Learn some differences between the various Norwegian dialects and written languages
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Yura : Hello again, I’m Yura, and welcome back to NorwegianClass101.com. This is Absolute Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 24 - Norwegian Dialects. |
| Filip : Hello! I’m Filip. |
| Yura : We’re nearing the end of the series, aren’t we.... |
| Filip : But we’re not finished yet! In this lesson, we’re going to talk about Nynorsk and the different languages we have in Norway, and look at a couple of interesting solutions to language and dialects we have there. |
| Yura : Sounds good, let’s get started! |
| Yura : In this lesson, our main character Mark is meeting one of Espen’s friends, but Mark seems to have a bit of a hard time understanding what this guy called “Trond” is saying. |
| Filip : Dialects can be hard to understand, even for Norwegians! |
| Yura : No wonder Mark’s having a tough time. Let’s listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| Espen: Mark, dette er min venn Trond. |
| Mark : Hei Trond. Hyggelig å møte deg! Jeg er Mark. |
| Trond : Hyggeleg å møte deg også, eg er Trond. Eg kjem ifrå Troms fylke, nord i landet. |
| Mark : (confused to Espen) Jeg forsto ikke helt hva han sa... |
| Espen: Hehe, ja han snakker på dialekt, så det er kanskje litt vanskelig å forstå. |
| Mark : Å? Så dere snakker begge norsk men forskjellig dialekt? |
| Espen: Ja, jeg snakker sør-øst dialekt, siden jeg er fra Oslo. |
| English Host: Let’s hear the conversation one time slowly. |
| Espen: Mark, dette er min venn Trond. |
| Mark : Hei Trond. Hyggelig å møte deg! Jeg er Mark. |
| Trond : Hyggeleg å møte deg også, eg er Trond. Eg kjem ifrå Troms fylke, nord i landet. |
| Mark : (confused to Espen) Jeg forsto ikke helt hva han sa... |
| Espen: Hehe, ja han snakker på dialekt, så det er kanskje litt vanskelig å forstå. |
| Mark : Å? Så dere snakker begge norsk men forskjellig dialekt? |
| Espen: Ja, jeg snakker sør-øst dialekt, siden jeg er fra Oslo. |
| English Host: Now let’s hear it with the English translation. |
| Espen: Mark, dette er min venn Trond. |
| Yura : Mark, this is my friend Trond. |
| Mark : Hei Trond. Hyggelig å møte deg! Jeg er Mark. |
| Yura : Hi Trond. Nice to meet you! I’m Mark. |
| Trond : Hyggeleg å møte deg også, eg er Trond. Eg kjem ifrå Troms fylke, nord i landet. |
| Yura : Nice to meet you too, I’m Trond. I’m from Troms county, in the north of the country. |
| Mark : (confused to Espen) Jeg forsto ikke helt hva han sa... |
| Yura : (confused to Espen) I didn’t completely understand what he said... |
| Espen: Hehe, ja han snakker på dialekt, så det er kanskje litt vanskelig å forstå. |
| Yura : (Laughs) Yes, he speaks in a dialect, so it might be a little hard to understand. |
| Mark : Å? Så dere snakker begge norsk men forskjellig dialekt? |
| Yura : Oh? So you both speak Norwegian but different dialects? |
| Espen: Ja, jeg snakker sør-øst dialekt, siden jeg er fra Oslo. |
| Yura : Yeah, I speak southeast dialect, since I’m from Oslo. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Yura : Hey Filip, you mentioned something about “Nynorsk” and different languages in Norway? |
| Filip : Yes that’s right. You see, Norway has three different written languages, and two spoken. |
| Yura : One of these would be the Sami language, right? |
| Filip : That’s correct. The Sami, who we talked about earlier, have official spoken and written languages. Since some of the Sami reside in Norway, it’s listed as a spoken language there too. |
| Yura : Ok, and the second one would then be Norwegian. |
| Filip : Correct again, but Norwegian has one official spoken language, and two written. The two written languages are “Nynorsk,” and “Bokmål.” Bokmål is the same as Norway’s spoken language, but Nynorsk is a bit different. |
| Yura : To give some background, during the time Norway was under Danish rule, the Norwegian language was adapted from the Danish language, and Bokmål and the Norwegian we know today were worked out from this. |
| Filip : Yes. But not everyone was happy with this, and one of these people was Ivar Aasen. He wanted to have a more Norwegian language, and he collected different dialects under one written language called “Nynorsk.” This translates to “New Norwegian.” |
| Yura : It’s used by about 12% of the country’s population, mainly in the northern parts of Norway. |
| Filip : That’s right, but everyone else also has to study the use of Nynorsk in school. Nynorsk is used a lot in official documents, and is used as a rule in 25% of NRK, the Norwegian government-supported radio and TV channel. |
| Yura : Interesting for a country to have different written languages. All right, let’s move on to the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Yura : Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| The first word we shall see is: |
| Filip : helt [natural native speed] |
| Yura : whole, completely |
| Filip : helt [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : helt [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : dialekt [natural native speed] |
| Yura : dialect |
| Filip : dialekt [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : dialekt [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : Troms [natural native speed] |
| Yura : a county in the north of Norway |
| Filip : Troms [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : Troms [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : fylke [natural native speed] |
| Yura : county |
| Filip : fylke [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : fylke [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : nord [natural native speed] |
| Yura : North |
| Filip : nord [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : nord [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : sør [natural native speed] |
| Yura : South |
| Filip : sør [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : sør [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : øst [natural native speed] |
| Yura : East |
