I did a quick scroll trough the comments, and i thought i would mention that, swdish and danish is derived from eastern norse language, while norwegian and icelandic (basically still western norse) Is derived from western norse which both again are derived from germanic and then proto-germanic if i'm not mistaken.
I have heard that nynorsk has more incommon with swedish than bokmål. Someone who knows if thats true? For exampel, swedish has a lot of "a" endings, which nynorsk also have. (If im correct?). Bokmål has only "e" endings.
Norwegian and Swedish are very similar by default, because we are very geographically close, so along the borders you have dialects that blend into each other, just with slightly different accent depending on which side of the border they live in. Yes, Nynorsk has more in common with Swedish than it does with Danish atleast, but when it comes to bokmål it depends, because swedish just like Danish only has 2 genders, and monothongs, in bokmål you can use dipthongs and use three genders, although the plural in bokmål is always ''er'' or ''ene'' no matter what gender it is. But when it comes to the words used, then yes, for sure Swedish and Nynorsk are closer, for example the word ''begin'' is begynne in bokmål, but it is byrja/byrje in both nynorsk and swedish, ''water'' is vann in bokmål, but vatn in nynorsk and vatten in swedish (but they are pronounced almost identically), i could provide more examples, but you get it. So to sum it up, nynorsk has more words closer to swedish, but grammatically nynorsk is slightly closer to bokmål. The language that nynorsk actually resembles most is probably faroese actually.
It would be worth mentioning that the Black Death has also played a significant role in the take-over by the Danish language in Norway, after and estimated 1/3 by conservative counts, or 2/3 in liberal calculations, were killed by the disease, decimating the population and with it the language.
I'm Norwegian and my dialect is much closer to nynorsk, but I still write bokmål. I really like nynorsk, though, I like how it's much more traditional and less Danish.
Both Nynorsk and Bokmål does not make much sense, at their core they are both fake made up languages that no one actually speak. (Apart from maybe the Oslo and the western dialects) For example even though i only live a little over an hour away from Oslo, i use all three genders in regular speech. This makes writing incredibly confusing, and i don't understand why this is not a part of bokmål, most people still use it
@@vetar3372 All written forms of every language on Earth are made up and are artificial to more or less of a degree. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's quite natural that at some point all the amounts of different dialects of some nation were standardised into a one common variant. However, I don't understand how can you speak but not write genders? Both languages that I speak have 3 genders (masculine, feminine, neutral), and I cannot imagine not to conjugate the ending forms accordingly. This puzzles me about what you just wrote.
@@ПророкМухоед I know that all written languages are fake to some degree. But my main point was that when it comes to Nynorsk and Bokmål they are both more fake than what they need to be, there should be more flexibility between the two to connect them more. A lot of people speak something that is awkwardly in between the two. Even simple things like changing the writing itself, like the usage of o and å. Examples of this would be "no" and "nå", which both could be written "no". And making them look visually more similar, bokmål: "slitsomt"->"slitsåmt" nynorsk: "slitsamt". While you can write all genders it is not common, and this is a place where i don't think there should be flexibility, as far as a "standard" goes. Because of a lack of standardization, en and ei gendered word endings has started to merge where i live, which is confusing. As far as i know, the only areas that don't use all three genders is Bergen and Oslo. All three genders should really be used in public and told in school to get rid of this confusion. All in all, i think that the Nynorsk and Bokmål idea is kind of an outdated one, and that local dialects should be used more in public. As well as having more dialects than the western and Oslo dialect represented in an official way. I just think it would make things less confusing, and also make the language more practical and easier to learn for outsiders.
oh, me too!!! honestly i feel kind of robbed by the school system for teaching me the wrong norwegian. >_> the nynorsk education happened way too late (8th grade?? really??? i've already been writing bokmål for almost a decade by then) and i was also very lazy about it at the time. :/
I live in Trøndelag, where our dialect is quite different from both Nynorsk and Bokmål. Lately, Nynorsk allows more and more words that feels way more natural to me, such as allowing "dokker" alongside "dykk". It can be worth nothing that most people here, especially the younger generation, write the standard language only in formal situations. If I were to chat with a close friend from the same region as me, I would write my dialect phonetically. Writing "æ" instead of "jeg", "itj" instead of "ikke" and etc. Great video.
AndrishhRS Du må aldri blande talemål og skrift. Det er tullball. Bokmål og nynorsk er skriftspråk og trøndersk er en dialekt. Det første er visuelt og stumt. Det andre er oral-auditivt.
Holde kjeft? Ble du sint for at skrift ikke er tale og at tale ikke skrift. Du må da skjønne at bokstaver er stumme. Hører du stemmen min når du leser det jeg skriver? Bruker du øya eller bruker du ørene? Hører du med øya? og leser med ørene? Vi leser jo med øynene og hører med ørene. Men ja trøndere er særegne. Bare gudene og trøndere selv vet hvordan ørene og øynene funker i trøndelag, du slette tid. Bokmål er norsk. Dansk er dansk.
exentr Oj vad kul. Jag sitter och läser det här (och alla andra kommentarer, även de engelska) högljutt på Norska... eller snarare med mitt eget improviserade norska uttal. Folk omkring börjar stirra på mig nu, men jag kan bara inte sluta. Hjälp! 😱
Hvorfor er 1 + 1 = 1 feil? Det enkleste er å si at sånn er det bare bestemt at 1 + 1 = 2. Vi må bare godta det. Olje er ikke vann. Turbo er forskjellig fra kompressor. Norge er ikke Sverige. Det bare er sånn. Spør meg ikke hvorfor.
