Norwegian Independence Day Style. . .

 

A bit of a chill in the air this early morning here in Mid-Michigan, hence the corduroy jeans and Norwegian fisherman's sweater.  Very appropriate, as luck would have it, for May 17th, which is Norway's national day.  

On this day in 1814, the Norwegian constitution was signed by participants in Eidsvoll, ending more than four centuries of Danish rule over the country.  Norway became part of a dual monarchy under the Swedish crown until 1905, but with considerably greater autonomy than it enjoyed as part of Denmark.

For my purposes, Norwegian independence in 1814 gave rise to the eventual language controversy, which was/is an important part of Norwegian cultural life.  Various Norwegian nationalists, most notably self-taught linguist Ivar Andreas Aasen, determined that their country needed is own written language.  An orthography that better reflected actual Norwegian speech than did the written Danish that held sway in educated and administrative circles up to the 19th century.  

The end result of all this is that Norway has two forms of the written language, a Dan0-Norwegian variety that is used most places, and a dialect-based form of the language most popular in the western part of the country as well as a few places further north.  You can wake up now!

In any case, the linguistic history of Norway is a fascinating and complex piece of Norwegian culture, and in a former life I had hoped at one time to make it the focus of my own scholarly work.  I still have a couple of book boxes of illicitly photocopied texts by early women authors (late 19th and early 20th century), who crafted their idealized fiction in the early version of landsmaal -- 'Language of the country'. . .  Later rebranded as nynorsk or 'New Norwegian') orthography.  

Maybe one day, I will be able to do something with these carefully husbanded materials? 

As they say,  however, life throws you curve balls now and again.  And with any luck, you learn to adjust, modify your approach as necessary, land on your feet, and keep moving forward.  Intellectual agility for want of a better term.  

That said, God syttende mai alle (Happy May 17th everyone)!

-- Heinz-Ulrich