Norwegian Language – Norway Official Languages Bokmål Essay Example

dialects of the time. In 1929 they became officially renamed, both recognised as being the two written languages of Norway.

The first one, Dano-Norwegian, was given the new name Bokmal and the second, from rural dialects, Nynorsk. Before Bokmal there was Riksmal. Riksmal is very much like Bokmal. The first Bokmal orthography was adopted in 1907 under the name Riksmal after being under development since 1879. It was an adaptation of written Danish, commonly used since the past union with Denmark. The architects behind the reform was Marius Nygaard and Jonathon Aars. When newspaper giant at the time- Aftenposten adopted the 1907 orthography in 1923 Danish writing was pretty much out of use in Norway. In 1928 the name Bokmal was officially adopted.

The current riksmal differs from Bokmal in the following ways : There are no distinct masculine and feminine genders Bokmal but there is in Riksmal. The nouns which in Bokmal are masculine or feminine generally fall into the "common" category, and the grammar rules generally follow those of masculine nouns in Bokmal. The alternate forms allowed for some words in Bokmal are forbidden in Riksmal. A few people normally older like over 60 still use Riksmal which is considered a more conservative form of Bokmal. Before Nynorsk there was Landsmal. Landsmal is a language formalized by Ivar Aasen in the 19th century.

Landsmal’s meaning is the "language of the land/country. ” In 1885 it was adopted as an official language in Norway. It was first introduced as a reaction to the dominance of high culture, the growth of the cities, during a period of rapid industrialization. The landsmal movement was understood as to distance itself

from the modernization process, fighting to preserve the old peasant society against the threats posed by industrialization. In 1929, Landsmal was renamed Nynorsk. An unofficial written form Hognorsk is considered more conservative than Nynorsk, it is similar to Landsmal but with other connotations.

Principals of Bokmal and Nynorsk Norway has an advisory board that determines official spelling, grammar and vocabulary. The board’s work has been embroiled in much controversy & more work required because of the different varieties of Norwegian language. 1. ) There are slight differences between written Nynorsk/Hognorsk (which like mentioned before is like Landsmal) compared to more conservative form Riskmal, Bokmal and to Danish itself. (Remember- these languages are similar & grouped together, due to the past influences of Denmark). Nynorsk was developed in response to be different & to distant away from Danish influences.

Pronunciation B=Bokmal, R=Riksmal, D=Danish, N=Nynorsk, H=Hognorsk, E=English. E= I come from Norway N/H= Eg Kjem fra Noreg B/R/D= Jeg kommer fra norge; E=This is a horse N/H= Dette er ein hest B/R/D= Dette er en hest. As you can see there’s differences in writing between both groups of languages. Here are some more examples, but you can also hear the differences in their speaking. Bokmal Alle mennesker er fodt frie og med samme menneskeverd og menneskerettigheter. De er utstyrt med fornuft og samvittighet og bor handle mot hverandre i brorskapets and. http://www. omniglot. com/writing/norwegian. tm Nynorsk Alle menneske er fodde til fridom og med same menneskeverd og menneskerettar. Dei har fatt fornuft og samvit og skal leve med kvarandre som brors http://www. omniglot. com/writing/norwegian. htm Intonation between Western (nynorsk) and eastern (Bokmal) is different- eastern more low tone dialects,

stressed syllable words in low tone and western have high tone dialects. Vowel In terms of vowels, both Bokmal and Nynorsk is the same in pronouncing their vowels. Each vowel can be pronounced as ‘long’ or ‘short’. A short vowel is followed by a double consonant and a long vowel is not.

‘IT’ will be pronounced as ‘EET’ and ‘ITT’ will be pronounced as English ‘IHT’. So they drag the shorter vowels in words and they speak longer words more quickly with no drag. The Alphabet Here’s the Norwegian alphabet. ? Its more phonetically based than English where you can easier spell words spoken to you. Norwegians move their mouth around a lot to enhance the sounds of words, ie. When saying ‘r’ roll it, like a trill back of mouth like French. ‘rrrr! ’. But in English its just ‘are’ Alphabet contains 26 roman characters and 3 special characters.

C,Q,W,Z not used only learned to spell for foreign words. Here’s how each letter of their alphabet sounds: http://http://www. omniglot. com/writing/norwegian. htm. Norwegian (also known collectively as norsk) is a North Germanic language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of local and regional variants ie. Bokmal and Nynorsk. These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language (language of the Faroe Islands) and Icelandic language, as well as some extinct languages, comprise the North Germanic languages (also known as Scandinavian languages).

Here are countries that compile the North Germanic languages. Each percentage amount indicates the size of countries and their people who speak this language.  This picture shows the part continent of the Scandinavian countries. As you can see most countries are geographically close, all of

which have interrelated influences with each other through history in developing their current dialects of today.

Question Time:

1. What is the unofficial written form before Bokmal came along? (Riksmal)
2. Which type of language Bokmal or Nynorsk was considered to be more conservative with lower pitch tones? Bokmal)
3. Which is true? A) small vowels with longer consonants or B. ) long vowels with longer consonants when pronouncing words? (a. Small vowels with longer consonants in pronounication)
4. Which country reign Norway for many years and had heavy influence on the development of their language? (Denmark)
5. Which language is more widely used in Norway? Bokmal or Nynorsk? (Bokmal)