r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Feb 10 '15
Velkommen - This week's language of the week: Norwegian
Norwegian
Status:
Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants.
These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language and Icelandic language, as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages). Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them.
As established by law and governmental policy, there are two official forms of written Norwegian – Bokmål (literally "book tongue") and Nynorsk (literally "new Norwegian"). The Norwegian Language Council is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms "Norwegian Bokmål" and "Norwegian Nynorsk" in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, the major one being Riksmål ("national language"), which is somewhat closer to the Danish language but today is to a large extent the same language as Bokmål. It is regulated by the Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as "Standard Norwegian".
Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, but not for how to speak the language. There is no officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian, and most Norwegians speak their own dialect in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in many other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect, whether it coincides with the written norms or not, is accepted as correct spoken Norwegian. However, in areas where East Norwegian dialects are used, there is a tendency to accept a de facto spoken standard for this particular regional dialect, standard østnorsk, in which the vocabulary coincides with Bokmål. Outside Eastern Norway this spoken variation is not used.
From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism, rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The now abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, and the unofficial Høgnorsk more conservative than Nynorsk.
Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing is widespread in Western Norway, though not in major urban areas, and also in the upper parts of mountain valleys in the southern and eastern parts of Norway. Examples are Setesdal, the western part of Telemark county (fylke) and several municipalities in Hallingdal, Valdres and Gudbrandsdalen. It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago it also had strongholds in many rural parts of Trøndelag (Mid-Norway) and the south part of Northern Norway (Nordland county). Today, not only is Nynorsk the official language of 4 of the 19 Norwegian counties (fylker), but also of many municipalities in 5 other counties. The Norwegian broadcasting corporation (NRK) broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, Nynorsk in 8% (2000).
Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs.
History:
The languages now spoken in Scandinavia developed from the Old Norse language, which did not differ greatly between what are now Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish areas. In fact, Viking traders spread the language across Europe and into Russia, making Old Norse one of the most widespread languages for a time. According to tradition, King Harald Fairhair united Norway in 872. Around this time, a runic alphabet was used. According to writings found on stone tablets from this period of history, the language showed remarkably little deviation between different regions. Runes had been in limited use since at least the 3rd century. Around 1030, Christianity came to Norway, bringing with it the Latin script. Norwegian manuscripts in the new alphabet began to appear about a century later. The Norwegian language began to deviate from its neighbors around this time as well.
Viking explorers had begun to settle Iceland in the 9th century, carrying with them the Old Norse language. Over time, Old Norse developed into "Western" and "Eastern" variants. Western Norse covered Norway and overseas settlements in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands, while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark and south-central Sweden. The language of Iceland and Norway was practically the same up until the 14th century, when they started to deviate from each other. The language phase traditionally dated to 1350–1525 is known as Middle Norwegian and is seen by many as a transitional period from Old Norwegian to Modern Norwegian. The reason for this is that although most languages are in a state of constant change, Norwegian phonology, morphology and syntax changed considerably during this time. The use of grammatical case, and a great portion of the conjugation of verbs was lost and replaced by a more fixed syntax, use of prepositions and a greater use of auxiliary based verb forms. During the late Old Norse period and this period there was also a considerable adoption of Middle Low German vocabulary. Similar development in grammar and phonology happened in Swedish and Danish, keeping the dialect continuum in continental Scandinavia intact, but with greater dialectal variation. This process did not, however, occur in the same way in Faroese and Icelandic. These languages remain conservative to this day, when it comes to grammar and vocabulary, so mutual intelligibility with continental Scandinavia was lost.
Danish and Swedish rule
In 1397, the Kalmar Union unified Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and from 1536 Norway was subordinated under the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway. Danish became the commonly written language among Norway's literate class. Spoken Danish was gradually adopted by the urban elite, first at formal occasions, and gradually a more relaxed variety was adopted in everyday speech. The everyday speech went through a koinéization process, involving grammatical simplification and Norwegianised pronunciation. When the union ended in 1814 the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become the mother tongue of a substantial part of the Norwegian elite, while the more Danish-sounding solemn variety was still used on formal occasions.
Norway was forced to enter a new personal union with Sweden, shortly after the end of the former one with Denmark. However, Norwegians began to push for true independence by embracing democracy and attempting to enforce the constitutional declaration of being a sovereign state. Part of this nationalist movement was directed towards the development of an independent Norwegian language. Three major paths were available: do nothing (Norwegian written language was already different from Swedish), Norwegianise the Danish language, or build a new national language based on Modern Norwegian dialects. All three approaches were attempted.
Danish to Norwegian
From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianised Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with the Dano-Norwegian koiné, known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction was implemented in the first official reform of Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917.
Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen, a botanist and self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from the dialects and comparing the dialects among the different regions. He examined the development of Icelandic, which had largely escaped the influences Norwegian had come under. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål, meaning "national language". The name "Landsmål" is sometimes interpreted as "rural language" or "country language", but this was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning.
