{"id":9556,"date":"2014-03-26T09:36:54","date_gmt":"2014-03-26T08:36:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/?p=9556\/"},"modified":"2017-01-20T23:22:16","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T23:22:16","slug":"danish-language-gap-unhealthy-for-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/danish-language-gap-unhealthy-for-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Danish \u2018language gap\u2019 unhealthy for immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to linguistics expert Michael Ejstrup of the Danish School of Media & Journalism, the inability to find new words to describe immigrants creates a \u2018language gap\u2019 that\u2019s unhealthy for everybody. This is according to Seven59.dk and b.dk.<\/p>\n

When the first wave of immigrants arrived in Denmark in the early 70\u2019s they were referred to as \u2018guest workers\u2019 (g\u00e6stearbejder) but the term became outdated when they stayed on. Since then there\u2019s been confusion as to how newcomers should be addressed as there\u2019s no word in the Danish language that\u2019s appropriate, leading to a lack of identity, and resentment, amongst ethnic groups according to Mr Ejstrup.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe language gap has helped create an ongoing conflict that never gets better because words inflame what\u2019s already a very sensitive issue,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s no use tiptoeing around the problem because that could cause the conflict to explode. We need to find a suitable, non-derogatory, way of referring to immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still not used to being multi-ethnic community<\/h2>\n

Denmark nearly succeeded in the 1980\u2019s with the word \u2018perker\u2019, a mixture of Persian and Turk, the two main immigrant groups at the time, but this was never accepted by immigrants and quickly became a negative racial epithet.<\/p>\n

Around 10% of the Danish population are immigrants or children of immigrants but according to researcher Christian Edvard Horst, Denmark still hasn\u2019t got used to being a multi-ethnic community \u2013 misunderstandings can easily arise when people are branded as immigrants even though they really are, and feel, Danish.<\/p>\n

The debate about the use of the word immigrant to refer to every \u2018non-Dane\u2019 has flared up again after Denmark\u2019s representative in this year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest, Anis Basim Moujahid, popularly known as \u2018Basim\u2019, whose parents come from Morocco, said he shouldn\u2019t be referred to as an immigrant as he was born in Denmark and has never immigrated from another country.<\/p>\n

See article on b.dk here in Danish.<\/a><\/p>\n

universitypost@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n

Like us on Facebook <\/a> for features, guides and tips on upcoming events. Follow us on Twitter<\/a> for links to other Copenhagen academia news stories. Sign up for the University Post weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DANISH NEWS – The Danish language is too inflexible to deal with the immigration debate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","expression-news_article"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\nDanish \u2018language gap\u2019 unhealthy for immigration<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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This is according to Seven59.dk and b.dk.<\/p>\n<p>When the first wave of immigrants arrived in Denmark in the early 70\u2019s they were referred to as \u2018guest workers\u2019 (g\u00e6stearbejder) but the term became outdated when they stayed on. Since then there\u2019s been confusion as to how newcomers should be addressed as there\u2019s no word in the Danish language that\u2019s appropriate, leading to a lack of identity, and resentment, amongst ethnic groups according to Mr Ejstrup.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe language gap has helped create an ongoing conflict that never gets better because words inflame what\u2019s already a very sensitive issue,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s no use tiptoeing around the problem because that could cause the conflict to explode. We need to find a suitable, non-derogatory, way of referring to immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Still not used to being multi-ethnic community<\/h2>\n<p>Denmark nearly succeeded in the 1980\u2019s with the word \u2018perker\u2019, a mixture of Persian and Turk, the two main immigrant groups at the time, but this was never accepted by immigrants and quickly became a negative racial epithet.<\/p>\n<p>Around 10% of the Danish population are immigrants or children of immigrants but according to researcher Christian Edvard Horst, Denmark still hasn\u2019t got used to being a multi-ethnic community \u2013 misunderstandings can easily arise when people are branded as immigrants even though they really are, and feel, Danish.<\/p>\n<p>The debate about the use of the word immigrant to refer to every \u2018non-Dane\u2019 has flared up again after Denmark\u2019s representative in this year\u2019s Eurovision Song Contest, Anis Basim Moujahid, popularly known as \u2018Basim\u2019, whose parents come from Morocco, said he shouldn\u2019t be referred to as an immigrant as he was born in Denmark and has never immigrated from another country.<\/p>\n<p>See article on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.b.dk\/nationalt\/sprogforsker-vi-har-et-sprogligt-hul-som-er-rigtig-usundt\" target=\"_blank\">b.dk here in Danish.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>universitypost@adm.ku.dk<\/p>\n<p><em>Like us on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/UniversityPost\" target=\"_blank\"> Facebook <\/a> for features, guides and tips on upcoming events. Follow us on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UniversityPost\" target=\"_blank\"> Twitter<\/a> for links to other Copenhagen academia news stories. <a href=\"http:\/\/universitypost.dk\/newsletter\" target=\"_blank\">Sign up for the University Post weekly newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"ArticleEnd"},{"acf_fc_layout":"OtherStories","headline":"","hand_picked_posts":false,"references":false,"category":false,"theme":false,"number_of_posts":"4","style":"default"}]},"taxonomyData":{"category":[{"term_id":48,"name":"Politics","slug":"politics","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":48,"taxonomy":"category","description":"","parent":0,"count":1036,"filter":"raw"}],"post_tag":[],"post_format":[],"expression":[{"term_id":15,"name":"News Article","slug":"news_article","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":15,"taxonomy":"expression","description":"","parent":0,"count":11491,"filter":"raw"}],"translation_priority":[]},"featured_media_url":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9556"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33640,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions\/33640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniavisen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}