E. C. Otté

“ At present the language is passing through a stage of transition, almost bewildering to foreigners, who must be prepared, for some time to come, to meet in Norway with the most extreme diversity in the mode in which the language is spoken, and written, by the older and younger generations of cultivated Norwegians. ”

“ In regard to the two distinct classes of verbs which are characterized as svage, or 'weak,' and stærke, or 'strong,' it may be observed that the former includes the larger number of foreign verbs, and is gradually being augmented by the addition of verbs originally belonging to the strong group. The weak mode of inflection, which embraces the two conjugations, taking respectively ede, et and te, t, in the imperfect indicative tense and in the past participle, shows less affinity with the Old Northern than the strong mode of inflection, which still includes about a hundred verbs. ”

“ Some verbs can only be used reflectively; as, att beflita sig, 'to strive;' many verbs admit of being used both reflectively and actively; as, att inbilla sig, 'to imagine;' man bör icke inbilla en annan sådan något, 'one ought not to make any one believe such a thing.'
Compound verbs are generally declined like the corresponding verbs from which they have been derived; as, håller, höll, and anhåller, anhöll, etc., 'hold,' and 'detain.' But where they have been derived from German, or other foreign sources, they do not follow the inflection of the corresponding Swedish verb ”

“ Until recently the Danes and Norwegians used no other characters in printing and writing but those known as the Gothic, or German. In the present day, however, the Latin Alphabet is being extensively employed by the best writers of Denmark and Norway, and a new and more rational system of spelling is gaining ground among the ablest cultivators of that special form of Northern speech known as Danish, or Dano-Norwegian (Dansk-Norsk) . ”

“ Henry Sweet, who is one of the highest authorities on the sounds and intonation of spoken Swedish, there is in every word a simple and a compound tone. The simple tone he characterizes as "a rising modulation, as in asking a question in English," while in the compound tone he recognizes "a falling tone (as in answering a question) on the stress-syllable with an upward leap of the voice, together with a slight secondary stress on a succeeding syllable. ”

“ The Dano-Norwegian language which was thus common to both Norwegians and Danes had, however, in the course of time become so deeply affected by Germanizing influences, that it had lost much of the special Scandinavian character, which could still be traced in Swedish, and in the various forms of the "Bondesprog" or peasant language of provincial Norway. Of this Danish and Norwegian scholars have long been sensible, and more than fifty years ago a scheme was propounded by the eminent philologist, Rasmus Rask, for the thorough reform of "Dansk-Norsk" (Dano-Norwegian) . ”

“ There is a tendency in modern Swedish to transfer verbs of the fourth or strong form of conjugation to the first or second weak form. Similarly, modern usage tends to reject the harder radical vowels in favour of their softer derivatives, taking ä for å, ö for u, etc.; while for the same considerations of euphony the j is frequently dropped, as in böd, originally bjöd, imperf. indicative of bjuda, 'to bid;' söng, originally sjöng, imp. ind. of sjunga, 'to sing.'
Contractions are of frequent occurrence even among the best speakers and writers ”

“ Thus many words having different meanings, which were formerly distinguished by differences of gender, are now reduced to one gender, while their special significance is often indicated by some slight but definite accentuation. Danes and Norwegians in some cases use different genders, as Smäld, 'crack,' 'smack,' which the former refer to the neuter, and the latter to the common gender.
Danish adapts itself with the most facile readiness to the formation of compounds, the gender of which is regulated by that of the last word in the compound group ”

“ That whatever may be the form of the past imperfect of the indicative, it remains the same for all persons, both in the singular and plural. The strong, or irregular form of conjugation, whose imperfect past of the indicative is always monosyllabic, includes upwards of 100 verbs, and was apparently the more ancient mode of conjugation in the Old Northern. The tendency of modern Danish is to depart from this more characteristic type, and to bring certain verbs, which in older times accorded with the strong form, under the rules of the regular weak forms of conjugation. ”

“ And if Forn-Svenskan has comparatively little importance from a merely literary point of view, a study of its grammatical structure, and of numerous survivals in the later forms of Swedish, will be found to throw considerable light on the process of development through which many English as well as Scandinavian words have passed, showing that notwithstanding their actual differences they have had one common origin. ”

“ Accentuation, or stress, plays an important part in Dano-Norwegian, but is dependent on so many arbitrary rules that it requires a prolonged acquaintance with the tone in which the language is spoken by Danes and Norwegians to enable a stranger to acquire the various modifications of stress, characteristic of their mother-tongue. ”

