Talk:Norwegian language
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Norwegian in the US
Without sounding too curt, what is the point in the section "Norwegian in the US"? Really? To me, and I'm sure countless others, it's a list of irrelevant information of how many people speak Norwegian in a few relatively obsure parts of the United States. The table, though, is worse. Only two of the 15 states have a percentage greater than zero; even the US as a whole has "0.0% percent [sic]". I'm not saying that it is meaningless information; I didn't know that there were 55,311 "Norwegian language" in the US. I propose that the entire section is excised, or sections added for the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China and just about all the other "little" countries of the world—even Antarctica. After all, they have a sizeable claim there. 79.67.154.166 (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, I can only agree with the above. TArntsen (talk) 12:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
- I agree as well. Eliminated the graphic, too. The graphic purports to show where Norwegian is spoken around the world. If so, areas of Canada should be just as significantly marked as those areas of the U.S. Having said that, the Norwegian culture is important in the areas of the U.S. described in this section, obscure or not (not sure what's so obscure about it though). The radio program, "A Prairie Home Companion" would not be so successful without this Norwegian hotspot. Victor Engel (talk) 12:59, 7 September 2010 (UTC)
- I also agree with you. The amount of Norwegian spoken in northern central US is so minor it's more of a fun fact. Dedicating so large portion of the article to this seems weird and as others have said no matter what language you have, you can often find traces in other countries. We could do the same for Norwegian speaking in Sweden, Germany, France, Scotland and so on... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.105.200.88 (talk) 00:43, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
Yeah, and the infobox states Denmark has 150,000 speakers. That means about 2.5 percent of population. And still US states are on the map and Denmark not? Highly illogical, I'd say. 85.217.42.235 (talk) 20:46, 5 March 2012 (UTC)
- I removed the whole section. It was completely out of context, and it also seemed too detailed for this particular article, regardless. (link to version containing the section) Njardarlogar (talk) 09:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)
Native Name Problem
Since in Norwegian, language names aren't capitalised, then shouldn't the native name be norsk instead of Norsk? BLEAKGH - БЛЕАКЬ - بــلــكــغ - בּלכּג - 뱍가 - ᚷᚲᛇᛚᛒ 20:29, 11 June 2012 (UTC)
- The Norwegian language article capitalises our native name, so we should pay the same respect and lowercase theirs, right? I'm fixing it. BLEAKGH - БЛЕАКЬ - بــلــكــغ - בּלכּג - 뱍가 - ᚷᚲᛇᛚᛒ 22:12, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
When is a language "spoken" somewhere?
We have all sorts of geographic locations added as places were Norwegian is "spoken". I am not aware of any guidelines for the template on this topic, but if we are to say that a language is "spoken" somewhere, it would make sense to demand that it is part of a tradition in the relevant geographic place. I.e. it is not enough that thousands of Norwegians stay a few years/decades in Denmark, because there is no tradition/culture associated with these expats, the language that they speak is not something that is passed down through the generations locally, it all comes directly from Norway (or a generation or two between at max).
The only places outside of Norway that are potentially relevant to include in the infobox are, off the top of my head, a few selected places in the U.S., since the language appears to be passed on from generation to generation (at least to some extent), and there is a culture associated with the language there; but at the same time, the scale is probably too small to include it in the infobox (a few thousands versus 5 millions). It would seem more relevant to include in a section named Norwegian outside of Norway, or something like that.
I am also starting a more general debate at Template talk:Infobox language. Njardarlogar (talk) 17:50, 14 June 2012 (UTC)
Nordic Council
After talking about the four forms of written Norwegian, the lead says: "Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council."
This seems to me a contradiction since "Norwegian" has such variety. Has the Nordic Council settled on which form to use? Or are they reluctant to make a choice?
Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 17:43, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
No longer considered pronouns ??
