP-complements, AmNo has developed two distinct, yet related strategies, (1) reducing non-finite complements to vPs (Events), or (2) incorporating an additional element, a preposition, to ensure that the non-finite complement functions as the object of a preposition. We analyze this latter strategy as an instance of the emergence of structural salience (Polinsky, 2018) in the syntax of AmNo and suggest that this variation is best understood as a syntax–semantics interface phenomenon.

It has been reported that speakers of Danish understand more Swedish than vice versa. One reason for this asymmetry might be that spoken Swedish is closer to written Danish than vice versa. We hypothesise that literate speakers of Danish use their orthographic knowledge of Danish to decode spoken Swedish. To test this hypothesis, first-language (L1) Danish speakers were confronted with spoken Swedish in a translation task. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were elicited to study the online brain responses during decoding operations. Results showed that ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was inconsistent with the Danish spelling were significantly more negative-going than ERPs to words whose Swedish pronunciation was consistent with the Danish spelling between 750 ms and 900 ms after stimulus onset. Together with higher word-recognition scores for consistent items, our data provide strong evidence that online activation of L1 orthography enhances word recognition of spoken Swedish in literate speakers of Danish.

This study examines contact outcomes in Finnish spoken in a heritage community in Misiones province, Argentina, in the 1970s. The data show limited morphosyntactic differences from dialectal varieties of Finnish, and most of the Spanish influence is lexical loans or sporadic codeswitches that have an emphatic function. The results show that beyond established lexical loans, both fluent and less fluent speakers avoid mixing and comment on it when it occurs. Translation and word search strategies show evidence of the speakers’ awareness about language mixing in the interview setting in which data were collected.

Sounds spoken on the inbreath have been shown to be common in the world’s languages, and in the Nordic languages ingressive speech seems to be especially frequent. The present study focuses on Finnish and Danish response particles spoken on the inbreath, by examining their uses in everyday talk-in-interaction in corpora of recorded interactions. The particles we examine and their non-ingressive counterparts can perform confirming and acknowledging actions. We analyze the particles as receipts to answers to questions, as responses to questions, as responses to assessments, and as responses to affiliation-seeking utterances. In these positions, the ingressive particles turn out to index that the content of the previous turn was already sufficiently established and, consequently, that there is nothing to add. In cases where an engaged response is called for, the particles are shown to have a disaffiliative potential.