Language conflict and language planning: Norwegian in the 20th C.

Language conflict and language planning:

Norwegian in the 20th C.

SAS1. February 13, 2015

Repetition: 19

Century

Two strategies to develop a new written

standard of Norwegian: evolution vs. revolution

Should the standard be based on the

“daily speech of the educated classes” or dialects?

Each strategy was built on an ideal.

They both made rational sense in relation to that ideal, but each was also exclusionary.

Aasen

• wanted to find the true language of Norway

• outside influence must be filtered

– populations that had more contact with, and were more influenced by, Danish culture were not as legitimately Norwegian

Aasens most important principle:

all phonological and morphological

distinctions that comes from Old Norse and still exists in dialects, are to be used in

writing

Protonorwegian – the reconstruction of a hypothetical first dialect

– Looking into an unknown first level in language history from where all dialects emerged

Knudsen

• wanted to maintain a modern and educated system

• no sense in turning to the past when

modern, educated people are living day to day using a new form

• easier to modify current written form to fit the way people spoke, but based only on the speech of one population

Knudsen

• valued modernity, education

• expected the languages to continue evolving

• expected more interaction between rural and urban areas, thus a merging of the two written varieties?

• thought Aasens form was too complicated, people would adopt easier modifications causing the two to merge:

“These two roads toward a genuine Norwegian language are different only regarding the point of departure and the first stage, later they will undoubtedly merge”

- Knud Knudsen, 1850

1885: decision of having two standard varieties:

”Regjeringen anmodes at træffe fornøden Forføining til, at det norske Folkesprog som Skole- og officielt Sprog sidestilles med vort almindelige Skrift- og Bogsprog”

The government is asked to take the

necessary action making the Norwegian language of the people as a School- and official Language, of the same standard as our common written- and book language.

The problem:

By 1917: Norwegian has two competing standards, both claimed by their

supporters to be the only ”real” Norwegian.

Perceived by many as an economic, cultural and political problem.

Bitter tone in language conflict: will the linguistic threathen the national unity?

The solution:

Samnorsk

(Pan-Norwegian / Common Norwegian) implemented policy 1915−1964

Samnorsk

• An evolutionary perspective – letting the two standards slowly merge together

– 1860’s and -70’s evolutionism – An evolution for the better

• A practical perspective – what is the use of having two mutually intelligible languages?

• A nationalist perspective – one nation; one language

Why did such a good, rational idea as the Samnorsk project fail?

- minor linguistic adjustments needed to merge the two standards.

BUT: these minor linguistic differences had been given great sociolinguistic

significance. The two standards had

become important ideological symbols for strong political forces.

Early suggestions of Pan- Norwegian (1900–1917)

• Moltke Moe (1859−1913)

– professor in folk culture

– argues for a written common standard in 1909

• Ernst Sars (1835−1917)

– historian. Udsigt over Norges Historie (1873-1891)

• Two languages

– an old, primitive and Norwegian

– an advanced, moderne but non-Norwegian

• Sars: these two lines must converge – two cultures must blend

• Garborg – the question of two nations (Dano-Norwegian vs. rural Norwegian)

A Samnorsk Plan

• The Eitrem committee (1909)

– smaller changes in both Riksmål [Dano- Norwegian] and and Landsmål adjusting the two languages to each other.

1907 reform

Marked the principle break with written Danish. Reform reflecting Dano-Norwegian speech, but also an opening towards the dialects

– p, t, k replaces b, d, g in postvocalic position in many words: haab > haap, mad > mat

– -er was introduced in plural forms of the common gender: heste > hester

– plural neuter form with no ending: huse> hus

– the ”Danish” verb inflexional past tense ending -ede splits into three endings:

-et: kastede>kastet, fiskede>fisket -te: svarede>svarte

-(d)de: boede>bodde, levede>levde

– adjectives ending in -ig no longer added -t in neutral form:

et ærligt menneske > et ærlig menneske

1910 changes in Landsmål

• first concrete steps in direction of Samnorsk. Resticted use untill 1917

– visa>vise (weak fem. nom. indef.sg.)

