How Norway Ripped its Language in Half

Norway! It's a country that's carved a very distinct picture of itself over the years, but it hasn't been easy. There's no better place to see Norway's growing pains than in its language. Today on the Embur channel, we look at how the Norwegian language was, by outside forces, accidentally ripped apart.

#norway #language #history #countryballs

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00:00 Norway! Nor f-ing way...
02:20 From Norse to Norge
07:34 Hopeless Romantics
11:13 The Word Collector
17:30 Us and Them
22:10 Coda
23:12 Outro

[Embur]

Hey folks! Glad to see that a lot of people have been enjoying this video over the last week!

Since a good amount of you have (quite rightfully) offered your perspectives and corrections, I figure that the right thing to do would be to publicly correct them myself. I'd like to once again preface, as I have in the comments already, that all of these oversights and mistakes are on me, and are in no way the fault of Theo or anybody else involved.

1. [2:42] I refer to East Norse and West Norse as Dialects in their own right. That's certainly _quite_ the oversimplification on my part! There were, of course, hundreds upon hundreds of dialects of the Norse tongue that often varied wildly from each other, with some dialects blurring the lines between other Germanic languages at the time, but Eastern and Western Norse are regarded as the two main dialect families that most, if not all Norse dialects fell into.

2. [12:56, 16:50, 18:08] Landsmål, Riksmål, Bokmål, Nynorsk and Samnorsk are at points refered to as being "spoken" and having "speakers". This is plainly not true, and is very much an oversight on my part, using 'speak' and 'write' as though they're synonyms. In any other case, I'd be willing to brush past that as just silly pedantics, but in this case it's a rather important distinction.
As many folks have stated in the comments, Bokmål, Nynorsk, and their contemporaries are near exclusively ways of writing Norwegian, while the language is spoken based on the dialect and customs of whatever area a speaker may hail from.

3. [21:33] I refer to the idea of English being used as a "bridge" between dialects. A fact that many people were (again, quite rightfully) quick to tell me I was wrong about in many different ways. Some folks in the comments responded anecdotally in favour of my point, so I think there's definitely at least some merit to the argument, but I definitely think that in hindsight the use of the word "bridge" was poor judgement from me. Going off of what I've learned since video release, outside of the younger generations of Norwegians, the usage of English as a bridge between dialects is perhaps never at least and the negligable at most.

The point I had in mind, and the one I wanted to make, was that as English becomes more and more widespread, it leads to the conflict between Bokmål and Nynorsk to become more and more diluted, with English even becoming preferred amongst some of Norway's younger generation. I took this point, combined it with various anecdotes I received from the Norwegians I spoke to while making this video (who I should specify were all typically online, quite metropolitan, and all in their twenties) and further research into English language usage in Norwegian culture, and attempted to shoot for the moon... and missed.

I hope this clears some things up! I appreciate all the criticisms I've received, and I'm happy to see people engaging with the video more than I could've ever hoped to see, and keeping it very very civil! Thank you :) 💜

[thesamdolorian]

I find it funny that there is a Norwegian man named Ivar Aasen, who revived Norways language, and there is a figure known as Ivan Asen in Bulgaria, who revived the Bulgarian Empire.

[theo]

This was extremely fun to work on and love all the lovely comments!

[HistoriaEtAl]

Fun related fact:
Old Norse and Old English were so similar you could have a conversation where one spoke only Old Norse and one only spoke Old English.

[Sheepo-gkyx]

the entire population of Norway watched this video

[hanefar]

I have literally been a Norwegian all my life. And at the ripe old age of 27 is when i find out that Nightcore was made in Alta.

Wat

[eror]

We do not speak english to bridge the gap between the dialects in Norway, we just use it to say words we don't have in Norwegian or that are forgotten

[OICru]

Your channel is a hidden gem, and your videos are some of the best on this site. It’s criminal how you don’t have the recognition you deserve.

