Norwegian language

“ Thus it is that we have at the present time two kinds of Danish language, the pure Danish used in Denmark and by Danish authors, and the Dano-Norwegian used in Norway by most of the educated classes, especially in the cities, and by most of the Norwegian authors. Still it should be noted that the language spoken in Norway even by educated people is far more national in its character than the one used in writing. ”

“ Swedish is more like German and the pronunciation is not as difficult to learn as that [218] of Norwegian and Danish. In Norway, there are older dialects, differing from Danish, and there has lately been a great movement in favour of a more national language. Many Norwegians regard the official Danish-Norwegian as a reminder of old subjection to Denmark and not at all fitted for the new independent Norwegian kingdom. ”

“ Towards the end of the middle ages the Danish influence shows an immense increase, which marks the gradual decline of Norwegian literature, until at last Norwegian as a literary language is completely supplanted by Danish. During the 15th century Norway has hardly any literature except charters, and as early as the end of that century by far the greatest number of these are written in almost pure Danish. ”

“ As the Norwegian language and other Norwegian characteristics have given way to the Gaelic tongue, manners, and customs, in the former Norwegian districts on the north coast of Scotland, from Clyth Ness in Caithness to Dingwall on the Firth of Cromarty, we can scarcely be surprised that the north coast of Sutherland, whose rocks and heaths offered much fewer allurements to the Norwegians than the fertile valleys and plains of the east coast, and which were therefore far less colonized by them, should have preserved distinct traces of these foreign conquerors only in a few names of places. ”

“ The old Norwegian songs are no longer heard. Of the ancient Norwegian popular language the only remains are partly a few words, which, however, appear conspicuously in the English dialect now used; and partly a peculiarly sharp pronunciation, with a considerable rising and sinking of the voice, not unlike the vulgar pronunciation in the Faroe Isles. The old Norwegian words are particularly employed for certain objects and implements which have been in use from time immemorial. ”

“ In the 16th century, again, charters written in Norwegian occur only as rare exceptions, and from the Reformation onward, when the Bible and the old laws were translated into Danish, not into Norwegian, Danish was not only the undisputed literary language of Norway, but also the colloquial language of dwellers in towns and of those who had learned to read. ”

“ The English language, in which they find so many words of their own and so many borrowed from the Latin, is cultivated by many of the clergy. The German they find still more easy; and as all the Scandinavian languages proceed from the same root, they have no difficulty in understanding the Danish and the Norwegian tongues. Of all the modern languages or dialects which have sprung from the ancient Norse, spoken a thousand years ago all over Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, none has undergone fewer changes than the Icelandic. ”

“ NORWAY, Language and Literature of. The Norræna mâl, or northern language, now represented, with slight inflectional and orthographical variations, by the Icelandic, was the common language of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden from an unknown period to the 11th century. (See Iceland, Language and Literature of.) Norway retained the old tongue longer than either of the other kingdoms. The few mediæval Norwegian documents do not exhibit any important grammatical changes until about the time of the annexation of Norway to Denmark toward the close of the 14th century. ”

“ It is frankly declared to be the first Norwegian translation of Shakespeare. Hauge and Lassen, to say nothing of the translator of 1818, are curtly dismissed from Norwegian literature. They belong to Denmark. This might be true if it were not for the bland assumption that nothing is really Norwegian except what is written in the dialect of a particular group of Norwegians. The fundamental error of the "Maalstrævere" is the inability to comprehend the simple fact that language has no natural, instinctive connection with race. ”

“ These three considerations, especially perhaps the first, will make clear to us the reason why the Norwegian so readily learns to use the English language, and if he learns it in youth, even to the point of mastery. This is of the greatest importance, for language is in modern times the real badge of nationality. A correct use of the English language is the first and chief stamp of American nationality, the key without which the foreigner cannot enter into the spirit of American life and institutions. ”

“ The Landsmaal arose from a movement after 1814, to make Norway independent of Denmark in language also. The rural dialects were regarded as more purely Norwegian; on them and the Old Norse as a basis was constructed somewhat artificially this standard rural language. It has been gradually perfected, and is now, in fact, spoken and written a good deal. Björnson advocated rather the natural process of making the language of the country more national by gradually introducing dialect words and reforming the orthography. ”

“ 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) . ”

“ Greater is it for a nation to preserve her intellectual inheritance in her native tongue.”
Norwegian history is not continuous, complaisant historians to the contrary. A long break occurs from the Union of Kalmar in 1397, when the country ceased to exist as a political entity, to 1814. During this period of extinction, Norway was a mere geographical shuttlecock tossed between Sweden and Denmark. The latter country as a rule obtained the upper hand in its dealings with Norway. ”

“ They are intelligent, well educated, and uniformly religious, and to one who could speak their language, the journey would have an added pleasure, as they are very sociable and communicative; even across the barrier of a foreign language they send the impression of an especial interest in you, and a desire that you should be favorably impressed with their country; those who can speak English, or who are able to understand your feeble Norwegian, are ever ready to impart information. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The literary Norwegian is Danish rather than Swedish. Meanwhile, the old language, the mother-tongue, is the common property of all, and so is the old literature with its Edda and Sagas; though ... the Norwegians are the chief heroes of it. The language in which it is embodied is preserved with but little alteration in Iceland; so that it may fairly be called Icelandic, though the Norwegians denominate it Old Norse. ... See NORMANS—NORTHMEN. A. D. 960-1100. The histories of the three countries are alike in their general character though different in detail. ”

