LL-L "Grammar" 2007.05.03 (06) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L  -  03 May 2007 - Volume 06

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From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2007.05.03 (03) [E/Norwegian/Swedish]

Har du glemt, hvor tidt og mange gange vi sad som børn på dine knæ om
vinterkvelden?
[Have you forgotten, our time and (the) many times we sat on your knees on
winter evenings as children?]
>>>

Wow, I must say I am impressed by your Danish. (Danish yes)
A little remark though, 'hvor' = 'where', or with an adjective 'how'; 'our'
would be D. vor(es), N. vår. 'Tidt', mod. Bokmål 'titt', is indeed derived
from 'tid' ('time'), but is an adjective/adverb, synonym of 'ofte'. It would
rather be 'Have you forgotten, how often and many times we sat on your
knees...'

... jeg kunde rive mine øjne ud af hovedet
[... I could rub my eyes out of "the head"]
>>>

'Rub' would be a very cautious translation:) I think he says he could even
tear his eyes out of his head.

PS where was Old Gutnish actually spoken?
PPS Jämtlandish is often also counted as a Norwegian dialect (Until some
centuries ago, it was part of Norway, and it has preserved many elements
common to Norwegian that Swedish lost, eg. the ON diphthongs.)

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com
Subject: Grammar

Hej, Diederik!

I knew Danish (much better than I do now) long before you were a glimmer in
someone's eye.

"Danish," yes, but Norwegian Danish, not Danish Danish.  You need to do some
reading about the early history of Bokmål.  The spelling was more or less
Danish, but the pronunciation was not in most cases.  Ibsen's works are
generally considered Norwegian, not Danish.

In Ibsen's time you wrote for instance tid and pige but pronounced them as
though written titt and pike ('time' and 'girl') respectively, and,
especially in the "lower" classes, you used typically Norwegian words, such
as jente 'girl' and gutt  (vs Danish dreng) 'boy'.  In one of the examples I
gave you it says, "om vinterkvelden," which in Danish would be "om
vinteraftenen" (lit. "in the winter evening").

Furthermore, that language was usually pronounced with Norwegian tones,
while Danish has no tones.  Integration of such Norwegianisms and
development of a less Danish spelling came in the 20th century, thus leading
to an increasingly Norwegian character. This is the evolution of Bokmål, a
Norwegian language; this Danish-looking writing being a part of its
development.  This is why we call it "Dano-Norwegian" in English.  Before
1929 it was called Riksmål (national language).  Ibsen's lingo may well be
called "Norwegian Danish," but the fact is that today's majority Norwegian
language developed from it.
Hilsner,
Reinhard/Ron

P.S.: Old Gutnish was spoken on the island of Gotland, east of Sweden's
southeastern coast.  The names are considered connected with "Goth" and
"Geat," and some have claimed that the language is most closely related to
Gothic.
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