Native norwegian here. You're thorough, interesting and precise in your description of my language. Nice.

I'm Norwegian and my dialect is much closer to nynorsk, but I still write bokmål. I really like nynorsk, though, I like how it's much more traditional and less Danish.

I live in Trøndelag, where our dialect is quite different from both Nynorsk and Bokmål. Lately, Nynorsk allows more and more words that feels way more natural to me, such as allowing "dokker" alongside "dykk". It can be worth nothing that most people here, especially the younger generation, write the standard language only in formal situations. If I were to chat with a close friend from the same region as me, I would write my dialect phonetically. Writing "æ" instead of "jeg", "itj" instead of "ikke" and etc. Great video.

It would be worth mentioning that the Black Death has also played a significant role in the take-over by the Danish language in Norway, after and estimated 1/3 by conservative counts, or 2/3 in liberal calculations, were killed by the disease, decimating the population and with it the language.

I started learning Norwegian a few months ago and didn't realize there were two variations of Norwegian. I used multiple websites to learn it and now I realized I learned a combination of nynorsk and bokmål. This video helped differentiate the two

Great explination. As a learner of Norwegian I've always found it intersting that Norwegian is varied in spoken form and even written form. Of course I've been learning Bokmål, but I am farmiliar enough with nynorsk that i can read it decently. Men Norge har mange forkjellige og ulike dialekter og det kan være vanskelig å forstå noen av dem. Kjempebra forklaring!

I remember my early days of learning Norwegian, I'd sometimes purchase Danish magazines thinking they were Norwegian due to the writing being similar. :D

Similar to Attic and Doric Scots. Attic Scots (sometimes called English with a Scottish accent) is like Bokmål based on the language of the anglicised Scottish elite, while "Doric" Scots that rural folk speak is like Nynorsk.

I think the first book I used to learn Norwegian was an old Riksmål book. I started as a child, on my own. ( yes, I guess I was a weird child, but I fell in love with Norway). When I was a teenager, I went to Norway as a summer exchange student, to Stavanger. Of course, I was a bit shocked to hear my host family speak, and think...what are they saying? Eg veit ikkje is quite different from Jeg vet ikke. However, now that I'm studying Icelandic (which I think may be the most beautiful language in the world...to me, obviously), I would rather use radikalt bokmål. Jeg glømmer...gras...bjørk...sakne..ei bru..etc. It is closer to the ancient roots. I think I was a viking in a former life.

Filed under: Things I didn't know I wanted to know.

They make fun of my Danish also, so don't feel bad:) In Norway, it is becoming more and more acceptable to write your dialect exactly how you pronounce it. Perhaps not on your Norwegian exam but in text messages and such. I am from Drammen and we say skarru instead of skal du. Now I live in Toten and here they would write itte for ikke/ikkje and heme for hjemme/heime. I love dialects and accents and how they slowly change from town to town.

I live in a county which uses Bokmål in most schools, and i think that my dialect is slightly closer to bokmål, but not that much. I have used bokmål up untill i was 19 years old, after that i started writing in my dialect, and now im 20 and i have completely moved over to nynorsk, mostly because it feels more "right" to write in it, and also because of it's closer relation to norse, and for political reasons.

As a Dane I unsurprisingly prefer Bokmål as it makes Norwegian literature very accessible.

When I speak Danish (clearly to avoid the Danish potato) to my Norwegian friends, they make fun that it sounds like the language spoken by the fine elderly people of Oslo. E.g. when I say "aften" instead of "kvell" they find it very old fashioned :P

This is the best explanation I've come across so far, from the point of view of a learner of Norwegian. I've also studied Danish somewhat, but the pronunciation defeated me. At least Norwegian is somewhat more phonetic. A bonus of learning Bokmål is that you can then pretty much understand most written Danish. (The spoken language is of course quite another matter).

