A little video

Thank you!

proReality

Your welcome- I hope you had pleasent dreams

Diclotican

Would this translation be roughly appropriate? (The English translation is obviously taken from the YouTube description.)

La oss flyge langt av sted
Let us fly far from here
Lasst uns weit von hier fliegen

Du og E langt av sted
You and I far from here
Du und Ich weit von hier

Mellom hav og himmeln
Between the sea and the sky
Zwischen die See und den Himmel (Akkusativ oder Dativ? )

Speille oss i stjernene
Mirror ourselves in the stars
Spiegeln uns in die Sterne (?) (Lasst uns in die Sterne sich spiegeln?)

Hand i hand i evighet
Hand in hand into eternity
Hand in hand in die Ewigkeit

...

This last set of three lines has so many similarities.

xocet

Basically you made it correct - even if some of it is more Dutch than Norwegian But hey it is not bad...

By the way - the dialect used in this song - is from either Bodø or Tromsø - I have never been able to distinct the two dialects from each other - but I'm sure anyone from Bodø - or Tromsø will say who's dialect it is Bodø and Tromsø is two City's in the north of Norway who also have some rivalry between them going back to when the two city's was important trading post in the north of Norway...

Diclotican

Language and history are both very interesting topics.

I had to look up Bodø and Tromsø on Google Maps: a drive between the two would be very scenic.

I found this on the dialect in Bodø...




...and this on dialects in Norway (seemingly in general):




It is interesting how with a little knowledge one feels like one can almost read the above text by way of cognates; i.e.,

• dialektgrensene seems approximately to be Dialekt + Grenze which is dialect's boundaries or boundaries of a dialect or
  
  
• bakgrunnen seems to be more directly back + ground - here Hintergrund would not have helped at all - or
  
  
• språkutvikling seems to be Sprach(e) + Entwicklung which is language's development or development of a language
  
  

This last example implies the following possible equivalencies: ut with ent and ling with lung and v with w... Knowledge of German (Deutsch) seems to help parse a word more than a knowledge of English does, but it is still a mix as the example of background, Hintergrund and bakgrunnen seems to indicate. The mystery of a such parsing though is how to account for the endings -(e)ne or maybe just -ne in dialektgrensene and for the ending -(n)en or maybe just -en in bakgrunnen...

Short of actually learning Norwegian or leafing through a Norwegian grammar on the internet, these suffixes will retain their mysterious status...

All in all, it is just neat how this sort of game can be played - though with only a little knowledge it can lead to absurdity.

xocet

You know - modern Norwegian, have a lot of german words in it - as the late 1300s - 1400s was a time when a lot of things changed rather dramatically in Norway - first of all we was going from been an in depended state - to be under the same crown as Denmark - and as an result of the plague who hit Norway rather hard in 1349 - (In Bergen one of the largest trading city's in middle age Norway) most of he educational class - the priest - and monks - was killed off - and a lot of our language, who was based on the old norse language was going true some rather strong changes - in fact the written language - and the spoken language was splitting apart - and difficult to learn if you was not a scholar... Or educated if you want....

In the 1400s and the 1500s - the language benefited largely from being open for new words - and germany was one of the languages who influencing what become modern Norwegian - largely true the Danish Crown - who used german as their preferred consular language - specially after the Protestant reform in 1537, who by the way was demanded by the danish king - who wanted the land of the Catholic church to his own needs - most Norwegians was rather happy with their Catholic Faith - and it was a cultural disaster when the Protestant church - under the control of the danish crown - but we managed to survive - even that onslaugt...

What become Norwegian is also very influenced by danish - even if most people have a dialect - we write in one of two main Norwegian - Bokmål - who was based on largely day to day written and spoken language - and Nynorsk - who was made as a way of making ordinary people who had not the education to write "riksmål" - to have a language who was based on the dialects people was speaking.. One of the most important persons - to make it possible was an educated man with the name Ivar Aasen - who basically was going from village to village all over Norway, wrote down words and expression - and out of that - made a language who he hoped -should make some progress of giving the peasants (who basically was the lagers bulk of the population in Norway at the time) a language who they could read and write on - and who could give them some hope of education and so one....... And even though most of Norway now write bokmål in one way or another - nynorsk have been ale to make strong influence at the west coast in Norway - and is also a side-language who everyone have to have when in school...

It is interesting what you have been able to dig up - I guess in time you would be able to write pretty good Norwegian if you tried The google translate is able to make head and tail about it all - but the finer meaing of norwgian - is lost in the translation Im afriad for the most part...

Diclotican

Thanks for that synopsis of the development of Norwegian. Based on what you wrote, I found this introductory history and course that is offered by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology:




It looks interesting. The following post/site is also intriguing, and given time, I'll probably look at it also:




What you say about Google Translate applies to German, too. Google Translate is definitely a work-in-progress, but it is nice to have access to it.

xocet

I think I was more attentive to what my Norwegian teacher was telling back in school - than I believe he ever would believe me to be as he was rather good in explaining it to me - and the others....

