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Høgnorsk, meaning High Norwegian, is a term for conservative varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk. In practice, Høgnorsk is the same as Landsmål, but has somewhat other connotations. Professor Torleiv Hannaas is often credited for introducing the term in an article in 1922, "Høgnorsk eller flatnorsk?". He used it analogously to High German (Hochdeutsch), pointing out that Ivar Aasen, the creator of Nynorsk orthography, had especially valued the dialects of the mountainous areas of middle and western Norway, as opposed to the dialects of the lowlands of eastern Norway, which Hannaas called flatnorsk (Flat Norwegian, like Plattdeutsch). More commonly today, "high" is thought to imply that Høgnorsk stands above the Norwegian dialects, both as a common denominator linguistically and as a national cultural expression.
The Høgnorsk movement grew out of opposition to the official Samnorsk policy which aimed at evening out the differences between Nynorsk and the other main variety of Norwegian language, Bokmål. Reforms to this end were carried through in 1938 and 1959. Initially there was considerable resistance against these reforms, but the resulting standard is now widely accepted. Høgnorsk is currently supported by the Ivar Aasen-sambandet and the activists behind Målmannen, but has relatively few active users.
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