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Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

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Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#101

Post by matsemann »

toretore wrote: post #99
vintermann wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as I have "no" dialect. That almost certainly means "a moderate Oslo dialect, neither Stovner or Frogner", and it's probably not nearly as close to written Bokmål as you think (unless you learned Norwegian as a second language).

Thank you for correcting a pet peeve of mine: People thinking they "speak Bokmål". Everyone speaks a dialect.

Hence my quotes around the "no". I of course speak a dialect, but since it's similar to what the majority speak, it's almost never labeled as such.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#102

Post by komadori »

Tor3 wrote: post #38
goblin89 wrote: post #13

The status of Norwegian Nynorsk is reminiscent of Yue/Cantonese. In areas where it is native, it’s used in writing more rarely (and very rarely in official writing) compared to Mandarin (a distinct, not mutually intelligible language) or English. Another similarity is that Cantonese, like Nynorsk, is considered higher status where it’s spoken, and like Nynorsk it’s under somewhat of a threat so the communities know t…

In addition to what vidarh said - it's not comparable to Mandarin vs Cantonese, as those are spoken languages. Nynorsk is one way of writing (and reading) Norwegian, it is not a spoken form (nor is Bokmål). Some dialects are kind of closer if you try to "speak" it (read out loud, from e.g. a book), and some are farther away, most dialects contain elements where some words will fit better in one form and other element…

You can write Cantonese, although most Cantonese speakers' "formal" written language is more closely related to spoken Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese) than to the way they normally speak.

I recommend "Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular" by Don Snow.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#103

Post by matsemann »

vintermann wrote: post #94
matsemann wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're misunderstanding a bit. Those are both written languages only, but some may speak closer to one than the other. My speaking would be pretty close to bokmål, as I have "no" dialect. Nynorsk is a mix of lots of various spoken dialects. No one really "speaks" nynorsk, but for many it's closer to how they speak than bokmål would be, but it's still not 1:1 for them. The only way you really would "speak" nyn…

> as I have "no" dialect. That almost certainly means "a moderate Oslo dialect, neither Stovner or Frogner", and it's probably not nearly as close to written Bokmål as you think (unless you learned Norwegian as a second language).

As I wrote in another comment[0]: Foreign parents, and most kids spoke like Oslo among other kids, and their dialect only with adults. So pretty plain Norwegian. Most people would however guess I'm from Østfold, due to a thick "L" I've no idea where I picked up high here in the mountains.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39026276

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#104

Post by acje »

sakjur wrote: post #15
vages wrote: post #10

Norwegian written and pronounced language was actually changed because one digit was added to phone numbers. Here is the long story: Starting after World War Two, the government made an attempt at _merging_ the two written languages. The imagined outcome was named “Samnorsk” (unified Norwegian), led by Språknemnda (The Language committee). The work mainly consisted of changing the grammar of certain words in the bokm…

I think the right to left should be left to right in that last sentence? I was briefly confused by that and ended up reading your links (takk!) Danish still use a somewhat complex infix system for reading numbers (five and half fours is 75), and I find that very confusing as a Swede who didn’t grow up with it.

https://www.nrk.no/video/humor/danskene-forstaar-hverandre-i...

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#105

Post by Tor3 »

matsemann wrote: post #91
Tor3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you meant "parents" not patients - I was a bit confused at first :-) What happened to you is probably that your friends, for your sake, tried to "speak" Bokmål to you (Bokmål is a written, not normally spoken language), as in practice that's how you have to teach Norwegian to foreigners. You have to come up with something where the writing and the speech actually matches. Where my wife was taught they did it…

I'm from a dialect speaking part of Norway (Hallingdal), and my peers and I would speak like Oslo (so closer to bokmål) together. But they would always speak in dialect with teachers, their parents etc. My parents are foreigners, so I then never picked up on speaking the dialect myself. But it's still a shock to have a conversation with them, and how they suddenly switch when picking up the phone or whatever. Not ent…

I never change my dialect when I travel in Norway, for any reason, as long as the one I'm speaking to is native. But some people are extremely sensitive to how others speak, and may unconsciously (and some consciously) try to mimic the one they're speaking with. In the past though there was some discrimination going on. In Oslo you could find advertisements for apartments, for example, with the text "no northeners please". That's only sixty-seventy years back. People moving to Oslo from elsewhere would then try to change their dialect. Despicable times. Before my time though. There's nothing of that anymore, or, if there are any individuals around who actually thinks one dialect has more prestige than another.. the vast majority will ignore them, just as they ignore other morons (for lack of a better word)

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#106

Post by Tor3 »

perlgeek wrote: post #93
NorwegianDude wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People don't speak nynorsk or bokmål. It's s written language. Some dialects are closer to one written form than the other.

