"Jai er en ærlich Jude". Linguistic stylization of "Jewishness" in the Norwegian public sphere until 1940

Abstract

The article examines the history, form, and function of the linguistic stylization characteristic of what Bauman (1998) has called "the abstract Jew" in Norwegian literature and press until 1940. A particular speech style has been a key semiotic feature of "the Jew" as a characterological figure (Agha 2003; 2007) for several centuries, and this study indicates that the Norwegian variety is to a large degree a continuation of a long European tradition of anti-Semitic (or allo-Semitic) depictions of the stereotypical "Jew". The stylization is predominantly founded on hybridity conjoining a wide range of semiotic traits that accentuate deviation from a linguistic normality, i.e., standard norms.

Most of the stylistic strategies in the Norwegian texts that have been examined show parallels in similar publications from other countries, and, not surprisingly, the influence from the Danish tradition becomes very apparent. The Norwegian authors also pursue the Danish style in the sense that they employ linguistic elements with no clear connection to actual Jewish language practices. This study concludes that the Norwegian "Jew’s accent" is basically a figment based on common – and salient – learner language errors in addition to numerous features that index "Germanness" – and thereby "foreignness". This includes a multitude of eye-dialect elements, i.e., various respellings which do not reflect factual phonological distinctions.

The immense linguistic hybridity involved may be linked to the efforts of portraying "the Jew" as a threat to cultural homogeneity within the nation state, especially from the latter decades of the 1800s. The hybrid "non-language” assigned to "the Jew" can be seen as a symptom of a "non-identity", based on the anti-Semitic idea that the Jews belong to an "in-between-category” with no place in the "normal” nation. In that sense, the stylized "Jew’s accent" contributes to highlighting otherness and aberrance.