Third Sunday of advent. Klappjakten is in full swing. A rescue for the last minute-people have long been the square, flat and hard packages. But in recent years they have dried up under the christmas tree. The reason is the appreciation of the ear and the digital technology. Book report is replaced with boklyssning at an increasingly faster pace. And unlike a tegelstensroman is an audio book, difficult to beat in glossy julpapper.

In Språktidningen predicted linguist Tore Janson is already ten years ago that we would probably start listening to the lyrics more often than reading them. ”It comes naturally”, he said, ”we are genetically adapted to listen.”

Already in the womb, our hearing is usually well developed, and researchers claim that this is where the foundations of our language are added. The fetus feels early again the voices and satsmelodier.

to distinguish the right speech sounds from other sounds in our environment. We perceive human voices-even if they are enclosed in the noise and noise. Our brains are radio-track effectively in the spoken language – and especially skillful are we to hear what our affiliates say.

unlike that listening is reading something we have laboriously had to learn. It can take many years before we takes us through a text unhindered. Some never learn.

the book has also been only a short time in the history of mankind, only about 5 000 years. But it meant a great revolution. A major reason for the success is that the scriptures made it possible for us to communicate at a distance over time and space.

technical innovations, such as telephone, tape recorder, radio and television, has challenged the written language as a means of communication and far. And with the digital technology is shaping some of the final dolkstöten come.

”While the rational, contemporary creature jogs listening it on audio books,” writes Agnes Lidbeck in the DN, and ashamed of his irrational attraction to the written word. Slow klappjägare may start looking for other things of substance to put under the christmas tree.

maria@spraktidningen.se

this Week’s issues will be published in cooperation with the Språktidningen and the Swedish language council.

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