Scandinavian Languages: Dansk, Norsk og/och Svenska

Danes, Norwegians, and Swedes will probably all be pissed at me for lumping these languages in together, as they tend to concentrate on the differences to well... differentiate themselves from each other. For those of you wanting to learn a Scandinavian language, Norwegian is probably the best one to start with simply because it is a good medium. Danish and Norwegian look very similar in writing, but Norwegian actually sounds more Swedish. Weird huh? (Speaking of weird, most speakers seem to have an odd habit of breathing in quickly when affirming something. Confused? Just ask one, although they probably don't realize they do it).

On the other hand, Norwegian has two different standard dialects (among many regional dialects). The two are called Bokmål and Nynorsk. The first is primarily used in writing and the latter in speaking. Norwegian also uses the feminine gender for nouns in addition to masculine and feminine, whereas Swedish and Danish only use two: common and neuter. Basically, masculine and feminine combined equal the "common" gender. Maybe this is some type of hippy enlightenment to blur the sexes or actually serves a purpose, who knows? All this doesn't really matter nowadays since Norwegians have officially ruled, in 2005, that feminine nouns can be written as masculine nouns. So... yeah, now they have common and neuter like the other two languages, but don't want to classify it that way. See what I mean about wanting to be different? By the way, I studied Norwegian at Concordia College in Minnesota. Can you believe it? They actually taught Norwegian. I had studied Danish beforehand and went in to the professor's office there when I found out and asked him if I could skip to a more advanced level. He said yes. Oh, should mention, I held the whole conversation in Norwegian... that may of helped ;)

So, Danish. I remember when I was taking an orientation class before I did my exchange year in Germany, that there was this long-haired blond kid who was going to Denmark for a year. I asked him why he decided on Denmark and he said, "because Lars Ulrich is from there." Lars Ulrich, for the layman, is one of the best drummers in the world and has been the only drummer for Metallica. It's funny, I used to think old Lars had a speech impediment, it was then I learned, no, he's just Danish. Listening to Danish is both an exciting experience and also one of eyebrow raising amusement. It has the glottal stops of the Scottish dialects but, whereas and American can understand about 50% of what a Scotsman says, he/she won't understand a damn thing if it's Danish.

Oddly enough, even though I grew up in New England, I am fairly sure that Danish was the first real foreign language I had ever heard (French doesn't count). It must have been 1982, or so. I was in first grade waiting outside for my mother. Alongside me, waiting for her mom, was a very pretty blonde girl named Eva Shultz, who never, ever, ever spoke in class. Her mom shows up and Eva starts speaking with her in this frightfully odd tongue. I remember thinking to myself, "what on earth is that!"? It was doubly shocking, a) to hear her speak period and b) to hear the words that sounded like she was speaking with a hot potato in her mouth. When I got home, I told my parents about this unusual occurrence (another unusual occurrence was when I asked why my English friend Paul had a weird looking pee-pee; he wasn't circumcised. Yeah, yeah, I saw while peeing next to him, don't get any funny ideas). The 'rents explained to me that Eva was from Denmark and couldn't speak English, and THAT is why she never spoke in class. Ahhh, mystery solved. Eva, if you are out there, Skriv til mig! write me!

And then there is Swedish. Oh Ja! The meatballs, the borgi borgi Swedish Chef and of course the girls. Swedish is similar to the other two, but differs in sound and script (somewhat), as it sounds like people are sleepy and almost whiny when they talk, and the alphabet uses the umlaut (two dots) instead of the slash or ae combination. Swedes also seem to be more stuck up than the other two folks, but that could just be me. One good thing about Swedish learning is that you have a hefty supply of books IN SWEDISH at Ikea. No, I kid you not, I actually went in and bargained with the folks at Ikea to buy a book straight of their bookcase displays; got it for two bucks. Hey, why not? Beats paying shipping!

Just a bit of useless knowledge: The Norwegians and Swedes don't like each other much. This might have to do with the fact that the Swedes let the Nazis roll right over them into Norway. The (Minnesotan) Norwegians have a saying: 1,000 Swedes came out of the weeds, to kill on sick Norwegian. Ouch.