• Dano-No: vise

– stolarne>stolane (masc. nom. def.pl.)

• Dano-No: stolene

Østlandsk reisning (1916-26)

[ Eastern Norwegian Uprising]

• to bridge the gap between urban oriented Dano- Norwegian and western oriented

Landsmål/Nynorsk.

• Didrik Arup Seip (1884-1963)

– professor of Dano-Norwegian

– argues for the use of a less archaic Landsmål and a more radical Dano-Norwegian.

• i.e. to use more rural dialects of eastern Norway as a basis for reforming both standards.

• by the force of its own momentum both Landsmål and Dano-Norwegian would move into a Samnorsk direction.

• the new basis for Samnorsk would be A) the rural dialects of eastern Norway (D. A.

Seip)

B) the urban dialects of industrial workers (J.

Gjøstein)

The reform of 1917 – Landsmål and Dano-Norwegian

A breakthrough among the Members of Parliament in favour of Samnorsk.

The 1917-reform constituted the first major step in a Samnorsk [Pan-Norwegian]

direction.

Both Landsmål and Dano-Norwegian

• å for aa

• -gt to –kt (magt to makt)

• norwegianization of some foreign writing patterns: -tion to -sjon: station > stasjon

1917 reform for Dano-Norwegian

The development of two Dano-Norwegian varieties:

– a conservative variety, high status, no popular low-status dialect forms

– a radical variety, frequent use of eastern popular dialect forms (often coinciding with that of Landsmål)

Landsmål → Dano-Norwegian

• VC→VCC:

set> sett

• nd/nn [n:], ld/ll [l:] distributed according to etymology mand> mann (NN mann), fjeld> fjell (NN fjell), sand>sand (NN sand), holde>holde (NN halda)

• Radical Dano-No: Feminine gender introduced en flaske, flasken > e/ei flaske, flaska

• Radical Dano-No: Past tense/perfect particle ending -a introduced in many weak verbs

kastet> kasta

• æ replace e in many words:

læse > lese, sæk> sekk

Optional changes in Dano-Norwegian

• Nouns from rural dialects:

– bru, tru, stein, laus, golv, ku, kje, molte, beite

• Nouns fem. def.sg ending with –a:

– jenta, boka, kua

• Past tense made with -a:

– kasta, jobba, kikka

• Obligatory hard consonants:

– eble>eple, bog>bok, saglig>saklig

Dano-Norwegian → Landsmål

• silent d removed in the same words as Dano-Norwegian:

– breid>brei, lid>li, heid>hei

• the plural forms -ane, -ene, and -one, were obligatory < -arne, -erne, -orne

1917 reform for Landsmål

Landsmål was also divided into two rather separate varieties:

– traditional variety only slightly changed in relation to the traditional standard

– radical variety much closer to the radical Dano-Norwegian variety with a large number of word-forms and features from southeastern dialects

Optional changes in Landsmål

• open vowel: ‘millom’ or ‘mellom’, ‘fyrr’ or

‘før’(new form is the latter)

• some monophtongs allowed: ‘draum’ or

‘drøm’, ‘haust’ or ‘høst’ (new form is the latter)

• double consonants allowed: ‘ven’ or

‘venn’, ‘fatig’ or ‘fattig’, ‘gamal’ or ‘gammal’

(new form is the latter)

• -a allowed in strong fem. nouns:

– ’soli’ or ’sola’, ’boki’ or ’boka’

• -er/-ene allowed in weak fem.nouns:

– ’visor’ or ’viser’, ’visone’ or ’visene’

• -e allowed in infinitive: ‘kasta’ or ‘kaste’,

‘leva’ or ‘leve’. Split infinitive allowed for school pupils

• strong verbs could have -er in present tense:

– ‘bit’ or ‘biter’, ‘kjem’ or ‘kjemer’

• -te allowed in past tense of e-verbs:

– ’kvilde’ or ’kvilte’, ’førde’ or ’førte’

Dano-Norwegian newspapers implementation of the 1917 reform

Obligatory forms entereing the papers:

• Dagbladet (1919)

• Verdens Gang (1921)

• Aftenposten, Nationen, Tidens Tegn (1928)

• Morgenbladet (1931)

Norm agents

Conduction

• Fast introduction of obligatory forms (within mid 1920’s)

• However, few used the optional forms in Dano-Norwegian.

