Norwegian! A North Germanic Language of Norway

you know what Mickey we need to make this channel more popular we need more views more likes okay how about this 10 lit swear words in Spanish okay well how about this idea tell your boss to go to hell in 50 different languages what do you mean no way that would be the biggest video on the whole channel no way oh wait you mean Norway sure let's do that that'll be super popular hello everyone welcome to the Laing focused channel and my name is Paul like we just decided a moment ago today's topic is the main language of norway norwegian a language that in many ways feels familiar to speakers of english and other germanic languages like Dutch and German as I said in my video on the North Germanic languages of the Nordic nations Norwegian as a North Germanic language along with Swedish and Danish as well as Icelandic and Faroese by around the 2nd century CE II proto-germanic the earliest common ancestor of all Germanic languages had begun to branch out into Western Eastern and northern dialects and by the 8th century CE II the northern dialect had developed into Old Norse spoken by the seafaring Viking tribes over the next six hundred years or so Old Norse developed into the various North Germanic languages of today Norwegian today is spoken by around five million people mainly in Norway as I discuss at length in my video on the North Germanic languages Norwegian is very similar to neighboring Swedish and Danish and in writing they share a high degree of mutual intelligibility but in speaking well it depends differences in pronunciation and an extensive dialect continuum that spans all three languages make intelligibility difficult in many cases that dialect continuum exists within each of those three countries as well inside Norway there are dialects that vary greatly from each other in most countries with lots of dialectal variation the standard language is a unifying force a bridge between the various dialects but in Norway there are two officially recognized standard languages Luke mall which means book language and Nashik which means new norwegian during the centuries-long union between Denmark and Norway the Norwegian elite spoke a form of Danish with their own Norwegian pronunciation and Danish was the written language of Norway after the end of the Union in the 19th century a movement for a new national language began some people wanted to base the national language on Danish with minor adjustments which resulted in a written form called League small others wanted the national language to be more distinctly Norwegian than Danish this resulted in the creation of lund small a more conservative written form which was created using elements of various rural norwegian dialects this was the precursor of Nashik the norwegian linguist eva olsen created long small he examined the multitude of rural norwegian dialects especially those of western norway looking for the elements that each dialect had preserved from old norwegian and used those to create as traditional a form of norwegian as possible while still being based on its modern dialects why did he focus on rural dialect because the urban dialects had been influenced by Danish while rural dialects were more purely Norwegian the dig small still exists in its original form but was mostly replaced with a slightly updated version called boom all long small was also replaced with a slightly updated form called New Norcia Luke Maul and Nina chic are more similar than Greek small and land small were there were plans to merge them into a single standard called Sam nor chic but that never happened so now there are two standards today local governments can choose one of the two standards as their official form and 26% representing around 12 percent of the population have chosen new Nashik mostly rural communities in western Norway around 37% have made book mall official and 37% are neutral but in those areas book mall tends to dominate but everyone is also required to study the other standard as a secondary form these standard languages are mainly written and when it comes to speaking Norwegians usually use their own dialect even in formal situations first let's focus on boob mold and later we'll look at Nino's in comparison pronunciation and orthography there are a tremendous number of different accents in Norway and even when pronouncing standard book mold they will likely pronounce it in their own accent all ways of pronouncing Norwegian are officially considered correct but let's focus on the pronunciation of Oslo which sort of serves as an unofficial pronunciation standard consonants the pronunciation of Norwegian consonant letters is often different from their English equivalents G is usually pronounced good gum but before i i i or why it's pronounced yeah right and the letter j is also pronounced that way not like joe yo r is usually an alveolar trill the odd this is one sound that varies greatly throughout the country it can also be an alveolar tap and in other accents it's a uvular fricative like ah the letter K is pronounced before N where it would be silent in English it's needed so unlike the English word knife this actually makes sense K is also associated with some other sounds the combination KJ is pronounced cha like in the English word Hugh Shula so is K before E I I or Y see noon but these days it seems that among young people there's a growing tendency to pronounce these as sha and I understand that this is the source of much controversy the letter s also appears in some combinations to represent the sound or approximations thereof SJ sure skj suta and SK before aye-aye-aye or Y sheathe some consonant letters are silent in certain contexts there's the letter G for example in words ending in IG or eg daily and before Jay yes and in some other words like morn D is sometimes silent for example after our L or n Tyrell or after a long vowel goo H is silent before J&V yelled saw the letter T is silent in the definite form of neuter nouns like whose and in the neuter pronoun there and V is usually silent after L at the end of a word hallo long consonant double consonant letters and clusters of consonants are pronounced as long consonant they are held longer than a short consonant for example now compare that to this word with a short consonant hot this distinction occurs only in stressed syllables there's also a distinction between short and long vowels when a syllable contains a long consonant it has a short vowel hot and when a syllable contains a short consonant it has a long vowel hot they differ in length but sometimes also in quality too for example o short o stop and long o boot I first short ceased and long see the this vowel is long because it's in an open syllable with no consonant at the end e short e 10 and long e PIM there are some other vowels that are different from English vowels the Norwegian Y sound is like the sound e but with rounded lips e lease u represents a sound between o and e who's this letter is like the sound F but with rounded lips this it's also worth pointing out two more vowels this letter used to be common in Old English but is rare in modern English it's been a part of Norwegian ever since it developed from Old Norse it represents the sound app as in English Sat but usually comes after are shod it's sometimes pronounced like a this yeah this letter represents the sound or similar to the vowel in the English word yond the way it's pronounced in many British accents store most words in Norwegian have pitch accent there's a pitch accent or a tone chain on the stressed syllable there are two different tone patterns tone one is low hi it starts on a low tone then moves to a higher tone in the stressed syllable tone two is high low high it starts high but false then moves to a higher tone in the stressed syllable the lid the lid as you can see from the two examples pitch accent can indicate differences in meaning but the tones are different depending on the dialect and are not crucial in making yourself understood but ignoring pitch accent will result in a distinctly foreign accent grammar the grammar of Norwegian is not terribly complex and it's a category one language according to the American foreign service institute which puts it in the category of languages that are supposedly the easiest for English speakers to learn that doesn't mean that it's easy to learn it just means that it's not as difficult as a lot of other languages and that's specifically for English speakers let's look at a basic sentence how thick is peas louisa this sentence means i haven't eaten anything today word for word 'it's i have not eaten anything today the word order in this sentence is exactly the same as in english norwegians basic