I caught a bit of the movie Monsterthursday on T.V. It’s set in Norway, and a guy is trying to learn how to surf. At first, they can’t figure out when to go to the beach (for the best waves), so they stop in at some weather bureau. At the weather bureau, they ask about waves and at first they are told to listen to the wave report on the radio. Their reply is “We don’t understand that.” And then someone shows them a map with colored bars indicating the height of waves.
That threw me for a loop. Why wouldn’t they understand the wave report? Is it too complicated or technical? How would it be very different from what they were told directly in relation to the map? These guys seemed to be fairly educated and well off – at least not illiterate or sub-literate. What would it take for them to simply not understand a government broadcast?
Then one of the guys starts dating the girl at the weather bureau and he’s telling his friend about it. He says that it was difficult to talk to her because “I can’t understand her Danish” or something to that effect. So, I think, maybe they didn’t understand the wave report because it’s also in Danish.
But that’s even more confusing
So, what’s the deal here? Official government radio reports in Norway are given in Danish, a language that common people (evidently) don’t understand well? And government employees speak Danish instead of Norwegian?
Norway has two main dialects: Bokmål and Nynorsk (book language and New Norwegian). Bokmål is very close to Danish (Norway was ruled by Denmark for a long time). Nynorsk was developed largely in the 19th century as Norway became independent and more national pride developed. I’ve been to Norway a few times, though, and have never heard that people couldn’t understand both dialects-- they are not that different. In fact, Norwegians, Danes and Swedes can generally communicate with each other without much problem.
I’m hoping that one of our Scandinavian members will be here before long to elaborate on this, but I’d be surprised if the Nordic languages were mutually intelligible, without at least some basic lessons when going from your native language to one of the others. In particular, IIRC, Swedish has postfixed definite articles which give it a rhythm that is quite different from other Germanic languages.
I was vaguely aware of the existence of two separate standards. However, I didn’t expect that they would be used in such a way that people wouldn’t be able to understand broadcasts.
According to Wiki, actually, fewer than 20 percent of Norwegians consider Nynorsk their first language. Throughout the 20th century, it seems, Bokmal has become more and more widespread, to the extent that a few years ago the government gave up any attempts to further the use of Nynorsk or to merge the two standards, because so few people spoke Nynorsk any more.
Furthermore, according to the article, the term “Dano-Norwegian” is disliked because Norwegians don’t consider it to be Danish. So was the girl speaking Danish or Bokmal? If she was speaking Bokmal, why would they refer to it as Danish (unless it was the subtitles that got it wrong)?
I supsect that if Scandinavia (minus Finland) were one country, all those languages would be considered dialects of a language called Scandinavian. As we all know, the distinction between a language and a dialect is largely political.
Nynorsk is spoken mainly in rural areas, and maybe this was just a way of saying Nynorsk is “real Norwegian” while Bokmal is Danish. Just a guess, since I didn’t see the movie.
The only take I have on the mutual intellgibility of the Scandinavian languages comes from a detective story wiritten by Maj Sjowall and her husband, whose name escapes me. Anyway, they were Swedish and in one of the last stories they wrote before he died, their detectives are in Malmo, across the water from Copenhagen and the Swedish and Danish police chiefs, who have known each other for years, but have never before had to work together give up their pretense that each understands the other language and speak English. I assume the authors are speaking from experience.
Incidentally, Danish (and, presumably Norwegian) also has postfixed definite articles. More precisely, they have a definite and an indefinite declension. German used to too, which explains the funny business with strong and weak adjective agreement. But Germans no longer do that with nouns.
You also have to keep in mind that “mutual intelligibility” is different in different circumstances. A Swede and a Norwegian talking to each other and purposely trying to make themselves understood is quite different from a Norwegian listening to a Swedish (or Danish) radio broadcast. I believe we have posters here from all three countries, so I’m sure we’ll get the stratight dope from the locals.
I’m not really, truly fluent in Danish, but I can still get along pretty well in Norwegian and Swedish. Swedish is harder, though. I can read it OK.
Keep in mind that the TV programs are shared, and so children in Denmark grow up watching Swedish TV shows (before they can read, and no subtitles anyway). So everyone is getting some practice in understanding the other languages right from the start.
Now, who wants to hear me sing Pippi Longstocking is Swedish? (My kids love it, really…)
I’m a norwegian living in Denmark and have heard a similar comment to the one in the movie.
Some background: As mentioned before Norway has two official written languages; Bokmål and Nynorsk. Bokmål is usually spoken in the cities and Nynorsk is more provincial. Bokmål is based on and almost identical to written danish, though they are quite different in pronounciation.
The speakers of Nynorsk, literally the “new norwegian”, are quite staunch in defending their created and original minority language. Now what probably happened is that the person listening to the very formal audio report in Bokmål didn’t quite graps all the details and made a derogatory statement comparing Bokmål to its danish origins, basically saying its another language.
I’ve heard that comment made before and likewise such comments are made by speakers of both languages. There are many quite radically different dialects in the country and it can happen that some people don’t fully understand eachother, even if they speak the same written language.
As to the quote *“Norwegian isn’t a language its a throat infection.” * That is actually a norwegian quote made about the danish language being so guttural compared to norwegian or swedish. There is quite a bit of sibling rivalry and insults are often returned without repackaging… :smack:
As a norwegian it did take me some time to understand the spoken danish when I first came here, but at least I do a better job than the danes who can’t even tell if I speak norwegian or swedish. To sum up: Norwegian and swedish are very similar spoken, but not written and danish and norwegian are very similar written not spoken.
[QUOTE=General
To sum up: Norwegian and swedish are very similar spoken, but not written and danish and norwegian are very similar written not spoken. :)[/QUOTE]
I think there’s something wrong with my brain because that makes perfect sense to me.
I’m a Norwegian, and I have little trouble understanding written and spoken Swedish, written Danish and slow and enunciated spoken Danish. Some of the more odd dialects might be a problem, but so are the most “extreme” Norwegian ones.
Back to the OP’s question though, I haven’t seen the movie, but I see from the IMDB listing that at least two of the main characters are in fact played by Danish actors, and Danes and Swedes do get radio and government jobs, and although they might speak Danwegian or Svorsk* and be understood by most people, there are always those who’re not all that good at understanding non-standard spoken language.
*a portmanteau of “Svensk” and “Norsk”, Norwegian for Swedish and Norwegian
I’m a Swede and I can understand written Norwegian and Danish fairly well. Spoken Norwegian is usually not a problem unless they have a dialect. Spoken Danish can be quite hard to understand for the average Swede (me included).
Speaking of Norwegian weather reports, I read a case study in sociolinguistics many years ago, I don’t have the reference now. A weatherman was nicknamed “the Abominable Snowman” in the press after an incident where he was fired because he kept saying the Bokmål word for “snow” after the station management had told him to say it in Nynorsk.
It really depends on where in Sweden you’re from. Many people from Stockholm have a problem with Danish, while most people from Malmö would have more of a problem with Norwegian than with Danish. I’m an aberration: I’m from Malmö and Danish is virtually impossible to understand for me unless they talk really clearly and really slowly.
But in general terms, yes, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, if we make the effort.
(My kids love it, really…)