Posted on 01/31/2008 6:22:13 AM PST by marthemaria
A lecturer at one of Norway's most prestigious universities is calling forer fellow Norwegians to tone down their dialects, so that non-natives trying to learn Norwegian can hope to understand them.
A more "normalized" form of spoken Norwegian, she argued, can do wonders towards integrating foreigners with the locals. Foreigners trying to learn Norwegian quickly discover, for example, that the "bokmål" word for the collective "you," dere, transforms into words like dykk, dokker and dikkon, depending on a Norwegian's dialect. This presents countless challenges for the hapless non-native.
Åsta Øvregaard, who specializes in Norwegian as a second language at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitetet, NTNU) in Trondheim, cites the case of a Russian student named Tatjana. The smart, highly motivated student managed to learn Norwegian in record time, at least the standard "bokmål" form of the language taught in the classroom.
But then she found herself confronted by the thick local dialect known as "trøndersk." Like most dialects, trøndersk doesn't just involve intonation that's different from other forms of Norwegian, but also words that are different from their bokmål form. Tatjana struggled to decipher and digest all the new vocabulary and accents being hurled at her left and right.
And then Tatjana, wrote Øvregaard in a commentary in newspaper Aftenposten, met the woman who was to become her mother-in-law. She came from Stavanger, known for arguably an even more difficult dialect that's more guttural, and often spoken very quickly.
Tatjana was confounded by yet another language challenge. "Why do Norwegians insist on speaking all these incomprehensible dialects?" she wailed to her teacher. "Why can't they speak so a new beginner can understand?"
Well-known problem The despair felt by Tatjana is well-known to the vast majority of foreigners who settle in Norway and try their best to learn the language. Even Norwegians have complained that they sometimes strain to understand each other. The problem is that to become fluent in Norwegian, one also needs to master the large variety of dialects and even a second written (and spoken) language known as "New Norwegian." As the undersigned can attest, it ain't easy.
"No, most Norwegians don't make it any easier for foreigners, who invest a lot of time and effort to learn this difficult language spoken by fewer than 5 million people on the cold outskirts of Europe," wrote Øvregaard in her commentary over the weekend.
And Øvregaard, likely to the relief of thousands of stuggling foreigners in Norway, chided her fellow Norwegians for not being more sensitive to a foreigner's confusion and needs. Norwegians can be proud of their dialects, and they likely help Norwegians themselves gain a better ear for other languages, but also can stymie integration, Øvregaard argues.
"There is one area of language competence where we score poorly, and that's the ability to speak a normalized oral language," she writes. "If it's only the immigrant who has to make an effort, then we're not talking about integration, but assimilation.
"Real integration demands that those of us with Norwegian as our native language also take steps so that others can understand us."
(A little editor's note, now...) "Well, hallelujah," thought the American-born writer of this article, who's been struggling for years to understand all the various forms of spoken Norwegian. Written Norwegian poses no problems anymore. Spoken Norwegian still does. "Finally a bit of comfort! I'm not alone in being baffled and frustrated by Norwegian dialects!"
Only to be shot down by another professor who even wrote his rebuttal to Øvregaard's commentary in the "other" Norwegian, nynorsk. That made even reading it challenging, since most foreigners learn bokmål norsk, not nynorsk, and think that's enough of an investment in the local language.
Alas, Professor Arne Torp at the Univeristy of Oslo, takes little pity on the foreigner, and doesn't seem willing to make things easier for the non-native speaker. Torp wrote that since Tatjana "has gotten herself a trøndersk sweetheart with a stavangersk mother," it's "not unreasonable that she take on the little extra burden of learning to tackle" their dialects. "If the girl first has managed the jump from Russian to Norwegian bokmål," he wrote, "she'll more than likely manage the little step it takes to understand trøndersk and the stavangersk variant as well."
Torp also maintains that dialects aren't widespread in Norway's cities. Since most immigrants land in the cities, especially Oslo, he suggests that dialects can't be much of a problem.
