LL-L "Grammar" 2007.05.04 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L List]

L O W L A N D S - L  -  04 May 2007 - Volume 01

=========================================================================

From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Grammar" 2007.05.03 (06) [E]

"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.
>>>

I am well read about the history of Norwegian, although my view may to an
extent be biased (I know...) by the fact that I generally write Nynorsk. But
yet I think I have enough background to have my opinion about the matter.

At first, pronunciation is out of the question here, since a Danish actor
would have pronounced it with stød instead of tones, and a Norwegian would
have said pike and used tones. It's thus the actor that decides this, not
the writer/the written source (Ibsen in this case). Only the
spelling/wordchoise matters in this discussion.

Secondly, apart from "kveld" there is nothing that is rather Norw. than
Danish. If I write Standard Dutch it remains Standard Dutch even if I
seldomly use (conscious or not) a more southern coloured expression or word.
That does not suddenly make it Antwerpian. At most Standard Dutch with a
little Flemish touch. Thence Ibsen writes nearly pure Danish with a small
Norwegian twist. And although unusual, standard Danish *allows *the usage of
the word kveld.
I do not deny that modern Bokmål is a Norwegian language. But the Rigsmål in
Ibsen's time was still Danish. Punktum.

And a little PS, 'tid' (time) is generally pronounced "ti" (without d) in
Norway, not titt (titt is another word). Dialects in western Møre og Romsdal
still have the -d preserved, and at the utmost tip in the west of that
province they even still have the Old Norse ð.

----------

From: Diederik Masure <didimasure at hotmail.com>
Subject: Grammar2

My Taalkunde teacher provided me with material about the huset sitt/sitt hus
question.
The original Scandinavian form (Danish, Swedish and Norwegian) was Noun -
Pronoun (huset sitt).
The change to huset sitt began apparently in Jutland, rune inscriptions from
the 9th century already show a mix of both forms. From there it spread first
to Sjælland and afterwards to south Sweden (rune inscr. from 11th century?).

In the 13th century the change seems to have been completed in Denmark.
Whether it was Low Saxon influence he could not confirm nor deny.
At this point (= the traditional dialects until some generations ago) it
was a south/west difference.
I got given a book which also is integrally available on the net,
http://www.hum.uit.no/a/vangsnes/Dialektboka.pdf
scroll to page 32 of the book, i.e. page 38 of the pdf (?).

Nowadays probably the huset mitt-part is a lot in Sweden, and has become a
east/west difference as originally stated by Ron. The "far min" area which
encomprises Stockholm and the Mälaren region could be an explanation for the
occasional (seldom) appearance of forms like "bror min" even in the standard
written language.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lowlands-l/attachments/20070504/e288dfc1/attachment.htm>