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Conference turris::scandia

Title:	All about Scandinavia

Moderator:	TLE::SAVAGE

Created:	Wed Dec 11 1985
Last Modified:	Tue Jun 03 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	603
Total number of notes:	4325

6.0. "Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages" by TLE::SAVAGE () Thu Dec 12 1985 13:01

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                    ALIEN""::DISK$LAT:[NOTES]WORLDWIDE.NOT;2
 LEROUF::WYMAN            Multinational Product Issues        16-JUN-1985 21:32
 Note 166.0               Norway is Multi-Lingual too!!             5 responses
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NORWAY'S LANGUAGE DILEMMA		By Jan W. Dietrichson

From the Swissair Gazette 4/1985

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even if he is completely ignorant of Norwegian, a German- or English- speaking
visitor to Norway will recognize quite a few native words that are almost
similar to common words in his own language. Norwegian "hus" has clearly
an affinity to "Haus" or "house", "mann" to "Mann" or "man". Similarities
such as these - and it would not be difficult to find many more - will suggest
to the reflective traveller that Norwegian must be related to his own mother
tongue, and he will be right: with Swedish, Danish, Icelandic, and Faroese,
Norwegian belongs to the Nordic group of Germanic languages. Like the
West-Germanic languages (English, German, Dutch, and Frisian) Norwegian
is an Indo-European language, and thus descended from the archaic Indo-European
that our remote ancestors were still speaking when moving from the plains
of Asia into Europe about 4000 years ago. Modern Norwegian is in its urban
written form (bokm�l) almost a common denominator of the Scandinavian
languages: research confirms that it is understood by more Scandinavians
(about 65%) then either Swedish or Danish.

If the unwary foreigner lets himself be persuaded by this fact to start
learning Norwegian, he will soon find himself in a dilemma: what kind of
bokm�l standard is he going to adopt, the moderate or the radical variety?
He will, in other words, be facing the very confusing Norwegian language
situation, or language problem, as the natives tend to call it. It is such
that hostesses tend to discourage guests from discussing it, lest they stay
till the early hours of the morning!

There are today two official standard languages in Norway. On the face of
it this is a rather strange situation for a country of a little more than
four million inhabitants. The two standards, nynorsk ("new Norwegian") and
bokm�l ("book language") both have official status. Both are written standards,
representative of the many spoken dialects that exist in our country.

Bokm�l is the language of most of the national press, of a majority of books,
particularly translations, and it is the medium of education for the majority
of schoolchildren. Since 1945 the percentage of children who receive
instruction in nynorsk has been declining. In that year 34.1% of the children
in elementary school were taught in nynorsk, in 1983 only 16.6%. If nynorsk
is no longer so widely used as it was in the early decades of the century,
it has nonetheless retained much of its former importance. It is used in
the local press, particularly in the western provinces, in literary texts,
particularly in works with a rural background, and it is still the school
language for 90 000-100 000 children. Most of the official documents are
in both standards: all children have to learn to read and write both, and
both are extensively used in radio and television. All civil servants are
obliged by law to use both in their official correspondence, their choice
of standard being determined by the language used by the institution or
person with whom they correspond. Local councils decide which variety is
to be used in public notices, and the local school standard is also decided
by democratic procedures. These procedures have been in dispute, however,
in recent years.

Linguistically speaking nynorsk and bokm�l are very similar, and they are
mutually totally comprehensible. The dichotomy, moreover, applies much more
to these two written standard languages than to the spoken language. Most
people speak rural dialects or non-standard urban dialects, although western
dialects tend to resemble nynorsk more closely, while some eastern dialects
are more similar to bokm�l. In both languages there are variants (alternative
words, spelling patterns and grammatical constructions) which are known
as radical and conservative. In the case of bokm�l right-wing papers tend
to use conservative forms, left-wing papers more radical forms. It is also
often possible to make an intelligent guess about an educated speaker's
political stance from the forms he uses and from his pronunciation of certain
sounds. The involvement of language with politics, social struggle and with
regional conflicts has been strong in Norway. This means that few Norwegians
are very objective about the linguistic situation in their country, and
that the language problem is often very hotly debated. The heat of the argument
can be judged from the fact that in 1955 a weather forecaster on the Norwegian
radio became known as the "abominable snowman" and was actually dismissed
because he refused to say "sn�", a radical bolm�l form of "snow", instead
of "sne", a conservative form.

The Norwegian language situation is clearly unusual, and awkward as well,
since it is expensive in a small country to print school books and official
documents in both languages, and time-consuming for schools to teach both.
People who are critical of the existing situation are of the opinion that
the level of attainment of Norwegian schoolchildren in learning to write
their mother tongue is generally lower than it would be if they were not
obliged to acquire a written command of both languages. All can, however,
express themselves in a standard language that closely resembles their own
native dialect.

At this point I want to underline the nationalistic motivation behind the
nynorsk language movement. Its founding father, a brilliant self-educated
philologist of peasant background by the name of Ivar Aasen (1813-1896),
saw it as his life-work to create a written language that was both close
to the rurual dialects and a continuation of the genuine national language
tradition. To him and his successors in the movement, establishing nynorsk
as a second language meant giving Norwegians back a national identity and
self-respect: that is, giving native speakers a written norm that would
be close enough to their own local idiom that they could feel at home in
it and use it freely to express their thoughts and feelings. The dominant
Danish written language they felt to be an alien norm that did not meet
their expressive needs. Today the nynorsk language movement has reached
its primary goal, to give the Norwegian language a clear identity: we no
longer write Danish in Norway. Nynorsk has thus been an important
Norwegianizing influence.

What is the historical background of the present-day language situation
in Norway? In the fourteenth century the government of Norway was gradually
taken over by the Danes, who ruled the country from the fifteenth century
until 1814. During this long period the only official language was Danish.
Norwegians, then, had to observe a written norm that was rather different
from their own local dialects. This was only possible because Danish resembled
Norwegian quite closely. Most Norwegians in those days wrote standard Danish,
but pronounced the Danish words in their local dialects, in addition to
using a large number of Norwegian dialect words and expressions that were
not part of the Danish vocabulary. When Norway won its independence from
Denmark in 1814, there was therefore no Norwegian standard language. Two
distinct responses were made to growing feelings in the country in favour
of establishing a national Norwegian langauge. One strategy was to revise
Danish gradually in the direction of those upper-class urban speakers who
spoke a Danish-influenced Norwegian. This Dano-Norwegian came to be known
as riksm�l ("State language") -- the forerunner of bokm�l. The other response
was initiated by Ivar Aasen, who based his new written standard mainly on
the western rural dialects, which he thought to be least contaminated by
Danish. It was called landsm�l ("Language of the country"). In 1885 this
forerunner of nynorsk was made an official language on a par with riksm�l.

The history of both languages from then on has provided almost unique examples
of government language planning and language standardization. The origin
of the conservative and radical forms in the two official languages today
lies in the desire of successive governments to establish one national language
instead of two without abolishing either of them. Rather the desire has
been to reform the two gradually towards each other. As a consequence of
successive language reforms and of the existence of nynorsk, Norwegian words
have replaced Danish and gained recognition in the riksm�l/bokm�l as acceptable
for the polite urban writer, and Norwegian spellings have crept in. There
were three very important reforms: 1) that of 1907, which separated the
riksm�l from Danish and made it more Norwegian; 2) that of 1917, which
introduced the feminine gender for nouns into the riksm�l and acheived a
compromise between the two languages on other important points as well;
and 3) that of 1938, which went further on the road towards amalgamation
by introducing many optional forms and forms that were common to both
languages.  All three reforms were hotly disputed, and the resistance to
the 1938 reform from conservative groupings in the urban centres was such
in the nineteen-fifties that the government had to slow down the amalgamation
process. Today it is recognized in both language campls that Norway still
has two languages, and that bringing them closer must be a slow process
that cannot be speeded up through governmental decree.

The fairly tranquil language situation that exists in Norway at the present
does not mean that the future of Norwegian is without its problems. A rapid
industrial development since World War II has caused the vocabularies of
both bokm�l and nynorsk to expand immensely. The many new loanwords and
foreign terms from English and to some extent from Swedish are not readily
absorbed in the language. Norwegians in the North Sea oil industry mostly
write English and speak a Norwegian larded with English technical terms.
The fact that a great many people have moved from rural areas into the cities
has produced a large-scale change-over into urban speech. The rural dialects
have at the same time been strongly influenced by city norms through the
impact of newspapers, radio, and television. The dialects of many rural
districts are now quite mixed indeed. From the nineteen-seventies on many
voices, particulary among the young, have been raised in defence of the
right of dialects to a continued life in Norway -- a reaction against the
industrialized society, against bureaucratese, expert jargon, and a feeling
of lacking self-determination in language matters.

