<Sorry for late post, but I have been in Lillehammer for whole day and I had forgotten that it is friday today. >
About dialects. Mostly.
However, I thought that continuation of verbs, adjectives, substantives and idioms won’t be good idea, since those things are really easy to check on internet. So I was thinking – I will write things that I actually learn on my studies in Hamar about language.
- Norwegian language doesn’t have standard “system”. You have bokmål and nynorsk, but those are only written form of norsk (Norwegian language). So it doesn’t exist in speech, you can’t say someone speaks “bokmål” or “nynorsk”. You can say she/he speaks east dialect, north dialect etc
- Each region (fylke) has its own dialect and it can also differ between cities. For example you could have different accent in Lillehammar than in Hamar (about 40km distance). It’s not established, but they say there’re 4 main groups of dialects: “Northern Norwegian” (nordnorsk), “Central Norwegian” (trøndersk), “Western Norwegian” (vestlandsk) and “Eastern Norwegian” (østnorsk).
- Usually you put accent on first syllable of word, for example: <norge> <banan>. But when it comes to words that have different origin than Norway, it’s more complicated. You can either put accent on first syllable or on another. It’s differ between dialects. Fun fact: if you put wrong accent as Norwegian in other city than yours, you can be seen as snob or dumb person. So it’s really complicated, to be honest
- I don’t speak proper Norwegian, I don’t even use good accent, but as far as I know, almost everyone understand me. So if you’re learning language and are afraid of pronunciation – don’t be. If you speak really “loosly” but clear – you shall be understood.
Hope it was at least little bit helpful. Have a nice weekend!
againorway 