NTNU who is based in Trondheim (by the way) is maybe one of the best universities in Norway at the moment - and have some of the best expert on many subjects....

And it is correct to point out - that it is a difference between the written and spoken language - sometimes the words change rather different from proper spoken - to written language - sometimes it confuse even the natives So it it not exactly a secret that many foreigner have some problems understanding the fine flavors of Norwegian - as it can be a rather subtle language - even if it is a rather easy language to learn if you just broke the language barrier first... And as NTNU point out - most Norwegian write either nynorsk, or bokmål - two written languages who is similar - family from the same tree as it is - even though Bokmål is the largest written language of the two - and basically what everyone is able, or should be able to read fluent... And even then - we have also a 3th written and spoken language - the Same language in the north of Norway - specially in the Northeast part of Norway Finmark - have a large minority - called Samer - who have its written and speaking language who differ largely from Norwegian - in fact it is difficult from a Norwegian to understand the language the same are using - as it is not in the same family - it is more in the family with the finns - and hungarians.... So for all practical means - we have 3 different languages written and spoken in Norway - bokmål - Nynorsk and the Same language....

Danish and written båkmål is very similar - it is possible mostly because of the influence the danish had on modern Norwegian - as it facially is the same written language - of course over 100 years time the two languages differ a lot - but basically a Norwegian is able to read danish as it was Norwegian - and vie verca - Swedish on the other hand is more easy to listen to - and it is so similar - that people from Denmark have difficult hear the difference between swedish and Norwegian - even that we do... And I have in Denmark - experienced some difficulty been served - if I speak Norwegian - because they believe it to be swedish - then I have to tell in english that I'm not a **** swede - I'm Norwegian - and then got the whole nine yard of service It is a old habit going back to when Sweden and Denmark was in each others troath all the time - and it is even today - some grudge between Sweden and Denmark on that level... Between Norway and Sweden it is all peace and quiet - as long as we do not win over Sweden in the Olympics And instead of making wars - we make jokes - rather hard hitting sweden-Norwegian jokes - who for the most part is harmless - but have some point to be made - but for the most part - it is just good fun bend it... And we recently could celebrate 200 year of peace between Sweden and Norway - so I guess we are good friends...

If Norway - Sweden and Denmark had been in a close union - maybe as a single nation called Scandinavia or similar - the tree languages would have been seen as tree regional dialects - of the same language -as the tree different languages can be interconnected and are understood by most in scandinavia (Iceland and Finland are not really part of Scandinavia something that confuse the hell out of everyone else than us, Finland and iceland is part of the larger "Norden" who is more diffuse - as the baltic states also claim some place in it, as the baltic states had close contacts with the rest of scandinavia and Finland between WW1 and 2 - and also had some trading contacts with Sweden going back centuries, even was part of the Swedish empire around the baltic sea at one time) Iceland was part of Norway - at least from the 12th century - when Iceland was ruled by Norwegian kings - for the most part it was left alone - and many who was in disagreement with the kings of Norway - had the possibility to leave for iceland - and even for Greenland - as Erik Raude did when he had to flee - first Norway for Iceland - and then Iceland - to what become Greenland when he had the misfortune to kill a powerfully man in Iceland - who was a good friend of the Norwegian king at the time - you don't do that without consequences - and then he discovered what become Greenland - and was able to build one of the largest farmers in the whole of Greenland - and was a powerfully figure there - his son - Leiv (Not Leif as many americans claim him to have the name of ) Erikson - was sailing westward - and discovered what today is best known as New Foundland - in Canada...

And Iceland had the misfortune - or maybe the opposite - to be left alone when the rest of Norway was hit hard by the plague in the mid 1300s - in fact modern Icelandic is very similar to the old norse language - written and spoken - and as pointed out - have been a rather conservative language - new words is seldom emigrated intot he language without problems - and Iceland have been one of the few languages who try to keep foreign languages at bay - with a creative work with their own language - and they use it to make sure the language stay livable - specially after the influent of english into many languages - that be swedish, danish and Norwegian - specially for the kids who grew up after internet got commonplace have tonnes of english in their language - who the authorities in Iceland want to make sure is kept to a minimum - and they have been rather clever in keeping the language as it is - by making new words in Icelandic - to be used with all the new things.... Icelandic is difficult to read - and hopeless to speak if you do not know the language - but it is possible to read it - if you take your time - and is patient doing it, but reading a newspaper in icelandic - is difficult....

And last - here is a person who made a comic about how scandinavia sees at the world - it is some steriotypes about the diffierent countries - and then the interaction between them - rather funny in fact - as the author also have some point to be made - many of them is maybe best understood if you live in our corner of the world - many others is more universially understood all over the board...

link:http://satwcomic.com/sweden-denmark-and-norway

Diclotican

Also, thanks for the link to the comics.

All of it is all very interesting.

I have only been up north over in Finland - i.e. Rovaniemi and Oulu - and that was long ago. The extent of Finnish that I learned and still recall is only tervetuloa and Suomi, so that language discussion does not go on very long.

Knowledge is good!