Norwegian Bokmal: Languages of the World: Introductory Over Video Lecture | Learn Norwegian Language: Basic Understanding

norwegian norsk oak wall book language
an introductory overview this is a text
from a novel by Sigrid Lim said one of
Norway's most famous novelists and it's
written in a form of the language that
has various names has been known as
Danish Norwegian odd book language the
national language and it's certainly a
form of the language that's more common
than the formulas that we looked at last
time I want to start reverse my process
usually I think the most important thing
I do in these introductory of uses give
you a word by word translation and I do
hope I get to that but last time I only
did that and I didn't give you any
history so what you need to know is why
does Norway have to doesn't have two
different languages at all it has two
different orthographies two different
official ways of writing down the same
language why is that came to pass in
this way there was a common Scandinavian
language until about 800 AD and it
divided into west and east at at that
point and we've looked at west
scandinavian and Icelandic and Faroese
and we're going to look at East
Scandinavian in Danish and Swedish and
now in the Norwegian situation it's
complicated
from 1370 until 1814 Norway and Denmark
were one Kingdom the capital being in
Copenhagen Danish Denmark being the the
stronger party and so throughout those
400 years Norwegians spoke their own
regional dialectical form of the
vernacular spoken language but they
wrote down Danish and they're still in
the habit of doing that and in the 19th
century in the spirit of Romanticism and
the spirit of nationalism and in the
spirit of comparative philology a
scholar named Evod Asin looked at this
situation and said now why should we as
West Norwegian speakers west
Scandinavian speakers be writing down in
East Scandinavian language so he came up
with the orthography that we looked at
last time of new norsk by going into
particularly the west scandinavian
dialects and giving them sort of a
standardization whereas the form that
we're looking at today is over here book
mode is starts it's sort of independent
life in 1907 when they were
of spelling the forms it marked it off
somewhat from Danish and there have been
further spelling the forms 1917 1938 but
they're still quite intelligible here's
a another chart that shows the situation
as a between this continental
Scandinavian languages as I triangle
with the hypotenuse between Danish and
Swedish and between Danish and Norwegian
there being a shorter line of a lexicon
and Norwegian and Swedish a shorter line
of phonology with a description that
when Norwegians and Swedes communicate
orally they can tell what word is being
spoken though they may be uncertain of
its meaning when Norwegians and Danes
communicate they have to listen hard to
be sure which where the other is using
but once they get that they usually know
what it means or as one wit has put it
Norwegian is Danish spoken and Swedish
so with that kind of background let's
look at some maps all that are in these
two books that I picked up last time I
was in norway norwegian for danes and
Norwegian for Swedes they certainly
don't need to study Norwegian to
understand it either of these speakers
but there are some things they need to
do let's look at that first and foremost
the word list that from that triangle
which is that here each book gives about
500 600 words that are problematic for
speakers and it's interesting the
difference and the Norwegian for Swedish
speakers they need to give a dual column
of words that are the same in both
languages false friends as it were but
have different meanings for example
there's the word on evening in Norwegian
means tilde for circumstance in Swedish
whereas an evening in Swedish means
Grune or also in Norwegian means a
ground or origin or reason so you can
see you could get into trouble with some
of these false friends whereas in the
Norwegian for Danish book what they need
to give and that word lists are not
false friends of words that sound the
same but have the different meaning but
words that are different in Norwegian
words that are not used and in Danish
over here so a Dane nothing to need
Norwegian needs to learn about us and
new words - that would be dialectical to
him I suppose
speaking of dialects here's a dialect
char
of Norway and that's significant just
that there four major dialects in Norway
East Norwegian North West and this is
mainly what became new norsk and new
norsk the maps that we looked at last
time showed a chart of just where they
were spoken today here's a chart that
shows 1945 versus 1990 and you can see
the darker areas where new norsk is is
favored and you can see it's kind of I
would have to say in retreat back in the
1940s and 50s is when it had its heyday
and was used by about maybe 30% for the
people in Norway for writing down
whereas today it's something in the Ord
order of 17 or 18 percent so if you were
to find a text in in a Norwegian this is
new norsk again and by most accounts it
does give a somewhat better
representation of the actual spoken
language but those dialects that we saw
are in in Norway there's less of a
stigma attached to speaking a local
dialect then there isn't a lot of other
languages and so new doors might be a
better representation of the way most
Norwegians speak but most Norwegians do
write things down more in this fashion
again they know Norwegian style of
writing
how can you tell them apart well this is
where it's very difficult because they
are two different forms of the same
language until now I've been able to
point to special letters or other
orthographic differences that you could
sort of look at it with a glance and
tell certain Germanic languages apart we
don't have that anymore these are the
same language you really have a hard
time telling them part unless you can
read them and understand them so if
you're a hapless library assistant and
you need to catalogue a book that you
get from Norway and you need to know if
it's noon or Sakura or pokemon you're
gonna have a hard time you have to kind
of go into it and do some comparison I
would say the easiest way to tell them
apart is to learn to look for the
indefinite articles and in in the sort
of standard Norwegian more common
Norwegian you only have them
here as this is a masculine or calm
common and and here we have ein okay so
you have the e AI diphthong being more
common with the indefinite article in
noon or Scott versus just a plain E in
the north walk mode likewise you have a
few more J inserts its widest and same
word on both pages here's a knot and
each in new norsk written with a J
insert if I had chosen my text better I
would have gotten some question words
and found all that this begin with the K
in new Norris with an H in Boukman let
me read this text quickly and
translators and watch as I can just to
get an idea of what's going on Davari
cursor mocked in his Goguen though they
had a vent let's say little there
himmelen
Eustis fact of a grant opener uh elven
spies didn't or shin the blonde in
amaura cut the Langston they looked at
cult of or later in a vote George Anu
tigress attire some fared a duty said
yeah a valide you miss good destroyed a
oblique or so native a valiant dirt and
earth vida any score Guinean David in
Delhi you to delude alistun height if
ever dared is heard feel attract support
killed disorder Marmon on Hunnam or saw
of Eden grouse shoot him but ingen tink
conditioner almonds hun Holton in to say
for certain ovarian or still is Denman
Danza yah Savion middle there was not so
dark inside in the woods when they had
accustom themselves a little too that
the sky was blight was shown weekly over
the tops of the pine trees and the river
reflected them and shone brightly among
the alder trees along the way
there it smelled cold and spring-like
their end of wet earth and I'm going to
get cut off I'll just keep going until I
do and new grass and trees which