Norsk

Norsk is an interesting tongue, but really it's just the most liberal tip of European languages. German dialects have been to a great deal overrun and sidelined by Hochdeutsch. France is even more imperial about Français . Italy and Spain try to be, but both have areas seeking to break or loosen ties because of that linguistic imperialism, c.f. Catalonia, Lombardy and Veneto. The Russians tried to be the one Slavic tongue to rule them all, but that dream similarly fell apart with the end of the Cold War. Not that they haven't kept trying.

In Scandinavia, however, we have all these mutually intelligble dialects of a common Scandinavian tongue that still get to run free: Dansk, Svensk, and Norsk are the big three associated with the royal seats of the 3 reigning kings of the region. There are a mulittude of others which lead to linguistic environment where no one is ever really wrong, but sometimes we fall back on English because the world's current common tongue is a bit more standardized. Although I do cringe when I hear my daughter talking about meeting her friends by the football pitch.

Norway takes this to the extreme, with the old official language, Riksmål, the new official language, Bokmål, the western tongue, Nynorsk, and it's cousin Høgnynorsk all appearing in written form in various parts of the country. And I specified written because spoken Norsk varies up every fjord and dal because of the inherent disconnection of communication forced by geography. Bergen, where I reside, was also once a member of the Hanseatic league and so Deutsch underpinned much of the vocabulary here until the last world war made it unpopular much as the world wars crushed Deutsch in the USA. It's interesting to thing that before that English was a forbidden tongue because of England's merciless blockade of Norway during the Napoleanic wars when it was still unified with Denmark. Indeed, it's funny to think the the two oldest Constitutions in the world (USA & Norway) both start their origin stories with English misdeeds. Although while the Stamp Act may have been irritating, the blockade of a county that can't grow enough food to feed itself led to mass starvation.

I find in Norway the very best of what Europe is linguistically. Every mother tongue is valid and valuable, but if we don't understand eachother let's fall back on the common tongue everyone understands. Today, luckily for me, that's English. Or unluckily. If I can always better understand people in English how will they ever let me learn Norsk! Fortunately UiB has classes for new employees and their spouses, and I can lean on my children who are learning it in school.