word order is SVO and we can see that the verb is conjugated in the present perfect in the same way it is in English with the auxiliary verb ha which means have in the present tense followed by the past participle of the verb Spees and also notice that just like in English the negation word comes between the auxiliary verb and the past participle but Norwegian verb conjugations are even simpler than they are in English there are conjugated the same regardless of person or number so for each tense there is only one form Spees is a regular verb so it's a good example in the present tense yes piece it you can see that even though the pronouns are different the verb forms are all the same species also in the simple past there's only one form yes Beast and there's one future tense form the other is visa there are additional perfect and conditional conjugations that correspond with those in English each of them having only one form one minor pain in the backside is that Norwegian nouns have grammatical gender feminine masculine and nu for example item in the meaning a woman in mom meaning a man that said meaning a mountain for nouns that are not inherently masculine or feminine like man or woman the gender of each now needs to be memorized but notice the gender specific indefinite article that comes before each noun there are also gender specific definite articles definite articles attached to the end of the noun in LA the woman mom the man seola the mountain these three genders are used in more conservative Norwegian and in Nino she using three genders is required but in book mall you can choose to treat masculine and feminine nouns as one gender common gender in the common gender both feminine and masculine nouns use the masculine form remember that people who use book mall as their written language may still speak dialects that are different and may use all three genders in speech even if they use two in writing let's stick with the common gender for now now let's check out the plural forms of the nouns quinones meaning women men meaning men cien meaning mountains she is the same as the singular form neuter nouns like this that are only one syllable long usually don't change in the plural but you can tell that it's the plural if there's no article second look at men this is an irregular plural form with a change in the vowel stem to mean this is a regular plural form plurals of all genders usually end in ER like this as for the definite plural forms the ending is in which functions as the definite article Vilna the women men the men fiona the mountains let's make those nouns we just saw a little more interesting by adding adjectives in English in a beautiful woman in sick mom a handsome man at HCL a tall mountain or a high mountain the adjective to a certain extent agrees with gender a tea is added to the end of most adjectives when the noun is neuter like this tea at the end of faith and when a noun is plural and E is added to the end of the adjective in both the neuter and common genders need lived in this beautiful women sexy men and some men who you feel tall mountains or high mountains also when a noun phrase with an adjective is definite there's an e at the end of the adjective but something else also changes there's a different definite article then the lady in the beautiful woman then Sikkim on the handsome man the her you feel the tall mountain or the high mountain and in the plural Dean is legend the beautiful women de set de mañana the handsome men do you feel the tall mountains were the high mountains both genders common and neuter take the same article and the same endings on the adjective and the noun adjectives are also used to create adverbs by simply using the indefinite singular neuter form of the adjectives like hate they usually have a T ending though there are some exceptions as an adverb means loudly as in at a high volume now that we've examined some basic features of norwegian specifically book mall let's look at Luke mall and Nino chic side-by-side and see how they're different let's start with a sentence we saw earlier in book mall meaning I haven't eaten anything today yeah holla kiss bees Louise oh hey Cal no queer duck these sentences don't seem so different but there are a few differences the first person singular subject pronoun has a slightly different form Y ie big similarly some of the other subject pronouns have different forms next notice that the negation word is spelled differently yeah issue now notice that the verb for eat is different in Nino she speaks is also used but this option it is more specific to new Nashik and also noticed that the word for something or anything is different newer nuku obviously the words in book mall and New York are often related but with slightly different forms in spoken dialects there are additional variations some of which resembled nyan or shmore in some of which resemble luke mall more here's a sentence meaning she had a bad dream who not then wound room who had a wound load notice that the third person singular feminine pronoun is different also the masculine indefinite article is slightly different you can also see that the word for dream looks and sounds a little different Durham dome Nino she tends to preserve more old diphthongs from Old Norse than book mall in this way Nino she is more like Faroese and Icelandic than book mall or Danish or Swedish here's a sentence meaning they like to drive fast cars did lead it asserted us to be live delete killer Alice could be loved first the subject pronoun is slightly different next notice that the infinitive forms of the verbs are slightly different shoulda Shayla in book mall the infinitive of most verbs ends in an unstressed e in New York the vowel can actually be either E or a with a being the more conservative one now notice that the word for cars ends in ER in book mall and they are in New York Beal is Bella Nino she has a tendency to use a or when book mall uses ER though this is not always the case here's another sentence meaning crime is increasing due to high unemployment Caminos here get forget in the hurry or bite slow said criminality gonna her garbage Lisa notice the different spelling of the verb meaning increase including the ER and AR endings that we just mentioned as well as a diphthong appearing in the new northward oh good oh yeah next notice the difference in the way of saying due to for you to not good enough this way is more characteristically New York but in New York you can also use the same expression as in book mall criminality and Edgar Bergen of her garbage Lisa in book mall there is also another form unit but it's less commonly used notice the differences in the words meaning unemployment or the bites Lisette L Bates listen the word in book mall contains the suffix head which is used to turn adjectives into nouns but New Norcia generally avoids this suffix because it reflects the influence of Danish Nino she has a degree of linguistic purism aiming to avoid loanwords from Danish and German and one final pair of sentences meaning falling in love is common among young people Florida's evolved Labrador Domus for else Kinabalu cantando now notice that the first word neither sentence has a different ending Nino she tends to avoid the book mall ending Elsa which forms a noun from a verb next we see a different spelling of the word meaning common and again we see the ER ending in book mall where it's a are in new Nashik as you can see Norwegian is a very interesting language and if you speak a different Germanic language then it probably seems very familiar to you in many ways it's also a very accessible language especially if you focus on book mall like most students do but when you dig a little deeper there are many many dialects with countless variations for you to get used to as well as new Nashik the other form of standard Norwegian so even though it's an accessible language it's also a language with a lot of depth for people who choose to go deep the question of the day for native speakers of Norwegian in any of its varieties which form of Norwegian do you most commonly use in writing and how about in speech can you easily communicate with people who use other varieties and for other people what do you think of the situation of having two standard versions of the same language in one country can you imagine such a situation with your own language if you enjoyed this video then be sure to check out Lange focus on the various social media platforms and as always I want to give a special thanks to my patreon supporters especially these ones right here on the screen who are my top tier patreon supporters many extra special thanks to them and to everyone thank you for watching and have a nice stay [Music]

