I don't recall saying all Bokmål users are Nynorskhaters.

I simply said that this certain person was a nynorsk hater, by which I meant that they /sounded to me/ like a Nynorsk hater.

Many people will deny that any prejudices against Nynrosk exist in Norway, but if Nynorsk is your primary language it soon becomes obvious.

Most of the time, it is due to people resenting having to learn Nynorsk in school when they saw little practical use for it. Similarly in the US, when schools were first integrated, sometimes people were made to drive a really long time to go to a school that was primarily of the other race, and this often unintentionally breeded hate.

There are certainly many Bokmål users without such a prejudice, but when you talk with somebody about the different varieties of Norwegian it quickly becomes apparent.

Things like using "standard Norwegian" or "normal Norwegian" for Bokmål, a sort of obvious resentment that may not be stated outright, repeatedly belittling Nynorsk, sometimes indicating that Nynorsk is bad or worthless, sometimes saying outright that they hate Nynorsk, and almost always showing a clear dominating attitude towards Nynorsk.

There are also different levels of prejudice. Some people dislike Nynorsk with a passion (read: hate), others don't like it much but don't mind, and some just have an unconcious aversion to it but have no real problem with it.

In foreign universities that teach Norwegian, by asking the professors if they include any teaching about Nynorsk, and if they don't why not, it will quickly become apparent whether 1. they are a regular user of nynorsk, 2. they prefer bokmål but have no problem with nynorsk, or 3. have a prejudice against Nynorsk.

In my experience most fall into the first and second categories, and most offer at least some matieral for learning Nynorsk, but there is a minority that teaches their students that Nynorsk is bad, insignificant, inferior, and to be avoided.

When it comes down to it, they are both equally official in the state of Norway. Nynorsk has less people that prefer it, but it is not a 10%-90% division or anything else extreme like that; it is somewhere between 20-80 and 30-70, and there are a great number of people who use both regularly but prefer Bokmål.

Interestingly, the number of people who speak a dialect of Norwegian which is grammatically and lexically closer to Nynorsk than to Bokmål is much higher than the number of people that actually prefer to write and read Nynorsk.

Mark

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 02:14:16 +0100, Lars Alvik larsal@stud.ntnu.no wrote:

Hmpf, passing jurgement on people you don't really know? And labeling everyone that use bokmål as "nynorskhater". I'm really curious what i'm being labeled as. Damn, this debate did really not have anything to do with nynorsk vs. bokmål, they are more or less happily coexisting with the status quo. The current debate is about calling no: bokmål or norsk.

mvh.

Lars Alvik

På 2. mar. 2005 kl. 22:39 skrev Mark Williamson:

...

I like "standard norwegian" - you should ignore this guy as he is a typical norwegian high-school Nynorskhater.

Mark

On Wed, 2 Mar 2005 15:49:30 +0100, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:

...

I got the following message on my (Dutch) userpage:

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I don't subscribe to the mailing list, so I respond here:

The Norwegian Wikipedia uses no: as its interwiki code. Until we have decided to do otherwise, please respect our choice of domain and interwiki name.

Also, note that no: is not the "bokmål Wikipedia", as bokmål is only one spelling standard of Standard Norwegian, which also includes riksmål (both bokmål and riksmål are major spelling standards, the latter being used e.g. by the most significant Norwegian newspaper (Aftenposten). Wolfram 2 mrt 2005 15:34 (CET)

============================================================

So now I have (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2005-February/ 037750.html) someone saying it would be best to always use nb: and (above) someone saying it would be best to always use no:. Then I have people at nn: who really don't want it to be called no: at THEIR wiki. Could someone please tell me who I am to listen to? By whom and where is the decision made in a case like this?

Andre Engels _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@Wikimedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

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I really don't think voting is a fair option.

Since, in the entire Norwegian Wikipedia community (including both no: and nn:), Bokmål speakers are the majority, it will be just about as fair as it was when the vote was held whether or not there should be a separate nn: and nb:.

You may object that no: users should get to choose the official name of their own Wikipedia, but this doesn't seem fair to me. If no: chooses the name "Norsk", even though it's becoming more and more Bokmål-only, perhaps Nynorsk could also change interwiki links to "Norsk"? They are both accurate.

Neither variety has more of a claim than the other to the title "Norsk". They are both "Norsk".

Mark

On Fri, 4 Mar 2005 01:57:38 +0100, Lars Alvik larsal@stud.ntnu.no wrote:

I've transfared this debate to the forum at no: for futher discution, but my impression is that most people don't really care about this.

I've also proposed a voting over the matter, begining in a few days.

Hopefully this will be the debate to end all debates (heard that one before? :))

mvh.

Lars Alvik

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