From: elster@cs.cornell.edu (Anne C. Elster)
Subject: Learning Norwegian
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY 14853
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 18:33:30 GMT


Having followed the thread Jon Noring started with his request re.
how to go about learning Norwegian, I figured I'd put in my 2 cents
worth at the risk of starting a "dialectic"flame-war  ...

Although trying to learn Norwegian based on the dialect spoken in Bergen,
"the dialect spoken north of Saltfjellet"(*), OEstfold, or any other provincial
dialect, may add color, I don't recommend it to beginners unless they live
in that particular district and learns it "the natural" way.

Not that I'm too worried -- it's pretty hard to pick up a foreign language
dialect without being there. It's kinda like learning to speak  English
with a Scottish or Boston accent w.o. ever being there.

The best way to learn Norwegian, in my experience, short of spending
some time in Norway and/or enrolling in a university course, is like
Cindy suggested, to get a hold of a basic Norwegian teaching book,
preferably with accompanying tapes.

When I was an undergrad, I used to tutor on of our library staff members
there for an hour a week going through one of these texts, and supplementing
with short Norway Digest articles. Since a tape wasn't available for the
text book she used, I read most of the main text in on tape for her to listen
to at her leisure.  She gained a pretty good working knowledge of Norwegian
within a year -- something she really enjoyed the following year during her
stay at a research institute in Oslo.

I highly recommend following a similar approach. Try to get a native
tutor through either the International Student office of your local
university or (in the US) local "Sons of Norway" organization. The latter
often offer courses as well.

Of course, by using the most standard texts and "Norway Digest", you end
up learning "bokmaal" the most widely used written standard. "Nynorsk",
an artificially constructed written standard based on the old mountain
dialects in Southern Norway is more colorful and closer to Old Norwegian/
Old Norse. If you have a strong background in Old English, it may be a 
worth-while pursuit. (I believe approx.. 20% of the population use "nynorsk"
as their standard). Otherwise, I believe most Germanic-speaking people
will find Bokmaal easier since it has adapted more non-Norse Germanic roots.

Someone mentioned that spoken "bokmaal" is only found in and around
western/northern Oslo. I have to disagree. Although "bokmaal" could be
understood to be a generic "Oestlands" dialect, and to an un-trained ear
people from Western Oslo could be taken for speaking it, what they actually
speak in West Oslo is "Riksmaal", a dialect (and non-official written standard)
even closer to Danish than "bokmaal". [I should know -- one of my 3 dialects
follows this norm...] Most young people in West Oslo write "bokmaal", though,
and a lot of the "riksmaals" forms can be worked into "bokmaal" as "klammer-
former" (parenthetical forms) -- meaning "acceptable alternatives".
The same goes for some "nynorsk" term, btw. This makes "bokmaal" a very
liberal and confusing written standard for people used to thinking that
each word has only one acceptable spelling in any given language ...


		Enough for now -- hoe I didn't bore you all too much!

							Anne C. Elster

elster@cs.cornll.edu


(*) Born "paa Mo" (in Mo i Rana), I also have to agree w/ Steinar and
Jan that our fellow Canadian poster is rather insulting, but fortunately,
I am good-natured and can laugh at him. :-)


Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic