Winter Temperatures and Norwegians:

hedgehog

Jup - we are still Vikings over here

Diclotican

known to get 274" (108 cm). I'm tempted to come up with a discussion of reactions to snowfall similar to your chart of cold weather.

perhaps you should recheck your math.

274" is 22'10" is approximately 7m.

108cm is 1.08m

that's what I get for posting in a hurry!

thank you for the correction!

instead of Norwegians.

I spent the end of December in Helsinki a few years back -- I was prepared for the cold, but the lack of sunlight was a little unnerving. Short days. But really, not a big deal.

-17C is considered shirtsleeve weather by some. I've seen people in shorts. Some of the snowbunnies go skiing in bikinis.

Things don't get serious until -30 windchill but life carries on. -40 starts getting interesting.

You cannot be a "I did this on my own" kind of conservative in this climate. You are going to get stuck and need pushing out so you may as well help your neighbour when you can, 'cause you're going to be next.

I've helped push cars out, I've been pushed out, I've helped boost cars and I've had my car boosted. It's the kind of place where, in the days before cell phones, when your car wouldn't start, you'd go wandering around the parking lot at the mall asking people if they had a set of booster cables. It usually only took asking 1 or 2 people.

I've barbequed at -15 before. And I've suntanned at +13. LOL. I've seen people ski in short sleeves before. I've trick-or-treat'ed in weather so cold my plastic dracula cape shattered into a million bits.

When I lived up north (not in any of the territories, but close), I was a little shocked how it was always -50 with the wind near Christmas. I never knew breathing through your nose would make your nostrils stick together at that temperature, but you have to or you'll freeze your lungs. You could totally tell the people who grew up there versus those who were from other parts of Canada - those who grew up there would be picking up their kids in a long sleeve shirt and a fleece vest, with running shoes on. The rest of us who didn't grow up there were wearing knee-length down parkas with kamiks or sorels, with an aviator hat on our head, skidoo elbow-length mittens on, and a 10 foot long fleece scarf wrapped around your neck and head till you only had your eyes peeking out.

But then, Minnesota is full of Norwegians.

When my nostrils freeze shut when I breathe in I know its time to get my jacket

Scuba

My grandfather said that when I was bumping into things when I was little...

Diclotican

People still say Uff Da here.

myrna minx

hehe - yeah a lot of Norwegians emigrated to the fine state of Minnesota - and managed rather well there... And even today I believe, some learn Norwegian from programs at school and so one.. Even though the Norwegian they learn is little dated as Norwegian have changed a lot just the last 30 or so years. A lot of new words have coming into the language, specially from the world of computers...

Diclotican

ninetheen century, when most of the Norweign "sod busters" (my family) immigrated to Minnesota and North Dakota. Unfortunatly, for the most part the Norweign language hasn't evolved though the subsequent generations - so we all sound like we're misunderstanding phases from the 1890's. Like I said, you can still hear people mutter "Uff Da" around here.

myrna minx

I guess what little Norwegian is in use, is of rather arcane date compared to what is used in modern Norway today. But it is little funny that some words is still in use, like your "Uff da" And I know it is a few jokes going back to when the poor emigrants had to learn the ropes in the new world.. Where they tend to make jokes about themselves..

But I guess, you can all ways get a english-Norwegian dictionary:p. I used it plenty times when I was new around here - and my english was rusty and bad... I still use the dictionary sometimes...

Diclotican

I'm not sure which version of Norwegian that is. The family emigrated to the US in about the 1870s, I think.

Velveteen Ocelot

I think that is the same for all the dialects, and written/spoken languages who is native in Norway.... Even though I believe the Sami people have a different word for it - but again it is a different language from the rest. It is still in use most places.. I called my fathers father bestefar.. I also called my mothers dad bestefar. I suspect most do that.

Diclotican

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language



So the Norwegian spoken by the settlers in Minnesota would likely have been closest to Riksmål.

