# Language spoken in Norway **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 18, 2006, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258 "2006-08-18T18:04:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/41 "2006-08-22T02:00:38Z")
It’s fascinating to see how history is repeating itself. Prior to the mid-1800s, two tongues were spoken in Norway: a degenerate modernized form of Old Norse, called Landsmal, which was principally a rural dialect without a vocabulary suitable for urban culture; and Danish-with-a-Norwegian-accent, called Boksmal. This was the result of several hundred years of union between Denmark and Norway (the Kalmar Union, from which Sweden seceded at the Reformation). After the Napoleonic Wars, in which Sweden sided with the victorious Allies and Denmark with Napoleon, Norway was taken away from Denmark and united with Sweden – which after a little desultory warfare and politial shuffling ended up a union of crowns with a separate government. Norway separated from Sweden in 1907, adopting a leftover Danish prince as its new King, Haakon VII. A leading light in Norwegian culture came up with the idea of improving Norwegian national autonomy by using Landsmal as the basis for a modern full language, borrowing terminology from Boksmal, Danish, English, French, etc., to cover the vocabulary shortage. What he devised is one of the few instances in which a “created” language caught on and was used by a substantial public. His term for the product was Riksmal (the nation’s language), but it became widely known as New Norse, or Nynorsk. Now it appears that Boksmal has survived and stands fair to become the exclusive form of “Norwegian,” with the Nynorsk created to replace Landsmal in turn becoming the declining rural dialect form. It’s an altogether fascinating development in linguistics, and one where the “proper” form replaces the “vulgar” form, rather than the more usual other way around. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/42 "2006-08-22T04:20:42Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] A leading light in Norwegian culture came up with the idea of improving Norwegian national autonomy by using Landsmal as the basis for a modern full language, borrowing terminology from Boksmal, Danish, English, French, etc., to cover the vocabulary shortage. What he devised is one of the few instances in which a “created” language caught on and was used by a substantial public. His term for the product was Riksmal (the nation’s language), but it became widely known as New Norse, or Nynorsk. [/QUOTE] Good post, except for one factual error. Riksmal = Bokmal and Landsmal = Nynorsk. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 8:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/43 "2006-08-22T08:31:41Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Is there a dialect continuum between Norway and Sweden? I’m assuming Denmark wouldnt be part of that continuum due to the water crossing involved, but maybe I’m wrong about that…? [/QUOTE] Depends on what you mean. The dialect spoken in Scania, the southernmost part of Sweden, right next to Denmark, is considered closer to Danish than other Swedish dialects. I can’t hear it myself, possibly because I am Scanian, but that’s what they say. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/44 "2006-08-22T08:54:25Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] Norway separated from Sweden in 1907, adopting a leftover Danish prince as its new King, Haakon VII. [/quote] Like **John Mace** said, good post except for one factual error. The union was dissolved in 1905. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/45 "2006-08-22T09:25:47Z")
[QUOTE=Usram] Maybe it’s like an English person listening to someone speaking broad Scots? You can tell they’re speaking something closely related to English, and get the gist of what they’re saying, but there are grammatical differences in addition to differences in vocabulary and pronunciation. [/QUOTE] You may be right, but I can’t help harbouring a nagging doubt that it isn’t going to be quite the same. I suppose it would be possible to analyse and quantify the differences between two closely-related spoken languages, then artificially construct a spoken language that was different from English in the same sorts of ways and by the same degree. That would be interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 9:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/46 "2006-08-22T09:29:29Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] You may be right, but I can’t help harbouring a nagging doubt that it isn’t going to be quite the same. [/QUOTE] I’d say it’s very much like the difference between English and whatever Brad Pitt speaks in _Snatch_. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/47 "2006-08-22T12:01:06Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] **Naita** , you are the coolest ever. Will you take a check for the $8? (I take it that means you didn’t really like the movie.) [/QUOTE] I wouldn’t know what to do with a check. I think I’ve only received one once, sixteen years ago. The movie wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t all that good either. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/48 "2006-08-22T12:03:48Z")
