The Hope pioneer. [volume] (Hope, N.D.) 1882-1964, 1912-08-22
NORWAY.

NORWAY.
G. Flock, former bailiff of Guldal,
has completed his S0th veal.
About 1000 persons employed in
textile industries in Kristiania are out
on a strike. The main cause of the
strike is the refusal Of the employers
to give more than 9N cents per hour
as minimum pay.
Many antiquarian finds have been
made In H%atfjelddal. in the far north,
which prove that the valley had al
considerable population hundreds Of
years ago.. Some Of the finds date
back to the stone age.
We are in the habit Of looking upon
u present presidential campaign az
bewildering on account Of the number
OF candidates and issues" But our
held Is plain and clear in comparison
with the situation confronting the
voters Of Norway at the present time.
Each Of the following parties has it's
own program" or platform, as we
would call it: The Conservatives, the
Labor Democrats, the Social Demo-
Gratis. the Liberal Leftists. the Prohi-
b1tion1sts, the Liberals, the Church
People. the Dialect People, and the
National Language People. The voter
Is expected to do Justice to all of these
on election day. October 81.
The scientific society Of Trondhjem
has caused an Investigation to be
made of the wall paintings in a cave
al Solsem. on the Leka Island. The
paintings We're found to represent two
rows of human figures very rudely
executed in a red color. Their arms
were raised or extended and their legs
were spread far apart. Some of the
hgures were so nearly blotted out that
1t was hard to make out their original
shape. An excavation near the
mouth Of the cave revealed a LAYER Of
skulls. bones split for the marrow, and
tools made Of bone. Only one-third Of
the floor Of the cave has been inves.
tigated. 1t is taken for granted that
this interesting find dates from the so.
called Arctic cycle Of civilization.
"The first course in the national
language was opened July Is at the
Eidsvald peoples high school," The
above is the first sentence of a news
item which reads like a riddle to a
reader who is not familiar with tho
circumstances. Norway, with Ibsen
and Bjornson ranking among the
foremost literary men of all nations
and ages. has just started to give in.
struction in her own language! Until
about half a century ago, Danish was
ooked upon as the ideal language in
Norway. But gradually the common
people of the western part of the
country crowded to the front with
their dialects, which were harmonized
to some extent, and extolled as the
only true Norwegian tongue. The ad-
vocates of native Norwegian proved to
be an aggressive lot, so much SO that
those who preferred the old Norwe.
gian-Danish book-language took a def
mite step in favor of pure Norwegian
by changing the spelling so as to con.
form to the usual Norwegian pronun-
citation, and by adopting a host Of
purely Norwegian words. The dialect
people called their language lands
maalet." the tongue of the land, while
they tabooed the other language as
Danish" This was a mean blow to
those who preferred the old book
language, for they were made to an.
pear as unpatriottc. or even anti-Nor-
wegian. They resolved to shake off
this stigma. Fortunately. they proved
equal to the task; they called the
modified Norwegian-Danish book-lan-
guage "riksmaalet," the tongue of the
kingdom, or the national language.
Riksmaalet is the language referred
to at the beginning of this paragraph.
The dialect people have been very sue
cessful In crowding their language in.
to the schools as a distinct language.
and now the conservatives have come
just far enough to follow the same
tactics. This step makes the situation
clearer; it puts an official stamp on
modified Norwegian as a distinct Ian
guage differing from the Danish. on
the n hand. and from the Norwegian
dialect adaptation, on the other, About
go teachers are taking the new course
In riksmaal. which is looked upon az
a very good showing.
Fire broke out at night in the Tan.
gen saw and planning mills at Tistedal
station. near Fredrikshald. The whole
plant and the stock on hand were re-
duced to ashes. The establishment
occupied about 600 men. The saw
mill and machines were insured for
$13.500. and the stock for 100000. A
lot Of lumber belonging to the STANCE
forests was also destroyed. ]. Flate-
by's saw mill and warehouse were
damaged by the fire, and two resi-
dences were burnt down. The ICON.
~tinental" railway runs through the
burnt district and the railway trafio