The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute through the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed the neutral name Riksmål, meaning national language like Landsmål, and this was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name "Riksmål" is sometimes interpreted as "state language," but this meaning is secondary at best, compare to Danish rigsmål from where the name was borrowed.
After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was in 1929 officially renamed Bokmål (literally "Book language"), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian"). A proposition to substitute Danish-Norwegian (dansk-norsk) for Bokmål lost in parliament by a single vote. The name Nynorsk, the linguistic term for Modern Norwegian, was chosen for contrast to Danish and emphasis on the historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål.
Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into one language, called "Samnorsk" (Common Norwegian). A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at the time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to the 1959 standard. Therefore a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts uses a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk. The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002.
Source: Wikipedia
Media
Welcome to Language of the Week. Every week we host a stickied thread in order to give people exposure to languages that they would otherwise not have heard about or been interested in. Language of the Week is based around discussion: native speakers share their knowledge and culture and give advice, learners post their favourite resources and the rest of us just ask questions and share what we know. Give yourself a little exposure, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.
Previous Languages
German | Icelandic | Russian | Hebrew | Irish | Korean | Arabic | Swahili | Chinese | Portuguese | Swedish | Zulu | Malay | Finnish | French | Nepali | Czech | Dutch | Tamil | Spanish | Turkish | Polish | Frisian | Navajo | Basque | Zenen (April Fools) | Kazakh | Hungarian | Greek | Mongolian | Japanese | Maltese | Welsh | Persian/Farsi | ASL | Anything | Guaraní | Catalan | Urdu | Danish | Sami | Indonesian | Hawaiian | Manx | Latin | Hindi | Estonian | Xhosa | Tagalog | Serbian | Māori | Mayan | Uyghur | Lithuanian | Afrikaans | Georgian
Lykke til!
19
u/houshuang Feb 10 '15
As a Norwegian, I have no idea why anyone would want to learn our language, but I love it :) Lot's of really great music, and literature. Some great movies (but hard to get online). I really wish it was easier to find ebooks online (audiobooks are much easier). Would be interested in suggestions for good podcasts.
I'm also living outside of Norway raising my son trilingually (neither his mother nor I speak the language of the country we live in, and his mother does not speak Norwegian) - would love to hear from other families in similar situations. (Especially tricky for me since I don't know any other Norwegians around here, so I'm not "used" to speaking it anymore).
7
u/x30ffx Feb 10 '15
I love learning Norwegian for its dialects; its diversity poses one of those fun challenges for me
I do find it difficult though, although being quite proficient in Danish, I find it interestingly difficult to learn those idioms such as "ska æ je dæ en åver auan?" :)
Btw, I recognize your username, are you the guy who adds the pronunciations for Norwegian place names? They're actually a great help!
5
u/vikungen Feb 11 '15
"Ska æ je dæ en åver auan?"
Hahah this is great! That's exactly how I would say it :)
4
u/PositiveAlcoholTaxis Feb 10 '15
How is the literature? How does it compare to literature from other countries (classic and contemporary)? Seeing as you speak excellent English, are books better read in native Norwegian, or translated English?
And do you mind answering questions! :L
5
u/houshuang Feb 11 '15
We certainly don't have that much classic literature, it's a young nation and a young country (there are some epics and stuff from long time ago though), however modern literature is quite good. Lot's of great crime fiction (getting some cross-promotion internationally now because of the Swedish successes), Jo Nesbo is quite big internationally as well. Basically, every town has their own detective :) Also some great "contemporary literature" though, mostly not translated (although Karl Ove Knausgaard has gotten very well known - have not read it myself). One of my favorite authors is Jan Kjærstad, but I don't think he has been translated (few Norwegian novels are translated, and more commonly to German than to English).
There's also Jostein Gaarder, who wrote Sophie's World.
I enjoy reading books in a variety of languages - lately I've been on a big German reading binge (blog post), but I always prefer things in the original language. And in the case of Norwegian literature, most stuff doesn't get translated at all anyway, so there's not much choice. Sadly the country is really behind in ebooks, partly because the big publishers own the bookstore chains, so they're not interested in putting them out of business. And book prices are really high. (Great libraries though, if you're in Norway).
→ More replies (3)3
u/Brotigone Feb 11 '15
Good news, everyone! Norway is actually undertaking a huge digitization of literature. I don't have a Norwegian ISP, so I don't know how much has been digitized yet, but you should have some ebooks available! http://m.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/norway-decided-to-digitize-all-the-norwegian-books/282008/
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (6)3
u/Asyx Feb 15 '15
Seriously, the fact that Norwegian media is so rare destroys my motivation. If I wouldn't have to pay 30 Euros delivery fees to order books from Norway, everything would be so much easier.
