'To speak Skånska is to puke a little'
Sweden's Chancellor of Justice Göran Lambertz has ruled that it is perfectly acceptable to insult the dialect spoken by most people in the south of the country.
Skånska - often known as Scanian in English - is a guttural dialect bearing many similarities to Danish. With its uvular fricatives and pharyngeal diphtongs, the dialect can often appear impenetrable to outsiders.
To Aftonbladet columnist Alex Schulman, however, the dialect is not just difficult to understand - in a recent column he described the speech patterns of residents of Skåne as being somewhat akin to vomiting.
"To speak Skånska is to puke a little", he wrote.
Not everybody nodded their assent, however, and it was not long before the Chancellor of Justice received a complaint from a woman who felt that Schulman had denigrated the good name of Skånska speakers everywhere.
And maybe he did, but not to the extent that he crossed the boundaries of legislation governing freedom of expression, said Lambertz.
The case is thereby closed and the debate can begin in earnest without any fears of official reprisal.
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Skånska - often known as Scanian in English - is a guttural dialect bearing many similarities to Danish. With its uvular fricatives and pharyngeal diphtongs, the dialect can often appear impenetrable to outsiders.
To Aftonbladet columnist Alex Schulman, however, the dialect is not just difficult to understand - in a recent column he described the speech patterns of residents of Skåne as being somewhat akin to vomiting.
"To speak Skånska is to puke a little", he wrote.
Not everybody nodded their assent, however, and it was not long before the Chancellor of Justice received a complaint from a woman who felt that Schulman had denigrated the good name of Skånska speakers everywhere.
And maybe he did, but not to the extent that he crossed the boundaries of legislation governing freedom of expression, said Lambertz.
The case is thereby closed and the debate can begin in earnest without any fears of official reprisal.
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