Cultural colonialism as a result of commercial activities: the linguistic perspective

In the following, I will try to sketch the concept of ‘cultural colonialism’ and apply it to the activities of the Germans within the North Atlantic area, focusing on the linguistic aspects and differentiating between continental-Scandinavian and Icelandic. I am convinced that language can be used as a tool of ‘conquest’ quite separate from that of a military campaign, but which does not necessarily have to be less effective. In doing so, I am very aware of the fact that historians have another understanding of ‘colonialism’ and for this reason I prefer to take a sociological approach to the topic. Linguistic contacts are quite complex phenomena and this is not only due to purely linguistic factors – as for example the similarity among languages. Just to give an example, let us consider Estonian, Eesti, a Finno-Ugric language with nothing in common with the Germanic language family. Despite the differences, it happens that this language shows an impressive number of Germanisms from Middle Low German. These occurrences are due to socio-political factors, such as the strong German presence in the region, as well as to the fact that the first extant Estonian book is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S. Wandradt and J. Koell, dating to 1535 and published in Wittenberg.1 Indeed, the institute for Estonian language in Tallinn reports that about 25 % of Estonian vocabulary has been influenced by the German language. This gradual influence allegedly occurred in four distinct periods in Estonian history, stretching for about 700 years from the Middle Ages until the Early Modern period.2 Thus, at the beginning of this contribution, it is necessary for me to outline the nature of linguistic contacts first, i.e. some direct and some mediate ones. Afterwards I will explain what I mean by ‘cultural and linguistic colonialism’ and thereby argue, by means of a few examples, the influence of (Middle) Low German on the Scandinavian languages and Icelandic language. Additionally, I will explain, in my opinion, Cultural colonialism as a result of commercial activities: the linguistic perspective