Re:Norwegian: Bokmål vs. Nynorsk
by actionfromafar on Wednesday January 17, 2024 @08:23AM
(#39027277)
I think the fact that Norway has two standardised written forms makes you think a lot more about the discrepancy between written and spoken language.
English, say, also has many spoken forms but more or less one written form.
If you learn written English and then move to the Highlands or Australia you are also in for some heavy learning.
When teaching Norwegian to foreigners there's really only one practical way of doing that - use an artificial "spoken" bokmål so that the students can actually match speech to written words. That's just a crutch in order to learn the language (after you're done the real learning starts). That doesn't mean that "spoken" bokmål (or nynorsk for that matter) is real outside the learning institution.