------------------------------------------------

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
6.1	A pertinent reply from the same file	TLE::SAVAGE		`Thu Dec 12 1985 13:03`	34
	================================================================================ ALIEN""::DISK$LAT:[NOTES]WORLDWIDE.NOT;2 REX::MINOW Multinational Product Issues 18-JUN-1985 17:16 Note 166.4 Norway is Multi-Lingual too!! 4 of 5 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few minor points: Strictly speaking, Norwegian is a Scandinavian language. The term "Nordic" is used, in Scandinavia, for the political entities and therefore includes Finland. Thus, Finnish is a Nordic language, but not a Scandinavian language. Scandinavia offers a good example of Martin Joos's comment that "A language is a dialect with its own army." Within Sweden, Denmark, and Norway, you can easily find areas that speak one language and write another. (For example, Southern Sweden speaks Danish and writes Swedish, while Bornholm speaks Swedish and writes Danish.) The various dialects in Scandinavia merge and overlap, as do dialects in every other country. The borderline between "dialect" and "language" is often political, rather than linguistic. The two Norwegian "languages" should more properly be termed dialects. They are mutually intelligable by native speakers and television doesn't bother to subtitle programs in the "other" language. My gut feel is that the two dialects are closer than, say, Southern British and Highland Scottish (English). Finland offers a better example of a bi-lingual country; officially recognizing both Finnish and Swedish (two very different languages). Sweden, Norway, and Finland also have substantial Same (Lapp) minorities with their own native languages.
6.2	Pointer to further discussions	11SRUS::SAVAGE	Neil @ Spit Brook	`Wed Mar 22 1989 11:49`	4
	Discussion on the main forms of the Norwegian language continues in note 251. Also, beginning with reply .17, note 124 includes discussion of the relationship of the various Scandinavian languages.
6.3		MLTVAX::SAVAGE	Neil @ Spit Brook	`Fri Jan 12 1990 14:31`	87
	From: [email protected] Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Icelandic (was: Re: Finnish..) Date: 3 Jan 90 03:38:39 GMT In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Bj\|rn Lisper) w \|rites: > In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Einar Bergsson) writes: > %You should also know that Norsk was derived from Icelandic (Which used to be > %a language that was spoken in scandinavia, and was then called Norraena, > %mabe?) > > Actually, I think it's called old Norse. (In English, that is.) As I have > it, Icelandic is a west Norwegian dialect of the old Norse. Digging back through my old notes ()... "Old Norse" is an ambiguous term. It can refer to all the scandinavian languages from the 8th century to the reformation; more commonly, it means Old Icelandic since most of the preserved texts are in Old Icelandic. The scandinavian languages are thought to have developed from a common ancestor (Early Common Scandinavian, about 600 AD). By the "classical" period (about 1100-1375 AD), the languages can be grouped into an eastern group (Old Danish, Old Gutnish, Old Swedish), and a western group (Old Icelandic, Old Faroese, Old Norwegian). Compared to the other languages, Icelandic has changed relatively little since the "classical" period. Norroena is a term used by Icelanders to distinguish Old Norwegian (norroena) from (Old) Icelandic (islenska). () The course was Old Icelandic, taught by the late Vilhjalmur Bjarnarson of Cornell University. He was interested in philogy so we covered _lots_ of material on the development of Old Icelandic -- Terry Gaetz -- [email protected] -- [email protected] Astronomy Dept. -- "Deyr fe, deyja fraendr, deyr sjalfr it sama; U. Western Ontario -- ek veit einn, at aldri deyr; domr um dauthan hvern." Canada -- Havamal From: [email protected] (Mark Robert Thorson) Date: 7 Jan 90 20:18:27 GMT Organization: The Portal System (TM) Quoting from AUTHOR IN TRANSIT by Lancelot Hogben (W.W. Norton, 1940): "Between the end of the Napoleonic era and the secession from Sweden in 1905, the official language of [Norwegian] central government and higher education was that of the influential Danish families of what was then called "Christiana" [now "Oslo"]. It was official in the sense that standard, i.e. southern English with a Balliol bias, is still the official language of Scotland; and before 1907 there was a common Dano-Norwegian dictionary. Throughout this period, the language of the Norwegian countryside or of the common people in the small towns was far remote from the Danish of the capital, as the language of the Scottish countryside is remote from southern English; but popular Norwegian writers adopted the habit of writing in the language of the people. Thus Landsmal, in contradiction to the official Riksmal, has established literature of its own like the Doric of Robert Burns and countless less renowned Scottish vernacular poetasters. At the time when secession took place, the situation in Norway was closely comparable with the state of affairs in Scotland before the Anglo-American of the movies superseded the rival claims of Doric and standard English to the loyalty of the younger generation. When secession occurred, national sentiment got the upper hand. The first of three acts to bring the official language nearer to the Landsmal without making the change too abrupt was passed almost immediately after it." "As a result of the last, which came into force in the primary schools during the autumn of 1939, the official language is now rather more like Swedish than Danish. The changes introduced go far beyond spelling, which is now more consistently phonetic than either Swedish or Danish. They incorporate a large dialect vocabulary of root words nearer to the Old Norse than Swedish or Danish equivalents, and several grammatical features. Some of the latter are due to differences in the decay of strong verbs analogous to such local variations as the Doric "gied (in contradiction to _gave_) me her promise true." Unlike most of the grammatical changes, which tend to reduce the amount of unnecessary verbal luggage, one 1939 innovation is a step back to a more primitive level. In written Swedish, as in Danish, the article and adjective have two forms, common and neuter. Norwegian dialects, other than the Bergen, share with many Swedish country dialects a separate feminine article. To bring the written language into closer relation with the spoken in the nyeste rettskrivning, the use of the feminine "ei", as distinct from the masculine or old common "en", for our "a" or "an" is obligatory with about four hundred nouns."
6.4	Long, but unfinished essay on Norwegian	MLTVAX::SAVAGE	Neil @ Spit Brook	`Tue Feb 20 1990 10:27`	321
	From: [email protected] (Lyle Davis) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: More on Scandinavian Language Differences Date: 20 Feb 90 02:56:09 GMT Organization: People-Net [pnet01], El Cajon CA The following is what appears to be an incomplete essay. It was posted on another nordic conference that I host on RelayNet (Global). I found it most interesting (but frustrating): The following message found on a bbs in Oslo. General/English message #8 from INGAR HOLST to ALL. Entered on 28th January, 1990 at 14:02. Subject: THE MURDER OF A LANGUAGE ================================= ESSAY: _HOW THE NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENT BANNED THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE_ by Ingar Holst (C) 1990 Ingar Holst Copying and reposting of this essay in its entity is encouraged Overview Since 1938, the National Norwegian Language has been banned. It is strictly forbidden to teach it in the government-run schools and universities (and since the private schools may be counted on one hand, AND since they will have their permission to teach withdrawn if they teach the National Language anyway, that leak is effectively plugged); it is strictly forbidden to use it as a civil servant, it is strictly forbidden to speak it in the government-owned national broadcasting NRK (nation-wide broadcasts outside NRK is likewise effectively forbidden) and it is strictly forbidden to write it if the dispatcher is any government-run institution. The National Language, its culture and literature, is consequently muted to the generations growing up. Some definitions aa = IBM extended ASCII 134 AA = " 143 ae = " 145 AE = " 146 oe = " 155 OE = " 157 National Language = Riksmaal Book Language = Bokmaal New Norwegian = Nynorsk Countryside Norwegian = Landsmaal NRK = Norsk Rikskringkasting = Norwegian National Broadcasting State Language Council = Sprograadet [Spraakraadet] The Norwegian Academy = Det Norske Akademi For Sprog og Kultur Old Norse = Gammelnorsk Background - The Danish Occupation and the Nature of Norwegian Class Struggle The Black Death came to Norway in 1349. One third of the population died in the course of two or three years. Being a contagious disease, the Black Death ravaged more seriously where population was dense, which was in the cities. The survivors were those living in isolated valleys, in mountainous areas and in far-off farms. The survivors mostly comprised agrarian people with little or no education. The victims of the plague on the other hand were highly educated city dwellers; the clergy, the literati - the administrative classes of society. With this segment gone, the reminiscences of and traces to the rich Viking era; its language (Old Norse) and culture had been cut off; the latter which in its prime time had colonized Iceland, England, Normandie, Novgorod [present Moscow] and New Foundland. The Black Death thus ended an era, and as we shall see, it also meant the end to Norwegian independence. When the Norwegian King Haakon VI died in 1380, his son, Olav, which through marriage earlier had taken over the Throne of Denmark, now became the king of both Denmark and Norway. This marked the beginning of various unions between the Scandinavian countries, Norway invariably being the weaker and exploited part. There was the Kalmar Union (1397-1521) as the most remarkable, and there were innumerable other ties through marriage and inheritance among the members of the church and the royal courts, which more and more recruited from abroad to compensate the vacuum which existed among the nobility and the landlords. From 1537, Norway was formally integrated into the Kingdom of Denmark as a province [lydrike]. Due to the Black Death, there was no body of state, no army, no administration to resist this course of history. Due to illiquidity, the Danish king subsequently sold off the Old Norse settlements, the Orkney and Shetland Islands, to the Scottish king. Two other Old Norse settlements, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, have remained Danish to this day. The Danish occupation did not end until 1814. during the 400 year period of Danish administration and influ- ence, Danes migrated to Norway much in the way the Anglo-Saxons migrated to the New World or the Dutch colonized South Africa, i.e. they constitued a highly educated and influential bourgeoisie WITH A LANGUAGE OF THEIR OWN. In Norway, they concentrated in the cities. With the Danish migration to and settlement in Norway, the foundation for the present-day class division in Norway was laid down. The Norwegian bourgeoisie today exclusively trace their heritage back to immigrants from Denmark or Northern Germany (national boundaries in that area have varied through the centuries). The spoken dialects in the principal cities of Norway (Oslo, Bergen, Trondhjem) are Danish dialects, rather than peninsular