{"id":1988,"date":"2014-09-27T20:13:43","date_gmt":"2014-09-27T20:13:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=1988"},"modified":"2014-09-27T20:13:43","modified_gmt":"2014-09-27T20:13:43","slug":"the-scotlands-of-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/the-scotlands-of-norway\/","title":{"rendered":"The Scotlands of Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Saami_flag,_Troms\u00f8_Norway\"<\/a>

The Saami flag. By anj\u010di from London, UK (Saami flag, Troms\u00f8 \/ Norway) [CC-BY-2.0<\/a>], via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>Last week the people in Scotland voted no to becoming a country independent from the United Kingdom. For some people in faraway countries, it was maybe the first time they saw the Scottish flag or even heard about Scotland. I want to make sure that you, i det minste<\/strong> (at least), hear about the parts of Norway that aren\u2019t typically Norwegian (even if they aren\u2019t separate countries like Scotland):<\/p>\n

\u2013 S\u00e1pmi<\/em> (Saami) or Sameland<\/strong> (Norwegian) is the \u201dSaami Country\u201d. Samene<\/strong> (the Saami people) probably came to Norway long before the Vikings. I gamle dager<\/strong> (in days of old) there were Saami living as far south as\u00a0S\u00f8rnorge<\/strong> (Southern Norway). The Norwegians, however, gradually pushed them north. Today they are living in parts of Nordnorge<\/strong> (Northern Norway, mainly the fylker<\/strong> Finnmark, Troms, Nordland and a bit into Tr\u00f8ndelag). Many Saami have kept their ancient clothing, singing and herding traditions (reinsdyr!<\/strong> reindeer!), and even the language samisk<\/strong> (Saami), which is related to Finnish. They used to be discriminated by Norwegian officials, such as l\u00e6rere<\/strong> (school teachers) who would brutally punish Saami schoolchildren who were caught speaking their own language. Today they\u2019re of course (!) fully integrated into the Norwegian society and even have the right to wave little Saami flags on 17. mai<\/strong>, den norske grunnlovsdagen<\/strong> (the day of the Norwegian constitution). The Saami have their own parliament \u2013 Sametinget<\/strong> \u2013 in the Saami-speaking town of Karasjok. For two reasons, though, it\u2019s very unlikely that there\u2019ll ever be a vote on Saami independence: 1. The Saami live in four different states \u2013 Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. 2. The Saami live side by side with \u201dordinary\u201d Norwegians, and there are very few places where they are in the majority.<\/p>\n

\"Polar<\/a>

Polar bears ahead! Photo by Kitty Terwolbeck<\/a>. Licensed under Creative-Commons on Flickr.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2013\u00a0Have you ever looked at Norway on a map, and then moved your eyes a bit further north? If so, you\u2019ve probably noticed the group of islands called Svalbard<\/strong>. They\u2019re part of Norway, but in a special way. A century ago the world\u2019s powerful countries all wanted to share those cold \u00f8yer<\/strong> (islands) with isbj\u00f8rnene<\/strong> (the polar bears). The international community finally (by the means of Svalbardtraktaten<\/strong>, the Svalbard Treaty of 1925) gave Norway the \u201dsuverenitet<\/strong>\u201d (souvereignty), which basically meant: \u201dOkay, guys, you can call those islands Norwegian and raise your pretty flags, but don\u2019t get in the way of our businessmen, and don\u2019t send your soldiers up there.\u201d For many years the Soviet Union was mining for coal in Svalbard, where there still is a community of russere og ukrainere<\/strong> (Russians and Ukrainians). Unlike the rest of Norway, Svalbard is not a member of NATO, and it is not allowed to be its own fylke<\/strong> (\u201dregion\u201d). Russland<\/strong> (Russia) and Norge<\/strong> occasionally disagree about the islands, but, as far as I know, things have been quiet for a long time. The most powerful person on Svalbard is sysselmannen<\/strong>, who\u2019s a kind of supervisor and police officer who checks that the 2000-something inhabitants behave nicely. I don\u2019t know how to translate sysselmann<\/strong>, but it\u2019s a nice word! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Last week the people in Scotland voted no to becoming a country independent from the United Kingdom. For some people in faraway countries, it was maybe the first time they saw the Scottish flag or even heard about Scotland. I want to make sure that you, i det minste (at least), hear about the parts…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":1990,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3668],"tags":[274100,191730,3683,362366,1211,362369,362365,362364,274071,362363,6719,13376,362367,362368,362370],"class_list":["post-1988","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-norway-and-the-world","tag-17-mai","tag-discrimination","tag-norway","tag-rights","tag-russia","tag-russians","tag-saami","tag-sameland","tag-sametinget","tag-sapmi","tag-scotland","tag-svalbard","tag-svalbardtraktaten","tag-sysselmannen","tag-ukrainians"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988","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=1988"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1992,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1988\/revisions\/1992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1990"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}