Well, as a foreigner, if you want to learn "the language", you have to start with something . Since the majority speak some dialect of bokmål, and most courses teach it, that's what you end up with. I watch some series in Norwegian, e.g. Ragnarok. I understood most of it, though some of the dialects were kinda hard to understand. But it seems a moot point, basically nobody in any language speaks the "high" language,…

Again, it's not a dialect of bokmål. That would sound like bokmål is actually a spoken language and there are dialects of it. It is not. It's the other way around - bokmål is an attempt to create a written language with common elements for a lot of people, and the same was done for nynorsk - it's just that for bokmål the selection was more from certain city areas in the south, and nynorsk more from dialects elsewhere, but that's actually a too easy description. In my own dialect, which originates very far from where bokmål was created, there are tons of similarities but also tons of differences, and the same can be said for just about every dialect.

When teaching Norwegian to foreigners there's really only one practical way of doing that - use an artificial "spoken" bokmål so that the students can actually match speech to written words. That's just a crutch in order to learn the language (after you're done the real learning starts). That doesn't mean that "spoken" bokmål (or nynorsk for that matter) is real outside the learning institution.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#107

Post by Tor3 »

vidarh wrote: post #95
Tor3 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nitpicking I know - but "reverse numerals" weren't a Danishism at all. That's all from Old Norse. Also remember that the vast majority of spoken Norwegian wasn't affected by Danish at all, and that included the "reverse numerals" which have survived all over Norway. As was mentioned in another comment, the switch to non-reversal numbers was something introduced in order to support phone operators, who could then just…

Thanks for the correction. To be honest that didn't occur to me - as I was growing up it was very much lumped in with "other old fashioned stuff" that was dismissed as conservative bokmål and I've missed the Norse connection. I know it's still seeing some use, but the steady reduction in use was very noticeable already during my school years in the 80's and 90's, and appears to have continued. Some use will still cer…

In writing, I totally agree - even though I will speak the reversed form often, I don't use that in writing. If I for some reason aren't writing the actual numbers (22) I will write "tjueto", not "to-og-tjue" even if that's what I would say. It's extremely rare to see reverse notation in writing.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#108

Post by Tor3 »

actionfromafar wrote: post #71
Tor3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition to what vidarh said - it's not comparable to Mandarin vs Cantonese, as those are spoken languages. Nynorsk is one way of writing (and reading) Norwegian, it is not a spoken form (nor is Bokmål). Some dialects are kind of closer if you try to "speak" it (read out loud, from e.g. a book), and some are farther away, most dialects contain elements where some words will fit better in one form and other element…

Sweden, Norway and Denmark is a perfect example of language continuum. At the fringes, the division between them is clearly for political and administrative purposes. It called all have been named "Danish". I think what goes for "German" has even more internal differences.

Yes, it's just a huge continuum. I call it "Scandinavian" for short.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#109

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

unixhero wrote: post #85
mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The failed samnorsk reform did have a silver lining. Around high school I figured out that because of it, a shocking amount of Nynorsk grammar was secretly optional and the Bokmål version was very often valid Nynorsk. So I started just writing my essays in Bokmål and then fixing the errors in post, so to speak. Initially my teacher tried to fail me for this, but she lost that battle. I vehemently hate Nynorsk, or at…

Nynorsk kept me away from becoming a fighter pilot

That makes me so angry. The Norwegian school system is so, so inflexible and it ruins many lives each year.

For me, the reason I was never allowed to set foot in a university was German, PE, and Norwegian literature. I was suffering from severe health issues and I didn't have the energy to do all the subjects I had no interest in. So I poured my focus into the subjects I enjoyed and/or were relevant to my future plans(biology, calc, English, physics, history). I generally nailed those subjects. But because I failed German, and almost never showed up for PE, I was denied the opportunity to follow my dream and study biology.

Part of the problem is also the very inflexible admission requirements for Norwegian universities.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#110

Post by bazoom42 »

mistrial9 wrote: post #4

this energetic overview necessarily blurs a lot of distinctions when describing the changes in population and language over time. The Vikings (aka pirates) were a dominant form for a very long time, with care going to ferocity and travel skills, not fancy verb forms or leather bound books. It was literally larger and larger Feudal associations that led to merging into this kingdom or that kingdom, and not everyone wa…

> Along with Christianity came fancy verb forms

I think you have that backwards. Old norse had more complex grammar. The grammar have simplified over time.

Icelandic still have more complex grammar than other Scandinavian languages because it have changed less.

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