Scandinavian dialects. It should be noted some differences between class division in modern Norwegian society and some other countries: While Norway, the United States and Great Britain all are class societies, the bourgeoisie in each of these three countries have dissimilar foundations: From the point of difference in language and culture, there is hardly any class difference in the US, where social class is largely a question of economic affluence. In the UK, the bourgeoisie as a group is distinguished both in economic terms as well as in that they constitute a unique culture with a distinct language of their own. In Norway, more than fifty years of social democracy at its worst have effectively routed the economic foundation of the bourgeoisie. Aha, you may suppose, I am now going to state that the Norwegian bourgeoisie is defined solely by language! No. I am going to state that the Norwegian bourgeoisie is defined NEITHER by their economic affluence NOR by the distinctness of their language. As is going to be my point in this essay, the Norwegian Labor Party [Arbeiderpartiet] and the rest of the social democratic institutions have successfully combatted both private ownership to the means of production as well as the language of the proprietary class. Language reform 1907-1958 Prior to 1907, the written language in Norway was Danish, though it was labeled Dano-Norwegian in Norway and Danish in Denmark. The discrepancy between the spoken language of the Norwegian bourgeoisie and this written norm was substantial and reform was needed. No one today is able to refute this. After some time of debate in and outside the Parliament, the latter forum in 1907 passed a moderate language reform including both spelling and grammar bringing the written and spoken language closer to each other. One promiment educator pronounced that the aim of spelling reforms should be "to adjust the written language to the vernacular of the polite classes". This was a popular notion of the time and is the objective of the Riksmaal movement today. The National Language was not anymore labeled Dano-Norwegian; it had acquired a status of a national language pertaining to Norway alone and was thus given the name Riksmaal [directly translated "National Language"]. In 1917 came yet another language reform, passed through parliamentary channels. The aim of bringing the written language adjacent to the spoken language of the educated classes had been completed. The name of this language was still Riksmaal. This is the norm of writing used by Riksmaal-adherents today. In the meantime the spoken dialects on the West coast of Norway had been bestowed attention on with a written standard of their own; Landsmaal [directly translated "countryside language"] by an act of Parliament just before the turn of the century. The Landsmaal, which as a standard partly was founded on Old Norse and was closer to Icelandic and Faroese than to Danish, also endured various spelling and grammar reforms prior to 1917. Until 1938 Norway thus had two written language standards; Riksmaal and Landsmaal. In the thirties, Keynes economic thought had gained influence not only in the US (New Deal et cetera), but had also strongly given the Scandinavian socialists a theoretic pretext making parliamentary socialism (as opposed to revolutionary socialism) acceptable to a wide audience. The Labor Party gained control over Norwegian politics through a majority in the Parliament and was able to put to practice their various ideological stock-in-trade. One would not be surprised that this included a harsh economic levelling. However, the social democrats also absorbed ideas about LINGUISTIC CLASS STRUGGLE, the politics of which was put into real life with the 1938 language reform, passed by the Parliament that year. (The same pacifist leftist parliamentary majority, by the way, which during the second half of the thirties disarmed the national defence so that the German occupational force in April 1940 met with no serious challenge when arriving uninvited.) The 1938 language reform bill served the heritage of the National Language the way Pol Pot served Cambodia; if the map and reality don't agree, then change reality. This is fairly common knowledge among Norwegians and outside Norway among linguists, so I won't dwell much upon it here. However, what is _not_ generally reflected upon is the fact that the 1938 bill meant the end to Landsmaal as well. This beautiful instrument of the lyricist and agent of revival of the Old Norse saga tradition was demolished by language bureaucracy, melted down and forced into a cast too narrow to encompass its minute syntactical framework and its blooming vocabulary often based on daring reinventiveness from raw material provided by the living West Coast dialects. The violent transformation of the two Norwegian languages was excessive both in direction and in extent. As for the direction, it was for the two languages Riksmaal and Landsmaal mutually opposite; they were redesigned to meet each other half way. Think about this for a few seconds: In Belgium there are French and Dutch. In Finland there are Finnish and Swedish. In Bulgaria there are Bulgarian and Turkish. What a challenge for the eager bureaucrat! To have free hands to PLAN A NEW LANGUAGE, suited to administrative purposes, so that the new planned hybrid language should deviate as little as possible from the two original languages stirred together in a pot and half of it thrown away. (It is odd to observe how the socialist bureaucrats (here the text is truncated; I suspect due to text buffer input size of the transmitting bbs system - lyle) [The essay continues....] Original name After 1938 ---------------------------- ----------------------- Riksmaal (National Language) ----> Bokmaal (Book Language) Landsmaal (Countryside Norwegian) ----> Nynorsk (New Norwegian) All the schools immediately started to teach the Book Language. The NRK started to use it in their broadcasts. Street signs went down in every city. New ones with the new spelling came up. Let me give you a few examples of how some words changed: Riksmaal Bokmaal English -------- ------- ------- Torv Torg Square gaten gata street piken jenta girl utdannelse utdanning education ansoekning soeknad application tilskudd tilskott grant sprog spraak language efter etter after sne snoe snow nu naa now mellem mellom between syd soer south A key word to the new era was AN-BE-HET-ELSE. These were suffixes and affixes in Riksmaal derived from Danish. Out they went! Teachers in the primary schools eagerly corrected the pupils every time they used any word containing AN, BE, HET or ELSE. (Remember, 99% of all the primary schools were state-run, so the state could do pretty much as it pleased. The few private schools that existed depended on having their curriculum approved by a state commission.) In this way, many abstract words were banned. Danish and Riksmaal were languages suited for philosophy; rich in abstracts, rich in nuances, and Riksmaal depended on its various suffixes to identify an abstract from a concrete. It was like if you should remove from English suffixes like -ISM, -ABILITY, -NESS or the like. Another feature of the Book Language was the introduction of widespread use of the feminine gender. In the National Language (Riksmaal), the feminine gender existed to add flavor to the spoken tongue; it indicated vulgarism, humor and informality. Just like one in English may say "to sit on one's ass" instead of "one's behind" among friends if you are drunk and watching a blue movie, but you would never dream of writing it in a research paper or use it towards elderly people. The latter was precisely what happended when one used the Book Language in the way it was designed to be used. In the fifties, a large scale reaction occured against the further twisting of the Book Language in direction of New Norwegian among parents of grammar school students. The movement was named "Parents Movement Against Linguistic Unification" and gained quite some momentum. Partly due to this popular movement, partly due to widespread dissatisfaction elsewhere in society, yet another language reform bill was passed by Parliament in 1958. This bill was a partly reversal of the 1938 bill. Many forms previously banned when Riksmaal turned into Bokmaal were now again allowed as "optional side forms". The reaction had won a great victory. New minor scale bills were subsequently passed in the beginning of the eighties, allowing greater freedom in the use of "optional side forms". The attitude of the teaching profession was nevertheless hostile. I attended high school in the years 1978-1980, and when reviewing my essays and papers for Norwegian classes from that time, I am astounded to see the red marks underneath what the teacher saw as erroneous spelling and grammar; forms that I today, after having spent considerable time at university dwelling upon elder literature, know at a period was regarded proper Riksmaal language. The reason I used these forms at high school, when being an unenlightened, was of course that these forms felt natural to me and that they were an inseparable part of my tongue as taught me by my mother. The situation today After the 1938 reform, the adherents of the National language [Riksmaal] revived the Norwegian Academy For Language and Literature as a bastion of resistance. The Norwegian Academy in years to follow reprinted a four-volume unabridged dictionary of the National Language from an edition dating back to the thirties, and in the eighties edited yet a smaller one-volume desktop dictionary with newer terms from science and technology incorporated. The biggest newspaper in Norway, Aftenposten, follows a more or less consistent Riksmaal standard. Elsewhere, the situation is pretty much as outlined in the overview at the beginning of this essay. The Parliament appoints members to sit in the State Language Council, a forum where the Norwegian Academy is represented, though they constitute a minority. The Council regularly passes revisions to the Book Language and to New Norwegian. In practice, the Norwegian Academy has no say. To indicate what the majority of the Council do for a living, I mention the following revisions: New way of counting. In Riksmaal one counts like in German; two- and-sixty, four-and-twenty, three-and-thirty et cetera. Now the official Book Language way of counting is like in English and Swedish; sixty-four, twenty-four, thirty-three et cetera. New way of reading some numerical notations. In Riksmaal, 1/3 and 1/4 are read like "one third part" and "one fourth part". Now the official Book Language way of reading is supposed to be "one three part" and "one four part". (Unfortunately, the essay ends here. Obviously, it is incomplete as it reaches no conclusion, makes no recommendation. I have asked the user that posted the message if he has the rest of it. No response. Since this was originally posted on a bbs in Oslo, does anyone else have it, or can you get it? I would be quite interested in reading the remainder of the essay. I simply can't believe that such a well written essay would end so abruptly. - Lyle - ).
6.5	Something Norwegian seems to have persisted through all this political stuff	DUM::T_PARMENTER	Say no to voodoo tamales	`Wed Feb 21 1990 10:15`	2
	But Norwegian pronunciation and Norwegian accents are nothing like Danish pronunciation and accents.
6.6	Language debate issues	OSL09::MAURITZ	DTN(at last!)872-0238; @NWO	`Fri Feb 23 1990 03:31`	56
