Archive for 'Language'
The Two Flavours of Norwegian Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Jan 20, 2013
As some of you may know, there are two kinds of Norwegian: bokmål and nynorsk. (Okay, I’ve promised you this post for a while now!) There’s no need to worry – these are just two different ways of writing the same language. I mean, even English-speakers can’t agree on whether the mix of black and white should be…
Norwegian – Getting Started Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Dec 19, 2012
For those who are new to Norwegian, the whole language may seem a bit intimidating: There are so many words and dialects, so what is correct and what isn’t? And those bell-like but impossible-to-pronounce Norwegian sounds, won’t the Norwegians just be laughing behind my back as soon as I open my mouth (and they hear…
What time is it? Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Oct 28, 2012
Today Norwegians had the chance to sleep one hour longer, as the official time changed from sommertid (summer time) to vintertid (winter time). 8 o’ clock in the morning became 7 o’ clock – and with temperatures below zero in the whole country (including lots of early snø, snow, in the city of Tromsø and…
As Easy As ÆØÅ Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Sep 30, 2012
Alt er større i USA. Everything is bigger in the US. That’s what we Scandinavians often think when we’re suffering from an attack of mindreverdighetskompleks (inferiority complex). The Americans have got bigger cars, houses, plains, trees and burgers than us. But wait… Is that always so? Norwegian komikere (comedians) Fridtjof Stensæth Josefsen and Jakob Schøyen Andersen, of the TV2 programme Kollektivet (The…
Not Every A is a Girl Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Sep 17, 2012
Remember when we talked about Langfjella, the mountain range that causes the clouds to drop all their rain in Western Norway, leaving Eastern Norway a lot drier? Now, what kind of name is Langfjella really … it has an -a ending, so clearly it must be the ”the” version of a feminine noun, right? Well, not…
The Third Gender Posted by Bjørn A. Bojesen on Aug 1, 2012
No, this isn’t about LGTB people in Norway, but about an aspect of Norwegian grammar that ocassionally creates confusion, even among Norwegians: the feminine gender. Norwegian comes in thousands of dialect shades, so in order to write it, two orthographies or “written languages” have evolved: nynorsk (which will be the topic of a future blog…
Norwegian Compound Words Posted by kari on Nov 22, 2011
Menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner (human rights organizations) is one of the longer compound words in Norwegian. Others include sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator), and En mMidsommernattsdrøm (A Midsummer Night´s Dream). The Norwegian language has quite a few compound words in it. In my experience as a new student of the Norwegian language, as well as as an instructor, compound words can be…