'Little' extra burden? Torp sets himself up for rebuttal from those struggling to understand spoken Norwegian. Many would likely disagree that it's merely a "little" extra burden or step to understand all the dialects as well. And Oslo is full of Norwegians who have arrived from other parts of the country and hang on to their dialects (The staffing configuration in Aftenposten Multimedia's own newsroom can confirm this). Many foreigners (and indeed even some Norwegians) would view Torp's remarks as arrogant at worst and insensitive at best.
Both Øvregaard and Torp agreed that dialects in Norway are an important part of a Norwegian's identity, and Øvregaard herself sings their praises. She doesn't think Norwegians consciously use their dialects to be rude. She also agrees that everyone learning a new language must strain a bit to understand its various spoken forms.
"But that's no excuse for those of us who have command of the majority language and dialects in Norway to put the entire burden on the listener, who's in a difficult learning situation," she said. "Then we risk using dialects as a power play, and that's not the intention."
Don't tell me Mexicans are sneaking into Norway, too!
They should make it easy for everyone: change your dialect to English so we can all understand you!
I lived in Norway for a year some years ago and spent 4 months getting fluent in the language most commonly spoken in Oslo. After mastering that, the dialects were just a matter of listening harder. It was more difficult to stay consistent with one dialect when speaking, however.
Oh yeah. Change your entire culture because some useless puffed-up looter from some University, who has never held a real job, says you should. LOL! The overweening arrogance... the insouciance of college looters never fails to amaze.
Wouldn't it just be simpler if everyone would just learn Arabic?
In all fairness, English has an amazing number of accents and idioms too.
Each region had its own dialect, but it didn’t take a whole lot to figure the common roots of the words. The literary language was just a compromise between the dialects. You say potehto, I say potahto. Plus, the muhammedans moving to Norway should understand the “root word” concept of a language. It’s central to Arabic.
I thought everyone in the US spoke English like those in the movie Fargo.
> change your dialect to English so we can all understand you <
Although your remark seems to have been made in good humor, you’d probably be interested to learn that a number of countries have long done pretty much what you recommend.
This phenomenon is most notable in Africa, where countries with dozens of local languages and dialects simply use English (or French) for all government business, for almost all newspapers, for most classroom instruction, etc. But it’s also found to one degree or another in a number of Asian countries — not to mention the worldwide use of English in aviation and other “technology-intensive” pursuits.
And Midlands American English too. Not those strange dialects spoken in England, New York or Australia.
I once heard that India has the largest English speaking population.
Yeah, but that isn’t real English - Midwestern accentless English.
That’s that “Queen’s English”...
“dialects” - “Norbonics”?
> I once heard that India has the largest English speaking population. <
Probably true.
But judged by the accents you hear from the Indian call centers whenever you dial up your computer vendor for technical support, it’s sometimes a stretch to believe their spoken language is actually English!
(Thank goodness that about half of the time, I reach a call center in Philippines rather than India!)
I was depressed one night and thinking of killing myself so I called in to a suicide prevention center. My call was routed to a call center in Pakistan and after the suicide prevention expert on the other end couldn't talk me out of it he asked me if I could drive a large truck.
How do you say, “A møøse bit my sister?”
Actually I was thinking English as (more or less) spoken by the English. We Americans seem to have far fewer accents and what we do have is less diverse.
Though what we do have can cause funny situations.
Years ago I took one of those tour group trips to Washington DC that kids take. At one point I was sitting in a cafeteria full of kids from all over and opposite this guy from Brooklyn (or someplace like that) who had an outrageous (for an American) accent.
This guy stops the conversation to tell me that I don’t have as bad an accent as the other Texans do.
Since I wasn’t yanking anyone’s chain about how many oil wells my family owned or if I rode a horse to school (sadly ‘none’ and ‘no’ ... not that some of my fellow Texans weren’t flinging the meadow muffins with vim and vigor), I guess he was serious.
Zing!
And nabbed! ^.^
Ya, you betcha!
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