The Norwegian language

Anita B og Erlend V Enget abeenget at frisurf.no
Sun Aug 31 17:04:19 CEST 2003


Hi!

Some comments has been issued on Olaf's foreword to one of the books in the
"De Beste Årganger"-series. Nynorsk and Bokmaal is the two official written
versions of the Norwegian language, both -as stated- official languages of
Norway.

All students in Norway are being taught the both of them, and both of them
can be written either very similair to eachother or very conservatively
different in either direction. Nynorsk was founded back in the late 1800's
based on Norwegian dialects, while, as correctly suggested from Denmark,
Bokmaal has developed the last century from being very similair to Danish to
become an independent Norwegian written language. Hence many words is the
same or close to the same in Danish and Bokmaal.

The, my opinion, cruely way Nynorsk is treated by many, as an appendix and a
handicap of all Norwegians, is in fact a wealth! Either you have a dialect
similair to Nynorsk or Bomaal, expressing your thoughts in a language very
close to your dialect is possible. Not many languages, as far as I know, has
such oportunities. If that is a handicap, let's try out how expressing our
thoughts in a foreign language is! There are people in i.e. older members of
the Samis in Northern Norway, being foreced to learn, read, write and speak
in Norwegian. Even before learning their own language.

While Bokmaal is the "ruling" written language, used in most newspapers,
magazines and in Donald Duck weekly, and the form most Norwegians' dialects
by date is closest to, Nynorsk is regarded by many, as the most Norwegian
way of expressing a text or a theatre.

Olaf writing his foreword is a very welcome contribution of getting Nynorsk
in print in an else Bokmaal dominated Norwegian press.

Thank you, Olaf!

By the way, let's hope the Sami people get their own weeklies of Donald Duck
a.s.a.p.! Now they have sheduled a reprint in book format of the late 80's
weeklies. It is a start, though.

Erlend Vold Enget





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