{"id":314,"date":"2010-04-30T12:47:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-30T12:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/?p=314"},"modified":"2010-04-30T12:47:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-30T12:47:00","slug":"english-language-in-norway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/english-language-in-norway\/","title":{"rendered":"English language in Norway"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have written on this topic before and I imagine I will again; the use of engelsk <\/strong>(English) in Norway continues to rise.\u00a0 Engelsk is used increasingly in h\u00f8yere utdannelse<\/strong> (higher education), forskning<\/strong> (research), arbeidsplass <\/strong>(work place) and daglig spr\u00e5k<\/strong> (daily language).\u00a0\u00a0Requirements for English proficiency are on the rise at schools and in the job market.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As a result, kompetanse<\/strong> (competance) in det engelske spr\u00e5ket<\/strong> (the English language) has increased.\u00a0 Norwegians want to keep up with their fellow Norwegians and with foreigners who also speak engelsk<\/strong> in order to remain konkurransedyktig<\/strong>\u00a0(competitive).<\/p>\n

To give you an example of just how serious this movement is, the Norwegian company Statoil recently informed all of it’s suppliers that it would no longer use det norske spr\u00e5ket<\/strong> (the Norwegian language)\u00a0when conducting\u00a0business.\u00a0 All kontrakter<\/strong> (contracts) and fakturaer<\/strong> (invoices) will now be submitted p\u00e5 engelsk<\/strong>.\u00a0 Statoil’s explanation for this bold change is that the company will save money in that they will no longer need to oversette<\/strong> (translate) everything back and forth.\u00a0 Statoil is a global company, so why not use a global language, they say?<\/p>\n

For one, there is certainly more room for misforst\u00e5else<\/strong> (misunderstanding), as well as an adverse reaction from the Norwegian people.\u00a0 Many fear that norsk er i fare<\/strong> (Norwegian is in danger).\u00a0 Naturally, the more engelsk <\/strong>that is used in alle samfunnsomr\u00e5der<\/strong> (all areas of society) means\u00a0that norsk <\/strong>is used less and less.\u00a0 Not only\u00a0has the sheer volume of norsk<\/strong> used in daily life decreased, but the composure has changed as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even inside the Norwegian language, we are finding engelske ord<\/strong> (English words), or\u00a0engelske ord<\/strong> that have been Norwegianized (I think I may have just made that word up).\u00a0 And even beyond that, the struktur<\/strong> (structure) of words is actually changing!\u00a0 For example, as many of you have gathered, Norwegian, like German, uses many compound words, such as sidevei<\/strong> (side road), nasjonaldag<\/strong> (national day), and vinglass<\/strong> (wine glass), whereas their English counterparts split the words up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ok, so where am I going with this?\u00a0 Let’s take a look at another word: sukkerbiter (little bits of sugar).\u00a0 To anglicize the word, Norwegians have started to split the words up, resulting in sukker biter<\/strong> (sugar bites), which is confusing because it seems like the sugar is biting something!\u00a0 Potential for more misforst\u00e5elser<\/strong>…..even expressions are being directly translated from English to Norwegian.\u00a0 Expressions never sound right when they are directly translated.<\/p>\n

I understand the logistics involved in international companies using engelsk<\/strong> to communicate with their business partners and such, but there’s a line to draw somewhere, isn’t there?\u00a0 Is language not a\u00a0sacred and\u00a0valuable part of a culture\u00a0anymore?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written on this topic before and I imagine I will again; the use of engelsk (English) in Norway continues to rise.\u00a0 Engelsk is used increasingly in h\u00f8yere utdannelse (higher education), forskning (research), arbeidsplass (work place) and daglig spr\u00e5k (daily language).\u00a0\u00a0Requirements for English proficiency are on the rise at schools and in the job…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3,8,3668],"tags":[930,8590,3684,8591],"class_list":["post-314","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture","category-language","category-norway-and-the-world","tag-english","tag-english-language-in-norway","tag-norwegian","tag-statoil"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314","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\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":316,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314\/revisions\/316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/norwegian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}