	A quick reply to .5 Read the base note 124.17 that I submitted some time ago with regard to pronunciation differences. As for .4 ... Wow. This essay (I hesitate to say "diatribe") does indeed compensate with its passion for its many inaccuracies. For the record, I am saying this as a person who basically sympathises with the author's viewpoint. The inaccuracies are scattered all over; however, they are not so significant that they detract from the general trend of the message. The reader who is unfamiliar with our peculiar internal "language debate" should exercise care in quoting any of the essay as "fact"; the essay is essentially a polemical piece. It should also be noted that the essay does not take up the MAIN dividing line in the language debate to day. the article argues the merits of Rismaal vs Bokmaal (i.e., two versions of the "same" langage form), while the major issues in public debate would concern the issue of the two "languages" themselves, i.e., Bokmaal (derived from Riksmaal) and Nynorsk (derived from Landsmaal). Issues being: Why should NRK (TV & Radio) have 25% Nynorsk by law, when popular preference as reflected in numerous surveys are closer to 10% (of recruits in the armed forces, only about 7% prefer Nynorsk). More significantly, why should we spending our limited teaching resources in our schools (AND allocating the limited amount of learning-hours per week of our children) to learning a "side-language" which does not improve command of the prime or main Norwegian language form. Oops, for those who don't know. Every municipality in Norway essentially votes on which language form in their community is the "main" form and which is the "side" form. The main form becomes the language of the schools in that city/town; reading AND WRITING the "side" form, however is obligatory, and consumes a given amount of learning "energy" and resources of the children, which could be used for other purposes (i.e., learning the "main" form better). For the record: All government forms, as well as all school books , must be printed in both forms. A person writing a letter to the government should be answered in his own "form". Remember: all this effort is expended on two "languages" that are truly mutually comprehensible. the comparison with any other multi language country that I know of is totally inacurate, because in all the others you are basically dealing with two or more real languages and the various and sundry practical problems that this implies. Our problem is a purely "luxury" one, and of our own making. The only reson that can be proffered is our extreme stubbornness in nature, and a total inability to accept another person's viewpoint. Mauritz
6.7	Correction on base note reference	OSL09::MAURITZ	DTN(at last!)872-0238; @NWO	`Fri Feb 23 1990 03:34`	7
	Correction for .5 The base note on pronunciation is 124.23 and NOT 124.17 (though the .17 note starts the "conversation" that leads to .23) Mauritz
6.8	Swedish national language situation	NEILS::SAVAGE		`Tue May 29 1990 10:57`	88
	Re: 4: From: [email protected] (Lars Aronsson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: The ban of the norwegian language (repost) Date: 22 May 90 17:57:47 GMT Organization: Lysator Computer Club, Linkoping University, Sweden [email protected] (Magnus Rimvall) writes: >Reposted with the permission of Ingar Holst >_HOW THE NORWEGIAN PARLIAMENT BANNED THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE_ > by Ingar Holst This is a most interesting text. And it is interesting to note that it was written in English, as is this follow-up! Who cares about old Norse, when we all have to speak the language of the emperor? :-) The active policy of many governments has been to create a unified language for the entire country. In the United States, I guess, this is done (albeit in a less planned fashion) by nationwide telecasters like Bernard Shaw and Larry King. The Swedish language never was influenced by foreigners in the way Ingar Holst describes in his essay. There were periods of intensive trade with certain other countries, but this only gave us a new bunch of loan-words each time; we never imported a new ruling class, at least not that I know. Despite this, there still is some unification work to be done for our dear rulers. Sweden consists of twenty-something smaller nations (or provinces, the Swedish word is landskap), the most of which were united under one king a little more than one thousand years ago. This sounds like a lot of time, but until the last turn of the century, communications between those nations were not that common and local dialects and some traditions are still significantly different between places only 100 kilometers (60 miles) apart. Now, this is disappearing rapidly. Most persons with white-collar jobs that were born after WW II do not speak their local dialect, but rather "nationwide Swedish" (rikssvenska). Nationwide Swedish is very close to the local dialects spoken close to Stockholm. This is language is used by teachers, officials, and on radio and television. The situation is somewhat different for written language. Swedish translations of the holy Bible and a Swedish hymnbook has existed since the 1520s and nationwide newspapers have existed for over 150 years. This had strongest influence on the grammar and the remaining dialects today are mostly accents of nationwide Swedish. But there are also (or has been, at least) some grammatical differences between dialects. I have never seen local dialects used in print other than by poets that want to appear really local. Scania, the southern-most region of Sweden, was incorporated after a war with Denmark not that many centuries ago. The Scanian dialect is one of those that differs most from nationwide Swedish and many people from northern Sweden complain about it being hard to understand. Scanian people are almost the only ones still to speak their dialect with pride (or maybe one should say without feeling ashamed), but for most other Swedes, local dialect is considered countryside talk and thus avoided. This attitude is slowly changing towards tolerance, and Scanian (in more moderat versions) is no longer banned on national radio. I personally find it quite easy to adopt accents when learning a new language. I am also very interested in linguistics, especially ethymology and historic development of languages. (I am a computer scientist though, so my linguistic training is more of a hobby). I spent my childhood in two different dialect regions and now attend university in a third one and I take some pride in trying to master more than one dialect (apart from the nationwide tongue). Together with some knowledge of Norwegian, Danish, English, and German, this gives kind of a borderless knowledge of Germanic languages, which I find very exciting and often useful. If one follows the local dialects along a path from Stockholm to Oslo, they gradually shift and you hardly notice crossing the Norwegian border. This is of course the natural state of things. Borders are artificial. At first, national language unification seems a great win since it enables all people in the country to speak to eachother in one language, but at the same time one loses the ability to communicate easily across borders. It is said (an urban legend?) that old people from northern Sweden can talk in their own dialect to old Germans. Perhaps the linguistic unity was greater before the planned unification! Lars Aronsson, Linkoping University, Sweden [email protected]
6.9	On switching from one official language to the other	TLE::SAVAGE		`Wed Feb 20 1991 13:51`	72
	From: [email protected] (Anne C. Elster) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Norwegian written languages Date: 19 Feb 91 21:53:59 GMT Sender: [email protected] Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Stein J\|rgen Rypern) writes: > > I have to agree with Brynjulf Owren, most of us 'Ostlendinger' (litterally >easterners) from the south-east part of Norway hate :-) the 'Nynorsk' (New >Norwegian) version of the written language. I remember how idiotic it seemed >way back in primary and secondary school ('grunnskolen') to have to write two >exams in norwegian. I agree -- most of us "Ostlendinger" and "Nordlendinger" are not too pschyed about having to write essays in "Nynorsk". (An understatement!) > If only this idiotic trend of approachment (or whatever the correct >translation would be) between the languages would stop. In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Kjetil Torgrim Homme) wwrites: ]Nynorsk is more than some orthographical exceptions, it's an entire different ]way of writing. You would never write German the same way you write English, ]would you? Nynorsk is heavily verb-oriented, while the "noun-disease" is ]common among users of bokm}l. Therefore, nynorsk is often easier to read and ]more informal. At the same time - the pronunciation of nynorsk definetely is ]more lyric in tone, both dramatic and moving. Not a big fan of it either, but then I am a very conservative writer (read: I'd basically prefer to write Riksmaal)... Although I do appreciate the beauty of Nynorsk and Gammalnorsk, (I really did enjoy reading Haavamaal and Edda in high school), I still object to having 2 separate OFFICIAL WRITTEN languages. English native speakers can in the same way, IMHO, enjoy reading Shakespear, but that doesn't mean they support having all official documents printed in both modern and Shakespearian English. However, having the choice of having 2 official written languages or one "mixed", I'd go for the "mixed", though. Even I can cope with using the female gender on nouns in the name of getting a unified written Norwegian language! :-) [The female gender for nouns basically does not exist in Riksmaal -- male and female nouns use the same articles and suffixes: E.g ei trapp, trappa (bokmaal) = en trapp, trappen (riksmaal). Bokmaal currently (at least the last time I checked), allowes the Riksmaals endings as "bracket-cases" (klammerform); that is, may be considered correct, but is not recommended used in official documents.] ]Interesting fact: Pupils with nynorsk as their main language get better grades ]in all languages, including bokm}l, than their bokm}l counterparts. This might ]stem from the fact that people from Oslo-area are less intelligent, or it might ]be because grammar fits naturally into nynorsk. Could it possibly be because they are more exposed to bokmaal (through the media) than their bokmaal counterparts are to nynorsk? As I've mentioned in an ealier article, having 2 languages also really hurt those having to switch back and forth btw the two. My 2 cents worth ... ------------------------------------------------------------------ Anne C. Elster \| [email protected] 4162 Upson Hall, Cornell Univ.\| [email protected] Ithaca, NY 14853, USA \|
6.10	Obscure benefits of learning various languages :-)	TLE::SAVAGE		`Wed Mar 20 1991 15:48`	30
	From: [email protected] (Joe Chapman) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Learning Danish in the US Date: 20 Mar 91 13:54:26 GMT Sender: [email protected] Organization: Interactive Systems, Cambridge, MA 02138-5302 Johann Oli Jonsson asks: >Danish? Why in the world would anyone actually WANT to learn Danish? For the same reason one would want to learn Icelandic: as part of a geographical approach to learning the languages of the Nordic region. Compass point Language Benefits of Study ------------- -------- ----------------- West Icelandic You'll never complain about irregular nouns in any other language again. East Finnish You'll never complain about any other language's case structure again. South Danish You'll never complain about pronunciation again. North Saami You'll never complain about how hard it is to find textbooks for any other language again. -- Joe Chapman [email protected]
6.11	How well do Scandinavians understand one another?	TLE::SAVAGE		`Wed Apr 03 1991 16:46`	39
