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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
For those not familiar with the term: 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).
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).
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”.
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 and try to guess the year it was completed, judging only by appearance, you’ll get it wrong.
no peeking beforehand…
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nineteensixtynine
It’s a whole country retconning. Maybe George Lucas has Norwegian ancestry…?