“ Transitive verbs generally admit of being used in the passive as well as the active form, as, älska, älskas, 'to love,' 'to be loved;' but intransitive verbs can usually only be employed in an impersonal form in the passive, when they acquire a significance peculiar to the Scandinavian languages ”

“ This identity of language between cultivated Norwegians and Danes is due to political, rather than to racial causes; for although all the Scandinavian peoples retained as late as the eleventh century a sufficiently accurate acquaintance with their common mother-tongue, the Old Northern, to be able to communicate freely together wherever they met in the course of their wanderings, they soon began to adopt special peculiarities of speech, although in unequal degrees. ”

“ The conversion of adverbs and prepositions into conjunctions, and the post-position of prepositions, of both of which we subjoin a few additional examples, constitute peculiar features of Swedish, specially worthy of attention owing to the light which they throw on the origin of various idiomatic expressions in English. ”

“ At the present moment the old and the new systems are still running their parallel courses in Denmark and in Norway, for while scientific works almost without exception, and some of the best literary productions of either country, are printed and spelt in accordance with the new system, the popular daily press, and all public notices, and advertisements, generally adhere to the German characters, and to the old forms of spelling. ”

“ Some adjectives are defective or irregular in their mode of declension; as, grå, 'grey,' which may remain unchanged, or take an a in the plural; as, grå ögon or gråa ögon, 'grey eyes.' Små, although the plural of liten, litet, 'little', may be used in the singular masculine and feminine in a collective sense; as, små fisk, 'small fish;' småskog, m., 'underwood.' As a noun or an adverb, smått is of common occurrence ”

“ The independent form of the definite article, known as the "Adjective Article" (Tillœgs Kendeord) , agrees in gender and number with the noun to which it refers, and always precedes the adjective qualifying the latter, never standing in direct proximity to the noun itself. ”

“ In modern Swedish, great dialectic differences of inflection and pronunciation are still to be met with even among the educated classes, although it cannot be denied that the present generation is showing a constantly increasing inclination to level provincialisms towards a more general standard, and thus to create a fixed form of cultivated spoken speech. ”

“ The Danish prepositions usually govern the objective, but some, as fra, 'from;' i, 'in,' 'on;' til, 'to,' are associated with a genitive, in which we may trace a survival of the original inflexion of the Old Northern nouns. Thus, in the expressions of at gå fra Bords, 'to leave the table;' i Mandags, 'on (last) Monday;' at være til Års, 'to be up in years;' at gå til Sengs, 'to go to bed,' we have evidence of the early government of cases by prepositions. ”

“ The plural ena, 'ones,' 'some,' is used to express surprise or contempt; as, det är ena obegripliga flickor, 'they are incomprehensible girls!'
This article is in many respects governed by the same rules as in English. Thus it directly precedes the noun which it indicates; as, en gosse, 'a boy;' en blomma, 'a flower;' ett hus, 'a house;' while where the noun is qualified by an adjective, in precedes the latter ”

“ The present work, in conformity with the plan of the series of which it forms a part, addresses itself principally to those, whose grammatical knowledge of other tongues, whether dead or living, enables them readily to master a new language, provided only that its essential and specific characteristics are clearly presented to them. ”

“ Swedish adjectives agree in gender and number with the noun which they qualify; as, en flitig man, och en flitig qvinna, 'a diligent man and woman;' ett flitigt barn, 'a diligent child;' gode (a) söner, 'good sons;' flitiga flickor, 'diligent girls;' ädla namn, n., 'noble names.' Here it will be observed that in this indefinite so-called "weak" form of the adjective, which is also used as a predicate, the masculine and feminine in the singular are identical, while the neuter takes a t. ”

“ Verbs having a reciprocative sense assume the passive form when used simply with the subject-noun, or pronoun; as, de ses, 'they see each other;' Hans og Jens slås, 'Hans (John) and Jens are fighting.' De slå hinanden, and de slås, convey different meanings; the former signifying 'they are beating each other,' while the latter implies the more forcible act of fighting. ”

“ Sin, sitt, sina are used (as in Danish) in a subjective reflective sense, whilst hans, hennes, dess are only used objectively; as, Fadern äskar sitt barn, och söker befrämja dess väl, 'a father loves his (own) child, and strives to promote his (the child's) welfare. ”

“ Man, (one, they,) can only be used in the nominative, while En, (one,) can only be used in the objective; as, Man söger hvad behager En, 'One seeks for that which pleases one.'
The use of the possessive pronoun sin, sit, sine (his, her, its) , in contradistinction to hans, hendes, dets (his, her, its) , demands careful notice, but as a general rule it may be accepted that sin should refer to the nearest preceding subject-noun, and hans, hendes, to the objective personal noun ”

