Resumen de English influence on the spoken language — with a special focus on its social, semantic and functional conditioning

Ásta Svavarsdóttir, Ulla Paatola, Helge Sandoy

• The data for the investigation presented in this article were collected by a questionnaire. A comparison with the corresponding results for written language shows the same overall pattern, with only minor differences: the highest adaptation rate (i.e. change away from English towards the national language) is found with speakers of languages on the periphery of the Nordic area, the lowest rate is found with Danes in the centre of the area. The mean percentage for “adapted” variants is about 60 in the investigation as a whole, but the ranking order of the communities differs for phonology and morphology. Social variables seem to have surprisingly little impact on patterns of adaptation.