[ΧΑΡΗΣΚΟΥΡΗΣ-ψν]

It vaguely reminds me of the linguistic issue in Greece after 1831 (I think). As you might know, during the Hellenistic and Roman Periods, Attic Greek replaced most other greek dialects (except some holdouts of Doric in the Peloponnese), and evolved into Common, and later, Medieval Greek. Medieval Greek was used mostly in folk songs and poems, while official documents and other works of high literature were written in Ancient Greek (though pronounced in the same way as the speaker's contemporary dialects).
This continued into Modernity, and in the new Kingdom of Greece there was a debate over the matter of the official language. Some preferred a more archaic version that resembled the Greek of the Bible, while others wanted to use a variety closer to how the average people spoke, and this disagreement even led to a few riots (such as when some students protested against the translation of the New Testament into Modern Greek). Eventually, this purified form was abandoned in favour of "folk-speech" in the late 1970s (except for the Church, which still uses it to some extent), and also the only diacritic marks that were kept were the acute accent (to indicate stress) and the diaeresis.

[MarieSallaupHalse]

As someone who speaks a dialect that is hard to understand for outsiders, I've never used English as a way to be understood. If a sentence is not understood, I'll try to either repeat myself slower, switch out the hardest to understand words into bokmål, or just find a different way to convey the same message.

[DownBadDad-izmp]

Dawg. The appreciation I have for someone as a language learner, not only scribing and LEARNING the dialects of those he shares his homeland with, but also working hard to standardize what he felt was nationally representative of his people, absent of foreign influence (as best it can of course). He visited and lived his life saying hello what's up to his people and simply writing it down, and saying 'look, norweigh generally says this'. It could've ended up another Italy.

[thenerdgaming]

Love the video! As a Norwegian the only problem I might have is the ending, where you make it seem like English is being used to communicate between dialects. From anecdotal, personal experience I don't really get this point. I would say most Norwegians can understand the general gist of whatever is being said in whatever dialect the two or more participants speak. The more "worrying" or interesting development is the "lånord" or "borrow-words" from English. Especially in "Bokmål" there has been an increased amount of anglicized Norwegian words and/or an "fornorsking" of English words. This development is mostly/ especially seen in the bilingual, younger Norwegian generations though.

TLDR: I don't think a person from Kristiansand and Trondheim would resort to speaking English to understand each-other. I think the more interesting thing to point out is the anglicization of Norwegian words and/ or "fornorsking" of English words, which has grown a lot in the last decades.

[MartyMcSpooky]

I grew up in a nynorsk area learning both forms, so this video was a great watch for me that kept me glued to the screen the whole time. You deserve way more subscribers for such good content!

[no.]

Just found this channel thinking it was a fairly large channel based on the well written scripts, good research and general quality but no. I really find it unfair how a channel like this can have so few followers, while having this amazing content. Keep it up!

[Kameeho]

As a Norwegian who grew up in the absolute mess of a Bokmål-language bastion of Bergen, a Bokmål dominated city, in the middle of Nynorsk-territory of Vestland Region (Don't get me started how I miss the old name of HORDALAND), where I don't have to do more than a 30 minute buss ride to sudddently find myself in Nynorsk-land.

From the perspective of growing up, forced to learn both Nynorsk and Bokmål in school during the 90's, and updated perspective from my younger sister who grew up during the 2010's and well, soon my firstborn will start his first day at school next year.

If it's one thing that hasn't changed, and that is the utter hatred if not at least Dissatification of having to learn BOTH Nynorsk and Bokmål, with dedicated classes for Nynorsk and Bokmål, ontop of English and a Language of choise (Spanish, French or German, also I heard Chinese and Japanese are an alternative at some schools)
But unlike English and the Language of Choise, which isn't really hated at all, some are actually loved quite a lot, it's a completely different language, and thus a new experience.

The very mutual intelligability between Nynorsk and Bokmål, for many Norwegian people, is just seen a meaningless waste of time at school, and should just be put into the Language of Choise rather than being Mandatory subject in School.
And in all honesty, from my own memories, it is seen as a massive waste of time.
I do not have a need to learn how to speak and write Nynorsk. Because it's a non-issue in a day to day norwegian life. And I pretty much live a "Ivar Aasen" way of life, as my line of work (Building Fiberoptic infrastructre to spread the blessing of Internett connectivity throughout Norway), I get sendt to jobs far into the deepest remote fjord-villages and mountain-towns that I couldn't even imagine existed, that comes with their very own unique and local Dialects.