	From: [email protected] (Anne C. Elster) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Nordic languages (was Re: What we have in common) Date: 3 Apr 91 16:29:11 GMT Sender: [email protected] (USENET news user) Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853 In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Lennart Brjeson @ KTH, Stockholm) writes: >On swedish television, Danes get subtitles more often than not, but Norwegians >mostly do not get subtitles. I guess this reflects the fact that most Swedes >find norwegian much easier to understand than danish, but that certain >dialects of both languages can be easier/harder than others. ... This is most certainly true. In my experience, both Danes and Swedes generally find Norwegian easier to understand than any other nordic language besides their own. ( -- Yeah, lets vote for Norwegian as the official Nordic language!! -- Just kidding. :-) ). There are, of course exceptions. To make some generalizations [findings by personal observation] : Danes have trouble with Norwegians speaking Nynorsk, or dialects thereof, Norwegians have problems understanding people from Southern Denmark and Skaane (Sothern Sweden), and Swedes (who are not from Skaane) have problems with Norwegians from the South (e.g. Agder fylkene). Most Scandinavians seem to understand people from Oslo [semantically linguistically, not necessarily personality wise :-)] -- however, people from Oslo often have problems parsing what the rest of us are saying (except when I speak Riksmaal, and they think I'm one of them). :-) What to do? [Before I get flamed left and right -- please realize the tease intended above-- I know there are several dialect spoken in Oslo, lot of nice and intelligent people from there (I am half "Osloanian" genetically), etc, etc ..] Anne C. Elster [email protected]
6.12	Opinions on language relatedness	TLE::SAVAGE		`Fri Apr 05 1991 16:24`	187
	From: [email protected] (Gudmundur Joekulsson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Nordic languages Date: 3 Apr 91 09:07:28 GMT Sender: [email protected] (USENET News System) Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway Here at the University of Troms� I have got known with a wide variety of the Nordic languages, knowing students from Faeroe-islands, Denmark, Sweden... and my self beeing an Icelander living in a foreign country (for six years now), makes one interested in language. From the fact that Icelandic is the closest to our common origin, we have an excellent wievpoint to the developement. My suggestion is that we group the Nordic (germanic) languages by: 1. Iceland, Faeroes and western Norway (Nynorsk variants) 2. Denmark and Norway (Bokmaal) 3. Sweden This from my meaning that the most importand in a language is the words used and not the way they are pronounced. The variety in sounds (pronouncing) is only a matter of dialects. It is no problem for an Icelander to read Faeroes and Nynorsk without using a dictionary. Though Faeroes sounds strange in the beginning, after spending a couple of hours listening/participating to/in a Faeroes discussion, one can unerstand most of it. It is only a matter of getting used to the sounds. The same is the case with peaple from western Norway (specialy sunnm�re). Talking to people from western Norway I am constantly surprised by words that are exactly the same as in Icelandic, words that one never hears from people speaking diffrent dialects of bokmaal (including Northern norway). Norwegian bokmaal and Danish share the same vocabulary (after learning Norwegian I now have no trouble reading Danish, something that was not easy before). The spelling is a little diffrent and ofcause the pronounsation is far apart. Norwegian bokmaal is only a localy-moderised Old-Danish (I know this hurts....) i.e. a dialect of Danish. (arghhhh...) Swedish has its own vocabulary developed from our common past. So the "scientific facts that Nynorsk is a dialect of Norwegian bokmaal" mentioned by someone in the group, I would very much like to see. The likeness between bokmaal and danish could be a direct consequence of Norway being a part of the Danish kingdom for several hundred years. Iceland bearly avoided such tragic loss of its language by a massive nationlistic resistance in the last century. Why western Norway should have managed to keep the Danish influence to a minimum I can not think of. I belive that the root to the difference is further back in time. That the people in south-eastern Norway allways had more to do with people in Denmark than with the rest of Norway. Most of the people setteling in Iceland came from western Norway, from Hordaland to M�re, so the likeness there is natural. Does anyone know the difference between language in say Oslo and Aalesund around year 1200 ad. Gudmundur S Joekulsson "nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands". FORUT E.E.Cummings (Foundation of Applied Reserch at the Univ. of Tromsoe) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: [email protected] (Steinar Bang) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Norwegian vs. Danish Date: 3 Apr 91 14:13:43 GMT Sender: [email protected] Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology, Trondheim, Norway Linguists group Swedish with Danish as the eastern branch of the Northern Germanic branch of the Germanic branch of the indo-european family of languages (WHEW!) Norwegian (spoken norw. probably) is grouped with Icelandic and Faereoese (?) as the western branch of the Nothern ... (and so on). The split between the to brances happened quite early, I think. Now due to geography modern norwegian (at least the urbanized version) have more similarities to Swedish and Danish than Icelandic & Faeroese, but I think the underlying structure is more similar to the latter. Note that norwegian dialects are split into two branches ("maalfoere"), a western and an eastern branch. The eastern branch is more similar to Swedish than Danish (and excepting the border districts) more similar to the western norwegian branch than either Swedish or Danish. Spoken "Bokmaal" like you find in the area surrounding Oslo, is a fairly recent invention, and (in the start) a city phenomenon. (I think it is as recent as the last couple hundreds of years). To call "bokmaal" a Danish dialect would be wrong, however, because: 1. There is hardly a pronounciation rule in common. 2. The phrasing/choice of words is quite different. Hmm Gudmundur, don't say you haven't heard the difference between the dialects spoken in the cities (Bodoe, Tromsoe, Harstad, Narvik) and the more rural dialects (like mine ;-). The northern dialects are grouped as having traits from both the western and eastern branch of the norwegian "maalfoere" The basic fisherman farmer dialect of northern norwegian (which you find from Sandnessjoen to the Westernmost part of Finnmark (and to a lesser degree along the coast of finnmark)) is more akin to the north western dialects (Moere & Romsdal) & the coastal dialects of Troendelag. Note! Tonality and pronounciation does not enter into the dialect classification. - Steinar -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: [email protected] (Gudmundur Joekulsson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Norwegian vs. Danish Date: 4 Apr 91 09:23:15 GMT Sender: [email protected] (USENET News System) Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway In <[email protected]> [email protected] (Steinar Bang) writes: >Norwegian (spoken norw. probably) is grouped with Icelandic and >Faereoese (?) as the western branch of the Nothern ... (and so on). >The split between the to brances happened quite early, I think. >Now due to geography modern norwegian (at least the urbanized version) >have more similarities to Swedish and Danish than Icelandic & Faeroese, >but I think the underlying structure is more similar to the latter. >Spoken "Bokmaal" like you find in the area surrounding Oslo, is a fairly >recent invention, and (in the start) a city phenomenon. (I think it is >as recent as the last couple hundreds of years). Yes, spoken norwegian, _excluding_ : 1. "due to geography modern norwegian (..urbanized..)" and 2. "spoken bokmaal" I have no objection against grouping with Icelandic and faeroese. (the underlying structure is the same for all, i.e. the old Nordic language). The big trouble is the difference between spoken and written language. In my former posting I refered to Norwegian as a written language. The tragedy is the adaption of localy moderized danish to express norwegian language, leading to the corruption of the original tounge (more provocations). You are right about the dialects being close to the Western-branch.... but I very often hear older people (from f.ex. lofoten or helgeland) use "Icelandic" words where the young ones use foreign (including bokmaal) for the same thing. If I can mark the difference between, say, three generations, one can only guess what has happend during the last two or three centuries and worse, what is to come. So I fear that what started in Oslo (now spoken bokmaal) and is spreading throughout the country (as modern norwegian (..urbanized)..) will end up with norwegian being a danish-dialect. Only the use of a true norwegian writing language can stop this developement. I am not sure that Nynorsk is the right way to go, however. You might ask what is wrong about developement, and the reason why this bothers me is the extensive use of words one does not know the exact meaning of. For others to understand what you are saying it is essential that you do understand it yourself. Words adapted raw from other languages often get a verry vague meaning, and as a foreigner, asking for a closer explanation one often discovers that the speaker does not realy know. (I must admit that my reapearing phrase that bokmaal is a dialect of Old-Danish is triggered by the _so_ often heard comment here in norway, that Icelanders speak Old-Norwegian or "Gammel-Norsk".) ********************** Gudmundur S Joekulsson "nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands". FORUT E.E.Cummings (Foundation of applied Reserch at the Univ. of Tromsoe)
6.13	Information on Old Norse	TLE::SAVAGE		`Fri May 24 1991 13:06`	92