Fascinating. I've always wondered about the differences. And your point at the end that you speak first and learn the write later, meaning you don't "speak" a written language is a really illuminating point. Got my gears turning about all the ways my spoken English varies from written -- it's almost backwards to how I previously thought. We say the "g is silent" in reign, but I always believed that we wrote it knowing the g is silent, but in actuality, I learned it spoken with no g, and that's just how it's written. Your point kind of forced me to bifurcate the logic behind that reasoning. Love it.

As an avid user of Nynorsk I highly appreciate your work. Eg takkar deg for innsatsen din, Jackson Crawford.

Jackson, as a Norwegian living abroad I wanna send a big thank you for making this video. I've had several people ask me about the differences and why it is the way it is - even as a native Norwegian I found it very difficult to answer. From now on, I'm just going to share this video! Haha :) Thank you!

Here's something to consider: I live next to the Swedish border, and I use some Swedish words when I talk For example: The Norwegian word for "place" is "sted", while the Swedish word is "stelle", which is what I say It's like how some Americans use Spanish words here and there

Hi Jackson... Funny enough this is the closest you can come to actually talk to the mentioned Knudsen :) Knud was my great great (great again I think) grandfather. At least that is what my heritage decendant line tells me in my family three. Being a decendant from him to me is a bit ironic. While born and raised near Oslo (Lørenskog) I moved up to about 30 minutes away from where Ivar Åsen grew up as a child. Funny enough we didn't learn nynorsk when I went to school back in 1980-89 (elementary and middle school), not even in my first year of high school was this learned. Always optional but never wanted as our language was "bokmål".. Actually was and I still think it is, a voluntary to this day when you select learning books, official documents to read etc. Nontheless I learned it finally in high school as I needed it to get my high school diploma in order to go off to get my bachelors degree.. I do however think all kids today start out learning their bokmål or nynorsk depending on where they live in the country. Thus todays language is starting to get pretty washed out from all media impact starting with the SMS and cellphone impact back in the 90s. I digress, but fun fact eitherway. Do appologies for any mispelling as I do not get the chance to exercise my english all that often. I love your channel as I too have a fundness for norse history and our heritage. I was meaning to ask, in light of the saga of Olav Trygvasson (Olav den heilage), what do you think of it, have you read much about it. Do you think it is spooled up in myth more than facts? I know we norwegians learn the common knowledge on how he "christen" the land and lost his life at Stiklestad back in year 1030, which btw actually may not have happen. Recently I have started reading the Flatøybook which is now translated into Norwegian.. Still on first book, but love it. Have you read it? Anyway enough of me.. Keep doing what you do and love and thanks for all the videos posted, seen them all.

Always enjoy your videos. Thank you for taking the time to teach us.

Very interesting. Well done, Dr. Crawford.

I love your videos. I hope you do more on the Norwegian language in the future!

Thank you for the sharing of your knowledge. I am learning more about my families origins. Thanks again, Raymond Robinson .

I subscribed! All of your videos are really helping out for my book, THANK YOU!!!🙏

I'm glad I discovered your channel. I learned Swedish as a second language, and all of this is fascinating to me.

Great video, it is hard To find someone talking to a fixed scenario, no gimmicks, and keeping the attention for 14 minutes without blinking. You are really a professor.

This is verry good, verry accurate. Would love to have him in some lectures, good job Dr. Crawford

I learned a ton ....as usual....about my own culture and language in another brilliant presentation by dr Crawford

This was a great video to help me distinguish the two as I am learning Norwegian. Thanks!

yay, you mentioned my hometown! Bergen! Love these videos btw. They explain a lot that I had heard of but didn't know the background of. Also, your handwriting is lovely!

I grew up with Bokmål mostly. When speaking, I am a bit inconsistent about whether I drop the feminine/masculine distinction. I usually only use "ei" when the word is very clearly feminine, as in "ei jente" (a girl), but "en kråke".

Very useful. Thank you, Professor!