“ With certain modifications, the most important of which were introduced later by Aasen himself, this artificial language is that which has been adopted ever since by those who write in dialect, and which later enthusiasts have once more endeavoured to foist upon Norway as her official language in the place of Dano-Norwegian. Aasen composed poems and plays in the composite dialect to show how it should be used ”

“ Thus, for instance, we find in some manuscripts (as the above-mentioned legendary Olafssaga) that the vowels e, o, ø and long a, æ are followed in terminations by e, o; i, u, y, and short a, æ, on the other hand, by i, u—as in bøner, prayers, konor, women; but tiðir, times, tungur, tongues. The same fact occurs in certain Old Swedish manuscripts. When Norway had been united later with Sweden under one crown (1319) we meet pure Suecisms in the Norwegian literary language. ”

“ Colloquially it is common in Norway to give those words of common gender, which in the literary language take plural -e, the ending -er: Hester, Hunder, Hatter etc. Also the neuters Huser, Gulver etc., but most neuters are unchanged in plural ”

“ So common is this practise of borrowing that no English word is refused admittance into this vocabulary provided it can stand the treatment it is apt to get. Some words, indeed, are used without any appreciable difference in pronunciation, but more generally the root, or stem, is taken and Norse inflections are added as required by the rules of the language.” Sometimes the English loan-word and a corresponding Norwegian word exist side by side, but in such cases, according to Dr. ”

“ Not only in antiquity, but also far down into the middle ages, they all employed, absolutely, one and the same tongue, and even now the differences between the three principal languages, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, are very insignificant. The written languages in Denmark and Norway are very nearly identical, though the Norwegians have recently, to a greater extent than ever before, enriched their tongue by the adoption of words from the dialects which have been preserved by the peasants, and which in many respects are closely related to the ancient common Scandinavian tongue. ”

“ To Norway he is more than a poet. Not only has he written beautiful stories, songs, and dramas for his people; he lives the daily life of this people, and holds unbroken intercourse with them. He who has it in his power to create the most refined, the most delicate poetry, does not esteem himself above the rudest tasks, those of the journalist and the popular orator, where there is a question of furthering the moral and political education of the Norwegian people, by combating an error or a lie, or by ensuring the propagation of some simple, but as yet unrecognized truth. ”

“ The Norwegian folk-songs, spring dances, hallings, and wedding marches, have been well characterized as the outpourings of the inner lives of the common people, the expression of their dauntless energy, their struggles and aspirations. The folk-song of Norway, more than in any other land, embodies the character and expresses the tendencies of Viking life, ancient and modern. It bears the unmistakable marks of weal and woe of Norse life, the strongly marked and regularly introduced rythms of the developed and developing national character. ”

“ The mystic sense-affecting influence which has been ascribed to them, was only the erotic expression of the great national connection between the two differently derived elements; the fair-haired, blue-eyed, larger-minded and quieter Norwegian, and the dark, brown-eyed Fin, quick of thought, rich in fancy, filled with the mysticism of nature, but down-trodden and weak in character. The Fin, to this very day, goes as it were on snow-shoes and sings minor strains, while many a Norwegian, in his pride of race, little suspects that he has any connection with that despised people. ”

“ At the present time, when there is among us a constantly increasing interest in all things pertaining to the Scandinavian nations, this work possesses great claims to attention, not only through its intrinsic merits, but also from the fact that it is one of the very few works which can, in the fullest sense, be termed Norwegian. During the long political union of Norway with Denmark, Norwegian literature was so deeply imbued by Danish thought and feeling, that it could not be considered national. ”

“ The maal has no doubt enriched the literary tongue of the country with many valuable words and turns of expression, but there the advantage of it ends, and it is difficult to feel the slightest sympathy with a movement in favour of suppressing the language in which every one has hitherto expressed himself, in order to adopt an artificial dialect which exists mainly on paper, and which is not the natural speech of any one body of persons throughout the whole of Norway. ”

“ For the interests that make up the life of the people—their family and community affairs, their arts and crafts and folk-lore, the dialects of Norway, like the dialects of any other country, have a vocabulary amazingly rich and complete.I.17 But not all ideas belong in the realm of the every-day, and the great difficulty of the Landsmaal movement is precisely this—that it must develop a "culture language." ”

“ In Norway a strongly individual national character is to be expected, combined with conservatism of ancient customs and practices. The one finds no better illustration than the individuality of modern Norwegian music and painting. ”

“ We enter a new world when in picture-galleries we pass to the Norwegian from the Swedish section. From the great city we are transported to nature, solemn and solitary, into a land of silence, where a rude, sparse population, a race of fishermen, snatches a scanty sustenance from the sea. The Norwegians also contributed for a time to the international market in works of art. They sent mainly genre pictures telling of the manners and customs of their country, or landscapes depicting the phenomena of Northern scenery. ”