Is there a Norwegian spoken standard language?
SAS1, March 18th 2016
spoken standard written standard
dialect x
SPEECH WRITING
STANDARDIZED
What is a standard language?
The variety of a language which has gained literary and cultural supremacy over the other varieties and which is accepted also by the
speakers of the other varieties as a more proper form of that language than other varieties.
David Crystal (2008:450)
“Standard languages/dialects/varieties cut across regional differences, providing a unified means of communication, and thus an
institutionalized norm which can be used in the mass-media, in teaching the language to
foreigners, and so on.”
→ STATUS, OVER-REGIONAL CHARACTER, FUNCTION
The debate:
• Does a Norwegian spoken standard language exist?
• Should Norway have a spoken standard language?
Officially, there is no such thing as a spoken standard variety in Norway
• language struggle between two written standards with two major varieties within each of them (+
unofficial Samnorsk and Riksmål) → weak status of the written standards
• the Norwegian Parliament decided in 1878 that no spoken standard should be taught in
elementary and secondary schools
• no separate Norwegian standard written language until long after Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814
Situation for the dialects
• the dialects have relatively high status
• they are well preserved
• dialect diversity is still considerable
Regionalization
• effect of urbanization, industrialization and increasing contact between people from different areas
• the region gradually replaces the local community as the important linguistic and mental orientation unit
Linguistic regionalization
• communities develop new linguistic distinctions where old ones disappear, for instance by using intermediate forms instead of adapting
completely to an urban high status variety or a national standard variety
• dynamic dialect contact phenomenon that leads to gradual abandonment of local dialect features in favour of more regional or standard ones
• includes both horizontal dialect-dialect levelling and vertical dialect-standard levelling
In the horizontal dimension, dialects or local varieties influence each other through levelling and simplification.
In the vertical dimension a standard spoken variety or national variety on the top of the spoken language pyramid influences the dialects or varieties at all hierarchical levels by how these dialects or varieties pick up different features from the standard or national variety to a greater or lesser degree
The horizontal dimension
Dialects and regional varieties influence each other through levelling and simplification – a continuum of rural dialects
– a continuum between “rural” and urban dialects
– a continuum of urban dialects
– inner continuum: the span between the traditional and the modern variety
Levelling:
• favour the most simple or most natural or most unmarked variant present in a mixture. It may favour that variant which is most
demographically dominant
• Products of levelling in the Bergen dialect:
– Absence of u-umlaut (strand/strond)
– Vowel reduction in unstressed syllables (kaste/kasta) – Vowel length in stressed syllable (venn/ven)
– The present tense of the strong verbs (kommer/kjem)
Levelling in industrial towns in Norway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyssedal
Simplification:
• will increase in regularity […] symmetrical paradigms; fewer obligatory categories marked by morphemes of concord; and simpler morpho-phonemics
• Products of simplifications in the Bergen dialect:
– Two grammatical genders
– Absence of adjectival plural markers (de er stor)
– Analytical phrases (“garpe-genitive”) instead of genitive case (mannen sitt hus< German: dem Mann sein Haus)
The horizontal dimension in Norway
• regional dialects are either based on urban dialects or rural dialects
• in eastern Norway the urban regional dialect radius is rather extensive. In Trøndelag this radius is comparatively smaller, and in western Norway the urban regional radius is small
• the rural regional dialect radius is rather small everywhere
The vertical dimension
Dialect change in a hierarchy:
The vertical dimension in Norway?
• the southeast Norwegian standard or a variety of the Oslo dialect on top and local dialects at the bottom
• linguistic variants in both Oslo West and Oslo East varieties are spreading to a greater area in eastern Norway, especially morphological and lexical variants
It could be wise to distinguish between two spoken standards:
• a “conservative” standard associated with upper middle class Oslo speech. Unofficially, the upper class variety has some characteristics of an
overarching standard variety, but Norwegians do not switch between discrete high and low
varieties.
• an “urban” standard that reflects the most frequently used written Bokmål variety with south-eastern phonology and intonation. This urban standard seems to be the most expansive.
East Norwegian standard
• the variety spoken in and around Oslo seems to function as an overarching national spoken standard variety. It is quite close to Bokmål
• An important characteristic of the standard East Norwegian variety is the impact of low-status forms from urban dialects in the central East Norwegian region
• is in principle both a regional standard variety and by many people regarded as a national spoken standard
BUT:
Most user of the central eastern Norwegian
“standard” would not claim to be a users of an official national standard, they would probably say that they “speak Bokmål” (and think of this as an unofficial standard)
“Standardtalemål” (‘spoken standard language’) is not a term many Norwegians use.
Urban regional language/dialect
The process of vertical dialect levelling seems to be much more advanced in the south-eastern part of Norway than in other regions.
The standard East Norwegian variety is
becoming a common dialect norm in the central parts of the eastern Norwegian region, and this variety has most impact in urban centres in this area.
No officially authorised standard norm, but: 1) Guidelines for NRK
Språkregler i NRK (bokmål)
De offisielle språkene i NRK er norsk og samisk. NRK skal bidra til å styrke og utvikle disse språkene. Minst 25 prosent av verbalinnslagene i radio og fjernsyn skal være på nynorsk.
