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Norwegians poking fun at Danish

  Tags: Danish | Norwegian
 Language Learning Forum : Philological Room Post Reply
Eduard
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Norway
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Speaks: Dutch*, NorwegianC1, Swedish, Danish, English, German, ItalianB1, Spanish, Serbo-Croatian, French
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 Message 1 of 4
01 June 2008 at 1:32pm | IP Logged 
Norwegian (bokmål) and Danish are really quite alike in written form. However, the spoken variants may be quite unlike one another. The Danish (not unlike the Dutch) are often mocked because of their guttural and/or glottal language, which by other Scandinavians is often referred to as a 'throat disease'.

Now, some Norwegian comedians took the effort of filming a sketch in which they represent themselves as some Danish people having such a hard time understanding each other that society soon may grind to a halt. Most of the clip is in English (with Norwegian subtitles), and two of the three actors are also quite good at mimicking English with a Danish accent. By the way: a Danish friend of mine who, unlike many other Danes in Norway, is really fluent at Norwegian, didn't quite get the joke. This was to my surprise...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk
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ElfoEscuro
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 Message 2 of 4
02 June 2008 at 5:40pm | IP Logged 
I have some Swedish friends, and they often make fun of the way Norwegians & Danes speak their respective languages as well.
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Makrasiroutioun
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 Message 3 of 4
06 June 2008 at 6:37pm | IP Logged 
That video was hilarious. Thanks for sharing.
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JD
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Sweden
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 Message 4 of 4
14 June 2008 at 4:19pm | IP Logged 
That video is very funny; don't know what the Danes think, though ;).

ElfoEscuro wrote:
I have some Swedish friends, and they often make fun of the way Norwegians & Danes speak their respective languages as well.


Indeed we do. Norwegian generally sounds 'happier' to us, with even more distinct 'tones', so it is very useful in jokes if you combine it with a stereotypical "tough" character, such as a gangster, drug dealer etc. (EDIT: here's a clip of Swedish comedy's wonder child Björn Gustafsson poking fun at the Norwegian mafia. It's in Swedish, though).

On the other hand, Danish, being more guttural to our ears, is used as in the video posted by Eduard; misunderstandings or simply no understanding at all!

Edited by JD on 14 June 2008 at 4:29pm



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