I absolutely love Oslo. I think that it's one of the most enjoyable places to visit that I've ever been. If you have time and funds, it's worthwhile to visit smaller areas where their English isn't quite so perfect, but still very good and get some of the rural Norwegian charm.
Your observations about Norwegian are pretty much spot on. The Danes (who spoke Old Norsk) ruled the north of England for quite some time and we borrowed a lot of words directly from Norwegian, besides it's being a Germanic language. The reason it's very hard to understand when heard is that Norwegian is that is has a pitch accent (almost like a tonal language). I think in Oslo one pitch is low and the other is high then falling, although I may be mixing up regions. I spent way too much time just listening to the singing quality that that gives the language when I was there.
My grandpa is Norwegian and talking about Norway gets me really excited, so you'll have to be a little indulgent with my very enthusiastic, if sometimes pedantic, responses.
Yeah, historically English has absorbed a lot of Norse through waves of invasions and Danish hegemony, and I'm familiar with that, but I'm seeing largely the reverse effect - 19th- and 20th-century Americanisms restructed and heavily inflected to become modern a part of modern Norwegian.
I did get a chance to spread out from Oslo and the only real difference I noticed in the spoken English among provincial townsfolk was not in quality but confidence. A woman became flushed and embarrassed when another American tried to order a sausage because she didn't know the English word "relish." She professed shyly that her "English hasn't ever really been that good," a point immediately contradicted by her crisp use of idiom and contraction. I assured her that she would be considered above the 51st percentile in the United States when judged against Americans for their grasp of English. And then we banged. I wasn't briefed about that custom, but when in Rome...
Seriously, February. I wondered why I continued to check in here on a semi-monthly schedule.
Sounds like you had a great time. Funny how you took that view of the Norse. Being the nerd I am, I've played a few online games where there were a few Scandinavian people, and they all had that same, we're going to do our thing and you do your thing, kind of attitude.
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Your observations about Norwegian are pretty much spot on. The Danes (who spoke Old Norsk) ruled the north of England for quite some time and we borrowed a lot of words directly from Norwegian, besides it's being a Germanic language. The reason it's very hard to understand when heard is that Norwegian is that is has a pitch accent (almost like a tonal language). I think in Oslo one pitch is low and the other is high then falling, although I may be mixing up regions. I spent way too much time just listening to the singing quality that that gives the language when I was there.
My grandpa is Norwegian and talking about Norway gets me really excited, so you'll have to be a little indulgent with my very enthusiastic, if sometimes pedantic, responses.
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I did get a chance to spread out from Oslo and the only real difference I noticed in the spoken English among provincial townsfolk was not in quality but confidence. A woman became flushed and embarrassed when another American tried to order a sausage because she didn't know the English word "relish." She professed shyly that her "English hasn't ever really been that good," a point immediately contradicted by her crisp use of idiom and contraction. I assured her that she would be considered above the 51st percentile in the United States when judged against Americans for their grasp of English. And then we banged. I wasn't briefed about that custom, but when in Rome...
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Um, what I said was < insert sausage joke here >
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Hope you're having fun abroad, yo. Let's catch up sometime when you get back. Or just update your LJ again in 8 months... whatever comes first.
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Sounds like you had a great time. Funny how you took that view of the Norse. Being the nerd I am, I've played a few online games where there were a few Scandinavian people, and they all had that same, we're going to do our thing and you do your thing, kind of attitude.
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