This is a very funny (four-minute) video in which the Norwegians mock the Danish language. In English. Thanks, Kári!
Posted by languagehat at April 3, 2007 03:13 PMBut so politely.
Posted by: zhoen at April 3, 2007 07:06 PM...
I think I understood maybe five words of that ("Help. We understand eachother, right?").
I was impressed with the Norwegian English, though. For some reason I have been stuck with a very stereotyped impression of their accent.
(And that's obviously a meanspirited attempt to discredit Denmark before the big Norwegian Anschluss -- we don't have milkmen in Denmark, so there!)
Posted by: Sili at April 3, 2007 07:12 PMAnschluss? Such a harsh term... call it a restoration.
/half-Norwegian
Does someone feel like explaining the situation behind this video a little? It is funny in it's own right in that people can't understand each other. But I can't help feeling I'm missing something underlying the whole thing...
I didn't understand any of the words that were not spoken in english (unsurprising) I assume they were pretty funny to someone who speaks the language?
I thought this was pretty funny! I'm also inordinately proud of myself for noticing the reference to the Danish vigesimal number system.
Posted by: Me at April 3, 2007 11:21 PMDoes someone feel like explaining the situation behind this video a little? It is funny in it's own right in that people can't understand each other. But I can't help feeling I'm missing something underlying the whole thing...If I understand things correctly, spoken Danish diverged drastically from the written language starting in the early twentieth century and continuing so today—have a look at the phonetic transcriptions and the orthographic renderings here. So while the Norwegians can read Danish without trouble—they shared their written language until the beginning of the last century, and the divergences since then have been minimal—the spoken Danish sounds chaotic to Norwegian ears. Posted by: Aidan Kehoe at April 4, 2007 05:43 AM
… the spoken Danish …Heh. Strike the “the” or add a “language” Mr. Editor-man. Posted by: Aidan Kehoe at April 4, 2007 05:45 AM
Scandinavia seems to be the natural homeland of language cranks.
Posted by: John Emerson at April 4, 2007 12:48 PMThe spoken Danish, she is too difficult for the half-Norwegian such as myself.
Posted by: John Emerson at April 4, 2007 12:50 PMI lost a post about my Minnesota Lutheran church. Around 1920 there was a dispute within the church which no one alive may understand any more. One pastor was asked to leave and another one invited. The story I read say it was a dispute between Danes and Norwegians, though there were few Danes in town. Personalities were clearly involved, and maybe theology too. Whether Norwegian language reform was a factor I don't know -- Norway had only been politically independent since 1905 (from Sweden) and was working on cultural independence (from Denmark). Norwegian or Norwegian-Danish service were conducted until about 1950, though there were parallel English-language services long before then.
With all due respect, I think that the Scandinavian and Canadian practice of solving the big problems while continuing to make a lot of fuss about the small ones should be an example for the rest of the world.
Posted by: John Emerson at April 4, 2007 03:28 PM
I'm amused by both Danes and Canadians being mentioned in the context of small problems.
And I completely forgot the reference to our amusing vigintisimal numbers. If the French can do it, so can we.
Anschluss may be harsh, but they're already here. They have made great inroads in out med school already -- I swear it's only the avant garde. First they take out doctors, then they take our freedom! As if we had much for them to take.
Posted by: Sili at April 4, 2007 06:58 PMYes, the Canadian / Danish motherland must be defended to the last drop of blood!
Posted by: John Emerson at April 5, 2007 12:46 AMI was impressed with the Norwegian English, though. For some reason I have been stuck with a very stereotyped impression of their accent
That's funny, because from the YouTube comments the Norwegians are trying to speak English with a stereotypically Danish accent.
Posted by: vanya at April 5, 2007 05:09 AMThank you, Vanya.
That actually makes a lot of sense. It would appear that I've finally learnt to accept English spoken with a Danish accent. Which is interesting since it usually makes me cringe. I have resigned to the fact that I'm never gonna get rid of my listless prosody, myself, but I'm never gonna be happy about it.
Posted by: Sili at April 5, 2007 07:50 AM