| Filip : øst [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : øst [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : vest [natural native speed] |
| Yura : West |
| Filip : vest [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : vest [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : begge [natural native speed] |
| Yura : both |
| Filip : begge [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : begge [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : forskjellig [natural native speed] |
| Yura : different |
| Filip : forskjellig [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : forskjellig [natural native speed] |
| Next: |
| Filip : siden [natural native speed] |
| Yura : since |
| Filip : siden [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Filip : siden [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCABULARY AND PHRASES |
| Yura : Ok, so let’s take a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Filip : First, let’s talk about north, east, south, and west. |
| Yura : In Norwegian some of these words look and sound quite similar to English so you shouldn’t have any problems mixing them up. Filip, what’s first? |
| Filip : nord |
| Yura : Which Is North |
| Filip : øst |
| Yura : is East |
| Filip : sør |
| Yura : is South. And... |
| Filip : vest |
| Yura : is West. |
| Filip : In sentences we use the directions pretty much the same as English. |
| Yura : Right, not really any difference here, but let’s look at just a couple of examples. |
| Filip : Jeg bor nord for Hamar (pause) |
| Yura : “I live north of Hamar” |
| Filip : Øst i landet sier de “Jag” (pause) |
| Yura : “In the eastern part of the country they say ‘jag’” (which means “I”) |
| Yura : So now you should know a bit about directions too. Since Norway’s dialects are usually split into those four groups that’s why we put those directions in there. Speaking of dialects though, let’s look at the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Filip : And now for the grammar. So, dialects can be slightly confusing since we have so many. And some of the dialects might even sound less Norwegian than Swedish, which is our neighbor language. |
| Yura : Exactly, the first time I went to Norway, I met someone who had a dialect I couldn’t understand a word of. |
| Filip : Yes, that is bound to happen when you go to Norway. People congregate in the cities, so it’s common to hear mixed dialects there. |
| Yura : I see. So can we take a look at some of the dialects to get a better picture of what we are talking about? |
| Filip : Sure. First of all though, some dialects sound more like the written language nynorsk. To illustrate the difference between dialects let’s use a word you are all familiar with. |
| Yura : ‘Jeg’? |
| Filip : Yes, ‘jeg’ in bokmålis spelled j, e, g but in dialects based on nynorsk, we say ‘eg’ and spell it e, g. |
| Yura : So the “j” disappears and the “g” becomes voiced. That’s not such a big difference. |
| Filip : No, and fortunately so. However for the dialects themselves there are all sorts of variations, as we shall see. |
| Yura : Ok so let’s look at the different ways of saying “I” |
| Filip : From Northern dialects you’ll hear ‘Eg’, ‘Æ’ or ‘Jæ’ |
| Yura : Ok. That’s probably where my friend came from. |
| Filip : In Western dialects they say ‘Eg’, ‘I’, ‘je’, ‘E’ |
| Yura : That’s quite a few I haven’t heard before. What about southern dialects? |
| Filip : We have ‘I’, ‘Jæi’, and ‘E’ |
| Yura : Interesting. And the Eastern dialects? I reckon we’ll hear a familiar one. |
| Filip : True. ‘jeg’, ‘je’, ‘I’ or ‘jæ’ are variations used in the Eastern part of Norway. |
| Yura : Wow. One letter that seems to repeat itself is “e” though. |
| Filip : Yes, that’s true. Now let’s compare some of the dialect words we heard in the dialogue with the ones we use in the dialect we know. |
| Yura : The dialogue phrase with the dialect was this one.. |
| Filip : Hyggeleg å møte deg også, eg er Trond. Eg kjem ifrå Troms fylke, nord i landet. |
| Yura : Now let’s note a few words that are different from the south-eastern dialect you are used to. |
| Filip : Hyggeleg |
| Yura : “Nice”, “Pleasure” |
| Filip : eg |
| Yura : We heard this one just earlier, it means “I” |
| Filip : kjem |
| Yura : “Come” |
| Filip : ifrå |
| Yura : “From” |
| Filip : deg |
| Yura : “You” |
| Filip : Written, these use the nynorsk language, so they are significantly different from the bokmål version. |
| Yura : With the exception of the last word though. |
| Filip : Ah, yes let’s cover that one in just a bit. |
| Yura : The dialect that you heard spoken was a northern dialect. It is far away from the capital geographically and so the gap between the different phonetic structures is quite large. Let’s listen to a comparison. Filip, if you please. |
| Filip : Hyggeleg (pause) |
| Filip : Hyggelig |
| Filip : eg (pause) |
| Filip : jeg |
| Filip : kjem (Pause) |
| Filip : kommer |
| Filip : ifrå (Pause) |
| Filip : fra |
| Filip : deg (Pause) |
| Filip : deg |
| Yura : So the last one there was the one I was talking about earlier. Written ,they look the same. |
| Filip :...but spoken, we voice the “G” and make the ‘e’ flat in the northern dialect, while the south-eastern dialect sounds more like Danish actually, and “g” becomes a diphthong. |
| Yura : There’s a lot of nuances here aren’t there?! |
| Filip : Yes, that’s true. If you, listener, found the amount of variation here daunting you should wait til you hear the rest of the changes in everything from structure to entire words. |
| Yura : Hey, don’t go scaring off our listeners now. |
| Filip : Haha, no don’t worry. Usually when someone speaking a strange dialect finds out you don’t understand them, they’ll try to speak with the more common Oslo accent, it’s seen as the official bokmål dialect and thus most Norwegians can speak it close to perfectly. |
| Yura : Good to hear. Well, I guess we should stop here before we start confusing our listeners. |
Outro |
| Filip : Alright. Thanks for joining us, everyone. |
| Yura : And we hope we’ll see you in our last lesson of this series. |
| Filip : Håper vi ser dere! Hade! |
| Yura : Bye! |
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