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

Fri Nov 12 05:44:35 UTC 2004

Hi, everyone

Thank you all for your intelligent comments. This has been a most interesting discussion.

Ulf, I am glad to hear that I have as good of a grasp of the Norwegian language situation as I seem to. ;-) I started teaching myself "Norwegian" (bokmål) between ages 13 and 14 (I actually have no idea when I really started learning; it just happened over time) and quickly came to understand the situation regarding Norwegian dialects.

Lars (Alvik), you, like many bokmål users, are indeed tired of nynorsk. However, a large percentage of the Norwegian population and the Norwegian community uses nynorsk exclusively in school and in their daily life. While you might prefer for everyone to use your form (bokmål) and be done with it, you resent that nynorsk has equal status and you are required (in terms of your schooling) to use a form of the Norwegian language with which you are neither familiar nor explicitly comfortable. However, nynorsk users (people who GROW UP using nynorsk) have to do the same thing with bokmål--and they are not necessarily happy about it. "Samnorsk" doesn't work because nobody wants to change that which they have grown up using or been forced to use, and, to a large degree, both sides of the nynorsk/bokmål debate resent each other's encroaching presence in standardized language, especially if Norway were to shift to some "samnorsk" version. Nynorsk deserves its place, as does bokmål, but neither form is *the* Norwegian language, and that's a fact. There is no single "Norwegian" language form that's truly Norwegian--and if we were to find one to adopt, nynorsk would undoubtedly be it. It's really just a dialect spectrum with two standardized versions. There's nothing wrong with nynorsk or bokmål, but they are different, and that's okay. 

Ja, jeg forstår bokmål, men jeg snakker bedre engelsk, og wikipedia-l er på engelsk. *shrug* ;-)

Lars Aronsson wrote:

 > To most non-Norwegians, and I think also for many Norwegians, the concept of
 > the "Norwegian" language (written and spoken) is easy to understand
 > and unambigious.   [meaning that for most foreigners, Norwegian = Bokmål]

Many people do equate bokmål with "Norwegian," but I think that's purely because most non-Norwegians initially learn to understand the Norwegian dialects with absolutely no knowledge of the dialects of Norway. People should know, but it's rarely specified to foreigners. Eventually, they realize that there are two official Norwegian forms and don't even know WHICH form they use, because happenstance arbitrarily picked a form for them (likely bokmål) and never explained that there are two equally acceptable Norwegian standards. Most foreigners really don't know of the bokmål/nynorsk contrast, and "teach yourself Norwegian" publications are usually (but never explained to be) in bokmål. We need to educate them. It's unfair to encourage people to think of bokmål, one of two official standards, as *the* Norwegian language. 

Ulf wrote:

>My reply to both of these comments is (and I hope there are some Mac or Linux
>users on this list, or my point may be moot):

[...]

>When Bokmål users or Nynorsk users pretend this, the other group is
>just as upset
> as amerindians are when third generation European Americans pretend to have
> monopoly on American heritage.

Oh, your point strikes such a strong chord for me. I understand perfectly, for a variety of reasons. I am no Linux expert, but I have used Linux in the past and am currently suffering under Windows XP. More importantly, I am myself an American Indian. Additionally (and humorously!), in terms of my mother's family, I am a third-generation American, although I am really part of a long line of Americans over *millenia* (a NATIVE American!) :-). There are some fascinating things to talk about and explain here, regarding Native America and my own family, but I'll digress for sake of space.  My friend, there are three main things at work in regards to our "white" friends' perceptions:

-----------------------------------------------------

"Token-Indianism" -- You are my little Indian. We ["white" people] own the Indians. "Today, many of *our* Indians live in poverty. We must help them [and we have no knowledge whatsoever about the past or about Native communities]." "My *Indian* friend says," etc. It's all about stereotypes, a "lesser evil" extension of colonialism, and ignorance.

"Pan-Indianism" -- Indians are one big culture.

AND... (drumroll)

Colonialism (cultural genocide). My culture is better than your culture, and *we* (the foreigners) are the real American culture. And the lovely "noble savage" concept (a combination of colonialism and token-Indianism).

I love statements from like the following from "all-American" middle-aged "white" women (or wannabes) with no knowledge of one Native culture, much less ALL Native cultures:

"I went up to an Indian reservation and there weren't any real Indians there/there were just a bunch of Mexicans there (1)! Where did all our Indians (2) go?! This great culture (3) must be saved (4)!"

(1) pan-Indianism + ignorance
(2) token Indianism + colonialism + ignorance
(3) Read "these noble savages."
(4) First her ancestors decimate entire cultures. Then she has no clue about Native communities and is operating out of all the wrong motives (including the pure idiocy of finding "real Indians" to her liking).

-----------------------------------------------------

Imagine the uproar in Scandinavia if everybody outside of Scandinavia thought that all Scandinavians were the same. In Norway alone, everybody would be freaking out from the village level to the fylker and onwards. And you know that Norwegians and other Scandinavians share so much in common but are very different.

Now imagine the most diverse continent possible with hundreds and hundreds of distinct cultural *groups* (not to mention distinct cultures), nearly 100 language families, hundreds of languages and thousands of traditions that change from family to family. That's how insane pan-Indianism really is, and why I am not an "American Indian," because an "American Indian" does not exist: it matters which people you come from. There was no "Indian" cohesion before Europeans set themselves down on our birthright.

But back to Norwegian! ;-)

You guys figure out what to do about no:. I agree with Ulf. Norway has a special lingual situation and the greater Norwegian language (the spectrum of dialects and the two official versions) *does* merit special treatment. It's rude to nynorsk users to act as if bokmål is *the* Norwegian, and it's even worse if we ever want foreigners to understand the bokmål/nynorsk contrast. In the best case, I am in favor of two specific Norwegian encyclopedia communities: nynorsk and bokmål. I'll leave it to you all to figure out what you will do, but to be fairest to all parties, no: should probably serve as a redirect to nynorsk and bokmål.

(I'm actually a bokmål user, mainly, but I put nynorsk first when comparing them to go against the trend of thinking of bokmål first. ^_^)

Ha det bra!

 -- Jeremy Edenfield
-------------- next part --------------
Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
      (Stirling Newberry)
   2. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l? (Ulf Lunde)
   3. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
      (Lars Alvik)
   4. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
      (Lars Alvik)
   5. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for (Olve Utne)

-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
Wikipedia-l mailing list
Wikipedia-l at Wikimedia.org
http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: reply
Type: null
Size: 0 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/attachments/20041112/af3d80b3/attachment.diff 