Norwegian Dialects

[di_glossia]

I'm learning Norwegian, both nynorsk and bokmål, and would really like some suggestions for reference books on the history of the dialects as well as online dictionaries. I have three Norwegian friends, one of whom speaks nynorsk, but they mostly use Google Translate and TriTrans. Does anyone have a more comprehensive online dictionary for

Comments

[miss_morland]

Does anyone have a more comprehensive online dictionary for Norwegian, especially nynorsk?

Do you mean English-Norwegian/Norwegian-English, or will Norwegian-Norwegian do? In the latter case, this may be helpful (nynorsk and bokmål).

I also have some questions about the two dialects and their mutual intelligibility.Thing is, nynorsk and bokmål are both standards of written Norwegian, not dialects as such. (The word 'dialect' to me, at least, has connotations of oral langue; if you're only using it as a synonym for 'variety', then that's ok.) They both spring from the desire to give Norway a (written) language of its own after the country became independent from Denmark in 1814, though their origins are different: broadly speaking, bokmål is based on the "Norwegianised" Danish of the urban upper/middle classes, where as nynorsk is based on dialects from all parts of the country, attempting to reconcile differences between them

[pne]

their origins are different: broadly speaking, bokmål is based on the "Norwegianised" Danish of the urban upper/middle classes, where as nynorsk is based on dialects from all parts of the country, attempting to reconcile differences between them.

As I understand it, this also means that they represent slightly different branches of Germanic - Nynorsk coming from North-West Germanic (so, a bit closer to Faroese and Icelandic), being based on "traditional" Norwegian dialects, and Bokmål from North-East Germanic (so, a bit closer to Swedish and Danish). Even though they both are used for the same language, Norwegian.

I believe this accounts for some of the more striking differences (kv/hv and eg/jeg), for example.

[di_glossia]

In the latter case, this may be helpful (nynorsk and bokmål).

That's really helpful, thank you! My main problem is that I would like to speak nynorsk with my nynorsk-speaking friend, but I don't have any way of coming up with nynorsk words (Google only offers bokmål).

Thank you!

[einprosess]

Nynorsk is mostly based on the dialects from the western and southern parts of Norway.

[nokomedandrea]

try ordnett.no. the website is a bit confusing at first, but the dictionaries are good. log in with the username oslo2 and password 2oslo, most students in oslo get access to that user, so I don't think there's anything wrong in giving out the password (or at least I hope so

[di_glossia]

Thanks!

Grammar-wise, I'm mostly interested in Norwegian comma usage and dependent clauses. Word order can change in a way it can't in English (I dag gikk jeg), but typically does in German.

[pne]

I also have the feeling that there's some amount of resentment on the part of people (who are more used to bokmål / whose dialect is closer to bokmål) being forced to learn nynorsk at school. (Leading to things like writing "Spynorsk Ordbok" on their textbooks.) Does that sound right?

I wonder whether there is also the opposite: speakers of [dialects that are similar to] nynorsk resenting having to learn bokmål at school, in areas where nynorsk is the main written form in education?

[pne]

Ah, that was what it was.

Thanks!