“ The Third Declension, which includes nouns of all genders, contains a large proportion of foreign words. The termination -er in the plural, which is its distinctive character, is unknown in genuine Swedish words of the neuter gender, and is due to German and Danish influences. ”

“ Thus the authorized Dansk-Retskrivnings-Ordbog (Danish Spelling-Manual) of Svend Gruntvig, 1870, gave å for aa after the letter y , followed by æ, ö and ø. The Dansk Hand-Ordbog, which was issued by the same author in 1872, at the express orders of the Ministry for Education, which recommended its use to all colleges and schools in Denmark, differs however wholly from its predecessor, both as to the writing and place in the alphabet of this letter, for here aa is placed first among the letters, and is no longer represented by å. ”

“ The pronoun must agree in gender and number with the noun which it represents; as, Hvar är flickan? Hon är i trädgården, 'Where is the girl ? She is in the orchard.' In some cases, however, the pronoun follows the natural rather than the grammatical gender ”

“ The s, which now forms the distinctive characteristic of the passive form in Dano-Norwegian verbs, is a survival of the Old Northern st, which represented the still older affix sk, contracted from sik, modern sig, which is the reflective pronoun 'self.'
Deponents, which are often defective, and must always be conjugated with at have, 'to have,' differ from passives, with which they otherwise agree, by requiring that the participle past shall end in ts ”

“ The place of the adverb in Swedish is in many cases identical with that which it occupies in English; as, den unga flickan taler väl, 'the young girl speaks well;' dagen derpå, gik han bort, 'the day after, he went away;' glädjen är förbi, 'the pleasure is over;' der du är, der vil jag vara! ”

“ Certain adverbs, when required to be used in the superlative, may be expressed by a neuter adjective with a preposition; as, på det bedste, 'best;' på det aller venligste, 'most friendly' (in the most friendly way) .
Certain adverbs imply motion, or rest, by the absence or presence of a terminal e; as, Barnet går ikke ud, 'The child is not going out;' Barnet står allerede ude på Marken, 'The child is already standing out in the field;' At gå hjem, 'to go home;' at være hjemme, 'to be at home.' In these cases the final e may be regarded as a survival of an otherwise obsolete ablative form. ”

“ Here it will be observed that the noun, when preceded by an adjective, takes both the affixed article and the independent definite article. This pleonasm is peculiar to the Swedish branch of the Scandinavian languages, Dano-Norwegian dispensing with the terminal affix when the noun is preceded by an adjective with the requisite independent or adjective form of the definite article. ”

“ Else sometimes indicates a property, as Tykkelse, 'thickness;' but more frequently an action, as Anvendelse, 'application.' A similar idea is conveyed by the termination ning, as Skrivning, 'writing.' These two terminations serve to form nouns from the corresponding verbs, and thus constitute an important characteristic of Dano-Norwegian, distinguishing it from Swedish, in which the participles, and not the root of the verb, serve as the basis of words. The German mode of construction, which admits of using the infinitives of verbs as nouns, as das Schreiben, has found its way into Danish ”

“ Der, 'there,' with the vowel short, is used in the sense of 'there are,' (il y a,) 'they,' 'one,' etc.; as, Der er mange Træer i Haven, 'There are many trees in the garden.' When der is used with a passive, or deponent verb, it acquires the special sense of 'people,' 'they,' and gives to the verb the force of a gerund ”

“ The independent adjective-article may be used in the place of the noun-affixes when special emphasis, or a distinct meaning is to be given to the word; as, Aldrig lader den Mand sine Börn i Fred! "The man never leaves his children in peace!" ”

“ The reflective pronoun sig, 'self,' is used in both genders for the third person singular.
In common parlance the third person plural de, written with a capital D, (De) , is employed in the sense of 'you,' when addressing another individual, excepting in cases of near relationship, or close intimacy, when Du, 'thou,' is used, as among Germans. ”

“ Deponent verbs have an active significance, while in most particulars they follow the mode of conjugation required for passive verbs; as,—
Many deponents can only be used as impersonals; as, det dages, 'the day is breaking,' (day is coming) ; det mörknes, 'it is growing dark.'
Passives and deponents may be used in an impersonal sense with der, 'there;' as, der slås, 'there is fighting going on;' der kappes om Prisen, 'the prize is being contended for.'
Some verbs must always be used in a reflective sense ”