Talk:Norwegian dialects

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[edit] Getting started

This is a very long subject, and I suspect that I've used many wrong linguistic terms for the distinctions. We should come up with a map to illustrate many of the points. Having said this, I'm not sure this is a topic that has widespread interest. --Leifern 21:30, 27 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I believe the e-ending has risen, due to contact with the Low German Hansa merchants, and first became popular in Denmark. The a-ending is older and more native. If I'm correct, the article should make clear such matters.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.198.149.49 (talk • contribs) 00:59, 14 February 2005 (UTC).

Deleted the following sentence: "Some remnants remain in standard Norwegian, e.g., han gikk til fjells as opposed to han gikk på fjellet."

Til fjells is actually a genitive case, not a dative. Bogfjellmo 20:26, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] East and West Scandinavian

The Norwegian dialects are variously classified as East Scandinavian, others are West Scandinavian, hence I suggest a split.
Sarcelles 21:49, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Could someone reference the claim that some Norwegian dialects are classified as East Scandinavian?
Peter Isotalo 20:54, 23 July 2005 (UTC)
Most such claims are based on the basis of:
1. Norwegian was originally a (the) West Scandinavian language.
2. Modern Norwegian (all dialects) resembles modern East Scandinavian languages more closely than other West Scandinavian languages.
3. Western dialects have generally kept more traits associated with old West Scandinavian.
4. Bokmål is based on Danish, a East Scandinavian language.
5. Nynorsk is based most on the diaclets with most old West Scandinavian traits.
We can ignore 4&5 when discussing dialects. (Though in a 'what is a language' context it may still be intresting)
Language genealogy is based on, well genealogy, so the makes Norwegian a West Scandinavian language.
(This confuses people because of the close similarity to Swedish and Danish.)
Personally I think it makes more sense to describe all Norwegain dialects as transitional between West and East Scandinavian.
—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.202.221.95 (talk • contribs) 14:33, 23 January 2006 (UTC).

From what I can tell, the distinction between West and East Scandinavian is a bit misleading when it comes to Norwegian dialects, and is not typically emphasized in Norwegian linguistics. There is no dividing line between one and the other, and there is general recognition that influences have come from several directions. --Leifern 14:49, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the distinction between East Scand. and West Scand. is somewhat misleading for traditional dialects spoken in Sweden as well, since many western traits once were spread all the way to the Baltic sea. Only the traditional dialects in Gotland may be regarded as 100% East Scand. similar to how Iceland is the only 100% West Scand. speaking area. Between the Atlantic ocean coast in Norway and the Baltic sea coast in Sweden there is a continuum of dialects where the degree of being West (East) Scand. drops in the eastern (western) direction. It is quite pointless to say that all dialects west (east) of some specific border are West (East) Scand. Only the island dialects (in Iceland and Gotland) are pure in this sense. (Though modern Gotland dialects have become more and more western, i.e. have become closer and closer to standard Swedish which is not pure East Scand. If it were, one would e.g. write 'Jerk, hjär jär jag med min jäld!' more or less like in the traditional Gotland dialects, not 'Erik, här är jag med min eld!'; cf. Nynorsk 'Eirik, her er eg med elden min!' completely lacking breaking of 'e' here.)
My general impression is that - at least in Sweden - the traditional dialects have adopted both western and eastern novational traits quite early, though not to a complete extent. Especially the dialects in the central parts of Scandinavia have stabilized to have a near-balance mix of western and eastern novational traits. (A typical example here is Älvdalen speech which on one hand has a lot of nt > tt assimilations, even where most western norwegian dialects have lost them, and on the other hand has a lot of e > je breakings, even where most east swedish dialects have lost them.) On the contrary, the standard languages have been reluctant to adopt these novational traits. Or rather, one has based the written language on a tradition going back to a time where the novations weren't used amongst literate upper class people. Remember that the novations were, and still are, considered as belonging to illiterate peasants with degenerate speech. At least if the novations weren't produced in Denmark. Novations from Denmark have had a more easy life to spread even amongst nobles.
Jens Persson jepe2503 at hotmail dot com (130.242.128.85 19:02, 15 February 2006 (UTC))

[edit] Table

A table of some sort would help clarify this article greatly I think

Fornadan 03:27, 11 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Different comments

1. A lot of Norwegian words are left untranslated. It would help if someone translated them. 
2. It looks strange that vi(we) and oss(us) are marked as different words, 
when they are used in different cases, just as in English. 
If some dialects are using oss for all cases, the text should make that clear.

惑乱 分からん 12:29, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about Nordfjord and Sunnfjord?

In the general description of the different dialects inner Sogn og Fjordane and outer Sogn is mentioned, but the Nordfjord and Sunnfjord dialects are not mentioned. Where do they fit? North-West Norwegian, South-West Norwegian or neither? Inge 13:26, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Tense" in Syntax section

Can someone clarify the word "tense" in the following section? From context I wonder if "emphasis" might be the intended meaning - "tense" usually refers to how the time of an event is marked on a verb, and that doesn't seem to be what's being referred to here:

Syntax can vary greatly between the dialects, and the tense of the sentence is important for the listener to get the meaning. For instance, a question can be formed without the traditional "asking-words" (how, where, what, who..) ex. the sentence Hvor mye er klokken? (literally: "How much is the clock?") i.e. "What time is it" can be put in the following forms: E klokka mykje? (Is the clock much?) (tense is on "the clock"), E a mytti klokka? (Is she much the clock?) (tense on "is")

--Zeborah 06:48, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] remove cleanup-ipa tag?

I don't see any parts of the article that use phonetic notation that is non-IPA. Some of it is unusual (e.g. /øy/ really is /øy/ and not a mis-written /øj/) but it appears to all be authentic. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.33.49.251 (talk) 17:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC).

[edit] Maybe a silly question, but...

...what do they speak on Svalbard? Normally, considering the tenuous population and relatively short colonisation history, I would assume that everyone spoke the standard language, but since there isn't really such thing as Standard Norwegian, I just wondered... Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 13:37, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I guess they speak whatever dialect they had upon moving there - presumably with a northern 'tint'. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.185.80.64 (talk) 02:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] About western dialects, and my shitty editing skills

I assume Bergen Norwegian is a part of western Norwegian. I would like to add the forms "Når, Kortid, Kotid" to the table, under When, and Western Norwegian. I do however not know how to do that. I tried, but I kept breaking the table. If someone could do it for me, I'd be glad. "Når" and "Kotid" are used in Bergen, and Kortid are used in the surrounding countryside at least.

Sorry, I forgot to sign... :( 84.48.90.55 (talk) 18:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Done (don't know what you tried; but a '||' without quotation marks indicates a new column). --Harald Khan Ճ 17:06, 20 May 2008 (UTC)