Hats off to Norway’s schoolchildren. Learning to read and write two different versions of your own language, wow! Must drive spellcheck crazy. 🐝💕

My Danish dialect also still has the three genders intact ([ien] for feminine and [ej] for masculine). We still WRITE everything in standard Danish, but we usually have no doubts as to what gender words are since using the wrong one just "sounds all wrong".

that was the best explanation of Bok mål vs. ny norsk that I've ever seen. Well done. This odd situation/development is very difficult for non-Norwegians to understand.

Takk skal du ha, Dr. Crawford! Du er grei, du holder av meg. Kjære Crawford, gå aldri fra meg.

I grew up in western Oslo, which is kind of the most bokmål-conservative area you can find in Norway. And i have always written bokmål in a way that makes it very similar to the old riksmål. Even though the Oslo region uses feminine, i would almost never use the form «ei», using «en» instead. For example: «En jente». However i would write and say «jenta» with a feminine «a» at the end. It fascinates me how even the written forms of the same written standard can change depending on where you grow up. For example, traditionally, people from eastern Oslo would not do the same as I do.

I must say i am impressed that a American actually learn me things i did not know about my own language. (i knew a lot of this, but it was also a lot of new things to me) When it comes to the number seven, there is almost as many that say sju as syv. But it is very seldom you see a Norwegian write sju, even if they usually say it that way, most of them will still write it as syv. (beside from those who only write in Nynorsk) I am not in any way saying that you are wrong, you are very correct. Keep up the good work! :)

I was very impressed with your presentation. I lived and worked in Oslo, Norway many years ago and speak Norwegian but it was Riksmål not Bokmål. I refused to speak Bokmål. When you hear me speak Norwegian, it would be with the Oslo accent. I spoke it so well, you would not hear any American accent. Well, every once in a while you would think that I was from Denmark since I first went to school in Copenhagen (K.I.S.S.) to learn Danish. I speak Danish with the Copenhagen accent. When I say bread in Norwegian, you will hear the Danish accent. Then when I had visited Copenhagen, I spoke Danish but every so often my Norwegian accent would slip in and the people thought I was from Sweden. Now I am teaching myself to speak Icelandic online. If I translate anything from Icelandic, it would be in Norwegian not English. It is easier for me to understand the make up of the Icelandic language. Anyway, upon learning Icelandic and translating words to Norwegian, I found out that there are words that are no longer in Riksmål . The word 20 21, 22, 23 to 29 in Norwegian is now in Bokmål. What happened to the numbering system in Riksmål? I used to speak it the way the Danish language would be. Then when it was 30, 40, and so forth I could switch from either the Danish way which was one and twenty, five and twenty. and so forth to the other way it was written/spoken in Norwegian. So does all this means there is no longer Riksmål? I am sadden by this. Sorry for the long post. Great video!

Jätte kul! Tack så mycket.

As a norwegian it's great fun to watch your videos. I especially appreciate the ones on old norse. Takk skal du ha! PS: your knowledge of spoken and written/etymology of nordic languages is very impressive, but I must comment that your modern Norwegian is a bit off, it sounds as if your reading Norwegian with an old norse "dialect"- I'm sure it's because you've studied a lot of Old Norse. But they are quite different (I'm primarily comparing to østlending/Oslo-dialekt). That being said, the reconstructed Old Norse pronunciation sounds, at least to me, a lot more beautiful than modern Norwegian.

The internet is amazing. I woke up wondering why there were two "Norwegians" and in a matter of minutes I found a video that answers my question. Thanks!

I come from a town on the west coast of Norway called Molde and in Molde we say "i" instead of "jeg/eg". I know that many people from Møre & Romsdal and Trøndelag went over to Great britain, do you think that saying I in English language can derive from this part of Norway? There is only Molde and a small village in Nord-Trøndelag called Snåsa who still say I today.

I did a quick scroll trough the comments, and i thought i would mention that, swdish and danish is derived from eastern norse language, while norwegian and icelandic (basically still western norse) Is derived from western norse which both again are derived from germanic and then proto-germanic if i'm not mistaken.