	From: [email protected] (Bjorn Ellertsson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Norse Date: 23 May 91 08:58:31 GMT Sender: [email protected] Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department In article <[email protected]> FIREFLYTE%[email protected] writes: >I am a budding medievalist, who would like to know of an books/tapes/other >sources for learning Old Norse and anything about the culture. I am also >interested in the findings on the Vikings. Does anyone have any suggestions? Vikings 101 could be: Vikings! Magnus Magnusson. 1st American ed. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980 or London: Bodley Head: British Broadcasting Corp., 1980. UCLA URL DL 65 M353 Old Norse 101 is traditionally: An introduction to Old Norse by E.V. Gordon. 2nd ed. rev. by A.R. Taylor. Oxford ; New York: Clarendon Press, c1981. UCLA URL PD 2237 G65i 1981 Entertaining readings may be found in: Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. English. Selections. The prose Edda of Snorri Sturluson; tales from Norse mythology. University of California Press Best of all is Old Norse 100.9: Readings and the Freeway Tape from UCLA 1990 :-} Bjorn ===== Bj"orn Ellertsson, Program in Computing, UCLA (213) 825-2251 Internet: [email protected] BITNET: bje%math.ucla.edu@INTERBIT UUCP:...!{ucsd,purdue,rutgers,uunet}!math.ucla.edu!bje -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: [email protected] (John Johanneson) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Norse Date: 24 May 91 01:30:57 GMT Sender: [email protected] (USENET News System) Organization: University of Wisconsin Academic Computing Center IMHO: In English: 1. E. V. Gordon, _An Introduction to Old Norse_ 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1956) (This is the one my class used. It won't teach you to say things like 'Is there actually a Hard Rock Cafe in Reykjavik? Come on!!' but it is pretty complete, and not too expensive by Oxford UP standards.) 2. Stefan Einarsson, _Icelandic: Grammar, Texts, Glossary_ (Baltimore, 1949) (this is a reliable, comprehensive introduction to Modern Icelandic) 3. Colin Thomson, _Islensk Beygingafraedi_ (Hamburg, 1987) (Accidence reference for MI, explanations given in Icelandic, German, English) In other languages: 1. Adolf Noreen, _Altnordische Grammatik I_ (Tubingen, 1970) (The standard work for phonology and accidence of Old Norse) 2. M. Nygaard, _Norron Syntax_ (Olso, 1966) (The standard work for ON syntax) A good reference for culture would be: _Kulturhistorisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder fra vikingetid til refomationstid_ 22 vols. (Kobenhavn, 1955-1978) No one is positively sure how Old Norse was pronounced, and attempts to figure it out have been dismissed by some scholars as 'reconstructant'. My professor simply taught our class Modern Icelandic pronunciation. If your university doesn't offer a course in either MI or ON, you may want to write to The Icelandic Correspondence College (P.O. Box 5144, 125 Reykjavik) for information on their course on beginner's Icelandic. If you haven't another Scandinavian language or Middle High German or access to some Icelander this might be a good way to start, as Old Norse is a ahem difficult language. Good luck, John
6.14	Tak for sidst !!!	COPCLU::GEOFFREY	RUMMEL - The Forgotten American	`Fri Oct 11 1991 07:33`	17
	From: Lyle Davis Subject: The Scandinavian Language. . . Date: 10 Oct 91 19:16:06 GMT I play tennis three times a week with a Dane by the name of Bill Hanson. He told me a true story a couple days ago that gave me a good bellylaugh. . . For you non-Scandinavians, there is a phrase "Tak for Sidst" (in Danish), "Tak for Sist" (in Norwegian) that means "Thanks for Last Time". A friend of Bill's, who was trying to translate the phrase into English and use it at a cocktail party (and no doubt wanting to impress the others) was heard to say several times to rather astonished partygoers. . ."For the last time. . . thanks!"
6.15	Norwegian language classes	TLE::SAVAGE		`Tue Oct 15 1991 11:08`	54
	From: [email protected] (Louis Janus) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Norwegian Classes Date: 15 Oct 91 02:08:50 GMT Organization: University of Minnesota, Academic Computing Services In <[email protected]> [email protected] (RUDEBOY) writes: >In article <[email protected]> >[email protected] (Elizabeth Hookway) writes: >> >>I am thinking about traveling to Norway next summer to take Norwegian >>classes. Does anyone have information on this? Has anyone taken >>similar classes in Norway? I am just starting out in contacting the >>International Summer School, University of Oslo, and I would >>appreciate feedback from those who have experienced or know >>of those who have experienced these classes. >> >>Thanks, >>Liz Hookway ---------------------------- I have gone to the ISS, and know the people who are in charge of the North American Admissions office. You can reach JoAnn Kleber via e-mail at [email protected] She can answer any specific questions you might have. In general, the Norwegian languages are excellent there. The only problem I see is that outside of class, on campus, it is relatively hard to find people to speak Norwegian with. Most participants at the ISS use English as their lingua franca, as most are taking non-language related courses. If you have had some Norwegian language classes, you might be interested in the University of Bergen's summer course, but that is more advanced, and is conducted entirely in Norwegian. Please feel free to contact me if you want more information. I have taught Norwegian for many years, and have a pretty good idea of who is doing what in the field in this country. {^} Louis Janus Dept of Scandinavian Languages and Literature University of Minnesota 200 Folwell Hall 9 Pleasant St. SE Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA 612/ 928-0952 612/625-9887 (w) [email protected]
6.16	�lvdalska, a dialect representing Viking times	TLE::SAVAGE		`Tue Apr 07 1992 11:53`	68
	From: [email protected] (Michael Helm) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Archaic Viking dialect in the news Date: 6 Apr 92 18:10:16 GMT Sender: [email protected] Reposting this from another source ... I've never heard of this dialect before. Does anyone have anything to say about the article below? Are the claims made for this dialect valid? Thanks, ==mwh --- Forwarded mail from [email protected] >From GAELIC-L@IRLEARN Mon Apr 6 04:36:54 1992 Reply-To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Subject: Archaic Viking dialect in the news To: [email protected] (michael helm) >From The Guardian, 3 April 1992, p. 26: LAST BATTLE TO SAVE A VIKING TONGUE Alex Duval Smith on the dialect you were not supposed to speak in public. Teachers in Sweden are campaigning to save �lvdalska, the Scandinavian dialect closest to the language of the Vikings. �lvdalska is taught in a dozen schools in northern Dalerna, central Sweden, where the dialect has survived thanks to the region's remoteness and despite a ban which lasted until 1960 on speaking it in public. �lvdalska is the remnant of the language which was spoken in Scandinavia by the Vikings 900 years ago. Among national languages, only Icelandic and Faeroese come close [to] it, while Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian have incorporated many Germanic and Latin words. Today, �lvdalska is incomprehensible to most Scandinavian[s]. In 1990, 12 schools in an area of Dalarna which has speakers of �lvdalska, began teaching it for three hours a week--the time allocated for the teaching of native languages, usually to immigrant children. Now the grant for the special lessons has been withdrawn, prompting campaigners to claim immigrants have a better chance of maintaining their knowledge of their mother tongues--through the native languages teaching schemes--than �lvdalen's children. According to Ulumdalska, which campaigns for the dialect, 70 per cent of pensioners in �lvdalen county use it daily but only 5 per cent of children and 20 per cent of their parents do. "You can photograph and restore old objects for posterity but a dialect is a living cultural inheritance which must be passed on by being spoken", said Aake Haarden a teacher in the town of Aasen. The Swedish education ministry says it cannot bring the teaching of �lvdalska into its native languages programme as it is not a foreign language. There are also local disputes because the dialect is spoken in such a remote area that there are six variants of it within a 200 kilometre radius and campaigners cannot agree on which should be adopted as standard. Meanwhile, Ulumdalska campaigners are saying: <Wildum fersy�ts dj�ro nod fer te biwaaraa dialekte>, which means, "we want to do something to save the dialect". And, they add, �lvdalska is <spraatser saa int will dao>, --"the language that will not die". But it may die. "This is the last generation that can save the dialect," said Haarden. If they can agree on which variant of the dialect to save. Michael Everson School of Architecture, UCD, Richview, Clonskeagh, Dublin 14, E/ire Phone: +353-1-706-2745 Fax: +353-1-283-7778 --- End of forwarded message from [email protected]
6.17	Multi-lingual skill of military recruits	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Jul 27 1992 12:23`	38
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] (Anders Christensen) Subject: Understanding language Sender: [email protected] (NetNews Administrator) Organization: /home/flipper/anders/.organization Date: 27 Jul 92 02:34:40 ... people outside Scandinavia [are not the only ones to] have difficulties with Scandinavian languages. I found the following numbers in a book called "Spr�kr�ret", which contains transcriptions of a popular Norwegian radio program about language. It is a test given by military recruits, performed in the seventies. (Sorry, there's no better description of it in the book, maybe someone else knows more, it could be interesting to see the whole report.) It tested how well they understood spoken language from the other Scandinavian countries. It is not stated anything about whether accents were used, how they measured 'understands', how many recruits were tested, the geographically origin of those tested, or what time of the year the test was done etc etc, so I can't guarantee the correctness of these numbers. Anyway, here are the numbers: Understands: Swedish Danish Norwegian Average -------------------------------------------------- Swedish recruits - 23% 48% 36% Danish recruits 49% - 69% 58% Norwegian recruits 88% 73% - 81% (Note: the "average" column comes from the book too. I'm not quite sure how they manage to get 58 as the average of 49 and 69 ... ) Comments on those numbers? .... -anders
6.18	Reasonable	OSL09::MAURITZ	DTN(at last!)872-0238; @NWO	`Tue Jul 28 1992 02:35`	14
	The trend in the numbers is consistent with other studies, and quite reasonable if you look at how the 3 Scandinavian languages differ. I believe at one point Berlitz referred to Norwegian as the "bridge language" among the 3 (this was from a "useful to learn" point of view. Oversimplified, one can say that Norwegian resembles Swedish in pronunciation, but resembles Danish in its written form (i.e., word content). When Swedes and Danes communicate, they have to overcome BOTH a more significant differentiation in vocabulary AND a rather radical different in pronunciation. Going between Swe-Nor or Dan-Nor, you have a similarity in one of these areas and a difference in the other. Mauritz
6.19	Teaching 'majority' languages to immigrants	TLE::SAVAGE		`Fri Nov 20 1992 10:08`	75
