The
Norwegian language situation
Norway is unique in that there is
no official nation-wide spoken
language; Norwegians speak either their own regional dialect or a regional
standard, such as standard east-Norwegian.
In addition there are three official written languages in the country: bokmål, nynorsk, and
samisk. The first two are closely
related and easily read/understood by all Norwegians, whereas the Sami language,
spoken by the indigenous Sami people who originally lived in northern Norway,
comes from a completely different language family.
Bokmål is the most common written
language in Norway and is used by approximately 85% of the population. Bokmål is largely used in eastern and
northern Norway. Riksmål, which later
became Bokmål, has its origins in Danish. Riksmål was considered by many to be the language
of the educated upper class as it, or Danish, was the language used in early
universities.
Nynorsk is the written language
used by approximately 15% of the population and is used largely in western
Norway. Nynorsk, formerly called
Landsmål, was created from Norwegian dialects by Ivar Aasen in the 1840-1850s. Nynorsk/Landsmål was considered to be the language
of the Norwegian people. Aasen traveled
the country and created a dictionary and a grammar book based on the language
that Norwegians actually spoke. Nynorsk
is closer to Old Norse, and therefore more similar to modern Icelandic
language, in vocabulary and grammar than Bokmål. Nynorsk is often thought of as
being a more poetic language and some of the greatest Norwegian poets have
written in Landsmål/Nynorsk.
Jon Fosse is from western coastal
Norway. His works are therefore written
in his Norwegian written language, Nynorsk.
If we were to compare his written Norwegian language with that of Henrik
Ibsen’s, the two written forms would be at opposite extremes of the paradigm;
Fosse writes in modern Nynorsk, and Ibsen wrote in Danish/Riksmål.
Written by Kyle Korynta, Visiting
Lecturer at the University of Washington.
No comments:
Post a Comment