[QUOTE=naita] I wouldn’t know what to do with a check. [/QUOTE] You’d go to a bank and probably pay the equivalent of $70 to get your hands on your $8. All on all, I’d advise against it. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/49 "2006-08-22T12:11:57Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Is there a dialect continuum between Norway and Sweden? I’m assuming Denmark wouldnt be part of that continuum due to the water crossing involved, but maybe I’m wrong about that…? [/QUOTE] As mentioned by Priceguy there’s some similarites across the strait between Denmark and Sweden, but I wouldn’t call it a continuum. I suppose there’s more of one between Norway and Sweden. The dialects in Jemtland and Herjedalen, which were Norwegian until 1645, could almost be a Norwegian dialect. This is more likely because of it’s relative isolation from anywhere at all than a continuous influence across the border. Most of the border between Norway and Sweden runs through uninhabited or very rural areas, but even along the most populated stretch, between Østfold and Bohuslän (Also Norwegian until 1645), the linguistic and cultural influences from within the country are much stronger than cross border influences. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/50 "2006-08-22T12:38:47Z")
[QUOTE=Polycarp] A leading light in Norwegian culture came up with the idea of improving Norwegian national autonomy by using Landsmal as the basis for a modern full language, borrowing terminology from Boksmal, Danish, English, French, etc., to cover the vocabulary shortage. What he devised is one of the few instances in which a “created” language caught on and was used by a substantial public. His term for the product was Riksmal (the nation’s language), but it became widely known as New Norse, or Nynorsk. [/QUOTE] Actually Ivar Aasen, who did the compilation of dialects that became Landsmål (tounge of the country/land) and eventually Nynorsk, wanted to _avoid_ foreign loan words and terminology especially from Danish, English, and German. Landsmål can definitelly not be seen as a preexisting entity that he based his effort on. Instead you had a contiuum of dialects from the high society urban dialects with the heaviest Danish influence to the most isolated mountain farms in Western Norway with the least. Ivar Aasen visited almost half of Norway’s municipalities in his travels to collect words, and was particularly interested in the areas of Western Norway where he considered the Danish influence to be the least. ---
**Author:** ![Coil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Coil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coil)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/51 "2006-08-22T13:25:07Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy] Depends on what you mean. The dialect spoken in Scania, the southernmost part of Sweden, right next to Denmark, is considered closer to Danish than other Swedish dialects. I can’t hear it myself, possibly because I am Scanian, but that’s what they say. [/QUOTE] Well, a lot of the time the rest of us aren’t really sure if you’re Swedish or not. 😉 Scanian can for me, being a djävla Stockholmare (damn Stockholmer), be somewhat hard to understand if is particularily heavy. But you kind of get used to it after a while. To continue **naita’s** example of words that are quite different in the languages. My favourite difference between Swedish and Norwegian is the word _rolig_. In Swedish it means funny but in Norwegian it means calm. ---
**Author:** ![Dunderman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecb155/32.png) [@Dunderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dunderman)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/52 "2006-08-22T13:29:05Z")
[QUOTE=Coil] To continue **naita’s** example of words that are quite different in the languages. My favourite difference between Swedish and Norwegian is the word _rolig_. In Swedish it means funny but in Norwegian it means calm. [/QUOTE] Prompting the joke about the Swedish tourist in Oslo who asked the taxi driver to take him to a “rolig” place, and was driven to the cemetery. ---
**Author:** ![Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silence_of_the_clams)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/53 "2006-08-22T15:21:51Z")
Or, when being told by a swedish girl that you are “rar”, and mistakingly thinking that she told you off… “rar” in swedish means “cute”, but in norwegian it menas “strange”. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Silence\_of\_the\_clams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silence_of_the_clams)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/54 "2006-08-22T15:23:22Z")
I meant “means” (double :smack: ) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/55 "2006-08-22T15:37:18Z")
