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Which Scandinavian language do you learn? | ||
Tags: Scandinavian Languages | Poll | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Skandinavisk & Nordisk |  | |
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4665 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes  Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 25 of 42 29 January 2013 at 12:33am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm studying both Nynorsk and Bokmaal. I can't say Nynorsk is any more difficult than Bokmaal, they're just different. Some verbs which are regular in Bokmaal are irregular in Nynorsk (and vice versa). Once you've learned Nynorsk, the transition from Nynorsk to conservative Bokmaal is a piece of cake. You just substitute Nynorsk and Samnorsk forms with Riksmaal/moderate Bokmaal forms and discard the feminine gender (except for a handful of words like jenta, katta, kua, hytta...)
I've noticed that many people from Oslo label every Nynorsk-sounding dialect as Nynorsk. Martin Blomvik and Fjellfolk sang in their respective Western dialects last week at Melodie Grand Prix, yet the Oslo-based press stated they had sung ''in Nynorsk''. Uvular R works better in Nynorsk than in Bokmaal (because the standard Southeastern Norwegian /spoken form of Bokmaal does not use it). On NRK, uvular R is rare among newscasters using Bokmaal, but is predominant in Nynorsk-newscasters (like Ingvild Bryn). Edited by Medulin on 29 January 2013 at 12:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| NorwegianNYC Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4336 days ago 10 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian*, German | Message 26 of 42 30 January 2013 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
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The problem with Nynorsk is that its creator, Ivar Aasen, did not include Eastern
dialects in his proposed 'purified' Norwegian. This was a grave mistake since he effectively excluded half the population at the time (and an even greater percentage today). Aasen believed Eastern Norwegian was too 'polluted' with Danish/Swedish, but truth is that Eastern Norwegian was never a Western Scandinavian language. It has always been closer to Swedish et al. than to the Western dialect groups (which at one point also includes the forerunners of Faroese and Icelandic). I master both forms, but I have no problem understanding the Eastern sentiments against it. It is in a way like trying to teach Londoners Scots because it is 'purer' English. When it comes to the Uvular R - it is probably more among Bokmål than Nynorsk speakers. The major cities, such as Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand (and minor cities such as Haugesund, Egersund, Arendal and others) are all in Bokmål-territory. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4665 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 27 of 42 30 January 2013 at 10:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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People in Stavanger and Haugesund etc don't speak Bokmaal, but their local dialect.
Especially in Stavanger, the local dialect is practically 90% Nynorsk. Why are Stavanger and Haugesund so Nynorsk-hating (unlike Bergen which is officially ''neutral'', Stavanger and Haugesund not)? Freud has an answer, it's called: ''Narcissism of small differences.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narcissism_of_small_differences Differences between the Bergen dialect and Nynorsk are large enough for people in Bergen not to see Nynorsk as a threat (as in ''Nynorsk may swallow their dialect''). Although some right wing parties tried to get rid of compulsory Nynorsk last week: http://framtida.no/articles/nei-til-valfritt-sidemal-i-berge n#.UQmRYvL8E2t http://framtida.no/articles/nei-til-valfritt-sidemal-i-berge n#.UQmRYvL8E2t Bergens Tidende is Norway's largest Nynorsk newspaper in terms of numbers of Nynorsk-articles published (even though it's mixed: 66% Bokmal and 33% Nynorsk). I don't think '''samnorsksk/bokmålsk Nynorsk'' sounds very (South)Western, it sounds as if it were written by Oslo-people who learned it at school: Southwestern Nynorsk: eg likar / skulen / Skal me dansa? samnorsksk/bokmålsk Nynorsk': eg liker / skolen / Skal vi danse? Just like many L1 users of Bokmål don't like seeing things like ''sjukehusa'' or ''har kasta'' in a Bokmål text, many L1 users of Nynorsk don't like seeing ''vi liker ''or ''skolen'' in Nynorsk texts. The Samnorsk campaign has created more harm than good in both Norwegian varieties, by introducing Southwestern Nynorsk words into Bokmaal, and by introducing Southeastern Bokmaal words into Nynorsk. Edited by Medulin on 30 January 2013 at 10:56pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| NorwegianNYC Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4336 days ago 10 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian*, German | Message 28 of 42 31 January 2013 at 5:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, the simple answer is that no one SPEAKS either nynorsk or bokmål. Norwegian does
