Talk:Differences between Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish

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You have new messages (last change).

-en or -et couldn't be from German? Don't they come from the Scandinavian non-neuter or neuter grammar? (Like the Scandinavian definite artivle -en, -et?)

I think, the idea is that these country names have a definite article (as German has before feminine country names).

Hmmm, OK, I understand... Needs rephrasing... Anyway, AFAIK -a is also a definitive article ending, though I think it comes from -a, the old Norwegian feminine ending. (Unlike masc -en and neuter -et.)

This article is to a great extent misleading as to relevant differences between the languages. As of now, the encycopledic value is almost nil. Proper terminology and more general information is needed. The fact that Norwegian and Danish actually belong to seperate branches of the North Germanic languages is not mentioned, the differences explained here are more or less anecdotal and that older Bokmål is more similar to Danish in syntax is also overlooked.

Peter Isotalo 00:02, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)


It is completely rubbish that "Norwegian and Danish actually belong to seperate branches of the North Germanic languages". They both belongs to the (East) Scandinavian languages, also known as East North Germanic. Modern Norwegian is actually developed from Danish (they were almost entirely identical written languages until 1907), and can also be seen as a Danish language (if it hadn't been for nationalist issues). The article needs expansion, but the fact that conservative Norwegian is more similar to Danish is actually mentioned, but could be emphasized more. 83.109.161.138 17:02, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

While it's true that the _written_ norwegian was almost identical to written danish until the early 1900's, it is - to use your words - completly rubbish to claim that spoken norwegian is developed from danish. Both norwegian and danish come from a common root, but has evolved in different directions. Mutally understandable, yes, but not the same language - unless you are subscribing to the theory that all the scandinavian languages are just variations of a common, scandinavian language. WegianWarrior 04:44, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I'd say that it's more accurate to say that Norwegian and Danish actually went seperate ways early on but that (standard) Norwegian then became heavily influenced by Danish. But going so far as the anonymous user does and claim that the different standard Norwegian languages belong to either the East or West Scandinavian groups seems really far-fetched. The East/West groups are based on historical classification and hence can't be used for later classifications. The Insular/Mainland classification on the other hand...
Peter Isotalo 19:19, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
No matter what the proper way to divide the Scandinavian languages are (I'm not a linguist), at least we can agree that Danish and Norwegian are seperate languages - unlike our anon friend whom grandfathered this discussion =)
However, rereading the article again today; I'm not sure if the claim that the difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and Swedish is correct. In my experience with danes and swedes (granted, mostly swedes from Båhuslen and Gøteborg-area), the 'sound and feel' of the Swedish language is more 'alien' than the sound and feel of the Danish language. Granted, this may steam from my own Norwegian dialect (Oslo), but I would love to see some references backing that claim.
Anyway, I'm ranting =) WegianWarrior 06:19, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I've seen studies on how well Scandinavians understand each others' languages, and the result was that Norwegian had a very good comprehension of both the other languages while Swedes and Danes were far worse at understanding the other two languages, though I believe they both understood Norwegian better than each other's language. The Danes actually had the worst overall result, closely followed by the Swedes. I think this has far more to do with the fact that Norwegians are in a sort of Scandinavian periphery and haven't enjoyed the same kind of political dominance in the region and therefore follow the politics and culture of Denmark and Sweden a lot closer.
Peter Isotalo July 3, 2005 20:38 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Nynorsk or bokmål

It was not mentioned at all about which version of Norwegian is the article. There are obviously two such languages which differ significantly enough to have two Wikipedias. I've heard rumors that speakers of the one can understand Danes much easier than the speaker of the other one (but have no idea which is which). It would be nice of someone scheds more light on this subject. -- Goldie (tell me) 08:17, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