[QUOTE=Priceguy] Prompting the joke about the Swedish tourist in Oslo who asked the taxi driver to take him to a “rolig” place, and was driven to the cemetery. [/QUOTE] Are you sure the taxi driver wasn’t Irish? _Roilig_, n.f., graveyard, cemetery. Also spelled _reilig_. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/56 "2006-08-22T16:26:38Z")
For those not familiar with the term: [Dialect Continuum.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuum) The Romance languages are the classic example, but Dutch -\> German is another one. Basically, you have language centers in which the people speak different languages, but no two neighboring localities speak a mutually unintelligible dialect. Sounds like Scandinavia might just be too sparsely populated to sustain a continuum, but I’m sure there are some examples in certain areas (as a few posters have noted). ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/57 "2006-08-22T16:54:35Z")
[QUOTE=acsenray] Do they have red herrings in Norway? [/QUOTE] Yes. However, _exploding_ herrings are native to Sweden. And I maintain the canonical version of the joke has the Swede asking to be taken to a “rolig” place with “rare” girls. The Oslo taxi driver scratches his head and drives him to the women’s ward of Dikemark (the local psychiatric hospital). ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/58 "2006-08-22T18:20:30Z")
You don’t even have to go across the border. An important lesson included in all student orientations (the ones held by older students, not the faculty orientations) was that if you were dancing with, or otherwise engaging a local girl and she said “Æ e så klar” it was essential to know this did not have the regular Norwegian meaning “I’m so ready”, but the local meaning “I’m so tired”. A friend of mine was offered some raspberries when visiting Denmark as a child and asked the hostess “Må jeg ta?” (Norw. Do I have to take some?"), got the reply “Ja, det må du.” (Dan. Yes you may.) Of course choking down some unwanted berries as a child is a low price to pay for a funny story to tell as an adult. As a somewhat reverse of the Swedish Norwegian “rolig” situation, there’s koselig - kuslig. Norwegian “koselig” means comfy/nice and is pronounced very similar to Swedish kuslig, which means scary/creepy. The Danish verb “grine” equals English grin, the Norwegian verb “grine” means to cry. Oh, and a really good one, Swedish bärs - Norwegian bæsj are pronounced pretty much the same, very close to English “bash”. The Swedish word is a colloquialism for beer, the Norwegian word is our equivalent to the noun “poop”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/59 "2006-08-22T21:17:44Z")
Coming late to this thread I just want to point out that all in all, a grand total of 800 words separate Danish from Swedish. We get into some trouble with false friends, i.e. homonyms that mean totally different things (“rolig” is ‘calm’ in Danish but ‘funny’ in Swedish). There are other aspects. A Swede would ask for a pack of cigarettes in the local convenience store, whereas a Dane would ask for 20 [brandname], to get the same thing. There are some oddities with pronounciation, Swedes being very partial to an open vowel sound that most Norwegians and Danish think sounds awful. All in all, we share a common ancestor and should (aside from political reasons) really be considered dialects. BTW, the strong nationalistic feelings after the separation of Sweden and Norway, lead the Norwegians to inevent a glorious past, including made up folklore and more. By saying that, I’m giving away the punchline, but if you look at [this pic](http://gallery.tonywhitmore.co.uk/albums/trondheim/img_2845.sized.jpg) and try to guess the year it was completed, judging only by appearance, you’ll get it wrong. no peeking beforehand… . . . . . nineteensixtynine It’s a whole country retconning. Maybe George Lucas has Norwegian ancestry…? ---
**Author:** ![yelimS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/54ee81/32.png) [@yelimS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yelimS)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258/60 "2006-08-22T21:55:22Z")
[QUOTE=Charlie Tan] BTW, the strong nationalistic feelings after the separation of Sweden and Norway, lead the Norwegians to inevent a glorious past, including made up folklore and more [/QUOTE] Norwegian boats: > **[Fram](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram)** > > Fram may refer to: > **[Kon-Tiki expedition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kon_tiki)** > > The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Heyerdahl's book on the expedition was entitled The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas. A 1950 documentary film won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. A 2012 dramatized feature film wa... Swedish boat: > **[Vasa (ship)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regalskeppet_Vasa)** > > Vasa (previously Wasa) (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Swedish pronunciation: \[²vɑːsa\] ⓘ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th c... I’d mention viking ships, too, but then you’d probably make some propostrous claims about some vikings being swedish. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/language-spoken-in-norway/369258.md?page=4)