Did not realise u can write "We" in Nynorsk as "Me", thats awesome :D

The Danes went through a writing change in the late forties. Norwegian is written often as the word is pronounced. The Danes kept a few old writing forms. Actually in Danish "kvinder" the "d" is not pronounced so it is pronounced as "kvinner".

This is fascinating. My mother immigrated here from Norway and her dialect is Bokmol I believe.

Very nice succinct survey there. I'd been wondering why sju and syv as well as en and ei are interchangeable.

Hi Jackson! I follow your Olav Hauge page on facebook, big fan of both you and Hauge. Will you sometime do a video about him and his somewhat difficult dialect?

Dude, you're awesome

Jeg liker virkelig videoene dine. setter også pris på hvordan du er med forskjellen.

Wow I know this is EXTREMELY off-topic but geez you are so handsome! Hahaha. You make it very easy to watch your videos in full lol.

Fascinating!

Thank you!

The sentence would be "Me hava sjau ramnar, ei kråka og fleire linerlor." in Ivar Aasen's Landsmål.

I love how even within BM or NN you have acceptable variations of words! haha no confusion here!

Thank you for your videos. Learned a lot today. Things "my Norwegian" can't explain to me. :-)

Wow I learned a lot ! I knew norwegian written lanuage came from danish, but nothing about Knut Knudsen. But how does swedish come into this ? We are very similar. They are easier to understand vocally. Impressed that you are a teacher in California !!

When a solid old Norse "Viking" pronunciation become an happier Norske one!

A funny thing that swedish/norwegian speakers often fuck up when trying to pronounce Danish is that we don't roll our r's in the front of our mouth, but always in the back of the mouth. And even then, we only roll r's very softly if at all.

I recently heard the Setesdal dialect for the first time, never knew it even existed

Very interesting. I knew Norwegians had two standards for writing but I never knew the story behing how they came to be. Nynorsk is also clearly a bit closer to Old Norse than Bokmal. There's only one thing that really puzzles me. How did the word ,,me" become to be used as the pronoun for ,,we" instead of ,,Vi"? ,,Vi" makes much more sense. Old Norse uses ,,Vér" for ,,we" when referring to three or more people and ,,Vit" for when referring to just two people. Both Danish and Swedish use ,,Vi" and Icelandic uses ,,Við" but then how did ,,Me" come about. It seems like the odd man out haha.

I am from Oslo and speak bokmål but understand both. I am married to a danish. Understand all the Nordic languages.

I would just like to throw in that in the particular sentence context, the word "flere" or "fleire " means "several " linerler. Other than that, great explanations. Thank You.

You rock sir! Do you have online language classes? I plan on joining your patreon on next payday... Thank you for the work you put into these videos. Be well.

Interesting with the word for "raven" in this example. There is a place called "Ramsele" in the north west of the Swedish province of Ångermanland. The first mention of it is from 1200 when they built a church and then it was called "Rannasild" and a bit later it was known as "Hrafnasil". The first part of the name (Ranna-, Hrafna) is most likely meaning "Raven" and the second part ("-slid, -sil, -sel, -sele) is a deep calm water between two white waters in a stream/river/älv which gives the meaning "The calm water of the ravens" or "Raven's calm water". Still today the locals often call the place "Raffna" and many companies, teams etc in the area has it as part of their name. The standard Swedish word for raven is "Korp", so totally unrelated to the word used. However the Swedish dialects from the "middle north" (Jämtland, Ångermanland, Medelpad, Hälsingland and Härjedalen) has many similar words to west norse, especially in Trondelag. Therefore was it extra interesting to see that the word for raven in in Ny Norsk was Ramn(ar).

Fascinating to listen/watch this video. Nynorsk is alien to me; when I was learning Norwegian (courtesy of Teach Yourself Norwegian) the only version taught was Bokmål, which has to be easier than Nynorsk.

