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The status of Norwegian Nynorsk is reminiscent of Yue/Cantonese. In areas where it is native, it’s used in writing more rarely (and very rarely in official writ

The status of Norwegian Nynorsk is reminiscent of Yue/Cantonese. In areas where it is native, it’s used in writing more rarely (and very rarely in official writing) compared to Mandarin (a distinct, not mutually intelligible language) or English. Another similarity is that Cantonese, like Nynorsk, is considered higher status where it’s spoken, and like Nynorsk it’s under somewhat of a threat so the communities know they have to keep it strong. What makes it more interesting is that the non-phonetic, semi-ideographic nature of the writing system means no direct unambiguous translation between sound and written symbols—so that you may actually struggle to write down certain turns of spoken Cantonese, even if you are a native speaker! Another difference is that, unlike Nynorsk (which began as “New Norwegian”), Cantonese is old—at least on par with or arguably older compared to languages used for writing in the same area.

vidarh 3y ago
Nynorsk is not considered higher status other than maybe by tiny groups of its users.
- goblin89 3y ago
  I know nothing about it except what is in the article, and the article characterizes Nynorsk as “cultural elite language”—it looks like the article is not accurate? That aside, “cultural elite” or “status” are always relative, of course…
  - vidarh 3y ago
    A small cultural elite within its own user base likes to thumb their nose at Bokmål, but the proportion of the population who uses Nynorsk is only 10%. The vast majority of the "cultural elite" of Norway as a whole uses Bokmål. There are perhaps some small subsets where it might punch above its weight relative to the total number of users, and I think that is what the article is hinting at. E.g. we have had perhaps more prominent authors who use Nynorsk than the proportion of Nynorsk users might have made you expect. But conversely, you'll if anything be more likely to find people with negative attitudes to Nynorsk, with at least some proportion of people who resent having to deal with a language only used by 10%.
bjornevik 3y ago
> Nynorsk, is considered higher status where it’s spoken Neither nynorsk or bokmål are spoken languages.
- goblin89 3y ago
  Nynorsk is, according to TFA, predominantly used in speech and less used in writing, while Bokmål is the opposite. (Minus region specifics.) Is that not correct? My impression, only based on this article, is that Nynorsk and Bokmål are both spoken as well as written, just more or less so depending on context and region. Just as English is both a written and a spoken language, and Cantonese is both a written and a spoken language.
  - Tor3 3y ago
    Nynorsk and Bokmål are both _written_ forms only. Norwegian spoken language is a huge continuum of dialects - there's no official spoken Norwegian (unlike e.g. Swedish, where something called "rikssvensk" was introduced by the authorities - "national spoken Swedish"). What you will find though is that there are a couple of scenarios where people will kind of speak the written form. One is, or at least used to be, newscasters on TV. They used to have rules which limited the kind of speech used, for reasons. And, as the news were essentially read from a script.. you speak it like it's written. Be that Bokmål or Nynorsk. And that's where you will find spoken Bokmål (or Nynorsk).. when reading aloud. And, as I mentioned in another comment.. when teaching people Norwegian. In the beginning you kind of speak the written form, otherwise the student would be totally confused.
    - goblin89 3y ago
