«Barents Bird» in MASU

«Barents Bird» festival took its start in Murmansk. During the festival, Murmansk Arctic State University served as a platform for «Meeting Scandinavian languages in the age of globalization» workshop. Marten Frankby a consul of the Saint-Petersburg’s main consulate of Sweden answered the questions of students from the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences. Lyubov Petrova, the economic cooperation coordinator of the main consulate of Sweden, gave her assistance in a discussion.

The participants of the meeting discussed the Scandinavian dialects as well as prestige of the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages. Consul noted that the Scandinavian Countries differ in points of history, national identities, and attitude to one’s native land despite the similarity in culture and lifestyle. Marten Frankby talked to students who asked questions predominantly in his native language. «Now I’m speaking in Swedish so you could hear my dialect» — an interpreter translated consuls words.

Frankby noted that, for example, in two different cities of one Scandinavian state people can communicate with each other in completely different dialects. The foreign guests were surprised how easily the people of our homeland from Kaliningrad to Vladivostok can communicate with each other without any dialectical differences.