• In Landsmål all the optional forms were rapidly taken into use by many groups (geographical, educational).

• Dano-Norwegian consolidates itself with the conservative forms

• Landsmål develops into the i-mål (’i- tongue’) and a-mål (’a-tongue’).

– The more radical (newer) form of Landsmål comes closer to Dano-Norwegian than Landsmål had ever been before.

Radical Landsmål and radical Dano-Norwegian

• Ex.

– bygd – bygda – bygder – bygdene – vise – visa – viser – visene

• Conservative Dano-Norwegian – bygd – bygden – bygder – bygdene – vise – visen – viser – visene

Parliament decision of 1929

Landsmål > Nynorsk Riksmål > Bokmål

Halvdan Koht and the Labour Party

• Halvdan Koht (1873-1965)

– Foreign minister of Norway’s first Labour Government 1935-1941

– professor of history

• advocated for the strenghtening of ”The People’s Language” – ”folkemålet” within the Labour Party – a party which

historically had taken a neutral stance in the question of Bokmål vs. Nynorsk

Koht’s aims

• to introduce present day popular speech into both variants of written Norwegian

• the fusing of the two variants!

• the end of a battle of two variants!

• A committee would have the following aims

1. A step towards unification of the two

standards with a basis in the language of the people

2. A limitation of the vast amount of double forms in both variants

1938 committee members

• Ragnvald Iversen (chair): professor of language history and dialects

• Johan Bojer – writer (Bokmål)

• Gustav N. Pedersen – lecturer (Bokmål)

• Halvdan Koht

• Arne Bergsgård – historian (Nynorsk)

• Martin Birkeland – college teacher (Nynorsk)

Labour Party

• Had from 1936 onwards ”Samnorsk” in its party program: “a wider space for the People’s Language”

• The Labour Party had parliament majority in 1935 and could in 1938 introduce Koht’s reform

Implications of the 1938 reform

• the introduction of working class forms and rural area forms (hitherto not done in

Bokmål)

• the devaluation of upper middle class speech

Main features of the 1938 reform

• applied both to Nynorsk and Bokmål

• introduced “hovedformer” (main forms) to be used in textbooks (“lærboknormal” – textbook norm).

• and “sideformer” [side forms] to be used by pupils and students [often referred to as

“bracket forms”]. Could be picked by choice by users.

Bokmål reform of 1938

– diphtong øj to øy

– mig, dig, sig, op to meg, deg, seg, opp

– loanwords with a more “Norwegian” spelling:

• cykel > sykkel, centrum > sentrum

• Obligatory forms of some words (very often associated with Nynorsk):

– bein (ben),lauv (løv), fram (frem),nå (nu), etter (efter)

• Other optional forms – mjølk (melk)

– kol (kull) – bjølle (bjelle)

Morphology

• Fem.sg.def. –a obligatory in more than 1000 words: kua, bygda, jenta, trua

• Neutr. pl. def. –a in a few words: barna (barnene), dyra (dyrene)

• Verbs had an optional –a in past tense:

– kasta, hoppa vs. kastet, hoppet

Nynorsk reform of 1938

• open vowels made obligatory:

– mellom, mørk, opp (< millom, myrk, upp)

• some diphtongs made obligatory – høyre (< høre), aust (< øst)

• Def. fem. sg. –e obligatory in weak nouns:

ei vise

• Strong fem. sg: -a as main form [-i as side form]: boka [boki]

– Same for neutr. pl. def: husa [husi]

• Pl. fem.(weak nouns): viser [visor]

• -a infinitive [-e infinitive]: vera [vere]

• Pronoun: vi [me]

Implementation of the 1938 reform

• “Oslo decision” of 1939 by Oslo School Board: to include words common to both Bokmål and Nynorsk in textbooks

• as a consequence the Bokmål textbooks appeared with a radical Bokmål.