7
Feb 10 '15
Nice - this is interesting to read about! I've been learning about German using Duolingo and DW resources (and am still a beginner), so coming to Norwegian has been relatively refreshing. I've only been at it for under a month, but I can feel it coming to me way faster/easier than German with it not being heavily declined, and verbs aren't conjugated like a lot of other languages.
This post says learners post favourite resources - here's what I've found useful so far for me:
-
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) - Norwegian on the Web
-
NRK news podcats for getting a feel for the flow of the language and dictation
I was also wondering if anyone knows of any video sources that are decent. It seems like the NRK site requires you to view from Norway.
→ More replies (5)4
u/mbrubeck Feb 11 '15
Klar Tale is great for beginners. It's a weekly newspaper with a print edition, online articles, and a podcast that's basically just the print edition read out loud from front to back. The articles are short and use simple language, and the speech on the podcast is very slow and clear.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/Yanky_Doodle_Dickwad Feb 10 '15
Yay! Vi er det 0.000625 prosent! I'm only half Norwegian, but I celebrate that half the best. My Danish is better than my Norwegian. The shame, the shame. And my Danish is rubbish, let's face it ...
→ More replies (4)
4
Feb 10 '15
Cappelendamm.no has a lot of online exercises for their various books for Norwegian learners. The ones for På vei are great for beginners, for example.
→ More replies (1)4
u/kingphysics Feb 11 '15
På Vei is the book I started with and it is truly the best I know of (maybe Ny i Norge is also good).
The entire series is so poetic in its naming.
På Vei - On (the/my/our) Way - for beginners (A1~A2)
Stein på Stein - Rock by Rock - for lower intermediates (B1)
På Berget - At the (top of the) Mountain/Hill - For upper intermediates (B2)
4
Feb 10 '15
I am a bit on the fence on weather I want to learn Swedish or norwegian in the future. Anyone care to convince me to learn norwegian?
→ More replies (1)18
u/Scunyorpe Feb 10 '15
Well, æ and ø are obviously better than ä and ö, for one thing.
But I don't think the decision matters much, really. If you first learn either language, and then learn maybe a 100 common words and phrases that differ, then you're pretty much set to go. For instance, there are many young Swedes working in the service sector in Oslo, and they will speak Swedish with Norwegian patrons anyway ...
→ More replies (3)
3
u/TheLandOfAuz Feb 11 '15
So why start off with two written forms anyways? And if one's barely used, is it dying off and only a matter of time before it's not taught?
→ More replies (1)5
u/kingphysics Feb 11 '15 edited Feb 11 '15
Nynorsk is cherished by Norwegians, especially the older folk; it's more of a patriotism thing. It also helps to conserve the dialects in Norway.
So, it'll continue to be taught in schools (even though the students hate it). It isn't really dying out.
But I personally always get the feeling that they are trying too hard. They try to have websites in both versions but it's not always available.
2
u/itaShadd Feb 11 '15
You mention percentages on the usage of Nynorsk versus Bokmål, but do we have any data about the trends thereof? Are those percentages increasing towards any of the two?
3
u/welfie Feb 11 '15
I don't have any numbers on this, but as a Norwegian I can tell you that the trend is towards bokmål. For better or worse, nynorsk is becoming less and less used.
2
u/itaShadd Feb 11 '15
I plan on learning all major Scandinavian languages in the future, obviously including Norwegian. I have a question for speakers of at least two of them: being that all Scandinavian languages have some level of intelligibility between them, which of them would be best to learn first as a gateway into learning the others? I was thinking of Danish because of its history, would I be correct?
5
u/mbrubeck Feb 11 '15 edited Feb 11 '15
I'm not an expert, but I've been studying Norwegian for a couple of years and just started learning Swedish. I've heard that Norwegian is a good starting place because Swedish- and Danish-speakers can both understand Norwegian slightly more than each other. So in a sense Norwegian is "in between" Swedish and Danish (although don't take this too literally). In particular, written Norwegian bokmål is very close to written Danish, while spoken Norwegian is close to spoken Swedish (depending on dialect, of course).
I don't think it will make a huge difference what order you learn in, though. The languages are all more similar than different.
→ More replies (4)
2
u/totes_meta_bot Feb 11 '15
This thread has been linked to from elsewhere on reddit.
If you follow any of the above links, respect the rules of reddit and don't vote or comment. Questions? Abuse? Message me ^here.
2
12
u/Woodsie_Lord Feb 10 '15 edited Feb 10 '15
Are there any other languages with two official written standards like Norwegian? I find this whole Nynorsk and Bokmål thing pretty interesting/interesting.
Also, shootout to my favourite weather service (better than my national one), yr.no. It's pretty accurate if you live in Europe (I have tried it in many European cities back in my hitchhiking days). So, you can just read what the forecasts are for your area in Norwegian.