Similar to Attic and Doric Scots. Attic Scots (sometimes called English with a Scottish accent) is like Bokmål based on the language of the anglicised Scottish elite, while "Doric" Scots that rural folk speak is like Nynorsk.
That's actually a really good comparison, Fummy. The relation between Norwegian and Danish, is like the relation between Scots and English. And Nynorsk and Bokmål are like Doric and Attic Scots. Yeah! That makes a lot of sense! And then you have Scottish Gaelic, which is a completely different language that only a few speak, kinda like Sami in Norway.
@@gustavovillegas5909 Hard to convince others it's the case when Scottish people themselves often don't think so, and the medieval forms of the language are called "Middle English" and "Old English".
When I speak Danish (clearly to avoid the Danish potato) to my Norwegian friends, they make fun that it sounds like the language spoken by the fine elderly people of Oslo. E.g. when I say "aften" instead of "kvell" they find it very old fashioned :P
That is true. Most words in Danish are known to Norwegians, even if we don't use them in daily speech. But we know them from older texts, sayings, christmas carols etc, so to hear young people use these words in daily speech, can sound a bit odd.
Great explination. As a learner of Norwegian I've always found it intersting that Norwegian is varied in spoken form and even written form. Of course I've been learning Bokmål, but I am farmiliar enough with nynorsk that i can read it decently. Men Norge har mange forkjellige og ulike dialekter og det kan være vanskelig å forstå noen av dem. Kjempebra forklaring!
Swedish also has a lot of diverse dialects and accents, but they are not as diverse as they are in Norway, especially not nowadays since TV and so on. I guess it's all the mountains and fjords that created the diversities in the different Norwegian dialects. Swedish terrain wasn't as hard to move around in... :)
More or less yeah. Many people in Sweden might pronounce the "g" in "jag" when putting emphasis or stress on the word, for example, when correcting if someone misheard (as in "No, not you, I said that *I* liked that movie" might be an ok example sentence) But otherwise, yup, the g is dropped these days. Same with the "t" in "det" ("it" in english) and the "ch" in "och" ("and" in english). I believe the Norwegians often do the same with "og" by dropping the "g" there.
I started learning Norwegian a few months ago and didn't realize there were two variations of Norwegian. I used multiple websites to learn it and now I realized I learned a combination of nynorsk and bokmål. This video helped differentiate the two
I remember my early days of learning Norwegian, I'd sometimes purchase Danish magazines thinking they were Norwegian due to the writing being similar. :D
I think the first book I used to learn Norwegian was an old Riksmål book. I started as a child, on my own. ( yes, I guess I was a weird child, but I fell in love with Norway). When I was a teenager, I went to Norway as a summer exchange student, to Stavanger. Of course, I was a bit shocked to hear my host family speak, and think...what are they saying? Eg veit ikkje is quite different from Jeg vet ikke. However, now that I'm studying Icelandic (which I think may be the most beautiful language in the world...to me, obviously), I would rather use radikalt bokmål. Jeg glømmer...gras...bjørk...sakne..ei bru..etc. It is closer to the ancient roots. I think I was a viking in a former life.
Have you seen the Norwegian series called Beforeigners? They speak Old Norse in it. It's so beautiful to listen to, especially when the Icelandic actors speak it with a reconstructed ON pronunciation. I wish our language was still the same, because ON was so much more beautiful to me than modern Norwegian.
Fascinating. I've always wondered about the differences. And your point at the end that you speak first and learn the write later, meaning you don't "speak" a written language is a really illuminating point. Got my gears turning about all the ways my spoken English varies from written -- it's almost backwards to how I previously thought. We say the "g is silent" in reign, but I always believed that we wrote it knowing the g is silent, but in actuality, I learned it spoken with no g, and that's just how it's written. Your point kind of forced me to bifurcate the logic behind that reasoning. Love it.
True. Words are just pictures that represent sounds, where the relation of left-to-right in written form represents earlier-to-later in acoustic form. So, that "reign" has a "g" in it is really a kind of discrepancy, or error, which English-speakers have learned to conventionally ignore. It's typical to think of it the other way around, that it is an error that we don't pronounce the "g", but that's absurd. That's kind of like looking at a Dali painting of melting clocks and thinking it's strange that clocks don't melt like that in reality since, after all, they do in the picture.
This is the best explanation I've come across so far, from the point of view of a learner of Norwegian. I've also studied Danish somewhat, but the pronunciation defeated me. At least Norwegian is somewhat more phonetic. A bonus of learning Bokmål is that you can then pretty much understand most written Danish. (The spoken language is of course quite another matter).
They make fun of my Danish also, so don't feel bad:) In Norway, it is becoming more and more acceptable to write your dialect exactly how you pronounce it. Perhaps not on your Norwegian exam but in text messages and such. I am from Drammen and we say skarru instead of skal du. Now I live in Toten and here they would write itte for ikke/ikkje and heme for hjemme/heime. I love dialects and accents and how they slowly change from town to town.