I write and speak Bokmål to my Nynorsk friend, and he speaks and writes Nynorsk back to me.
we have no to minimal issues understanding each other, besides perhaps a handfull of words you can count on 1 hand, that shows up every now and then.
However, even those very few words, are moot in a Nynorsk-language class, as you video covered very well.
Those words are unique to the dialect itself to begin with!!

I mean, just my very own Bergen-Bokmål has so many unique words or phrases, that it leaves my Oslo-Bokmål speaking friend calling me out to stop speaking "Bergenese" at times.

Best example being the word for garbage, which is in Bergen dialect is "Boss" is in Oslo and much of rest of the Norway known as "Søppel".

Which in the end, everything a Nynorsk speaker growing up in Nynorsk fjords, learning about how to speak Bokmål in Bokmålfjords, and visa versa.
Is rendered moot in the end, because going to Bergen and speaking Bokmål, or Stavanger and speaking Bokmål, or Oslo and speaking Bokmål, you suddently realise the time spendt hours and hours of classes is rendered moot, as none of the Bokmål speaking towns uses the same words or even phrasing at times you just learned in class.

And the same thing works in reverse.

And this leaves to a mild frustration in the youths which still lingers on many adults with the whole "Whats the bloody point spending so many hours learning this!?"

It's reached to a point now adays that it's become a political discussion especially in Local-politics, to even bother having Bokmål and Nynorsk classes mandatory at their respective regions.
In other words, some schools have already started putting the Other Norsk into the Language of choise category. And just letting having "Norsk" classes cover the basics of the Other Norsk.

Which in my personal view, completely agree on. This opens up so much more time for kids to focus on other subjects that has a much bigger impact on their life later on.

Just to put into perspective, if my memory isn't failing me here:
During my time in "Ungdom skole", about equivalent to Junion High. I remember having Nynorsk classes 3 times a week. So thats about 3 hours of Nynorsk classes each week I head to learn. Which amounts to 120 hours of Learning Nynorsk, growing up in a Bokmål Town for the school year. (About 3 hours x ca.40 weeks in a Norwegian School year)

120 hours of learning a "different" language which is about 90% intelligable for most people growing up in Norway.

That is a lot of hours that could have been invested in other things.

Anyway, That was a bit of a tangent.

Amazingly well made video which covers this subject extremely well! Which I can use to show my foreign friends who is interested in learning Norwegian language, that, well.. Erhm. It not just learning "A" Norwegian language. Just focus on learning the Norwegian most relevant for the Region you live in (Or plan to live in if moving to Norway).

Thank you for this!

[mans]

interesting side note: Old Norwegian continued to exist outside Norway after the 1500s, evolving into Icelandic, Faroese and Norn (though norn went extinct by 1900)


Icelandic is really really close to Old Norse too. If anything, as norwegian, i'd consider Iceland "more norwegian" than Norway, at least language-wise :P

[Accelerando_poco]

I really love this video, both as a Norwegian and language enthusiast!

The video clearly and elegantly explains what Norwegian schools struggle to teach through a semester.

Only thing I'm somewhat confused about is the last point about English functioning as a lingua franca among speakers of different dialects. Maybe you have some rare examples or maybe it's an up-and-coming phenomenon among the very youngest Norwegians, but never ever have I heard (about) any fluent speaker of Norwegian switch to English in order to be better understood by a speaker of a different dialects. It happens with Swedes and Danes a lot, but I feel it would be unheard of for Norwegians to switch to English in order to better communicate with eachother

[thomaserung]

In secondary school you have to learn the other written language instead of the one used where you live, which makes alot of people mad because if you use one you won’t ever use the other outside of those pesky essays. The younger generation also have a very open negative view of Ivar Aasen for ruining grades for generations to come.

[SimonDman]

I love all the historical referenceses that I get as a Swede. I think the uses of Europa Universalis IV, from the terrible Trade system to the sound when you get a Casus Belli, is so hilarious to me!
Great Video!


The intro music got me flashbacks to the slog that was route 217.
I also got reminded to start my Emula-... I mean, start my Nintendo DS (that I own) and Play some Pokémon Platinum! (That I also own.)

[Jackster]

18:37 this feels wrong. Becuse its only the "Western" Part of Norway that uses nynorsk. So it's kind of ignoring the whole north.