Comments on: Converting Nynorsk to Bokmål – Part Two

By: Ermanno Furlanis

Ermanno Furlanis — Thu, 14 Apr 2022 21:53:39 +0000

But actually is Nynorsk spoken or only a second graphia?
Being more conservative (many examples are closer to German) Nynorsk is not the right name. It is more fit “Landmål” “Native Norvegian” “native tongue” (norvegese originario)

By: Mette Karlsen

Mette Karlsen — Sun, 15 Mar 2020 03:48:59 +0000

Dear Bryce, Oh my GOD, Thank you SOOO much for this article!!!! I am so grateful to you for having written this, and can’t wait to read and print out part 1 of this article series. I have been studying Norwegian in earnest, many hours a day, since 2002. This has included that I completed the Level 1+2 norsk kurs intensiv, in 2002, at the Friundervisningen/Folkeuniversitetet in Bergen while I lived in rural Norway. (I also lived in that same place in 2006.) To make a long story short, I have been looking for this exact article of yours since 2002, and you have really helped me!!! I bought a Nynorsk-Engelsk/Engelsk-Nynorsk dictionary from Norli in 2004, but it is absolutely useless. Learning Nynorsk fully has been very important to me since 2002, since the majority of my friends live in and very close to Vaksdal, Norway, and they all speak Nynorsk exclusively. I learned as much as I could from them both times I lived in Vaksdal. But I have always needed much, much more, and your article gave me a HUGE amount of Nynorsk knowledge. I can’t thank you enough!!!!

By: Bradf

Bradf — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 18:03:00 +0000

Hei,

Jeg har studert norsk i USA, og på grunn av ressurser kan jeg studere bare bokmål. Jeg vil lære nynorsk, for familien min kom fra Bergen (og andre område deromkring). Jeg ville å bruke nynorsk fra utgangspunktet! Jeg så anbefalinga di for boka av Hallaråker, men jeg kan ikke finne en kopi som er tiljengelig i USA. Har du anbefalinger for andre bøker for å lære nynorsk? Jeg er en amatør språkforsker, derfor bøkene trenger ikke å være innledende eller enkle.

Tusen takk!

By: Lena

Lena — Tue, 08 Jan 2013 02:43:28 +0000

A very god site.
Eg har lika ho.

By: Bryce Miller

Bryce Miller — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:59:29 +0000

In reply to Tora.

Hi, Tora!

Really pleased that you’re enjoying these articles!

You’re right that most people will call the written form Nynorsk (the official name in English is Norwegian Nynorsk), and some people will call it New Norwegian, but I don’t find these names satisfactory. I don’t think the name for the language in English should include any Norwegian (since that’s confusing), and I consider “New Norwegian” to be a poor translation (probably says more about me than anyone/thing else). If we use the word Nygresk as a model, then, as the translation of Nygresk in English is Modern Greek, then it follows that Nynorsk should be called Modern Norwegian in English. I also like this translation better since Ivar Aasen’s vision was to create a written form for Norwegian which not only reflected contemporary Norwegian speech, but which also descended from Old Norwegian.

The table of pronouns is probably a bit confusing ;). The way to read the table is literally just Nynorsk -> Bokmål -> English. So Nynorsk “han” can correspond to both Bokmål “han” and “ham” (both subject and object). “honom”, on the other hand, can only correspond to “ham” (only object). It’s the same for “ho”/”henne”. “honom” is the main form for the object, but you’re right that “han” is more popular 🙂

Pronouns in Norwegian are really interesting if you’re a language nerd like me. Eight different ways to say jeg/eg, and just as many ways of saying dere/dykk! Some dialects don’t distinguish between subject, object, or genitive, so they say things like: Oss gjekk heim til oss med kjærestane oss. Really interesting. Hey, I’m interested 🙁

Good comment, thanks for reading!

By: Tora

Tora — Thu, 03 May 2012 10:02:10 +0000

Loving these posts! Nicely done 😀
However, it’s very unusual to see Nynorsk being referred to as Modern Norwegian instead of just Nynorsk..
If I understood correctly, you wrote the nominativ and akkusativ (‘fraid I don’t know the English names for these) cases in the first line, with dativ in the second. However, I can’t help but wonder – is “honom” recognized as Nynorsk? It sounds a bit too Swedish for my taste, and as we’ve just started our mandatory Nynorsk lessons at school, our teacher goes on and on about the cases (nominativ + akkusativ + genitiv) in Nynorsk. Most young people don’t differ between “han” and “ham” when speaking (Oslo dialect), and according to the book we use, Nynorsk only uses “han” – in nom. and akk. alike.
My apologies if I’m wrong about this, but using “honom” in Nynorsk just doesn’t make sense, and I can’t recall having seen it..