I'd guess Bokmål, since that was the language first and most affected by Danish. (Later Bokmål has influenced Nynorsk deeply, though). One clear difference between Norwegian and Danish, is that the latter went through a sound shifts where many middle and final consonants were voiced (t-d, k-g, p-b notably). The Norwegian cognates usually retain the original sounds, except for in a few Danish borrowings, often not entering Nynorsk. Examples Bokmål:bedre, Nynorsk:betre (Eng:Better) Bokmål:tegn/tegne (pronounced like /teIn/ ) Nynorsk:teikn/teikne (Eng:(a) sign,draw/sign) 81.232.72.148 16:09, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cleaned up

I've removed the cleanup tag and added back in the commented out sections after giving this what largely amounts to a copyedit. I don't know anything about the subject, so I haven't touched the content. I've left the bulleted lists and the table in place. Normally I try to convert lists of that sort to prose, but this strikes me as a situation in which listing becomes appropriate. --RobthTalk 18:06, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

The article has a section on phonology eventhough Bokmål is a written, not spoken, standard. This makes no sense since there is no particular pronunciation associated with Bokmål.
And I still question the merits of this article due to it's overly narrow scope. Comparisons between specific langauges have limited use and I would like to see more time spent improving the far mor relevant articles Danish phonology, Norwegian phonology as well as Danish language and Norwegian language.
Peter Isotalo 09:02, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
Concerning the phonology of Bokmål - yes, it's true, but since we do speak of "Norwegian pronunciation" in general (actually meaning East Norwegian as spoken in Oslo), the same can apply to Bokmål (and even more so, since the opposition Bokmål/Nynorsk is somewhat connected to the opposition Østlandet/Vestlandet). It's as in Swedish: in theory, there are different riksspråksvarianter, in practice people ususally describe rolling r and not the southern version as "standard" Swedish.
As for Danish phonology, (which is comparable in its depth of detail), I agree that it needs a lot of fixes, but one would need to use the main source (Basbøll) again. --194.145.161.227 10:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Language differences

I'm far from a lanugage expert, so could someone please explain to me why this:

satisified/pleased tilfreds, fornøjet fornøyd, tilfreds

is a difference between Danish and Norwegian? So "tilfreds" means "fornøyd" in Danish and "tilfreds" means "fornøjet" in Norwegian? I'm Danish and to me both words mean more or less the same, at least I'm not really sure I think the difference matters much. With such a long list of relevant differences, I just think this one is a bit far stretched...

Good, long, interesting article by the way...

Perhaps you're right... I just meant that tilfreds is the more usual word in Danish, while fornøyd is the more frequent one in Norwegian. I'm not sure how to put it more clearly though. --194.145.161.227 09:56, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Kun/Bare

I don't understand this inclusion. Surely both "kun" and "bare" could be used in Norwegian. 惑乱 分からん 17:53, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