I suspect that you laugh at our ( Danish) attempts at speaking Norwegian too? - which are probably more like silly parodies of your typically overly enthusiastic Norwegian sports commentators getting carried away, when Norway wins some sorts of sports championships. 😂 We really do like when our Norwegian brothers and sisters win at the Winter Olympics for instance and cheer for you ( especially over the Swedes 🙄😉 ), because we are hopeless at most winter sports ourselves ( not having a reliable and stable winter climate with lots of snow and ice down here in DK proper, no mountains and no real traditions for most of these typical winters sports 🙄 ), BUT after gold medal no. 20 for Norway in 4 - 5 days it usuallydoes start to become a bit annoying that you are that good 😉😂
Not having a riksmål both written and spoken is the dumbest thing I’ve seen. There are countless countries that have that system where the dialects are fully preserved, yet Norway argues that having riksmål standards would be damaging for the culture, although its lack only damages communication. In no way should it be acceptable in some places for dialects to be used neither spoken or written, yet they are.
My Danish dialect also still has the three genders intact ([ien] for feminine and [ej] for masculine). We still WRITE everything in standard Danish, but we usually have no doubts as to what gender words are since using the wrong one just "sounds all wrong".
Nordmann her. Hva? Har danske dialekter trekjønnsbøying mens skriftlig standard har to? Jeg tenkte at dansk muntlig unntaksvis kanskje hadde noen ord i femininum.
Jackson, as a Norwegian living abroad I wanna send a big thank you for making this video. I've had several people ask me about the differences and why it is the way it is - even as a native Norwegian I found it very difficult to answer. From now on, I'm just going to share this video! Haha :) Thank you!
Was the development of the Norwegian language not part of the curriculum for you or something? I mean, we go pretty deep into it, especially in vg3 Norwegian. I even chose to write a whole paper about it.
Such a mess for learners and such a treasure for historical linguists. One must love Scandinavia. Somewhat sad, that Denmark and Sweden are so heavily standard-language-centric though.
When I first came to America there was a very big Swedish population. I found that their language sucked. I could have turned my Ikkje into inte my eg into the stupid Jag. I cared not to. Even Eastern dialekts of Norwegian trip me up. I feel that dialects coming from focusing on our language through Nynorsk flow a lot more natural and less like an angry grandmother or a clay-animation. I do not think Nynorsk is proper myself. I disagree with all the German influences upon spellings. There are many simple fixes to truly have a Norwegian language away from the political past.
Lee Cox if you knew how we say the Alphabet in Denmark and how we pronounce the different letters, what sound the different letters has, because as an example we have about 3-4 was to say the letter e, as it has different sounds, you would know that we actually don't leave that many letters out compared to the sounds we know that each letter has.
I come from a town on the west coast of Norway called Molde and in Molde we say "i" instead of "jeg/eg". I know that many people from Møre & Romsdal and Trøndelag went over to Great britain, do you think that saying I in English language can derive from this part of Norway? There is only Molde and a small village in Nord-Trøndelag called Snåsa who still say I today.
Yeah, the pronunciation is different, it is of course possible that I in English derives from Ich, but ich derives from Ik (Dutch) and Ek (Norse) and i know a lot of dutch people has moved to Great Britain over the years, but that is later in history than the Norwegians from the west coast went to Great Britian
No, that is not the origin. "I" comes from older "Ei", as some of your neighbours still say. Which again comes from "Eig" and "eg". "I" has evolved multiple places. In Møre, Trøndelag, Northern Sweden and Central Sweden.
I grew up with Bokmål mostly. When speaking, I am a bit inconsistent about whether I drop the feminine/masculine distinction. I usually only use "ei" when the word is very clearly feminine, as in "ei jente" (a girl), but "en kråke".
@@Espicen og? Det er ikke noe galt ved å være nærmer dansk gitt at bokmål er jo dansk basert. Man må ikke ha hunkjønn i sitt språk, og det finnes en del språk som ikke har det. Folk er tydeligvis forvirret og behøver en riksmål standard både muntlig og skriftlig. Alle argumenter imot er dumme, gitt at alle andre land som gjør det sånt har ikke mistet dialektene, og noen av disse dialektene er veldig sterke og konservative, og fortsatt trives til tross for et riksmål.
@@VegaIllusion Riksmål er jo ennå verre enn å skrive dansk, det er jo i praksis neddumma dansk. Veit ikke med deg, men jeg kommer aldri til å dumme ned språket mitt på et så lite intelligent nivå. Da er det nesten så jeg heller skriver engelsk.