Great Aunt Laura who lived with us in Western Canada was born in 1887, East of Liverpool.Before the advent of first radio then television,closely identifying the geographical location a person was born to in England was something regularly done. Voice radio did not really get going till after about 1925. For years after WW1,radio communication was closely controlled by almost all governments. Thanks for this. Utterly new information to me. English has its own pronunciation and spelling issues. Having not two but several approaches between the printed and spoken language is enough to make almost anyone shake their head and get stubborn. Holy crow.

"Vi he sju ravna, ei kråk å flær linærlå"

Being from Bergen, i learned bokmål primarily and nynorsk secondarily. i've always written in bokmål. but my Bergen-dialect is much more similar to nynorsk than bokmål. Interestingly, some of our laws are written in advanced nynorsk, so you need not only a law degree, but also a language degree to understand our laws!

Ok so now to find out which to pick up? Currently studying Japanese as a 3rd language but I will also like to pick up a 4rth language since I have cancelled my netflix and I now have extra hours in the day for learning stuff. Not sure this matters but 1st- Spanish, 2nd- English, 3rd- Japanese. Now 4rth- thought it would just be "Norwegian" but it appears to be more than just plain ol' Norwegian to choose from, any recommendations? I don't plan on ever living in Norway or staying there for long, perhaps visit there but that's about it.

Are there any interrest in learning Norwegian in America?

Just a side note: In the south-western part of Norway, we speak as the danes write. Sort of.. More closely than eastern norwegian anyways (Oslo area)

I've heard from some people who live in the north of norway that i almost speak danish. The Kristiansand dialect is really similar to danish. We say kage instead of kake which and bage instead of bake.

I find it strange if Aasen constructed it as a superclass of all dialects, that nynorsk is not more uniformly distributed through Norway, it is concentrated in the west, while the rest seem to treat is like a strange unwanted child.

07:18 Guess my "valley" xD "Vi har sju ravna, ei kråke å fler linærla"

How would you put two words together.To make one word.for example red blaze

I'm a Norwegian, though I mainly use Bokmål and have placed Nynorsk in the back of my brain, almost forgetting it completely. I wish to relearn it, since I think of it as more of an actual Norwegian, and not just a slightly more Northern Danish.

Such a mess for learners and such a treasure for historical linguists. One must love Scandinavia. Somewhat sad, that Denmark and Sweden are so heavily standard-language-centric though.

Dei einaste folka som snakkar nynorsk og bokmål slik det skrivast, er dei som les nyheiter på TV og radio. Det høyres ikkje heilt normalt ut :-)

Lol, judging from a Slavic perspective, all those 3 languages/written variants would be considered plain dialects of 1 language. It's crazy how in different parts of the world people's perspectives of whether or not to consider certain norm a dialect or a separate language can be almost opposite.

*I am curious about whether Nynorsk eschews words that were borrowed from the German of the Hanseatic League. For instance, I know that the verb "work" in Bokmål is "arbeide" (from "arbeiten"--but the Icelandic word is "vinna." I can also think of "betale" (pay) from "bezahlen," etc. Can anyone help me out with this?*

I recently finished reading the correspondence letters of Camilla Collett and her best friend Emilie Diriks, which gives quite a unique insight into the Norwegian language in the early to mid 19th century. Camilla was in love with Welhaven, a staunch defender of classical lyrical tradition and of the conservation of the Danish language among Norwegians. She was also, however, the sister of Henrik Wergeland, a raunchy, rule-breaking and vibrant poet with a free-flowing style and a champion for the cause of "Norwegianising" the language from its Danish influence. Camilla ends up torn in the middle of this cultural debate (which actually led to riots in the streets back then). I find her letters to be highly important historical documents from a linguistic and socio-cultural standpoint. Her friend Emilie is kind of on the "rule-breaking, follow your heart"-side of the argument. Both Emilie and Henrik die quite young. In my opinion, Camilla's work "Amtmandens Døtre" is an absolute landmark literary work, not just in Norway, but globally. Highly underrated outside Norway.