not have a spoken standard. When I am referring to Bokmål and Nynorsk, I am referring to their standard of writing. Actually, the lack of a spoken standard, or even a more prestigious dialect, has left Norwegian with an interesting conundrum, since everyone who speaks it, speaks it correctly, regardless of HOW they speak it. Riksmål, Høgnorsk and Samnorsk are not official forms in Norway. Nor have they ever been. The question of how close to either Bokmål or Nynorsk a dialect is, is a difficult one. A 120 years ago, the Bergen dialect was considered 'proper', and closer to the written standard of the time. Since then, including an interlude where the Southern dialects were en vogue, the Bokmål has become increasingly influenced by Eastern Norwegian dialects. The reason Norwegian today has retained (or regained?) a 3- gender system is largely because this is a feature of Eastern Norwegian, and Eastern Norway has the largest population. In short - the main problem with Nynorsk is that is is less flexible than Bokmål. Bokmål is actually a fairly descriptive standard, unlike Nynorsk, which is based on a normative approach. The reason Nynorsk never made it to the cities is not because of the dialects actually spoken there, but because cities are melting pots and less conform. In Bokmål, you can write "en jakke - jakka", because the majority of Norwegians do not use the Feminine article, but the use the Feminine as gender (with the very valid exception of Bergen and parts of the South). Nynorsk does not make a similar allowance, and is therefore perceived as "quaint" and "old-fashioned". When it comes to the (hypothetical) Samnorsk, Bokmål has actually moved further in that direction than Nynorsk has. 100 years ago, the Bokmål of 2013 would absolutely have looked like Samnorsk - with 3 genders, post-positioned possessives, 'sin'-genitive and diphthongs. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5450 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 29 of 42 01 February 2013 at 12:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ivar Aasen actually did include Eastern dialects. Around 1850 the written language in Norway was still Danish, most
people still lived in the countryside and they did not speak Standard Østnorsk. The biggest challenges Nynorsk met were: 1) The urban elites hated it from the very start; 2) The emerging working class didn't care and the labour movement preferred the Bokmål/Samnorsk approach. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| NorwegianNYC Triglot Newbie United States Joined 4336 days ago 10 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English, Norwegian*, German | Message 30 of 42 01 February 2013 at 6:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
indeed include a few Eastern dialects, but he stated himself that places like Hardanger, Sogn and Voss, as well as the mountain valleys of the South, had the more GENUINE dialects - i.e. they were less 'polluted'. Central Eastern, South-Eastern and town/city dialects were considered 'impure'. Since this coincided with the budding urbanization in Norway, Nynorsk from the getgo effectively shut out city dweller. This was perhaps Aasen's cardinal mistake.
shunned by the city elite in particular (they were probably more nationalistic, thus positive, than the lower classes). It goes back to the two main problems Nynorsk faced from the start - it did not include the dialects of the major population centers, and Aasen was not fond of phonetic orthography. The result being a language that was increasingly alien to (especially) people in Eastern and South-Eastern Norway, whose original dialects did not stem from West Scandinavian, but from the same stock as Swedish (East Scandinavian). Also - the labor movement preferred Bokmål, because the it was predominantly a city phenomenon. Ivar Aasen was genious -no doubt - but if he had only been a little less obsessed with the "purity" of quaint Western Norwegian dialects, and a little more in sync with how people actually spoke, Nynorsk would have been the written norm in Norway today. Edited by NorwegianNYC on 01 February 2013 at 6:30pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| IlonaS Bilingual Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 3920 days ago 25 posts - 33 votes Speaks: Russian*, Estonian* Studies: Dutch, Norwegian, French, English | Message 31 of 42 28 February 2014 at 4:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Norwegian! Most beautiful Scandinavian language!
I do not like the Danish pronunciation. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5906 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 32 of 42 28 February 2014 at 4:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
Old thread but... I'm from the Stavanger area so maybe I can answer this. Most people don't hate nynorsk, but a lot of people find it kind of annoying. We had compulsory classes in school for a while, and it was clunky and unnatural for us to read and (especially) write nynorsk, and we were all happy when we were done and could go back to just using bokmål like we'd always done. There's also quite a bit of vocabulary that sounds very strange to our ears. None of us would say "I speak nynorsk" because we just don't, even though many of the words are the same. There might be a dialect out there that's the same as nynorsk, but Stavangersk is not it. A dialect is a dialect, the written language is a separate thing, this is part of our mentality - but there's no need to read more into it on the psychological side (the narcissism comment was factually off imo). I don't think anyone in the area feels threatened by nynorsk - we have no reason to be, it's not swallowing anything - but I do know a lot of people who are annoyed by it to some degree because we have no choice in whether or not we need to use it. I don't like having to read it but I will if I'm interested enough in the material. And I would refuse to write it if I was ever asked, simply because I would have to pull out the dictionary and look up everything, just like I did in school. Liz 1 person has voted this message useful |
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