Hi Jackson... Funny enough this is the closest you can come to actually talk to the mentioned Knudsen :) Knud was my great great (great again I think) grandfather. At least that is what my heritage decendant line tells me in my family three. Being a decendant from him to me is a bit ironic. While born and raised near Oslo (Lørenskog) I moved up to about 30 minutes away from where Ivar Åsen grew up as a child. Funny enough we didn't learn nynorsk when I went to school back in 1980-89 (elementary and middle school), not even in my first year of high school was this learned. Always optional but never wanted as our language was "bokmål".. Actually was and I still think it is, a voluntary to this day when you select learning books, official documents to read etc. Nontheless I learned it finally in high school as I needed it to get my high school diploma in order to go off to get my bachelors degree.. I do however think all kids today start out learning their bokmål or nynorsk depending on where they live in the country. Thus todays language is starting to get pretty washed out from all media impact starting with the SMS and cellphone impact back in the 90s. I digress, but fun fact eitherway. Do appologies for any mispelling as I do not get the chance to exercise my english all that often. I love your channel as I too have a fundness for norse history and our heritage. I was meaning to ask, in light of the saga of Olav Trygvasson (Olav den heilage), what do you think of it, have you read much about it. Do you think it is spooled up in myth more than facts? I know we norwegians learn the common knowledge on how he "christen" the land and lost his life at Stiklestad back in year 1030, which btw actually may not have happen. Recently I have started reading the Flatøybook which is now translated into Norwegian.. Still on first book, but love it. Have you read it? Anyway enough of me.. Keep doing what you do and love and thanks for all the videos posted, seen them all.
Very interesting. I knew Norwegians had two standards for writing but I never knew the story behing how they came to be. Nynorsk is also clearly a bit closer to Old Norse than Bokmal. There's only one thing that really puzzles me. How did the word ,,me" become to be used as the pronoun for ,,we" instead of ,,Vi"? ,,Vi" makes much more sense. Old Norse uses ,,Vér" for ,,we" when referring to three or more people and ,,Vit" for when referring to just two people. Both Danish and Swedish use ,,Vi" and Icelandic uses ,,Við" but then how did ,,Me" come about. It seems like the odd man out haha.
It's from the verb ending getting attached to the pronoun. Erum vér > erum mér > er me The same thing happens in Icelandic with "þið" which is from Old Norse "it." Eruð it > eruð þit > eruð þið
Thanks alot, now I understand. Kærir þakkir, nú skil ég. So I assume that this means the icelandic word ,,þið" is actually cognate with the English word ,,it"? I have a bit of a thing for cognates between Icelandic and English and I'm always trying to guess what the English cognate for a given icelandic word is. And I've noticed an interesting pattern when it comes icelandic words that start with 'HL' and their English cognates. In the English cognate there is no 'H' but just an 'L'. The same pattern seems to hold in regards to Icelandic words that begin with 'HR', in the English cognate the 'H' is dropped. Examples: Að hlaupa = to leap Hlátur = laughter Hringur = ring It makes me wonder if this is the same situation, but reversed, as with English words that begin with 'w' but whose cognates in Icelandic have lost the 'w' or 'v'. Examples: Wolf = Úlfur Wonder = Undur Wrath = reiði In Proto-Germanic that W (or V) was present but my ancestors seemed to have dropped it at some point. Can I also infer from this that Proto-Germanic language had an 'H' in it's word for hlátur/laughter but at some point it was dropped by the ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons? I believe the ancestors of the Germans dropped that 'H' too since it's not present in modern German either( Hlátur/laughter/lachen). But anyways, this comment of mine became more verbose than I intended. I just tend to get carried away. Haltu áfram þínu góða starfi, Jackson. Þú stendur þig vel!
Yes, the H and W initial was the original. Compare Old English "hring" and "wulf". The loss of w in some words is not universal. "wrong" was vrangr in norse, but in many Norwegian and Icelandic dialects it changed to rangr. Danish and Swedish still has vrang/vrång.
Icelandic "þið" is not cognate with English "it." The Old Norse words "it" and "ér" (Modern "þér") come from earlier *jit, *jīz, but Old Norse loses the *j- at the beginning of words. *jīz becomes English "ye" (i.e. "you"). In English, h- drops out before l, r, m, and n but it remains in Icelandic. However, the h- is still there in Old English (compare Old English hleahtor vs. Icelandic hlátur, Old English hræfn vs. Icelandic hrafn).
Here's something to consider: I live next to the Swedish border, and I use some Swedish words when I talk For example: The Norwegian word for "place" is "sted", while the Swedish word is "stelle", which is what I say It's like how some Americans use Spanish words here and there
I find it strange if Aasen constructed it as a superclass of all dialects, that nynorsk is not more uniformly distributed through Norway, it is concentrated in the west, while the rest seem to treat is like a strange unwanted child.
I live in a county which uses Bokmål in most schools, and i think that my dialect is slightly closer to bokmål, but not that much. I have used bokmål up untill i was 19 years old, after that i started writing in my dialect, and now im 20 and i have completely moved over to nynorsk, mostly because it feels more "right" to write in it, and also because of it's closer relation to norse, and for political reasons.
How did you only start using bokmål at around 19, had the time to simply write in dialect and then fully switch to nynorsk by 20? What did you write before you were 19? Samisk? Also it makes no sense to use nynorsk given that its percentage of users is falling by the year (it has been under 15% for quite many years now), unless you have a dialect which fits nynorsk quite well, meaning that you’d need to be from South/West Norway, where nynorsk would be the main written language in schools for the most part. Either way, bokmål is just closer to Danish while nynorsk is actually closer to Swedish, and I also see no reason to use politics as an argument since no one really cares, for part of the reasons of nynorsk losing users is because after the reforms bokmål has become more dialect accessible (better representation), and the other reason being that most of the population lives in places where bokmål is predominant. Unless you are using proper old nynorsk, there is no reason for you to inconvenience people with it especially when only about 13% of the whole population use it as their main written form.