People wonder why we celebrate 17. mai with such pride and joy. Well... we have been independant for just over 100 years.. The short story is in the video :)

Referring to the Vimose comb, harja means brush in Finnish

Imponerende å høre en amerikaner forklare om historiske årsaker til at Norge har to offisielle språk (germanske språkvarianter - beklager, samiske venner, dette gjelder ikke dere). Denne karen har gjort hjemmeleksa si og er helt klart en kapasitet på sitt fagfelt. Lytt og lær!

I know this is an old video, so this comment is probably going to be buried, but I recently read something about a small dialect in Trøndelag having a pronunciation of the word "i" that is somewhat like the Icelandic ð or the Danish "soft d." I'm curious if you know anything about it?

If I as a native English speaker wish to learn Norwegian, do language books typically use bokmal or nynorsk? Or if the option is mine to make, which would be better to choose if wanting to learn?

I've been learning norwegian all by myself for like 6 months now, but find it hard to progress beyond my current knowledge because I don't know how to find good sources to learn which has resulted in a sudden halt in my self studies.. This is a cry out for help! can someone please dab me up with some advice on how to practise speaking and reading?

Vi har også veldig mange dialekter. Eg snakk en dialekt som e en blanding av alle dialektan i Nordnorge.

as a Dane it is very interesting to see how the Scandinavian languages have differences and why they are there. I do have one unrelated question do you find Danish more difficult to pronounce than the others ? since you said that Danes would make fun of your attempts to pronounce Danish.

I am interested in a further comparison with Swedish, that seems a long way nearer to Nynorsk, and maybe, under several respects, is the most conservative language among the continental North Germanic languages, even if it does not feature diphtongs, or full 3 genders (but some is left). Of course, I refer to standard languages, while even in Sweden there are almost as many varieties of pronunciation, and also some grammar, as there are in Norway, which are flattened out by the historical fact that Sweden has franchised herself from Danmark long before Norway, and never underwent a "standard language trauma".

When you watch the video a first time because you were interested in the topic and then a second time because, dang, let me stare at the really good-looking professor.

In Oslo they jokingly refer to the southerners as 'reservedansker' (reserve danes)

Not Crawford using the icelandic R on Norwegian pronounciation 😂 We have many different R's, but the Oslo dialect uses a really soft "roll R" as we call it. The R is "rolled" pretty close to the front of the mouth and on the end of the tongue, while in my souther dialect, I have a dry R in the back of my mouth.

Jeg kan laese norsk, men jeg kan kun forstaa det naar nordmaend snakker langsomt. This is very interesting as I speak fluently Danish. As an American living here in California I can acquire so much info here on youtube. I've also studied German for four years and took some Dutch courses at a community classes. I took a Swedish class one semester as well. Norwegians and Swedes can understand each other more or less, but Danish pronunciation is different.

Dr., do you speak any of the Scandinavian languages?

Dr. Crawford, perhaps a bit on the side - but it might have been mentioned in your video that language is quite important in Norway. We use substantial budgets to teach both written forms - and the "målstriden" is quite ferocious still (like all things connected to identity). All public forms have to be available in both written languages etc. It is all rather expensive, time consuming and at times exhausting. Especially for us realists who see language mostly as a tool :-) Some "fun facts" to add some color (you are probably already aware of this): 1: Children doing "play pretend" often defaults to pure bokmål - even if their dialect is very different. 2: In high stress situations running operations over radio in noisy conditions - bokmål tends to become the default. I was told to "switch off the crypto" several times. Takk for morsomme, lærerike og interresante videoer.

I have heard that nynorsk has more incommon with swedish than bokmål. Someone who knows if thats true? For exampel, swedish has a lot of "a" endings, which nynorsk also have. (If im correct?). Bokmål has only "e" endings.