På 12. nov. 2004 kl. 06.44 skrev <jneden(a)bellsouth.net>et>:
Hi, everyone
Thank you all for your intelligent comments. This has been a most
interesting discussion.
Ulf, I am glad to hear that I have as good of a grasp of the Norwegian
language situation as I seem to. ;-) I started teaching myself
"Norwegian" (bokmål) between ages 13 and 14 (I actually have no idea
when I really started learning; it just happened over time) and
quickly came to understand the situation regarding Norwegian dialects.
Lars (Alvik), you, like many bokmål users, are indeed tired of
nynorsk. However, a large percentage of the Norwegian population and
the Norwegian community uses nynorsk exclusively in school and in
their daily life. While you might prefer for everyone to use your form
(bokmål) and be done with it, you resent that nynorsk has equal status
and you are required (in terms of your schooling) to use a form of the
Norwegian language with which you are neither familiar nor explicitly
comfortable. However, nynorsk users (people who GROW UP using nynorsk)
have to do the same thing with bokmål--and they are not necessarily
happy about it. "Samnorsk" doesn't work because nobody wants to change
that which they have grown up using or been forced to use, and, to a
large degree, both sides of the nynorsk/bokmål debate resent each
other's encroaching presence in standardized language, especially if
Norway were to shift to some "samnorsk" version. Nynorsk deserves its
place, as does bokmål, bu
t neither form is *the* Norwegian language, and that's a fact. There
is no single "Norwegian" language form that's truly Norwegian--and if
we were to find one to adopt, nynorsk would undoubtedly be it. It's
really just a dialect spectrum with two standardized versions. There's
nothing wrong with nynorsk or bokmål, but they are different, and
that's okay.
What? you make me sound like a languagenazi, i'm indeed not tired of
nynorsk, i'm tired of the _debate_, we have had the debate with
slightly changing theme over and over and over again, on no: that's. I
could spot one flaw, a lot of people speak a dialect that's apparantly
closer to nynorsk, but write in bokmål. In some parts of norway
(Finnmark) there has been talk of ditching nynorsk from the schoolplan
(very few Finnmarkinger talks nynorsk), on the behalf of Samii and
finnish.
I don't want to wreck the nynorsk wiki, infact the wiki we're talking
about is predominantly on Bokmål (some 90%+ of the articles).
Ja, jeg forstår bokmål, men jeg snakker bedre engelsk,
og wikipedia-l
er på engelsk. *shrug* ;-)
Lars Aronsson wrote:
To most non-Norwegians, and I think also for many
Norwegians, the
concept of
the "Norwegian" language (written and spoken) is easy to understand
and unambigious. [meaning that for most foreigners, Norwegian =
Bokmål]
Many people do equate bokmål with "Norwegian," but I think that's
purely because most non-Norwegians initially learn to understand the
Norwegian dialects with absolutely no knowledge of the dialects of
Norway. People should know, but it's rarely specified to foreigners.
Eventually, they realize that there are two official Norwegian forms
and don't even know WHICH form they use, because happenstance
arbitrarily picked a form for them (likely bokmål) and never explained
that there are two equally acceptable Norwegian standards. Most
foreigners really don't know of the bokmål/nynorsk contrast, and
"teach yourself Norwegian" publications are usually (but never
explained to be) in bokmål. We need to educate them. It's unfair to
encourage people to think of bokmål, one of two official standards, as
*the* Norwegian language.
That's why we want to change the interwikicoding to "norsk (bokmål)"
and "norsk (nynorsk)" (if nynorsk is willing to go along on the last
one).
The only problem is apparantly the language code no:.
Ulf wrote:
My reply to both of these comments is (and I hope
there are some Mac
or Linux
users on this list, or my point may be moot):
[...]
When Bokmål users or Nynorsk users pretend this,
the other group is
just as upset
as amerindians are when third generation European Americans pretend
to have
monopoly on American heritage.
Oh, your point strikes such a strong chord for me. I understand
perfectly, for a variety of reasons. I am no Linux expert, but I have
used Linux in the past and am currently suffering under Windows XP.
More importantly, I am myself an American Indian. Additionally (and
humorously!), in terms of my mother's family, I am a third-generation
American, although I am really part of a long line of Americans over
*millenia* (a NATIVE American!) :-). There are some fascinating things
to talk about and explain here, regarding Native America and my own
family, but I'll digress for sake of space. My friend, there are
three main things at work in regards to our "white" friends'
perceptions:
-----------------------------------------------------
"Token-Indianism" -- You are my little Indian. We ["white" people]
own
the Indians. "Today, many of *our* Indians live in poverty. We must
help them [and we have no knowledge whatsoever about the past or about
Native communities]." "My *Indian* friend says," etc. It's all about
stereotypes, a "lesser evil" extension of colonialism, and ignorance.
"Pan-Indianism" -- Indians are one big culture.
AND... (drumroll)
Colonialism (cultural genocide). My culture is better than your
culture, and *we* (the foreigners) are the real American culture. And
the lovely "noble savage" concept (a combination of colonialism and
token-Indianism).
I love statements from like the following from "all-American"
middle-aged "white" women (or wannabes) with no knowledge of one
Native culture, much less ALL Native cultures:
"I went up to an Indian reservation and there weren't any real Indians
there/there were just a bunch of Mexicans there (1)! Where did all our
Indians (2) go?! This great culture (3) must be saved (4)!"
(1) pan-Indianism + ignorance
(2) token Indianism + colonialism + ignorance
(3) Read "these noble savages."
(4) First her ancestors decimate entire cultures. Then she has no clue
about Native communities and is operating out of all the wrong motives
(including the pure idiocy of finding "real Indians" to her liking).
-----------------------------------------------------
Imagine the uproar in Scandinavia if everybody outside of Scandinavia
thought that all Scandinavians were the same. In Norway alone,
everybody would be freaking out from the village level to the fylker
and onwards. And you know that Norwegians and other Scandinavians
share so much in common but are very different.
Not really, a uproar? Norway, not likely?
Now imagine the most diverse continent possible with
hundreds and
hundreds of distinct cultural *groups* (not to mention distinct
cultures), nearly 100 language families, hundreds of languages and
thousands of traditions that change from family to family. That's how
insane pan-Indianism really is, and why I am not an "American Indian,"
because an "American Indian" does not exist: it matters which people
you come from. There was no "Indian" cohesion before Europeans set
themselves down on our birthright.
But back to Norwegian! ;-)
You guys figure out what to do about no:. I agree with Ulf. Norway has
a special lingual situation and the greater Norwegian language (the
spectrum of dialects and the two official versions) *does* merit
special treatment. It's rude to nynorsk users to act as if bokmål is
*the* Norwegian, and it's even worse if we ever want foreigners to
understand the bokmål/nynorsk contrast. In the best case, I am in
favor of two specific Norwegian encyclopedia communities: nynorsk and
bokmål. I'll leave it to you all to figure out what you will do, but
to be fairest to all parties, no: should probably serve as a redirect
to nynorsk and bokmål.
Bokmål on no: or nb: that's the question we are debating, the debate
that we should include a nynorsk language wiki was over long ago.
(I'm actually a bokmål user, mainly, but I put
nynorsk first when
comparing them to go against the trend of thinking of bokmål first.
^_^)
Ha det bra!
Damit, your norwegian is probably better than my english :)
-- Jeremy Edenfield
Today's Topics:
1. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Stirling Newberry)
2. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l? (Ulf
Lunde)
3. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Lars Alvik)
4. Re: Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for Bokm?l?
(Lars Alvik)
5. Re: An honorable compromise and no: or nb: for (Olve Utne)
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