{"id":1551,"date":"2013-02-20T23:58:09","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T23:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1551"},"modified":"2014-08-22T18:42:24","modified_gmt":"2014-08-22T18:42:24","slug":"is-norwegian-the-new-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/is-norwegian-the-new-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Norwegian the new Chinese?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201dI don\u2019t understand a word Norwegian, but I love listening to Norwegians speaking it! It\u2019s so melodic, it sounds like they\u2019re singing!\u201d<\/em> Sometimes people say things like that. And in a way, they\u2019re right. Did you know Norwegian and Chinese had something in common?<\/p>\n

Almost any basic intro to Chinese<\/a> will mention the word\u00a0ma<\/em>. Depending on the way you pronounce the\u00a0a<\/em>, we\u2019re told, the word changes its meaning. If you say it while gradually making your voice lighter \u2013 an \u201dupward\u201d or rising \u201dmelody\u201d \u2013 it means \u201dnumb\u201d. If you keep a steady high \u201dmelody\u201d all the way through the\u00a0sound, it rather means \u201dmother\u201d, etc. According to Wikipedia<\/a>, Mandarin Chinese has four different \u201dword melodies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Norwegian has only two\u00a0toner<\/strong>\u00a0or\u00a0tonelag<\/strong>\u00a0(groups of tones, \u201dmelodies\u201d), as they\u2019re called. So, if you\u2019re speaking Mandarin on a daily basis, getting a grip on Norwegian pronunciation should be piece of cake! \ud83d\ude42 Note that only accented syllables have\u00a0tonelag<\/strong>\u00a0(there\u2019s no \u201dmelody\u201d in the first word of\u00a0det regner<\/strong>, \u201dit rains\u201d).<\/p>\n

The\u00a0tonelag<\/strong>\u00a0of Norwegian are:<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Tonelag 1<\/strong>: Words of 1 syllable have\u00a0tonelag 1<\/strong>, which in standard Oslo dialect is an descending or \u201ddownward\u201d tone:\u00a0mann<\/strong>,\u00a0lys<\/strong>,\u00a0bil<\/strong>\u00a0(man, light, car). Words of two syllables that originally had only 1, are also pronounced like that:\u00a0mannen<\/strong>,\u00a0lyset<\/strong>,\u00a0bilen<\/strong>\u00a0(the man, the light, the car)\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022\u00a0Tonelag 2<\/strong>: Words of 2 syllables have\u00a0tonelag 2<\/strong>, which in Oslo is a \u201drising\u201d tone:\u00a0jente<\/strong>,\u00a0l\u00f8pe<\/strong>,\u00a0tusen<\/strong>\u00a0(girl, run, thousand).<\/p>\n

Getting the correct Norwegian \u201dpitch accent\u201d, as linguists call it, is one of the very last things you\u2019ll learn, so don\u2019t worry too much about this now. But at least you should know why the Norwegians are \u201dsinging\u201d! In a handful of cases, changing the\u00a0tonelag<\/strong>\u00a0of a word also changes its meaning \u2013 just like Chinese:<\/p>\n

Tonelag 1 \u2022 Tonelag 2<\/h3>\n

land\/et<\/strong>\u00a0[LANNeh] (the country) \u2022\u00a0\u00e5 lande<\/strong>\u00a0[aw LANNeh] (to land)<\/p>\n

and\/en<\/strong>\u00a0[ANNen] (the duck) \u2022\u00a0en annen<\/strong>\u00a0(another one)<\/p>\n

and the most famous one:<\/p>\n

b\u00f8nder<\/strong>\u00a0(peasants) \u2022\u00a0b\u00f8nner<\/strong>\u00a0(beans; prayers)<\/p>\n

This is really just a nicety of Norwegian pronunciation. Don\u2019t fret if you don\u2019t get it. In 99.9 % of the cases people will understand whether you want to say \u201dbeans\u201d or \u201dpeasants\u201d or \u201dprayers\u201d!<\/p>\n

As a\u00a0tr\u00f8st<\/strong>\u00a0(comfort, solace) I can tell you that some Norwegian dialects \u2013 in the Bergen area and in the very north of the country \u2013 don\u2019t use different word melodies. So, you can always pretend you come from one of those places! \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201dI don\u2019t understand a word Norwegian, but I love listening to Norwegians speaking it! It\u2019s so melodic, it sounds like they\u2019re singing!\u201d Sometimes people say things like that. And in a way, they\u2019re right. Did you know Norwegian and Chinese had something in common? Almost any basic intro to Chinese will mention the word\u00a0ma. Depending…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11652,8894,274074],"class_list":["post-1551","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bergen","tag-chinese","tag-melody"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1551"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1953,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1551\/revisions\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}