      If they were solely written languages then you wouldn’t be able to, for example, read the text aloud, right? I don’t have any first-hand knowledge, but according to Wikipedia on Bokmål it looks like it can be spoken as well (Wikipedia uses a phrase “spoken Bokmål”), but without a universally agreed-upon and regulated pronunciation. Isn’t it similar to English in this sense?
Tor3 3y ago
In addition to what vidarh said - it's not comparable to Mandarin vs Cantonese, as those are spoken languages. Nynorsk is one way of writing (and reading) Norwegian, it is not a spoken form (nor is Bokmål). Some dialects are kind of closer if you try to "speak" it (read out loud, from e.g. a book), and some are farther away, most dialects contain elements where some words will fit better in one form and other elements fit better in the other form. But even grammar is often different in spoken Norwegian (and spoken Norwegian is just a huge continuum of dialects, which, if you don't stop, stretch across the borders to Sweden and Denmark too).
- IlliOnato 3y ago
  How well people speaking different dialects understand one another? Is there some "common dialect" that everybody uses with speakers of dialect different from their own? What TV presenters use? Or nation-scale politicians?
- actionfromafar 3y ago
  Sweden, Norway and Denmark is a perfect example of language continuum. At the fringes, the division between them is clearly for political and administrative purposes. It called all have been named "Danish". I think what goes for "German" has even more internal differences.
  - Tor3 3y ago
    Yes, it's just a huge continuum. I call it "Scandinavian" for short.
- komadori 3y ago
  You can write Cantonese, although most Cantonese speakers' "formal" written language is more closely related to spoken Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese) than to the way they normally speak. I recommend "Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular" by Don Snow.
samus 3y ago
The comparison is a bit flawed since there is no dialect continuum between spoken Mandarin and Cantonese, and there might have never been one. A crucial difference is that there is no standardized form of written Cantonese. There is a common set of characters used in advertising, sometimes newspapers, or in court transcripts, but that's it. For anything official, Modern Standard Written Chinese is used. People write Cantonese in private of course, but that usage is not uniform at all since there is a lot of slang (especially swearing words) for which more than one popular way to write it down exists. Quite often the characters chosen for that purpose had different meanings originally. Some particularly novel or distinctive words and idioms are even partly written in Latin letters, like 快-D.
- goblin89 3y ago
  > A crucial difference is that there is no standardized form Depends on who you ask. What’s the region in question? What counts as a standard? Is Nynorsk codified by ISO? Et cetera. > People write Cantonese in private of course It‘s used plenty in public in Cantonese-native areas! > that usage is not uniform Yes, there is a disconnect and different ways of writing down a turn of spoken phrase. Sometimes people wouldn’t know offhand how they would even do it about a purely spoken turn of phrase.
  - samus 3y ago
    > Depends on who you ask. What’s the region in question? What counts as a standard? Is Nynorsk codified by ISO? Et cetera. A government regulating it by teaching it in school and actively using it in public would be a strong criteria. Alternatively, an established body of literature that serves as a model (that's how written Italian evolved). > It‘s used plenty in public in Cantonese-native areas Yes, that's also what I said. However, any official announcements or documents are quite unlikely to use it.

