[Wikipedia-l] Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm? l?

[jneden at bellsouth.net]

Hi, everybody

First things first, I have by no means been active in the list lately, but I have been checking in with things. This is one topic I felt the need to discuss.

As a fairly competent (though not fluent) Norwegian speaker, I am well familiar with the bokmål/nynorsk contrast and the political connotations they entail. Norway's unique lingual situation has been going on for over a century. While Swedes may not get it (and I understand that leaving bokmål at no: might make a lot of sense), the use of no: (or a "macro-language" Norwegian code) for bokmål implies that bokmål is the "normal" form of Norwegian, whereas nynorsk is "specialty" Norwegian. They are neither. Nynorsk and bokmål (I'm most fluent in the latter, which is admittedly the "big brother" in this situation) truly are equal forms of the greater spectrum of Norwegian dialects, and they deserve their place. To Norwegians, dialect matters much more than in many other countries. There are a lot of viable options here, but using no: or a general Norwegian code for bokmål is simply not one of them.

Moving onto Swedish, the language of greater communication issue largely comes down to a matter of a linguistic nation's history of colonialism. Let's get real here, people: all languages are equally valuable. No language is inherently better than another language. Swedish is a large language by world standards. Let's look at some of the world's largest language populations, focusing on languages from Europe: French (colonialism), Portuguese (colonialism), Russian ("domestic" colonialism as the empire expanded; USSR connection), Spanish (colonialism), and English (colonialism: "native-language" areas, like Ireland, created in themselves by colonialism). Remaining top-ten languages tended to be spread by empires or areas where historical population booms happened. No comment. These languages are the exceptions, not the rule.

In regards to Norwegian, whatever happens, let Wikipedia be sensitive to the lingual needs of speakers of the "macro" Norwegian language. Thank you for your time.

 -- Jeremy