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Developing A Standard Variety in Norway - Anna

Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814 but had no standard Norwegian language, as Danish was the high prestige language. The government faced a choice between developing a standard from Danish or from Norwegian dialects. They chose to develop standards from dialects, codifying Bokmål and Nynorsk. While both faced acceptance challenges, they are now the two official written standards of Norwegian, with similar syntax but some differences in spelling and individual words.

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Pradhana Deswara
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743 views7 pages

Developing A Standard Variety in Norway - Anna

Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814 but had no standard Norwegian language, as Danish was the high prestige language. The government faced a choice between developing a standard from Danish or from Norwegian dialects. They chose to develop standards from dialects, codifying Bokmål and Nynorsk. While both faced acceptance challenges, they are now the two official written standards of Norwegian, with similar syntax but some differences in spelling and individual words.

Uploaded by

Pradhana Deswara
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Developing a Standard Variety in Norway

Pradhana Deswara
A Brief of History
In 1814, Norway became independent after being ruled by
Denmark for four centuries. The government was then faced with
a diglossia situation with Danish as the H language and a range of
Norwegian dialects as the L varieties, but no standard Norwegian
language.

Upper-class people spoke Danish with Norwegian pronunciation in


formal situations, and a compromise between that and local
Norwegian dialects in informal contexts.

Lower and rural people used Norwegian dialects, with Danish infl
uence evident in the speech of townspeople.
The Standard Varieties in Norway
1. Selecting a Code
A) Background from Selecting a Code:
The Norwegian government had the choice of developing a national language from
standard Danish or from local Norwegian dialects. While Danish offered all the advantages
of being codified in dictionaries and grammars, it was the language of H domains and of the
‘oppressors’ from whom Norway had gained independence. So although choosing Danish
would have reduced the linguistic problems facing the planners, it presented different kinds
of problems.

Standard Danish was not used widely for informal interaction, especially in rural areas, and
people’s attitudes towards the language were generally at least ambivalent, if not hostile.

On the other hand, choosing a variety from among the regional Norwegian dialects raised
problems relating to the form and new functions required of a standard language. Any
dialect selected would need codifying and would require extensive functional elaboration.
And the problem of which dialect to select caused obvious headaches in relation to
people’s attitudes.
B) Two Differences of Selecting a Code:
Two different approaches were taken to developing a standard written variety of
Norwegian. One approach selected a variety based on Danish, with some
orthographic and morphological modify cations based on educated urban
Norwegian speech.
2. Codification and Elaboration
Norwegian use Bokmål and Nynorsk as the codification and elaboration. Since the late
nineteenth century, then, Norway has had these two competing official written
varieties. During the first half of the twentieth century, language planners tried to
bring the two closer together (into Samnorsk or ‘united Norwegian’) through
continued codification efforts. After the Second World War, however, political
differences led to a change in attitude among Bokmål supporters in particular.

The official policy of amalgamation was no longer pursued so vigorously, and another
spelling reform in 1981 introduced more conservative forms into Bokmål.
Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that although Norwegians regard Nynorsk
and Bokmål as distinct written varieties, they continue to have much in common
shows.

Their syntax is almost identical. They differ mainly in the form of particular words (e.g.
hjemlige vs heimlege) , and in spelling (e.g. frå vs fra) , but they also share many
morphological variants.
3. Acceptance
In some countries, a standard dialect of a language, suitable for offi cial uses
and acceptable as a national symbol, has emerged naturally, with little or no help
from government agencies or linguistic experts. In Norway, as in many more
recently developing nations, things have not been so simple. The government has
considered it necessary to make deliberate choices, to accelerate the process of
language standardisation and to legislate on the status of particular varieties.

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