• the implementation of Samnorsk forms lacked a social and political basis

Resistance to the idea of Samnorsk

• Protests from upper middle class parents in Oslo

• the development of an unofficial standard – accepting: meg, deg, seg, øi>øy,

– avoids fem. gender

– conservative words: frem, nu, sprog

• coining of the term ”Riksmål” as an

unofficial competing standard to ”Bokmål”

Høgnorsk

conservative Nynorsk

moderate Nynorsk

radical Nynorsk

Samnorsk

radical Bokmål

moderate Bokmål

conservative Bokmål

Riksmål

• the radical Bokmål didn’t meet the

expectations of many upper middle class parents: “correctness”, “educated

language”, “a bookly language”. The new forms: “vulgar”, “rural”, “sloppy”

• the resistance to Samnorsk had a different political and social basis than the Labour Government.

Countermeasures

• The “Parents Campaing Against Samnorsk” (1951)

• the stressing of “no freedom of choice”

• public meetings

• poster- and ad campaigns

• the “correcting” of official textbooks

• public burning of textbooks written in radical Bokmål

• Oslo Scool Board changes its decision in 1954 – introducing moderate Bokmål from the 1938-reform.

• A new textbook standard suggested in 1957 and implemented in 1959

”somewhere in the middle” – i.e. not provoking too many.

Why the Samnorsk plan failed

• Labour Party unable to identify with it in the long run

• The Samnorsk organization lacked political and social support/backing

• The strong resistance to Samnorsk by a privileged group

– The rhetoric use of “tradition”: Bjørnson, Ibsen – Lack of counter arguments

• The thought that the Samnorsk plan was a way of getting Nynorsk in through the back door…

Nidaros? Trondhjem? Trondheim!

• Norwegianization of names

• Popular vote by the people of Trondhjem December 12th 1928:

– Trondhjem: 17,163 votes – Nidaros: 1508 votes

Parliamentary decision of June 1929:

Trondhjem is to be called Nidaros from January 1st 1930!

• 20,000 protesters June 4th 1929

• 30,00 protesters February 22nd 1931

• Parliament member Ivar Lykke suggests a compromise “Trondheim” – which is

accepted.

• The people of Trondhjem/heim/Nidaros get half the name back…

1907 Riksmålsforbundet

• Founded by Bj. Bjørnson as bulwark

against ”Noregs Mållag” (1906) – both had the eradication of the other language on the very top of their list

• Prominent members: Undset, Øverland.

• Makes its own conservative dictionary parallel to that of Bokmål.

The Vogt Committee – language peace 1964-66

• Norwegian Language Committee (1952) and Norwegian Language Council (1972)

• ”linguistic tolerance among all variants of written and spoken Norwegian”

• 1981 reform: Bokmål moves away from Nynorsk as pre-1938 Dano-Norwegian word forms are reintroduced.

2005

Samnorsk is officially abandoned

33

Høgnorsk

conservative Nynorsk moderate Nynorsk radical Nynorsk Samnorsk

radical Bokmål moderate Bokmål conservative Bokmål

Further reading:

Høgnorskringen (Høgnorsk):

http://www.hognorsk.no/

Noregs mållag (Nynorsk):

http://www.nm.no/

Landslaget for språklig samling (Samnorsk):

http://samnorsk.no/

http://www.hf.uio.no/iln/for-ansatte/ILNytt/utg93-09/publikasjoner.html

Bokmålsforbundet (Bokmål):

http://www.allverden.no/polorg/bokmal/

Riksmålsforbundet (Riksmål):

http://www.riksmalsforbundet.no/