I put this title in quotation marks because I did not invent it myself. I have already written that I often use a large two-volume dictionary edited by Valery Berkov. I always keep the dictionary “at hand,” or more precisely on the shelf under the coffee table. That is how I nicknamed it the under-table dictionary. Oh what a heavy “brick,” but such a beloved one!
So today I read an article in the so-called Appendix 5 on a brief history of the Norwegian language, and I fell to thinking… I sit all pensive like this and cannot sleep. Anyway I am writing a short synopsis of the article about the language, and you can draw your own conclusions about your native one. After all, everyone has their own, the one mama spoke. In Norwegian this sounds very precisely as morsmål. One can translate it as “mama’s voice” or native language.
I quote the article further: “the present language situation in Norway is the result of a complex historical development.” In the 14th century Norway falls under the power of Denmark, and the Norwegian language is gradually displaced by Danish from all official spheres. All literature came out in Danish, and in the countryside the people continued to speak dialects from Old Norwegian. And so they spoke like that for as much as five centuries! Until the second half of the 19th century.
And then the struggle began for the creation of a Norwegian literary language. It would also be good to know the figure, how many inhabitants were there then in Norway? And even those were scattered over mountains, forests and islands! Anyway the struggle for Norwegian went in two directions: the first direction is the “norwegianisation” of the literary language. In the 19th century the literary language was Dano-Norwegian (dansk-norsk), and in 1890 this form received the name riksmål — literally ‘state language.’
The second direction is the creation of a literary language on the basis of rural dialects. Can you imagine what enthusiasm and zeal one must possess to “gather in a heap” and write down, of course “by hand,” this was the 19th century!!! all the dialects! Such an enthusiast turned out to be the self-taught philologist Ivar Åsen (Ivar Åsen). He published a book “Specimens of the people’s language.” This language received the name Landsmål, which means “rural language,” “rural speech.” “Landsmål answered a certain social need, and a number of favourable circumstances determined its success.” And in 1885 the rural language — landsmål — is equalised in rights with riksmål, that is with the state language. Continuation will follow…..