@@VegaIllusion I used it untill i was 19, i didn't start then. I like using nynorsk, it is much more fun to me than using bokmål. Not sure why you are arguing against something which is purely my personal choice and isn't affecting anyone. Nynorsk is not closer to Swedish, it is a west-nordic language, which means it has the same characteristics as icelandic, faroese, and norwegian. Swedish and danish are both east-nordic, and so is bokmål (because of it connection with danish) Bokmål has become somewhat more dialect accessible, and it has gotten 99% of it from nynorsk. And btw, using that percentage doesn't show how it really is, because the population of nynorsk users has been relatively stable. Sure, the percentage has fallen, but in the population in general has grown, the number of nynorsk users has been around 1 million and 800 000, for all it's time. If you want to use percentages, it is worth noting that there are 23 municipalities where the nynorsk usage is at more than 99%. The number of users outside of school using both nynorsk and bokmål was 12% in 1995, 14% in 2005 and 15% in 2015. Also, i don't excpect anyone to write nynorsk back, so me writing it isn't an inconvience to anyone, if they have trouble understanding then they are just linguisticly bad in general.
Lol, judging from a Slavic perspective, all those 3 languages/written variants would be considered plain dialects of 1 language. It's crazy how in different parts of the world people's perspectives of whether or not to consider certain norm a dialect or a separate language can be almost opposite.
And then from German perspective with its crazily divergent dialects, you could consider everything that spans from Czech to Russian a single language. Don't even need to start on Arabic :)
Did you forget sam-norsk, or was it not important enough? There still is some remnants of sam-norsk in "forvaltningen" in Norway, that is why taxi licences are called "drosjeløyver/taxiløyver" and liqour licences are called skjenkebevilning. Løyve and bevilning has the same meaning, but when they startet with the taxi licences they were still talking about sam-norsk, and when the skjenkebevilning came, they had laid samnorsk dead for good.
I grew up in western Oslo, which is kind of the most bokmål-conservative area you can find in Norway. And i have always written bokmål in a way that makes it very similar to the old riksmål. Even though the Oslo region uses feminine, i would almost never use the form «ei», using «en» instead. For example: «En jente». However i would write and say «jenta» with a feminine «a» at the end. It fascinates me how even the written forms of the same written standard can change depending on where you grow up. For example, traditionally, people from eastern Oslo would not do the same as I do.
Eg brukar berre 'me' når eg skriv nynorsk. Båe 'me' og 'vi' er nynorsk, men eg trur kanskje at 'me' er vanlegare her på Vestlandet og 'vi' er vanlegare når austlendingar skriv nynorsk.
Nynorsk is a truly intellectual masterpiece and captures the essence of norwegian. Look into it's history and it beeing based on "most perfect forms" that bring together all dialects and even old norwegian. In comparison Bokmal as simply norwegianized Danish seems quite lazy.
@@doncarlodivargas5497 Well this is what history tells us about those 2 languages. You just throwing around slurs without any arguments wont change that.
@@Vagabund92 - I commented on how many million times we heard that, I find it conspicuous how some constantly claims it, people speak what they learn as small children, what kind of complex are you struggling with by claiming it is not Norwegian?
@@doncarlodivargas5497 well, you aren't wrong. It's Norways everyday language, so Bokmal is norwegian in some sense. The dialect just have more tradition and legitimacy to be called the traditional local language.
The Danes went through a writing change in the late forties. Norwegian is written often as the word is pronounced. The Danes kept a few old writing forms. Actually in Danish "kvinder" the "d" is not pronounced so it is pronounced as "kvinner".
Norwegian bokmål is just a modified form of Danish (as I suspect you already know). It got rid of all the proper Danish stuff and it did modifications based on a more spoken version of the words. “Nd” became “nn”, “dt” became “tt”, certain “d” became “t”, some “g” became “k” and so on. Kvinne, fett and bakeri are all good examples of these changes if you look at Danish and Norwegian. Yet there are still many words that are pronounced in a more Danish way, some of them are however, dependent on the dialect, but there are still many that are written in one way and pronounced quite differently, which I think is an awful shame. As I say, this is why Swedish is the superior language out of the 3, despite also having some weird stuff as well.
You rock sir! Do you have online language classes? I plan on joining your patreon on next payday... Thank you for the work you put into these videos. Be well.
Thanks for the kind words. I don't offer any formal language lessons online but I do have a video playlist with some basic Old Norse lessons ( ru-vid.com/group/PLATNGYBQ-TjrVWv1Vh4aS3M-Twg-Ymwtf ).
I would just like to throw in that in the particular sentence context, the word "flere" or "fleire " means "several " linerler. Other than that, great explanations. Thank You.
A funny thing that swedish/norwegian speakers often fuck up when trying to pronounce Danish is that we don't roll our r's in the front of our mouth, but always in the back of the mouth. And even then, we only roll r's very softly if at all.
Trodde danskene brukte skarre-r («vulvar r») som på Sørlandet og ikke rulle-r («rolled r»/«thrilled r») slik de fleste gjør på østlandet, men det er mulig jeg tar riv ruskende feil?
Hi Jackson! I follow your Olav Hauge page on facebook, big fan of both you and Hauge. Will you sometime do a video about him and his somewhat difficult dialect?
