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Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

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Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#61

Post by Symbiote »

The_Colonel wrote: post #16
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…

> This was architected by the head of the telephone bureau in 1949, as an error reduction mechanism I find it fascinating that the telephone bureau was powerful enough to initiate such language change. Imagine happening this today. But this reminds me of the fact that in Czech we have both counting systems as well. The forward (english) counting is the standard, but the backward (german) is quite commonly used inform…

> The forward (english) counting is the standard, but the backward (german) is quite commonly used informally as well (it also has a certain poetic quality).

English also had the backward numbers, but they are only used poetically nowadays. [1] is a nursery rhyme. [2] says English switched in the 16th century. (Except 13-19, which are still backwards.)

English also used to count in twenties ("three score and five" = 65), like modern Danish ("femogtres") which is clearer if written in slightly old Danish "femogtresindstyve", "fem og tre-sinds-tyve" → "five and three-times-twenty".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence

[2] https://german.stackexchange.com/questions/5009/what-is-the-...

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#62

Post by mailund »

mtlmtlmtlmtl wrote: post #58
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…

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…

I used the same approach! I essentially had a list of everything I should search and replace in the document (e.g. search for singular nouns ending in -en and see if they should be replaced by -a), and all the weird quirks that I needed to pay special attention to. As soon I was finished writing in bokmål, I followed the steps to "transpile" the text into nynorsk! I was able to go from almost failing to getting a decent grade back in the days using this approach.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#63

Post by Symbiote »

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.

Danish people no longer say the "times twenty" parts of their numbers, which makes it more confusing to foreigners.

75 femoghalvfjerds used to be spoken as femoghalffjerdsindstyve, fem og half-fjerd-sinds-tyve¹, five and half-fourth-times-twenty.

The longer form is still used for ordinal numbers. 75th is femoghalffjerdsindstyvende.

French speakers will also recognise this system for numbers 80-99. 85 is quatre-vingt-cinq, four-twenties-five.

¹ People not used to compound words, like English speakers, will appreciate me writing it like this.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#64

Post by worklaptopacct »

The_Colonel wrote: post #16
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…

> This was architected by the head of the telephone bureau in 1949, as an error reduction mechanism I find it fascinating that the telephone bureau was powerful enough to initiate such language change. Imagine happening this today. But this reminds me of the fact that in Czech we have both counting systems as well. The forward (english) counting is the standard, but the backward (german) is quite commonly used inform…

I've had the exact same reasoning about Polish, and after I've moved to Germany I've noticed that quite often I'm able to just translate a phrase directly from Polish and it would be correct. I suppose that the verbs originate in the convoluted language of German bureaucracy in the parts of Poland under German rule.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#65

Post by sfn42 »

goblin89 wrote: post #53
bjornevik wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nynorsk, is considered higher status where it’s spoken Neither nynorsk or bokmål are spoken languages.

Nynorsk is, according to TFA, predominantly used in speech and less used in writing, while Bokmål is the opposite. (Minus region specifics.) Is that not correct? My impression, only based on this article, is that Nynorsk and Bokmål are both spoken as well as written, just more or less so depending on context and region. Just as English is both a written and a spoken language, and Cantonese is both a written and a spo…

Nynorsk was an attempt at creating a written language closer to the spoken language. The problem is that in Norway out dialects are widely different. For example, the phrase "I am" is written as "Jeg er" in bokmål, "Eg er" in nynorsk. Nobody says "Jeg" - it can be pronounced as "Jei", "Eg", "Æ", or even "Oss" though that's a different word that some dialects use in place of the "correct" one.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#66

Post by actionfromafar »

bjoli wrote: post #21
The_Colonel wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This was architected by the head of the telephone bureau in 1949, as an error reduction mechanism I find it fascinating that the telephone bureau was powerful enough to initiate such language change. Imagine happening this today. But this reminds me of the fact that in Czech we have both counting systems as well. The forward (english) counting is the standard, but the backward (german) is quite commonly used inform…

It was a different time as well. There was one central resource for phone-related things and the spirit of the time was very much a bureaucratic efficient one. The idea was that you could make the society better and more efficient, often top down. In Sweden there was even a standardisation of kitchens made by a government agency. Everything from height of the counters to placement. It wasn't always followed, but it d…

What people don't remember about the plural-you reform, is that neither "du" nor "ni" were used very much. Instead, "Han" (he) and "Hon" (she) were used to address people of similar standing.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#67

Post by berkes »

vidarh wrote: post #12
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…

The numbers switch was slow , though. My parents started school after the change was officially made in the 50's and would have learned the new forms in school, but still used the old form enough in the late 70's and 80's that I picked up a preference for it from them, and you still find people of my generation (I'm born in '75) using the old forms pretty often, if less now than when I was younger. (If anyone here wo…

> The numbers switch was slow, though.

50 years is hardly "slow" on a scale of language reform.

The number-systems stem from at least proto-germanic languages, millenia of small changes.

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#68

Post by downsplat »

Such a tantalizing article... come on, where are the examples? It's like reading a description of a painting without being shown a picture! What are some of these vulgar urban words that the Riksmål elites didn't want their children to be taught? What are some of these rural dialectal words that were kept optional but fell out of even moderate Nynorsk? More than a few readers of a chapter-length history of the Norwegian language might have some familiarity with Scandinavian, and the rest of us can handle a few words in italics!

Re: Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

#70

Post by mtlmtlmtlmtl »

sfn42 wrote: post #65
goblin89 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nynorsk is, according to TFA, predominantly used in speech and less used in writing, while Bokmål is the opposite. (Minus region specifics.) Is that not correct? My impression, only based on this article, is that Nynorsk and Bokmål are both spoken as well as written, just more or less so depending on context and region. Just as English is both a written and a spoken language, and Cantonese is both a written and a spo…

Nynorsk was an attempt at creating a written language closer to the spoken language. The problem is that in Norway out dialects are widely different. For example, the phrase "I am" is written as "Jeg er" in bokmål, "Eg er" in nynorsk. Nobody says "Jeg" - it can be pronounced as "Jei", "Eg", "Æ", or even "Oss" though that's a different word that some dialects use in place of the "correct" one.

Yeah. Secretly it's actually just written Sunnmøre dialect with a bunch arcane and archaic vocabulary words from around the country thrown in, that if they're used, everyone else has to google.

That's why I hate reading it so much. I swear every time i read an article or something in Nynorsk, there's at least one word in there I've never seen in my life, that sounds like something a Sunnmøring spat out during a stroke.

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