Almost anything that is used in one language is used in the other, too. The difference is in terms of frequency and stylistic value. In modern Norwegian, "kun" sounds archaic or otherwise "unusual" in most contexts, and so does "pike". Similarly, Danish does have "jente", it's just not the normal word for "girl".--194.145.161.227 15:55, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
This isn't what is stated in the article. I removed these examples, since it seemed that the situation was unique for Danish:
  • kun/bare - in Danish, both words are used, the one meaning roughly "only, solely" and the other "just, merely". In Norwegian, bare is used in both cases.
  • lave/gjøre - in Danish both lave or gøre (roughly, "make" or "do") occur, in Norwegian only gjøre is used in equivalent expressions.
(The Norwegian equivalent "lage" is used in certain situations like "lage mat" (make food) and "lage et kunstverk" (make an artpiece). 惑乱 分からん 07:49, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree about "kun", which is practically obsolete, so I'm going to re-insert it with a slight change in wording. As for lage, it does occur in Norwegian, but it's used in many more expressions in Danish. "Hvad skal vi lave?" "what shall we do/occupy ourselves with?". Since I find it difficult to specify the difference more precisely now, I'm leaving it here. --194.145.161.227 12:06, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
What is your source for "kun" being obsolete in Norwegian? Google.no gives over 14 million hits, when searching through the websites of major newspapers such as Dagbladet, Verdens Gang and Aftenposten I get more than 10.000 hits on each. ordnett.no or Bokmålsordboka doesn't mention anything about it being archaic or obsolete. Maybe all of these sites aren't referring to adverbial kun, but most of the first hits are. It isn't used in "proper" Nynorsk or Swedish, though, but the article is about Bokmål. 惑乱 分からん 14:21, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
You have a point there. But I think that the google search is more reliable if whole phrases are used: compare for instance this Norwegian google search for "har bare to" (13,900 hits, [1]) vs "har kun to" (873 hits, [2]). My Engelsk-Norsk Ordbok (HarperCollins Publishers, 1998) doesn't mention "kun" as a translation of "only". My Norsk-Russisk Ordbok (Zhivoy Yazyk, 1998) expressly calls "kun" obsolete. This (rather basic) Norwegian-English dictionary doesn't even have an entry on "kun". And I would have sworn that it occurs very rarely in the Norwegian texts that I have read (starting with basic textbooks and ending with, well, not so elementary texts). Still, you're right in that "kun" does appear to be used much more freuqently than I had realized (and than I have been taught). I have changed the wording again in a way which I hope addresses your concerns. --194.145.161.227 15:18, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't trust an Internet dictionary, since they often lack common words. The written sources are more problematic, but I'd guess Zhivoy Yazuk misunderstood something. My first language is Swedish, though, not Norwegian, so I cannot really claim to know a native Norwegian's connotations of the word, just that it's "fairly" common, even in Bokmål. "kun har to" still gets more hits in Norwegian than English equivalents such as "merely has two", "have merely two", etc. (My father is Norwegian, and I go over to Norway every year, mostly reading some Norwegian comics, newspapers etc. during my stays.) I'd hope for more native speakers' view of the matter. 惑乱 分からん 20:02, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the average native speaker would just say that kun is less common and more Danish/bokmaalish than bare, which is pretty obvious, anyway. It's clear that it's not strictly "obsolete". We can ask on the Wikipedia:reference desk/language, if you insist, but I doubt that there is much to be gained in this way. As for "have merely two", it's clear that it would be very infrequent: "merely" is closer to the Danish use of "bare" ("simply") than to kun ("only", "solely"). --194.145.161.227 13:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Uhmm, I just don't know if the difference in usage is notable enough to be relevant. I'd say in Norwegian at least, "kun" means "merely"/"solely" and "bare" "only"/"just". 惑乱 分からん 16:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the exact use of "kun" in modern Norwegian, but my point was that English "merely", unlike Danish "kun", isn't quite a synonym of "only", and "have merely two" sounds a bit weird. "I am merely a humble Wikipedian" is a fine sentence, but "I've got merely one house" (as opposed to two houses) isn't something you'd normally say. You'd say "only one house". In the same way, in Danish, "jeg er bare en ydmyg IP-bruger", but "jeg har kun ét hus" (as opposed to to huse). What you said above decribes, IMO, not so much the meaning as the stylistic difference between the words (as "merely" and "solely" are more, err, highbrow words than "only"/"just", in the same way as "kun", like other Danish forms, is naturally more highbrow than "bare"). --194.145.161.227 17:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
So what you mean is that "kun" in Danish is used to emphasize that there's one single thing or matter being discussed? 惑乱 分からん 19:05, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, sort of, although it doesn't have to be one. I can't think of better example sentences, I should have to find some old exercise book of mine to get some proper ones. "Bare" tends to be more more like "simply", "helt enkelt", while "kun" is pretty straightforward in stressing something and excluding everything else. "Det er kun John" = "it's John and no one of the others". "Det er bare John" = more like "it's simply/just John (so there's nothing to worry about)". At least that's what I remember from what I've been taught when studying Danish. When studying Norwegian, I was never taught about "kun" at all, except when someone mentioned it as an old-fashioned version of "bare".
Somebody has tried to explain the difference here. --194.145.161.227 23:07, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Some info about Norwegian here, not very helpful, though.[3] If we'd want a thorough answer, I guess we'd have to e-mail the Norwegian Language Council. 惑乱 分からん 08:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Can we do that? I didn't know. Yes, I think the link yuo gave shows that in Norwegian as in Danish, "kun" still means strictly "only" and may not be used for things like "simply" and what not; "bare", on the contrary (and unlike Danish), can be used in all cases, with both meanings, although it might be typical for prices. I'll mail my ex-teacher (a native Norwegian) and ask her what she feels about it. --194.145.161.227 09:48, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, just send an e-mail to "sporsmal at sprakradet dot no". So what you mean is that in Danish, which of "kun" or "bare" that should be used, depends on the situation, while in Norwegian, "bare" could always be used, although the connotations are slightly different. Btw, I've seen "kun" in written Nynorsk, for instance on Nynorsk Wikipedia, but since I couldn't find it in the (afaik) largest free Nynorsk dictionary online [4], I suspect it's a danicism/bokmålism. Btw, if it'd matter, I know several native Norwegians. 惑乱 分からん 12:05, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