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] (Rolf Manne) Subject: Re: Home language - native language Sender: [email protected] (Bergen University Newsaccount) Organization: University of Bergen Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 15:40:01 GMT Reading still more contributions on this topic under other subject headings I think that I should write something more about what languages are called. First one should make a distinction between countries with only one official language like Sweden and Denmark (I know nothing about the latter) and countries which are officially multilingual like Finland (Swedish and Finnish) and Norway (bokmaal and nynorsk). On purpose, I do not discuss languages like the Saami languages, Tornedal and Finnskog Finnish, German ( in Slesvig) nor Romani(Gypsy language) which are all native languages in Scandinavia but which have had a weak official status if any at all. When I went to school in Sweden in the 1940's and 50's I lived in a monolingual and largely monocultural society. There was subject taught at school, called "Modersmaalet" (I cannot send the correct "aa" from my PC) meaning "THE Mother Tongue". I don't know what it is called today, but judging from the historical situation then I consider this use of language natural. In Finland the situation was different at that time since there were two official languages. There were very few immigrants at that time, and one did not understand the importance for foreign children to get training in their own languages, nor the importance for all children to have stable relations to their parents or other care-taker adults. I am thinking particularly of the Finnish "war children" who were sent to Sweden to be fed and clothed but quite often had serious problems. Not because they were treated badly but because they were up-rooted. I have had a similar experience as a small child so I know what I am talking about. The immigration wave in the 1960's changed that. The schools had to provide teachers of "Swedish as a Second Language", and eventually also native-language teachers to immigrant children. In a society like Sweden and Norway such new subjects are taught only to a minority of children, by special teachers (not always very skilled). Irrespective of subject name, such special education easily gets a low status among the majority children. It is like that in Norway where one normally speaks about "Morsmaalsundervisning" meaning (immigrant) native language teaching. The distinction to the majority language is there anyway. Sometimes it is necessary to make such distinctions. Over time, the word denoting the low-status concept gets a bad connotiation and is changed. Think of all the different words used for mental hospitals or homes of the mentally retarded. Here in Bergen one changed the name of the local psychiatric clinic "Neevengaarden sykehus" to "Sandviken sykehus" some 10 years ago. Both names are geographic! In any case, it is difficult to be an immigrant anywhere, and the problems increase the more different languages and cultures are, and the less the majority is prepared to accept deviating cultural patterns from the minority. In this way, I am sure that the social acceptance of Finnishimmigrants in Sweden is much greater than it is of Pakistani immigrantsin Norway or of gypsies anywhere in the Nordic countries. I have even been told here at the University that as a Swede I am not really an "immigrant" (innvandrer) which of course I am. In Norway there has been a long fight about what the native Norwegian language taught at school should be called. To radical proponents of "nynorsk" the standard city language "bokmaal" was perverted Danish, and should therefore not be allowed to be called "Norwegian". When I came here 20 years ago I read letters to the editor deploring a country which had given up its own Norwegian language. God would most certainly punish those people on the Day of Judgement for not honoring their parents. Anyway, Norwegian historical accounts tell that the term "Morsmaalet" solved this problem as far as school curricula go. I do not know which country started using it. Rolf Manne e-mail: [email protected]
6.20	Comparing Norwegian, Danish and Swedish	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Dec 28 1992 09:45`	75
	From: [email protected] (Paul Shuttle) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Closeness of the Nordic Languages Date: 28 Dec 92 05:19:59 GMT Sender: [email protected] (News Administrator) Organization: National Capital Freenet, Ottawa, Canada Edmund J. Ryan ([email protected]) asks: > > Are Norweigan, Danish, and Swedish similar to the extent that > a speaker of one could get by with the other two? Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are all cognate languages that stem from a common Ur-Norse, or Norron. This language is cognate to early Anglo-Saxon. (This of course, is one of the roots of English: I like to say that Norwegian is English minus the French). Until very recently, the Official _written_ language of Norway was Danish. (Norway was under Danish Rule from the 1300s -- 1384 I think -- until 1814.) So one written form of Norwegian is Bokmal, or Book-Language. This is very similar to Danish. This also survives as Riksmal, or National-Language. However, unofficially, each Norwegian district (often isolated by valleys or fjords) has its own dialect. These were often quite divergent. Collectively these were known as Landsmal, or Country (Rural)-Language. Recently, the various dialects were standardized in written form to create a new language called Ny-Norsk (New-Norwegian). Norway is actually a bilingual country: Ny Norsk and Bokmal are both offical languages. Sami (Lapp) is an unofficial language. In general, however, there is not a great difference in these various dialects of Norwegian. In general, if you speak Norwegian, it is very easy to read Danish, but difficult to understand (so many glottal sounds). Conversely, it is rather easy to understand spoken Swedish, but rather difficult (or more so) to read written Swedish (due to grammatical and vocabulary differences). Basically, the three Scandinavian languages are dialects of some thousand years difference. German and English are cognate of some several thousands of years difference. Paul Shuttle [email protected] -- _______________________________________________________ _____ [email protected] (Paul Shuttle) - ________________________________________________________________________________ From: [email protected] (Torkel Franzen) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Closeness of the Nordic Languages Date: 28 Dec 92 09:23:49 GMT Sender: [email protected] Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science, Kista In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Edmund Joseph Ryan) writes: >Are Norweigan, Danish, and Swedish similar to the extent that a >speaker of one could get by with the other two? Reading Norwegian, Danish, Swedish is pretty easy if you know any of the languages. Swedes usually have no trouble understanding spoken Norwegian (weird dialects apart, of course), but most Swedes need some practice to understand spoken Danish easily. >I read this is in a few books on the history of the English >language. I already know German. Does that help? German helps in so far as lots of words in the Scandinavian languages have either been borrowed from German or share a common origin with German words, and there are also similarities in grammar and constructions.
6.21	Course in Nynorsk	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Jan 04 1993 10:48`	27
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] () Subject: Re: Learning Norwegian Sender: [email protected] (Usenet News Administration) Organization: University of Minnesota Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 13:59:46 GMT The International Summer School at the University of Oslo will again offer a course in Nynorsk, as well as several levels of Bokmaal. The Nynorks course is meant for foreigners who already speak Bokmaal, but want more familiarity with Nynorsk. It is not designed to make nynorsk speakers out of foreign Bokmaal speakers. For more information and an application to the ISS write to the following address if you are in North America: JoAnn Kleber Oslo International Summer School North American Admissions Office c/o St. Olaf College Northfield, MN 55057 e-mail: [email protected] ----- Louis Janus
6.22	When conversing internationally, what language?	TLE::SAVAGE		`Thu Jan 07 1993 12:46`	22
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] ("Imaging Club") Subject: Re: Closeness of the Nordic Languages Organization: Mail to News Gateway at Wang Labs Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 17:42:21 GMT Sender: [email protected] I've noticed that here in the Boston area Norwegian and Swedish au pair girls usually speak English with each other. I think the Norwegians and Danes here speak their native languges with each other. The Faero Island au pairs here speak Danish with people from Norway and Denmark, but English with the Swedes, I understand. Icelandic people here speak Danish with the others, except with the Swedes, from what I have been told. I'm not sure what people from the Faeroe Islands would speak to people from Iceland, but I presume it would be Danish which they study in school. I'll forward this on to our global language adaption centre for possible further comments. [email protected]
6.23	Old Danish names for integers	TLE::SAVAGE		`Wed May 19 1993 12:17`	38
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] (Soeren L. Buhl) Subject: Re: Danish number system Sender: [email protected] (UseNet News) Organization: Mathematics and Computer Science, Aalborg University Date: 19 May 1993 12:59:28 GMT >> [email protected] (Kurt Swanson) writes: > >Could some kind Dane please post the intricacies of the Danish >numbering system? All I know is that least significant digit comes >first - 23 = 3 and 20... There is more to it than that. Here are the multiples of ten: 10 = ti 20 = tyve 30 = tredive 40 = fyrre 50 = halvtreds or halvtredsindstyve 60 = tres or tresindstyve 70 = halvfjerds or halvfjerdsindstyve 80 = firs or firsindstyve 90 = halvfems or halvfemsindstyve The long forms are now obsolete, but explain the system. It is based on 20 as the unit , sinds (obsolete) means times. Tresindstyve means 3 times 20 = 60. Halvtredsindstyve means 2 1/2 times 20 = 50. (Half three = 2 1/2 !) * Even if Norwegians and Swedes usually understand us, we drive them crazy saying, e.g., treoghalvfems = 93. S�ren L. Buhl, Aalborg University. -------------- * Like in French 80 = quatre-vingt, but even students of French have an easier time. ** Halvanden = 1 1/2 is common usage, but halvtredje = 2 1/2 is obsolete.
6.24	1993 book	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Dec 06 1993 12:15`	21
	From: [email protected] (Roger Greenwald) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic,sci.lang Subject: new book on Nordic languages Date: 6 Dec 1993 01:53:19 -0500 Organization: EPAS Computing Facility, University of Toronto The following book may be of interest to many people who are not yet aware of its recent publication. Lars S. Vik�r. The Nordic languages: their status and interrelations. Novus Forlag, 1993. 245 pages; includes bibliography and index. This is a publication (no. 14) of the Nordic Language Secretariat (Nordisk spr�ksekretariat). The price in Norwegian kroner is 195. I have not examined the book. The review I read indicates that it is thorough and well organized. It would also seem to be the only book (or one of only a few?) that is comprehensive on this topic and available in ENGLISH. Roger Greenwald
6.25	Language proficiency test	TLE::SAVAGE		`Fri Mar 04 1994 10:16`	78