Having the 2 different grades for it is pure nonsense. Nynorsk is less than 15% used as a main written form, and it is falling by the year, yet it has a 50/50 grade representation (technically a 33/33/33 since the oral grade is also separate). It only creates confusion and makes people hate it, not to mention that it is useless, unless you have a dialect that is extremely close to it, which is limited to a really specific group of dialects/counties. No reason to waste time with it because of a falling minority, that is directly affecting school performance.
english speakers learn to read several different spelling variations of the same abstract version of their language as a result of elitism and norman + latin and greek influence
The great and never ending norwegian language war that has persisted in 200y. Im danish and have worked in a nordic company for 15y with branch office in the 10 largest cities. For decades i can no longer recognize if the mails i receive from team members are in danish or norwegian. Every now and then a odd false friend makes me notice (usually because i see a joke that is not there). Remember to mention the 3rd written norwegian laguange 'rigsmål' which the largest newspaper 'VG' is still written in :-) Its not official but its official enogh to still be published and as common as bookmål in the greater Oslo region. Easiest to undertand between Norwegians, Swedes and Danes is actualy danish pronouced in norwegian as exemplified by Jackson. Everyone will understand that immediately without having to bend their brain for a few minuttes - Especially if archaic danish expressions and words are used and slang is avoided.
You mentioned that most Norwegian dialects form their plurals with an R at the end. That's not quite accurate. Only eastern Norway and a small part of the west do that. Most drop the R. "Fleire hesta". Just wanted to mention.
I'm a Norwegian, though I mainly use Bokmål and have placed Nynorsk in the back of my brain, almost forgetting it completely. I wish to relearn it, since I think of it as more of an actual Norwegian, and not just a slightly more Northern Danish.
Intersting in Yiddish and southern Upper High German dialects for inclusive prnoun we they say Mir not Wir like in Modern Standard High German and also in PA Dutch the descendent of Palatine dialects from southern Germany.
Imponerende å høre en amerikaner forklare om historiske årsaker til at Norge har to offisielle språk (germanske språkvarianter - beklager, samiske venner, dette gjelder ikke dere). Denne karen har gjort hjemmeleksa si og er helt klart en kapasitet på sitt fagfelt. Lytt og lær!
I know this is an old video, so this comment is probably going to be buried, but I recently read something about a small dialect in Trøndelag having a pronunciation of the word "i" that is somewhat like the Icelandic ð or the Danish "soft d." I'm curious if you know anything about it?
Hi! I'm from Trøndelag :) We don't pronounce the i any different than in bokmål. Maybe you're thinking about the word "itj"? If so, I have a video on that!
I’m norwegian and I would translate it to several wagtails, not more. If using more than I’d write “mer linerler” in norwegian (or “meir” in nynorsk) 😊
Interesting with the word for "raven" in this example. There is a place called "Ramsele" in the north west of the Swedish province of Ångermanland. The first mention of it is from 1200 when they built a church and then it was called "Rannasild" and a bit later it was known as "Hrafnasil". The first part of the name (Ranna-, Hrafna) is most likely meaning "Raven" and the second part ("-slid, -sil, -sel, -sele) is a deep calm water between two white waters in a stream/river/älv which gives the meaning "The calm water of the ravens" or "Raven's calm water". Still today the locals often call the place "Raffna" and many companies, teams etc in the area has it as part of their name. The standard Swedish word for raven is "Korp", so totally unrelated to the word used. However the Swedish dialects from the "middle north" (Jämtland, Ångermanland, Medelpad, Hälsingland and Härjedalen) has many similar words to west norse, especially in Trondelag. Therefore was it extra interesting to see that the word for raven in in Ny Norsk was Ramn(ar).
I was very impressed with your presentation. I lived and worked in Oslo, Norway many years ago and speak Norwegian but it was Riksmål not Bokmål. I refused to speak Bokmål. When you hear me speak Norwegian, it would be with the Oslo accent. I spoke it so well, you would not hear any American accent. Well, every once in a while you would think that I was from Denmark since I first went to school in Copenhagen (K.I.S.S.) to learn Danish. I speak Danish with the Copenhagen accent. When I say bread in Norwegian, you will hear the Danish accent. Then when I had visited Copenhagen, I spoke Danish but every so often my Norwegian accent would slip in and the people thought I was from Sweden. Now I am teaching myself to speak Icelandic online. If I translate anything from Icelandic, it would be in Norwegian not English. It is easier for me to understand the make up of the Icelandic language. Anyway, upon learning Icelandic and translating words to Norwegian, I found out that there are words that are no longer in Riksmål . The word 20 21, 22, 23 to 29 in Norwegian is now in Bokmål. What happened to the numbering system in Riksmål? I used to speak it the way the Danish language would be. Then when it was 30, 40, and so forth I could switch from either the Danish way which was one and twenty, five and twenty. and so forth to the other way it was written/spoken in Norwegian. So does all this means there is no longer Riksmål? I am sadden by this. Sorry for the long post. Great video!
