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Re: Spoken Nynorsk & Bokmaal [Was: German reputation]

From:Joe <joe@...>
Date:Saturday, December 18, 2004, 16:34
Stephen Mulraney wrote:

> Joe wrote: > >> Stephen Mulraney wrote: > > >>> Joe wrote: >> > >>>> John Cowan wrote: >>> > >>>>> IIRC Norwegian does not have a standard dialect either. >>>> > > >>>> No, it has two. >>> > >>> Bokmaal & Nynorsk are written standards, not spoken varieties. >>> IIRC, there are no standard dialects (that is, spoken varieties). >> > >> My stepsiblings speak Bokmål, rather than the local dialect. This is >> apparently becoming more and more the case in Norway - Bokmål and >> Nynorsk are taking over territory previously occupied by the dialect. > > > That's interesting - I hadn't heard of such a thing before. I guess it's > expected that people end up thinking of Bokmål as "the standard language" > (since the pattern of metropolitan standard vs. multiple rural dialects > is so common), but it seems a bit harder to imagine people speaking > Nynorsk! > > Still, how are these spoken forms of the written standards pronounced? I > suppose according to dialect patterns (?) - unless there previously > existed > an expected pronunication of Bokmål & Nynorsk (but to me that would > seem to > be contrary the the fact that [at one stage] they were both considered > only > written standards).
Well, I can tell you that 'Bokmål' is pronounced [bukmO:l], roughly speaking. I guess it's pronounced in the way people traditionally read these things out, though probably with a Valdres accent. My Dad's wife is also a native speaker of Bokmål, which I think was a decision of her parents - they thought it might get her further in life. I'm not really knowledgable about the whole thing, but I could ask them - see what they can tell me about the situation at the moment.