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Views: 537,691

Rating: 4.9403114 out of 5

Keywords: polyglot, linguist, linguistics, Norwegian language, North Germanic languages, Scandinavian languages, Germanic languages, Language of Norway, History of Norway, Norwegian pronunciation, Norwegian phonology, Norwegian grammar, Standard Norwegian, Written Norwegian, Nynorsk, Bokmål, How similar are Nynorsk and Bokmål?, How different are Nynorsk and Bokmål?, Norwegian dialects, Nynorsk and Bokmål comparison, Danish language, Old Norse, Old Norwegian, learn Norwegian

Id: cntxv3w_xyE

Length: 19min 24sec (1164 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Snobb1001]

K-klarer ikke å holde tilbake... I... am... from...

[u/sleluk]

Can confirm.. polarbears in da streetz yo... expensive beer and taxes up da bandonkadonk. Norway the best in the world.

- Ivar Aasen ca. 1830

[u/HumbrolUser]

Tja, lærte vel mer her om nynorsk enn jeg gjorde noen gang ellers på skolen. :D

[u/Immortalizd]

Ah, LangFocus, flott kanal! Har sett mange av hans videoer, ganske interessante

[u/surfekatt]

Så den i går, likte veldig godt at han fikk med seg at mange sier skjøtt og skjino