DR reported on August 20 that Sweden and Norway have chosen different ways of handling English loanwords, while Danish politicians debate how to shield Danish from English.
The Danish broadcaster published a comparative piece on Thursday looking at how the country’s Nordic neighbors deal with words such as like and nice. As DR notes, the piece follows Culture Minister Zenia Stampe of Radikale Venstre voicing concern that English words are slowly pushing Danish aside.
Jacob Thøgersen, associate professor at the Department of Nordic Studies and Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen, told DR that national newspapers in Norway probably contain slightly less English than Danish ones. Sweden, he said, sits at roughly the same level as Denmark. He called the notion that Danish is threatened by English absurd, describing the debate as a political storm in a glass of water.
Thøgersen also pointed out that Danes tend to notice Norwegian words more than Norwegian anglicisms. Norwegians say e-post where Danes say mail, but the pattern is reversed elsewhere in the vocabulary.
Sweden recommends, Norway builds terminology
In Sweden, the debate is far less intense than before. Lena Lind Palicki, department head at Institutet för språk och folkminnen, the Swedish counterpart to Dansk Sprognævn, told DR in a written reply that the largest debate came in the 1990s. English and Swedish words can exist in parallel, she said, without Swedish words disappearing.
Swedish alternatives are still promoted, partly because they are easier to spell and inflect. A computer is a dator, a password is a lösenord, and phishing is nätfiske. The institute publishes these pairs on its own list of English words in Swedish as recommendations rather than bans.
Norway takes a firmer line. Daniel Gusfre Ims, department director at Språkrådet, told DR that a massive influx of English challenges both Norwegian spelling and comprehension between Norwegian speakers. The council works on terminology and maintains replacement words such as minnepinne for memory stick and nettbrett for tablet.
Gusfre Ims added that one or three English words are not a problem, but the total volume of loanwords is. His advice to Denmark was to have a policy and a will to use Danish words, and he said Norway should now take inspiration from Denmark.
Why the debate is running now
Kulturministeriet announced on August 20 that Stampe wants to protect Danish from being watered down by foreign words. The plan covers an expanded legal role for Dansk Sprognævn, sharper public service language obligations for DR and TV2, and a new expert council on media language. The ministry states that the government, SF and the Conservatives back the measures, with 500,000 kroner in project support.
According to Politiken, Stampe wants to prevent linguistic impoverishment, including changes driven by artificial intelligence. DK Nyt reported in April 2026 that Dansk Sprognævn has asked the public which English words they want replaced, in a campaign running until the turn of the year.