I got Spraakraadets answer. I wonder whether it's legal to post the entire answer or if there are copyright issues involved (don't laugh). Anyway, the first two sentences were

"Kun" har en mye mer avgrenset bruk enn "bare". "Kun" regnes som nokså alderdommelig, og det kan alltid byttes ut med "bare"."

They explained that "kun" can replace "bare" only in some of the meanings listed in item 1 of the "bare" entry in Bokmaalsordboka. They said that "kun" is pretty usual in a marketing context (salgssammenheng), in front of sums of kroner and numbers, but otherwise is typical for literary or archaic (gammelmodig) style. --194.145.161.227 15:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you could post it on the talk page, but rephrase it before adding it to the article. 惑乱 分からん 17:45, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] E-mails

Don't know whether the person from Spraakraadet who wrote it to me wants to have her name published. Here is the text.

"Kun" har en mye mer avgrenset bruk enn "bare". "Kun" regnes som nokså alderdommelig, og det kan alltid byttes ut med "bare". Du behøver altså ikke å bruke det i det hele tatt. Dersom du ser på artikkelen "bare" i Bokmålsordboka, er det bare (!) i et par av eksemplene under betydning 1 at oppslagsordet kan byttes ut med "kun":

boka kostet kun 98 kr (nokså vanlig bruk i reklame, i butikker osv.) det er kun noen dager siden (mindre vanlig) det er kun meg (virker nokså søkt)

Det er kanskje det at "kun" er så kort og dessuten har en litt spesiell stilistisk valør, som har gjort ordet så populært i salgssammenheng. Det brukes nokså mye foran kronebeløp og talluttrykk ellers. Ellers brukes det oftest i en litterær eller gammelmodig stil, og mindre i vanlig fortellende eller sakspreget stil, vil jeg tro, uten at jeg har gransket det nøye.

Vennlig hilsen

A Norwegian teacher of mine wrote (I guess, part of her answer is a quote from a dictionary):

kun har mye smalere bruksomraade enn bare. kun er adverb, bare kan være baade adverb og konjunksjon

