Languages with the most Nobel Prizes in Literature

Language
written Laureates %

English 27 25.47
French 13 12.26
German 12 11.32
Spanish 10 9.43
Italian 6 5.67
Swedish 6 5.67
Russian 5 4.72

Hmm...It looks like Spanish takes a backseat to English, French and German. What do the Hispanic dung beetles have to say about this? It's kind of sad considering Spanish has like 4x the amount of speakers German has. I guess you guys are just illiterate...

How do you explain 6 Swedish authors? Easy. It's a Swedish competition! Nobel Literature Prizes are seriously biased and are not even considered a good thing lately. To be given a Nobel Prize now is like a blacklist.

Swedes are Aryans. They're good at anything. Now seriously, while Sweden has an albeit small population, it is one of the most literate on the planet. I'm not sure what the stats are, but Sweden is a prolific book publisher. It's nobel prize status doesn't surprise me.

Fuck France

Italian and Northern Irish together singing loudly "Come on Italy and fuck France!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TZ6A6DDLWM

<<Hmm...It looks like Spanish takes a backseat to English, French and German. What do the Hispanic dung beetles have to say about this? It's kind of sad considering Spanish has like 4x the amount of speakers German has>>

The answer is very easy. There are a lot of controversies about the Nobel Prize of Literature.

The first one is that several languages are over-laureated. Another very spoken languages are not represented. The reason is very easy: the members of the Swedish Academy don't speak Chinese, Hindi or Arabic, and all of them speak English and Swedish, for instance.

The situation of Spanish is also interesting. Spanish was not very important at the beginning of the century. This language starts to be really important the last 30 years.

So, some members of the Swedish Academy start to study Spanish, and...voila!

In the last 30 years (1977-2007) there are 4 awards for Spanish speakers, 3 for German speakers, 1 for French speakers.

<<Hmm...It looks like Spanish takes a backseat to English, French and German. What do the Hispanic dung beetles have to say about this? It's kind of sad considering Spanish has like 4x the amount of speakers German has>>

The answer is very easy. There are a lot of controversies about the Nobel Prize of Literature.

The first one is that several languages are over-laureated. Another very spoken languages are not represented. The reason is very easy: the members of the Swedish Academy don't speak Chinese, Hindi or Arabic, and all of them speak English and Swedish, for instance.

The situation of Spanish is also interesting. Spanish was not very important at the beginning of the century. This language starts to be really important the last 40 years.

So, some members of the Swedish Academy start to study Spanish, and...voila!

In the last 30 years (1967-2007) there are 6 awards for Spanish speakers, 4 for German speakers, 1 for French speakers.

La Russia ha "solo" 5 premi Nobel, ma i migliori romanzieri sono russi: Nikolaj Gogol', Michail Saltykov-Ščedrin, Michail Bulgakov, Fëdor Dostoevskij e Lev Tolstoj.

E' come per il premio Oscar. Non è indice di qualità. I film di Stanley Kubrick e Sergio Leone non lo hanno mai vinto.

<<The answer is very easy. There are a lot of controversies about the Nobel Prize of Literature.

The first one is that several languages are over-laureated. Another very spoken languages are not represented. The reason is very easy: the members of the Swedish Academy don't speak Chinese, Hindi or Arabic, and all of them speak English and Swedish, for instance.

The situation of Spanish is also interesting. Spanish was not very important at the beginning of the century. This language starts to be really important the last 30 years.

So, some members of the Swedish Academy start to study Spanish, and...voila!

In the last 30 years (1977-2007) there are 4 awards for Spanish speakers, 3 for German speakers, 1 for French speakers. >>

What you fail to understand is that a massive amount of speakers doesn't by any means equate with quality literature production. Aside from Don Quiote, no one reads Spanish literature in the non-Spanish speaking world. It's irrelevant. Secondly, Spanish has virtually zero importance outside of the USA. So I don't accept that Swedish Academy has just recently become keen on learning it. That's utterly irrational. Lastly, your time line is manipulated and convenient. You failed to mention that the last award to go to a Spanish language author was in 1990, almost 20 YEARS AGO! By this reasoning, Spanish must be in great decline... On the other side of the coin, English language authors have received 8 awards since 1990. And you Hispanics think Spanish can compete with the mighty English language in this day and age?! Ha, get a dose of reality! Even German, has received 2 awards since 1990.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_in_Literature

<<Aside from Don Quiote, no one reads Spanish literature in the non-Spanish speaking world>>

Perhaps you don't. But García Marquez, Isabel Allende, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado or García Lorca make Literature in Spanish (Latin America + Spain) as one of the most important of the XX century.

Some languages as English and Swedish are spoken by all the Swedish members. So, these languages have a lot of awards. On the contrary, Chinese and Arabic have only 1. The reason is that almost nobody speak Chinese or Arabic there.

Anyway, in the period 1967-2007, the last 40 years, Spanish has 6 awards, German 4 and French only 1. The stagnation of French language is obvious, including Nobel Prize of Literature.

In short, some languages are over-represented and other are under-represented. There are political, economic and linguistic factors to give the awards. So, it is not relevant this Prize.

The 4th language in Literature is already very good. There is not much difference between Spanish and French: 9% and 12%. It is English which is well ahead of the rest, but Spanish German and French are on the same level. Anyway I would not pay too much attention to that rank. During the XVI century there was not the nobel award but at that time , Don Quixote,the most important in the history of the Humankind was writen. For that reason Spanish is more important than the rest unless a frog writes a better book than Don Quixote, which is utterly impossible.

<<Perhaps you don't. But García Marquez, Isabel Allende, Pablo Neruda, Antonio Machado or García Lorca make Literature in Spanish (Latin America + Spain) as one of the most important of the XX century.>>

You won't find any of those authors in an American, Canadian or European literature curriculum. I have read a little Marquez and I found him quite disagreeable, but that's just my personal opinion.

<<Some languages as English and Swedish are spoken by all the Swedish members. So, these languages have a lot of awards. On the contrary, Chinese and Arabic have only 1. The reason is that almost nobody speak Chinese or Arabic there.>>

You presume too much. My grandmother is Swedish and spent some time in the Academy. Perhaps half of the people speak English and only a few to the extent they can appreciate advanced English literature. A Swedish translation is provided anyways during the award process.

<<Anyway, in the period 1967-2007, the last 40 years, Spanish has 6 awards, German 4 and French only 1. The stagnation of French language is obvious, including Nobel Prize of Literature.>>

Again, you manipulate the facts to your convenience. I agree with you about French, it has stagnated to some degree. That said, the French language has such a tremendous wealth of internationally acclaimed literature, it doesn't need Nobel prizes to retain it's prestige. Spanish on the other hand has much to prove. To me, it is not a good sign that it has gone 20 years without winning a single Nobel prize. Spanish has obviously stagnated too!

<<During the XVI century there was not the nobel award but at that time , Don Quixote,the most important in the history of the Humankind was writen. >>

No, the most important book in the history of humankind is and always will be the Bible.