	From: [email protected] (Roger Greenwald) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Bergen test Date: 3 Mar 1994 08:03:59 GMT Organization: EPAS Computing Facility, University of Toronto "The Bergensk Test (sorry, I couldn't find the actual name) started out "as a commercial exam used so that companies had some measure of how "fluent non-native speakers were in Norwegian. I believe it was used "primarily in and around Bergen. " "In the Fall of 1991, several Norsk Trinn III students at the "University of Bergen (UiB) took both UiB's exam and the Bergensk Test. "These results allowed UiB to adopt the Bergensk Test as its Norsk "Trinn III exam beginning in Spring 1992, as they now had a way to "equate the scores between the Bergensk Test and UiB's former exam "style. " "Either Norwegian law or policies in place at all Norwegian "Universities require non-Scandinavian students to have proficiency in "Norwegian, as determined by passing the Trinn III exam. At UiB, a 2.0 "is sufficient for most areas, but you need a 1.5 to enroll in closed "subjects. Since the Trinn III exam is now the Bergensk Test, the "Bergensk Test it what allows you to enroll in classes at UiB; however, "all Norwegian universities will accept each others Trinn III exam "results. " "I haven't heard of a way to fulfill this requirement outside of "Norway; however, if you feel you are ready for it, you should be able "to take a placement exam at the beginning of Fall semester or the "actual Trinn III exam at the end of either semester to qualify. I "would guess that you should enclose a letter with your application "stating your prior Norwegian experience and that you expect to pass "the Trinn III exam upon your arrival in Norway. Hopefully, you can be "admitted contingent on passing that exam. " "Personally, I feel that a student who has learned Norwegian mainly in "a classroom environment is better off with the more traditional Trinn "III exam, which may still be offered at some Norwegian universities. "I think the Bergensk Test favors those who have picked up Norwegian by "living in Norway for some time; I have no idea which test someone who "has grown up in a Norwegian-speaking community abroad should take. "(These opinions are just my impressions from having taken UiB's "traditional exam and a practice Bergensk Test within a month of each "other.) " "--Paul Franklin Don't know how accurate the history is, but I took the test a few years ago. It was developed and is administered by the U of Bergen, and is called "test i norsk for fremmedspr�klige." When I took it, the test consisted of various written parts (fill in blanks, etc.); written answers based on aural comprehension (tapes were played containing anecdotes narrated by speakers from several large cities); and two pieces to be written on assigned topics. One had to be fluent and very quick to finish the two assigned pieces of writing in the time allotted. We were told that another portion, to test how well one could SPEAK Norwegian, was under development. My impression was that most of those taking the test were either foreign students (perhaps expecting to study at Norwegian universities) or immigrants working in the health sector (who I believe were required to take the test). The scores were reported on a scale from zero to above 700; interpretation of the scores was grouped by hundreds of points. That is, the official report of scores contained a paragraph sayting what a score from 0-100 meant, 100-200, 200-300, etc. The highest category was "above 700" (as fluent as a well-educated native speaker). The test seemed well devised and, for the most part, fair (except for the too-short time for writing at the end). Some of the vocabulary tested (e.g. sports) seemed more necessary for living permanently in Norway than for studying there for a year or two. I leave those who read this to judge whether the test would be a good one for them to take.
6.26	Danish/English dictionary	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Mar 21 1994 12:38`	19
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] (Stan Brown) Subject: Danish-English dictionary (summary) Date: Mon, 21 Mar 1994 02:54:52 GMT Organization: (been there, done that) I use "Gyldendals Roede Ordboeger", [two volumes] one for engelsk-dansk and the other for dansk-engelsk. The author is (I think) Jens Axelsen and the publisher is Gyldendal. The ISBN is 87-00-73972-3. Each is $30. But they're worth it. The very best Danish-English dictionary is Hermann Vinterberg and C.A. Bodelsen's _Dansk-engelsk ordbog_ (second revised and expanded edition), in two volumes, published by Gyldendal (copyright 1966; the one I have was printed in 1988). ISBN 87-00-67161-4. This is Danish-English only (no English-Danish). -- Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems [email protected]
6.27	English/Danish dictionary	COPCLU::SORENC	S�ren H Christiansen - (7)857-2107	`Thu Mar 24 1994 03:22`	11
	Response to .26 Not quite true, an English-Danish dictionary in the same quality do exist, so A very good English-Danish dictionary (same quality as repl .26) is B. Kjaerulff Nielsen's English-Danish, second edition, one volume, by Gyldendal (copyright 1964, 74, 81, mine is printed in 1985), ISBN 87-01-44971-0. S�ren
6.28	Bokmaal vs. Nynorsk at a glance	TLE::SAVAGE		`Tue Jun 28 1994 10:09`	33
	Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic From: [email protected] (Paul Franklin) Subject: Re: Telling nynorsk from bokmaal? Sender: [email protected] (News Administrator) Date: Mon, 27 Jun 1994 02:43:16 GMT Organization: HP Sonoma County (SRSD/MWTD/MID) Pierre Jelenc ([email protected]) wrote: : Is it possible to tell at first glance whether a Norwegian text is in : nynorsk or bokmaal? : Are there common words, likely to occur in any newspaper article, that : give away which language it is? Just a few that came to mind, with help of a PostGiro form with both written forms printed on the cover. English Bokmaal Nynorsk not ikke ikkje I jeg eg every hver kvar self selv sjoelv (oe=o/) one en ein mine min mein Most question words begin with: hv kv Nynorsk often uses 'a' where Bokmaal uses 'e'. --Paul Franklin
6.29	Oversimplification: N is D spoken with Sw accent!?	TLE::SAVAGE		`Wed Jun 29 1994 10:46`	50
	From: [email protected] (Eugene Holman) Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic Subject: Re: Telling nynorsk from bokmaal? Date: 28 Jun 1994 20:47:40 GMT Organization: University of Helsinki Written Nynorsk is easy to distinguish from Bokm�l, as many of the posters here have already demonstrated. The common and neuter gender indefinite articles 'ein' and 'eit' (rather than the 'en' and 'et' of Bokm�l) are probably the best indicators, since one of them will eventually occur in any text of some length. (Note that both Nynorsk and Bokm�l share the feminine indefinite article 'ei'.) The Nynorsk negator 'ikkje' (rather than the 'ikke' of Bokm�l) is also a dead giveaway. Sometimes, though, you will find that Norwegian newspapers carry some items in Bokm�l, others in Nynorsk, even an occasional one in 'skamnorsk' (a shameful (='skam') attempt to amalgamate the two varieties into 'samnorsk' or 'common Norwegian'.). The last time I checked the famous comic strip about the Viking (Hogar the Horrible?) was ALWAYS in Nynorsk, even in newspapers that otherwise prefer Bokm�l. On thinking you can understand written Norwegian on the basis of Swedish, you might want to reflect on what Einar Haugen, one of the great authorities on Scandinavian languages, wrote in his excellent chapter on them in 'The World's Major Languages' (ed. B. Comrie). Better still, you might read the chapter. (Paraphrase) Norwegian and Swedish have essentially the same sound system, while that of Danish is radically different; Norwegian and Danish share essentially the same vocabulary, while that of Swedish is rather different. Thus, a Norwegian and Swede have little trouble recognizing each other's words when they are spoken, but they can never be sure of what they are going to mean in the other language. A Dane and a Norwegian, in turn, have little trouble recognizing the meaning of each other's words when they see them written, but they can never be sure of how they will sound in the other language when pronounced. To reduce the matter to its essentials, what Professor Haugen is saying, then, is that Norwegian (particarly Bokm�l) is actually Danish spoken with a Swedish accent. My favorite example is the word 'samlag', the meanings of which are totally different in Norwegian and Swedish :-). (Check it out!) With best regards, Eugene Holman University of Helsinki
6.30	Swedish/English idiom	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Jun 26 1995 12:08`	45
	To: International Swedish Interest discussion list From: Lisa Werner Carr <[email protected]> Subj: Swedish idiom book "Paul, David" <[email protected]> says he "would be glad to know of a slang book that goes in the opposite direction, that is, starts with Swedish idioms/slang expressions and gives their English/American equivalents. Well, I have something close! It's called "M�lande uttryck -- en liten bok med svenska idiom," published by Esselte Ordbok, ISBN 91-7113-015-2. It's entirely in Swedish, but it's fairly easy to figure out what the American idiom equivalents would be -- in some cases, they're directly translatable. T. ex.: Man ska aldrig s�ga aldrig -- yes, James Bond fans, they say it in Sweden too. En f�gel har kvittrat i mitt �ra -- a little bird whispered in my ear en ulv i f�rakl�der -- a wolf in sheep's clothing Some of my favorite ones - although I've never actually heard any in real life: Det �r ingen ko p� isen -- "There's no cow on the ice," for, relax, don't panic, no hurry. Spik nykter - "Sober as a nail." Ouch. (Equals sober as a judge, in English.) Prata persilja - "Talk parsley." To talk nonsense. Tala om rep h�ngd mans hus - "Talk about rope in a hanged man's house." To thoughtlessly bring up painful topics of conversation. Polsk riksdag -- "Polish Parliament." A meeting where nothing ever gets decided (because everyone's talking at once). The back of the book advertises another idiom reference: "Say When, och 1.284 andra engelska idiom (and 1,284 other English idiom)," by Hargevik/Ljung and also published by Esselte. Lycka till! Lisa
6.31	Nordic terminology for the internet	TLE::SAVAGE		`Mon Sep 18 1995 15:40`	71
	From: David Curle <[email protected]> To: "International Swedish Interest discussion list" Subject: Internet terminology Here is a list of terms and their translations into Norsk as offered by the Norwegian Language Council. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- SPRAAKHJOERNE (Language Corner): The Norwegian Language Council recommends the spellings listed below to be used for some of the most central concepts in the Internet world. Engelsk Norsk e-mail e-post e-mail address e-postadresse gopher gopher gopher menu gophermeny Internet Internett / Internettet FAQ (frequently OSS (ofte stilte spoersmaal) asked questions) web web web page webside http address http-adresse html file html-fil a URL en URL In some cases, Norwegian words are coming into usage more or less on their own and replacing the English words. In the list below are the Norwegian words already in use. The words are listed in both of the official Norwegian languages: Dano-Norwegian (bokmaal) and New Norwegian (nynorsk). The language used in the Norword list is Dano-Norwegian (bokmaal). Engelsk Bokmaal Nynorsk browser leser lesar client klient klient domain domene domene home page hjemmeside heimeside host vertsmaskin vertsmaskin hyper text hypertekst hypertekst link peker / kobling peikar / kopling navigator navigatoer / nettlos navigatoer / nettlos news group nyhetsgruppe nyhendegruppe router ruter rutar server tjener tenar The above information comes the World Wide Web site of the Norwegian Language Council. This site also includes information about the council, their Frequently Asked Questions service, more about computer language, publications from the NLC, good Norwegian names, and the law about language use in public service. <http://www.dokpro.uio.no/sprakrad/sprakrad.html> ----------------------------------------------------------------- LIST OWNERS AND INFORMATION: The Norwegian Teachers Association in North America (NorTANA) Less Commonly Taught Languages Project, CARLA, U. of Minnesota Louis Janus <[email protected]> Nancy Aarsvold <[email protected]> -----------------------------------------------------------------
6.32	Swedish/English dictionary	TLE::SAVAGE		`Fri Sep 29 1995 10:57`	21
	From: Rustan Finndin <[email protected]> To: "International Swedish Interest discussion list" Subject: Swedish-English dictionaries Myself and others at my department use and recommend: "Stora svensk-engelska ordboken" by Norstedts Fo"rlag. It's a two volume dictionary which is supposed to be the most comprehensive one on the market. It has about 120.000 words and phrases in each direction. It's not a technical one, but has a lot of technical words. My copy is printed (and written) in 1988. The registration number is: ISBN 91-1-915372-4. Rustan Finndin [email protected] Dept. of Naval Architecture & Ocean Engineering Chalmers University of Technology Gothenburg, Sweden