I would disagree with you on how you explain Knud Knudsen og Ivar Aasen's making and reason for creating the languages, cause even though bokmål (or riksmål) used a lot of the Danish and just norwegianesised it, that wasn't really what Knud based it on. Ivar liked the old dialects (the ones least affected by Danish), so he was favoriting the western dialects since they sound more like old norwegian/norse, he of course looked at other dialects, but most of the basis for nynorsk comes from and around the western part of Norway. It was also based more on how the "lower class" or normal people talked, like farmers and stuff. While Knud based his language more of how the dialects of the "higher class" talked, that was therefor mostly centered around Oslo, since most of the high class lived there. And like you said, people wrote Danish, and since more people could afford school in the Oslo region, more people could read there, and when you constantly read in one way but speak another it affects the way you speak after a while. So the higher class spoke in a much more Danish way, and that is why bokmål also stayed more Danish. Of course, as i said in the begining, bokmål was more based of just Danish and norwegenisised, but that wasn't the basis of Knud, and Ivar didn't just make a common language of all the dialects, it was of the old dialects (the ones least affects by Danish), which meant a language based mostly on the western dialects
I've been learning norwegian all by myself for like 6 months now, but find it hard to progress beyond my current knowledge because I don't know how to find good sources to learn which has resulted in a sudden halt in my self studies.. This is a cry out for help! can someone please dab me up with some advice on how to practise speaking and reading?
People wonder why we celebrate 17. mai with such pride and joy. Well... we have been independant for just over 100 years.. The short story is in the video :)
Your pronunciation of "a" in Norwegian is a little off, you're saying it too far back in your mouth it's located more at the front; and your "r" is very thrill heavy while it's supposed to lean somewhat over to a tap. But, still, you're really good @ what you're doing :)
Great video, it is hard To find someone talking to a fixed scenario, no gimmicks, and keeping the attention for 14 minutes without blinking. You are really a professor.
Different people will do different things, but often Norwegians will just speak in whatever their local dialect is. Others will approximate the Oslo pronunciation of Bokmål, which in some ways is regarded as an unofficial standard (it's what is taught to foreign students and most immigrants, for example).
Today, the answer is more or less yes, partly because some of the traditional differences have become less extreme in the last century. It can still be difficult for people from a different part of the country to understand local dialects from a very distant region however, and some dialects have sound changes that can make understanding a little more difficult until you figure out the equivalencies with your own dialect.
Being from Bergen, i learned bokmål primarily and nynorsk secondarily. i've always written in bokmål. but my Bergen-dialect is much more similar to nynorsk than bokmål. Interestingly, some of our laws are written in advanced nynorsk, so you need not only a law degree, but also a language degree to understand our laws!
Curious fact about Bergen and nynorsk. Having nynorsk take over bokmål in Bergen would be quite good for nynorsk, however, when I asked why it hasn’t, the reason I got is that although the dialect is close to nynorsk, it lacks a feminine gender which makes it confusing enough for them to prefer bokmål. There are probably also conservative political and cultural reasons as well sprinkled there, but compared to Stavanger it makes sense. As for laws, yes, some are in nynorsk and we don’t translate them to avoid possible misinterpretation during translation. However, you do not need a law degree to understand the laws in no way, shape or form, and I say that as someone who often has to consult lovdata and has never had trouble with understanding the laws, without having any form of education in law. They are written in a more advanced form of the language and they do often have terminology, but what makes them difficult to understand is mainly the fact that the laws have to be vague enough so interpretation is more difficult, also, Norwegian compared to many languages is quite limited in the way that it can be expressed and represent complex ideas. You see that difference very clearly in universities when compared to English. This is why we need riksmål both written and spoken, because it is literally affecting laws and our academics.
I've heard from some people who live in the north of norway that i almost speak danish. The Kristiansand dialect is really similar to danish. We say kage instead of kake which and bage instead of bake.
I'd still call our "blaude konsonanter"(literally "soft consonants") soft. Allthough I'll agree they're hard compared to actual Danish, true. But that's because of that damn potato that all Danes have implanted into their throat at a young age.
Ok so now to find out which to pick up? Currently studying Japanese as a 3rd language but I will also like to pick up a 4rth language since I have cancelled my netflix and I now have extra hours in the day for learning stuff. Not sure this matters but 1st- Spanish, 2nd- English, 3rd- Japanese. Now 4rth- thought it would just be "Norwegian" but it appears to be more than just plain ol' Norwegian to choose from, any recommendations? I don't plan on ever living in Norway or staying there for long, perhaps visit there but that's about it.
With all the dialects we have, there's no such thing as "just" Norwegian. For written though...it doesn't really matter. You'll still be able to read and understand Nynorsk if you learn Bokmål - and vice versa. It's just a question of which set of grammatical rules to remember when you write. If you want to take the easy route, then I'd go for Bokmål as it is - perhaps unfortunately - far more widespread. On a personal note, however, I'd say go for Nynorsk. Simply because I like the idea of a non-native speaker using the (in my personal experience) less common written form.
I recently finished reading the correspondence letters of Camilla Collett and her best friend Emilie Diriks, which gives quite a unique insight into the Norwegian language in the early to mid 19th century. Camilla was in love with Welhaven, a staunch defender of classical lyrical tradition and of the conservation of the Danish language among Norwegians. She was also, however, the sister of Henrik Wergeland, a raunchy, rule-breaking and vibrant poet with a free-flowing style and a champion for the cause of "Norwegianising" the language from its Danish influence. Camilla ends up torn in the middle of this cultural debate (which actually led to riots in the streets back then). I find her letters to be highly important historical documents from a linguistic and socio-cultural standpoint. Her friend Emilie is kind of on the "rule-breaking, follow your heart"-side of the argument. Both Emilie and Henrik die quite young. In my opinion, Camilla's work "Amtmandens Døtre" is an absolute landmark literary work, not just in Norway, but globally. Highly underrated outside Norway.