KamaAina

That is correct - we have a habit on making new languages now and then - specially in the 1800s, when we kind of was waking up from the long sleep we had been in since the 1380s, the "right" language was a issue of national pride - and not to say a source of conflicts between the people on the country-side and the people living in the City's

And it is correct as you say it - the dialects was very important in making a new language - Nynorsk or New Norwegian was based on dialects from parts of Norway - close to the language most people spoke at the time. Bokmål, the language of the books, if I have to translate it to a halting english, was used by most writers, and in school.. And is still the most used Norwegian written and spoken language in Norway.. Nynorsk and Bokmål is the two official Norwegian languages who also is learned in school.. In the north of Norway they have also sami, the language of the sami people, but in most of Norway, it is first and foremost Bokmål and Nynorsk who is used.. I use Bokmål when I write or read Norwegian by the way.. I can read nynorsk - but I do have some problems writing it...

Riksmål, is a rather conservative written language - most used by the old upper classes in Norway (the little what we had left after 500 year with a Union between Norway and Denmark - and then 91 year with Sweden).. It is for the most part older people who use Riksmål today - and it is little conservative in its writing... Of current politician's or people who still hold some un-official office of sorts n Norway, I believe Kåre Wiloch (a former prime minister) is the closest you can come to a man who still use Riksmål as his spoken and written language.. (he was also prime minister in a conservative government, even though I belive he would have been reconed as a liberal in todays United States of America...

My guess, is that the spoken language (and written language) by the emigrants to Minnesota and other parts where many Norwegian emigrated to, would have been more like a collection of bokmål and nynorsk, rather than riksmål.. As most of them would have been from the lower classes in Norway - small farmers or even from many who was not able to own property at their own at all.. It was a system called "husmen" where they had to work on a farmers land, for a house - maybe a plate of land - and some pigs and a cow or two... It was often a very hard and poor life - and many who had the means, or was lucky to get the ticket paid for them - emigrated from Norway to the new world... And many ended up building up farms in States like Minnesota and so one... For them it was like coming to paradise, the had land, and had the ability to do things with the farm land, that they never would have had the chance to do on their own back home.. Most of them got wealthy to - many got really rich compared to what they had been able to do in Norway.. An un-official sensus from 2008 says it was more than 9 million americans, of norwigian ancestory living in US - In Norwya it is little over 5 million in all... More than 800.000 norwigians emigrated from Norway to the US between 1840 and 1914. And then some emigrated after WW1 - in the years between the wars - and some emigrated after ww2 to...

Diclotican

HarveyDarkey

Yeah - all that finish Vodka do that to you


Diclotican

It felt like home.

MineralMan

Jup - I guess it was that - and a lot of free land to make a living out of... In Norway it was to little land for everyone, the industry had not started to fly yet - and many was dirt poor... And in many cases they got incentives to leave Norway - like a paid ticket to the US, just to get the "surplus" population out of the way as some looked at it... In the US, it was a lot of land - free if you was able to work it - and it was of a quality that was almost un-known about in Norway...

Diclotican

to Minnesota for exactly that reason. They had no land in Norway. Here, they found land and made it their own. Minnesota, South Dakota, and other states were glad to have them, and they built those states through their hard work.

...that if it felt so much like home - cold, crappy soil - maybe they should have kept going.

TrogL

Compared to what they had back home - Minnesota and the other parts where many Norwegian deiced to emigrate to looked like paradise of sorts.. Many if not most of them was from families who had worked the land back home for generations - when the population exploded in the early 1800s, they found themselves without land to farm - and to feed their families.. For them it was a chance out in the unknown when they was leaving Norway - many hoped to come home again - to visit their families - and to show off their wealth after living in the US for years - but for the most part it was a one way ticket - they often was seeing crying when the coutures of Norway was disappearing in the horizon when they was sailing away to the unknown..

It was a hard life in Minnesota - often cold, often very hard life - but somehow they managed to dig out a future for them - and some managed to really get the land flourish - and even today some of the biggest farmes in Minnesota is owned by the ones who once emigrated with just their two hands a strong back, and an unsure future when they was living for america...

Diclotican

KamaAina

Norway have won it 3 times - First was with Bobysocks in 1985 - the next one was with Nocturne in 1995 and now last with Fairlytale in 2009.. She it out at youtube My favorite is Nocturne - even though the swedish complained about it - as they allways do when we win the contest.. Norway never do it when Sweden do it: (it is a intern thingy we have between Sweden and Norway..)

Eurovision Song Contest is the best known show no one really look at - but everyone got to know who won the contest... It is one of this wierd things we in Europe do - rather than shoot eatch other with weapons

Diclotican