Obstacles and opportunities for women linguists in Scandinavia

This chapter concerns the role played by women in the history of linguistics in the Nordic countries: Denmark, the Faroe Islands, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. Our main focus is on the period from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-twentieth century, a period that began with the gradual emergence of the nation states of the North and the need for the codification of common national languages. Gradually, education became more widespread, and although the first schools were for boys, private education was given in upper-class homes and was thus also accessible for girls. The first grammarians were all men, so early on it is mostly behind the scenes that we find women involved in the study of language. Once women were allowed to participate in higher education, some of them made significant contributions to linguistics. In order to understand the role played by women, it is clearly necessary to view their contributions in the context of the age and society in which they lived.