*I am curious about whether Nynorsk eschews words that were borrowed from the German of the Hanseatic League. For instance, I know that the verb "work" in Bokmål is "arbeide" (from "arbeiten"--but the Icelandic word is "vinna." I can also think of "betale" (pay) from "bezahlen," etc. Can anyone help me out with this?*
yay, you mentioned my hometown! Bergen! Love these videos btw. They explain a lot that I had heard of but didn't know the background of. Also, your handwriting is lovely!
I can see superficial parallels with English. British spelling and American spelling with some lexical differences but without significant grammatical divergences. The educational system teaches Standard English or what we always termed Textbook English. We write according to Standard English guidelines but outside of class we spoke colloquial or various minor dialects of English which always included "bad grammar".
"Fleire" Linerler should probably be translated to "several" Linerler instead. The English word "more" indicates that you already have a few, while the the word "fleire" in Norwegian doesn't need that. The way I read it in this context is that there are no Linerler from "before" because there probably is no "before". You start with a number of Linerler, that means the word should be "several" in English, not "more".
How annoying to have to learn basically almost “a new language” in a sense just to be able to write it, and not to be legally able to write your own “language” down just cos of your country’s history, I would find it easier as a kid to have several different ways of writing down how I speak, and then have one language as the “official language” (I mean writing style, or whoever you wanna say it) that I’d have to learn later on, after having become fluent in the way I speak-write, so that I can use it for official purposes, similar to how we have got New High German spoken in all the country and written, but how there are still loads of dialects, accents, and even an own language Low German or Plattdeutsch being spoken, and then you’ve got Swiss German in Switzerland as well.... I fear my sense of identity would be impaired even from my ability to write as I speak alone if I didn’t have an “own” way of writing that is as deeply rooted in my nation’s history as it is with other countries, and is almost a generated, “fake” way. I wonder if you know if Norwegians do feel this way - they might not notice s they are not experienced it any different way, ever, so how would they know what the sense of identity that comes with having your own written language that stems fro:history feels like? Like we Germans don’t know what it feels like to have the freedom to not feel guilty for what Nazi Germany did which is literally an almost hundred years ago and not our fault!? It’s a pity. I wonder if you’d be interested in making a video about what your impression is of in how far the use of spoken vs. written langue influences our sense of identity, and if or what sense of identity we would have if we did not have language and/or we had not developed a means to put it in writing for (as good as) ever more. (By the way, teachers used to tell us you couldn’t say “and or or”, but the meaning changes if you change and to or and therewith, if you mean both on separate occasions, as in are referring to both cases, one should be able to use and or or as that is what I mean, what do you think about the influence if we had neither, what if we had only language, what as we have both.) This stuff is so cool, thanks so much, pls keep up the interesting vids!!! Can’t get enough of language related stuff. +Jackson Crawford I hope you get to read this!
Most Norwegians, except the ones who live in or around Oslo, don't write the same language as they speak. Even though all Norwegians can write Bokmål, they dont use it when they speak. I can remeber as a child that it was often confusing to learn that the written words where different than the spoken ones. And after having learnt BM, I had to learn NN wich was even more confusing, mostly because it had more similarities to my spoken dialect/language, but wasnt the same. To compare to the used sentences: BokMål: Vi har sju ravner, ei kråke og flere linerler. NyNorsk: Me har sju ramnar, ei kråke og fleire linerler Stavanger: Me har syv ravnår, ei kråga og flerne linerlår. In short, Norway have no official spoken language, and official people, politicians etc. will juse their own dialect with pride.
"Most Norwegians, except the ones who live in or around Oslo, don't write the same language as they speak" De ær de dummeste jæi har hørt, tror du vi fra traktenne runt Oshlo skriver sånn hær? Å va mener du me "norrmenn flest"? Åver hallparten a Nårge bor på Østlanne, å di fleste a demm i Oshloområde, så å bruke "norrmen flest" som en beteinelse på bare hallparten av Nårges befolkning blir rimeli feil. Såmm åm du mener fålk såmm bor no'on steder ær mer vært enn andre. De ække non som snakker bokmål da, for fa'an. Hadde vi jort de så hadde vi hørtes ganske danske ut.
I actually find it as a benefit having to learn both. Speaking a west coast dielect and learning both nynorsk and bokmål have made it so that i can understand every single dialect in Norway. I have no problem with both swedish and danish aswell. But I've notised that other people like the sweeds or the danes dont understand much of each other very vell.
Yeah that's true Shady, but we did grow up with a lot of Swedish children television, I think that's why we understand Swedish a bit better, we've gotten more exposure to it than they've got exposed to Norwegian.
Haha, takk Harjar. Veldi tilfredstillenne å skrive på dialekta si :D Jei shønner vorfor trøndere driver med det Ehhm. Men det ser jo jævlig tilbakestående ut xD Takk gudene for nynorsk og bokmål.