The article makes the astonishing claim that possessive, demonstrative, and relative pronouns are no longer "regarded to be pronouns" in Norwegian. I might agree concerning the demonstrative ones, but the other two most certainly are pronouns -- i.e. they substitute for nouns! Did the language council do this by decree or what is going on here ? And by what logic ? Someone, please elaborate on this, thanks.68.35.66.170 (talk) 10:34, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
- To me, relative pronouns seem more like conjunctions than pronouns, as you can't put a noun instead of a relative pronoun. Demonstratives are often more than just pronouns, since they can also modify nouns. They are probably better described as determiners, or as both. CodeCat (talk) 23:18, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, maybe that's what it is. They do seem to bind sentences together similar to conjunctions. But you can put a noun instead of a relative pronoun (and that's the whole point of pronouns... but you knew that). For example: "The man who robbed the bank is a race car driver". Here, "who" substitutes for "the man" so you won't have to repeat the noun -- as in: "The man robbed the bank. The man is a race car driver". A relative sentence is actually two sentences, each with a subject and a verb. "Who" is one of the subjects and that sentence is a subordinate clause. A conjunction cannot be a subject or an object, whereas pronouns can. If you render "who" into a conjunction, you lose the subject and thus the sentence is no longer complete. "Whom", of course, is an object, and a sentence doesn't need one to be complete -- but it's still not quite the same as a conjunction. Consider: "The woman whom we met plays softball on weekends". Here, the two sentences are: "The woman plays softball on weekends" (main clause) and "whom we met" (subordinate). "Whom" refers back to the woman -- a noun -- and it's just another way of saying "we met her". "Whom" and "her" are both pronouns. Of course, these examples are in English but Norwegian works the same way. So that's largely the basis for my objection. Thanks.68.35.66.170 (talk) 08:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
- Semantically yes, the relative pronoun replaces a noun, but when considering the part of speech, you look at the syntax especially. If you take "The man who robbed the bank" and replace the relative pronoun with its antecedent, then you get "The man the man robbed the bank" which doesn't work out. The alternative, "The man robbed the bank" doesn't mean the same. Contrast that with a 'real' pronoun such as "He robbed the bank" or "The man robbed it twice" where you can replace "he" and "it" without problems. A characteristic of a true pronoun is that you can replace it with its antecedent, which makes it optional to use it. A relative pronoun on the other hand, like a conjunction, is required, because without it the sentence literally "falls apart". I suppose another argument I could make is that in some languages like Swedish, there are words that function as relative pronouns yet are clearly not pronouns in the true sense: Mannen som rånade banken. Here, the word "som" is a relative particle that corresponds to the English "who". But it can't be used as a pronoun by itself, so something like Som rånade banken is wrong (it sounds like part of the sentence is missing). CodeCat (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
- I'm sorry but you are flat-out wrong. You missed the point of my first example, and your Swedish example is the exact same thing that I brought up (and thus doesn't support your argument). I reckon I was wrong too: it seems you don't understand the point of pronouns after all. I don't see this going any further so I'll just rest my case here. Thanks.68.35.66.170 (talk) 22:07, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
- Semantically yes, the relative pronoun replaces a noun, but when considering the part of speech, you look at the syntax especially. If you take "The man who robbed the bank" and replace the relative pronoun with its antecedent, then you get "The man the man robbed the bank" which doesn't work out. The alternative, "The man robbed the bank" doesn't mean the same. Contrast that with a 'real' pronoun such as "He robbed the bank" or "The man robbed it twice" where you can replace "he" and "it" without problems. A characteristic of a true pronoun is that you can replace it with its antecedent, which makes it optional to use it. A relative pronoun on the other hand, like a conjunction, is required, because without it the sentence literally "falls apart". I suppose another argument I could make is that in some languages like Swedish, there are words that function as relative pronouns yet are clearly not pronouns in the true sense: Mannen som rånade banken. Here, the word "som" is a relative particle that corresponds to the English "who". But it can't be used as a pronoun by itself, so something like Som rånade banken is wrong (it sounds like part of the sentence is missing). CodeCat (talk) 10:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, maybe that's what it is. They do seem to bind sentences together similar to conjunctions. But you can put a noun instead of a relative pronoun (and that's the whole point of pronouns... but you knew that). For example: "The man who robbed the bank is a race car driver". Here, "who" substitutes for "the man" so you won't have to repeat the noun -- as in: "The man robbed the bank. The man is a race car driver". A relative sentence is actually two sentences, each with a subject and a verb. "Who" is one of the subjects and that sentence is a subordinate clause. A conjunction cannot be a subject or an object, whereas pronouns can. If you render "who" into a conjunction, you lose the subject and thus the sentence is no longer complete. "Whom", of course, is an object, and a sentence doesn't need one to be complete -- but it's still not quite the same as a conjunction. Consider: "The woman whom we met plays softball on weekends". Here, the two sentences are: "The woman plays softball on weekends" (main clause) and "whom we met" (subordinate). "Whom" refers back to the woman -- a noun -- and it's just another way of saying "we met her". "Whom" and "her" are both pronouns. Of course, these examples are in English but Norwegian works the same way. So that's largely the basis for my objection. Thanks.68.35.66.170 (talk) 08:31, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
How much do Bokmål and Nynorsk differ?
A lot of articles talk about the language situation and how different people prefer different standards. But so far I haven't been able to find any information about how much they have in common. Going just by vocabulary (perhaps only the more common words one would find in a newspaper), what percentage of words is shared between the two? CodeCat (talk) 23:21, 14 August 2012 (UTC)