kun = ikke mer enn Eks.: kun for inviterte; herresokker - kun kr. 10,-

bare (adv)=

  • (1) ikke annet enn; ikke mer enn; ikke flere enn;
  • Eks.: Han heter Per Kristian, men vi kaller ham bare Per; Takk for hjelpen! Bare hyggelig!; Det er bare ett minutt igjen,; vi kan bare beklage.; man må bare gi seg over; jeg skal bare låse opp døra; det er ikke dårlig bare det; det manglet bare at han gikk hen og skadet seg; det skulle bare mangle!;
  • (2) foran et ledd for å gjoere det ubetydelig: det var bare katten som mjauet;
  • (3) for å uttrykke forbehold: jeg er enig, det er bare det at...; jeg kan bare ikke begripe at..;
  • (4) for å understreke: bare for å gjøre det helt klart; det er bare ikke mulig; det er ikke bare bare å åpne forretning
  • (5) for å uttrykke ønske: den som bare visste.. bare du ikke faller!
  • (6) oppmuntrende: bare sett i gang! Nå skal du bare se hvor lett det er;
  • (7) forsterkende: du skal bare ikke bry deg! (konj.) betingelse: bare jeg får ro, skal jeg gjøre det! han løper bare han får se hunden.

I de tilfeller du kan bruke både kun og bare, virker kun mer gammeldags. Du vil imidlertid ofte se det i butikkvinduer når det er salg!

Haaper dette var til litt hjelp!

Thanks. By the way, I corrected the ae/oe/aa's into Norwegian æ/ø/å's. 惑乱 分からん 00:50, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reflexive pronoun

It is stated, that the Danish reflexive pronoun "sig", unlike its Norwegian countarpart, is not appliable to subjects in the plural, and in this context, the example "han vasker sig, han vasker seg/de vasker dem, de vasker seg" (da,no/da,no) is given.

As an everyday speaker (being quite Danish myself) and avid user of the language, I should like to point out that this statement is rubbish and has no connection with any sort of reality that I've ever encountered. Actually, "de vasker dem" in Danish is almost incomprehensible, at least without some specification as to who "dem" are, those whom "de" are washing, as it could never be the subject.

Excuse my bitterness, but I find the reflexive pronoun to be an excellent feature of any language, and as it is a common mistake of more unexperienced Danes to use a demonstrative in place of a reflexive, let us not lead any more astray.

Peter Bruun (donpedro55@gmail.com)

Thank you very much for that contribution, you are quite right. That was my mistake (as I am not a native speaker of Danish and I believed that I was quoting from memory something that I obviously remembered incorrectly). The information will be corrected. --194.145.161.227 20:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Word list

Some of the words listed as spacial for Norwegian are in common use in Danish.

away - væk - bort, (vekk): bort is quite common (though maybe not quite as common as væk)

be correct, hold true - passe - stemme: stemme and passe are about equally common

to comb (verb) - kæmme sig - gre seg: kæmme is somewhat archaic. Rede is the usual word

everywhere - alle steder - overalt: while you may say "alle steder" (all places), overalt is more common

difficult - svær - vanskelig - vanskelig is quite common

floor (storey) - sal - etasje: "Sal" is only used in addresses and the like. "Etage" is the generic word. E.g. "Jeg bor på 2. sal" I live on the 3rd floor, but "et femetagers hus" a house of 5 floors.

last year - sidste år - i fjor: i fjor is quite common

--Klausok 11:30, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

A lot of the vocabulary section is questionable. It's trying to emphasize differences which isn't that accentuated. Otherwise, just Be bold! 惑乱 分からん 18:47, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Maybe the list should be split in two - a list of words that just have different frequencies in the two languages and a list of words that are definitely different. The problem is that the boundary isn't that clear. But the first type of differences is rather relevant. For example, Google in Danish gives 131,000 Danish hits for "i fjor" vs 3,300,000 for "sidste år", while there are 4,670,000 Norwegian hits for "i fjor" vs 458,000 for "siste år" (it's true that the phrase "siste år" can occur in other meanings, but this should have made it more common in Norwegian, too). I can assure you that when a person actually studies the languages as foreign, this quantitative difference becomes qualitative - as a beginner in Norwegian, you learn "i fjor"; as a beginner in Danish, you learn "sidste år".--194.145.161.227 15:09, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
Interesting point, but that would make the article more complex... 惑乱 分からん 00:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)
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