1 Regler
1.1 I nyhetssendinger og programinformasjon skal programledere og annonsører bruke offisielt bokmål eller nynorsk. Redaktørene kan gjøre unntak dersom det ikke er i strid med reglene og retningslinjene nedenfor.
1.2 I andre sendinger og i nyhetsinnslag (reportasjer, rapporter, kommentarer, intervjuer osv.) kan dialekt brukes, også i riksdekkende sendinger, dersom det ikke er i strid med reglene og retningslinjene nedenfor.
1.3 I distriktssendingene bør lokale talemål få godt rom.
1.4 Person- og stedsnavn, tall og tegn skal skrives og uttales i samsvar med regler og råd godkjent av Språkrådet.
1.5 NRK skal følge reglene for offisiell rettskriving. Redaktørene kan gjøre unntak dersom særlige sjangerkrav gjør det hensiktsmessig.
NB! These guidelines present a linguistic code without phonology
2) What do we teach foreigners?
From Sverre Klouman (2002): Learn Norwegian, Borgå: Aschehoug
Two tendencies
• increasing linguistic regionalization
• increasing dialect acceptance
Regionalization tendencies
Regionalization tendencies
(From Røyneland)
Reasons for dialects evolving
• industrialization
• the increase in education
• increase in social and geographical mobility
• political and social awareness
Change in rural dialects - phonology
• some local ”traditional” forms declining –ex. segmentation: ”fjell”for ”fjedl”, ”horn” for
”hodn”
–ex. svarabhakti vowel: ”fin” for ”fine”
• the front (dental) r declining, replaced by uvular r
Changes in rural dialects - morphology
• Dative starts disappearing in the 12th c.
Decline continuing in spoken Norwegian today.
• Plural verb forms are on the decline (dei bité>
dei bit)
• Noun paradigms are becoming simpler – fewer classes
Urban features in general
Towns are hotspots for linguistic novation Dialect levelling and morphological reduction
Changes in urban dialects
• Urbanisation
• The spreading of urban dialectal traits to proximate dialects.
• The decrease of high social urban dialects (sociolects) – especially in Bergen (Kalfaret), Stavanger (Eiganes) and Trondheim
(Singsaker).
1. person pronoun ”I”
local urban dialect – sociolect
• Bergen: [e:g] – [jei:]
• Stavanger [e:g] – [je:]
• Trondheim [æ:] – [jei:]
New industrial towns in Norway
• unique industrial societies in the Norwegian countryside due to cheap power (metallurgic industry)
• Sauda, Odda, Høyanger, Mo i Rana
Norwegian ethnolects
Ethnolects based on sami, kven, finnish, rom and romani Multiethnolectal Norwegian
When is an ethnolect/multiethnolect an ethnolect/multiethnolect?
Linguistic stability
KNOT
• it is “bad” to mix dialects (“å knote”), but more accepted among young people
Vi lever i et samfunn med stor toleranse for å bytte både jobb, kjæreste og bosted. Men forandrer du derimot dialekten din, er du en sviker. Burde vi ikke ha like stor aksept for dem som skifter dialekt?
Else Berit
Molde,universitetslektor, Institutt for lingvistiske, litterære og estetiske fag, Universitetet i Bergen
persons who “knoter”?
«Å høyre han Jan Åge (Fjørtoft) på TV er heilt krise. Eg får lyst til å skyte meg sjølv i hovudet, og eg har ikkje noko lyst til å høyre på det.
Han er no 40 minutt herifrå, og eg burde no eigentleg vere stolt over han, for han er ein sunnmøring som har gjort karriere. Men eg klarer ikkje å vere stolt over han, for han held ikkje på dialekten sin, og då tenkjer eg at han er ikkje stolt over Sunnmøre. Kvifor skal me vere stolte over han, er dei sterke orda som kjem frå Ann-Helen Kjøde frå Hjørungavåg.»
Listening to Jan Åge Fjørtoft on TV is a complete disaster. I want to shoot myself in the head, and I do not want to listen to it. His from [a place] only 40 minutes from here, and I actually should be proud of him, because he is a person from Sunnmøre who has made a career. But I am not able to be proud of him, because he does not “hold on to”
his dialect, and that makes me think that he is not proud of Sunnmøre. Why then should we be proud of him, are the harsh words coming from Ann-Helen […]
“Fotballkeeper Frode Grodås fra Hornindal i Sogn og Fjordane ble på 90-tallet kåret til Norges største knoter. Andre kjente kvotere er eks-fotballproff Jan Åge Fjørtoft fra Gursken på Sunnmøre og tidligere
Venstre-leder Lars Sponheim fra Halden.”
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/oppvekst/d
anse-trygve-er-blitt-knote-trygve/a/23354811/ KNOTER: Landslagets keepertrener Frode Grodås i sitt rette element på Ullevaal stadion.
Foto: BJØRN S. DELEBEKK, VG
– Misliker slike som meg selv [Gunhild Kværness] har intervjuet 14 kjente nordmenn i dialekt- boken sin. Av disse er det den gamle langrennsstjernen Vegard Ulvang fra Kirkenes den eneste som omtaler seg selv som en knoter.
– Jeg blir jo beskyldt for det. Det er dessuten helt sant, legger han til.
– Men jeg misliker det sterkt, jeg misliker folk som knoter – altså slike som meg selv, sier Ulvang.