vidarh 3y ago

Nynorsk is not considered higher status other than maybe by tiny groups of its users.

goblin89 3y ago
I know nothing about it except what is in the article, and the article characterizes Nynorsk as “cultural elite language”—it looks like the article is not accurate? That aside, “cultural elite” or “status” are always relative, of course…
- vidarh 3y ago
  A small cultural elite within its own user base likes to thumb their nose at Bokmål, but the proportion of the population who uses Nynorsk is only 10%. The vast majority of the "cultural elite" of Norway as a whole uses Bokmål. There are perhaps some small subsets where it might punch above its weight relative to the total number of users, and I think that is what the article is hinting at. E.g. we have had perhaps more prominent authors who use Nynorsk than the proportion of Nynorsk users might have made you expect. But conversely, you'll if anything be more likely to find people with negative attitudes to Nynorsk, with at least some proportion of people who resent having to deal with a language only used by 10%.

bjornevik 3y ago

> Nynorsk, is considered higher status where it’s spoken Neither nynorsk or bokmål are spoken languages.

goblin89 3y ago
Nynorsk is, according to TFA, predominantly used in speech and less used in writing, while Bokmål is the opposite. (Minus region specifics.) Is that not correct? My impression, only based on this article, is that Nynorsk and Bokmål are both spoken as well as written, just more or less so depending on context and region. Just as English is both a written and a spoken language, and Cantonese is both a written and a spoken language.
- Tor3 3y ago
  Nynorsk and Bokmål are both _written_ forms only. Norwegian spoken language is a huge continuum of dialects - there's no official spoken Norwegian (unlike e.g. Swedish, where something called "rikssvensk" was introduced by the authorities - "national spoken Swedish"). What you will find though is that there are a couple of scenarios where people will kind of speak the written form. One is, or at least used to be, newscasters on TV. They used to have rules which limited the kind of speech used, for reasons. And, as the news were essentially read from a script.. you speak it like it's written. Be that Bokmål or Nynorsk. And that's where you will find spoken Bokmål (or Nynorsk).. when reading aloud. And, as I mentioned in another comment.. when teaching people Norwegian. In the beginning you kind of speak the written form, otherwise the student would be totally confused.
  - goblin89 3y ago
    If they were solely written languages then you wouldn’t be able to, for example, read the text aloud, right? I don’t have any first-hand knowledge, but according to Wikipedia on Bokmål it looks like it can be spoken as well (Wikipedia uses a phrase “spoken Bokmål”), but without a universally agreed-upon and regulated pronunciation. Isn’t it similar to English in this sense?

Tor3 3y ago

In addition to what vidarh said - it's not comparable to Mandarin vs Cantonese, as those are spoken languages. Nynorsk is one way of writing (and reading) Norwegian, it is not a spoken form (nor is Bokmål). Some dialects are kind of closer if you try to "speak" it (read out loud, from e.g. a book), and some are farther away, most dialects contain elements where some words will fit better in one form and other elements fit better in the other form. But even grammar is often different in spoken Norwegian (and spoken Norwegian is just a huge continuum of dialects, which, if you don't stop, stretch across the borders to Sweden and Denmark too).

IlliOnato 3y ago
How well people speaking different dialects understand one another? Is there some "common dialect" that everybody uses with speakers of dialect different from their own? What TV presenters use? Or nation-scale politicians?
actionfromafar 3y ago
Sweden, Norway and Denmark is a perfect example of language continuum. At the fringes, the division between them is clearly for political and administrative purposes. It called all have been named "Danish". I think what goes for "German" has even more internal differences.
- Tor3 3y ago
  Yes, it's just a huge continuum. I call it "Scandinavian" for short.
komadori 3y ago
You can write Cantonese, although most Cantonese speakers' "formal" written language is more closely related to spoken Mandarin (Modern Standard Chinese) than to the way they normally speak. I recommend "Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular" by Don Snow.

samus 3y ago

The comparison is a bit flawed since there is no dialect continuum between spoken Mandarin and Cantonese, and there might have never been one. A crucial difference is that there is no standardized form of written Cantonese. There is a common set of characters used in advertising, sometimes newspapers, or in court transcripts, but that's it. For anything official, Modern Standard Written Chinese is used. People write Cantonese in private of course, but that usage is not uniform at all since there is a lot of slang (especially swearing words) for which more than one popular way to write it down exists. Quite often the characters chosen for that purpose had different meanings originally. Some particularly novel or distinctive words and idioms are even partly written in Latin letters, like 快-D.

goblin89 3y ago
> A crucial difference is that there is no standardized form Depends on who you ask. What’s the region in question? What counts as a standard? Is Nynorsk codified by ISO? Et cetera. > People write Cantonese in private of course It‘s used plenty in public in Cantonese-native areas! > that usage is not uniform Yes, there is a disconnect and different ways of writing down a turn of spoken phrase. Sometimes people wouldn’t know offhand how they would even do it about a purely spoken turn of phrase.
- samus 3y ago
  > Depends on who you ask. What’s the region in question? What counts as a standard? Is Nynorsk codified by ISO? Et cetera. A government regulating it by teaching it in school and actively using it in public would be a strong criteria. Alternatively, an established body of literature that serves as a model (that's how written Italian evolved). > It‘s used plenty in public in Cantonese-native areas Yes, that's also what I said. However, any official announcements or documents are quite unlikely to use it.