Den internasjonale sommerskole

I am in Oslo! Aside from a piece of luggage that didn't arrive when I did (but has arrived since), lots of rain since I got here, the neverending sticker-shock that one experiences in Oslo if one is not a local, and the timing of my glasses breaking over dinner a couple of nights ago, everything is grand. No, really. At the moment, the sun is shining, fresh air is wafting in the open window, I've just had a nice dinner in the cafeteria of Blindern Studenterhjem, and I'm about to dig into some more homework. Really, I'm having a good time. At any rate, I do not mind the rain, and the long hours of daylight are good for me. It does hurt that the Norwegian crown is so strong at the moment. The interest rates just went up earlier this week, and so now the already weak US dollar is worth only 5,84 Norwegian kroner. One single ticket on public transport is 30NOK, or 20NOK if one buys bundles of eight tickets. A 24 hour card is 60NOK. I am trying to walk--I need to anyhow, since I am trying to slanke meg litt (lose a bit of weight).

So, what am I doing in Oslo? I think most anyone who would be reading this knows that I am studying at the University of Oslo (Universitetet i Oslo). (See the first picture in this post, which is a picture of one of the buildings of the old campus between the Royal Palace and the Storting [Parliament] on Karl Johans Gate.) For any who are curious about what it is like to study at Den internasjonale sommerskole, here are some details. (If you are interested, let me know, and I will get more information to you--it is a really good experience.) I am studying Norwegian language (Trinn III), new Norwegian literature (nyere norsk litteratur), and Nynorsk. (Nynorsk is one of the two languages of Norway, the other being Bokmål, which is what I am studying in my regular Norwegian language class.) Classes are from 08.15 until 13.00 every day. My Norwegian class is in the morning from 08.15 until 11.00, and then Nynorsk OR nyere norsk literattur begins at 11.15 and goes until 13.00. I say one or the other because early in the session, the Nynorsk class occupies that slot, and then later on in the session, the Nynorsk class will end and the nyere norsk litteratur class will begin. Today is the end of the first week of the program, and there are five weeks to come.

The reading load for my classes is a little bit heavy, but I wouldn’t want it to be too light. It is a summer programme, but I still do want to learn a lot while I am here, and the programme is advertised as «intensive». A typical reading load for Norwegian language is about 12 pages of fairly dense text in our textbook, about the same number of pages of exercises, as well as 5-10 pages of extra materials distributed in class. That might not sound like much, but for language study, it is a lot to absorb. We are also encouraged to write an essay every day, and we are required to write a longer academic paper in Norwegian (if you are interested in reading the English version of mine, which is about object shift in Scandinavian languages, let me know and I will email it to you). We also have to lecture in class for about ten minutes on any appropriate topic. (I gave a brief introduction to Norwegian literary history from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century in my lecture, which I presented on Wednesday.) In addition to that, we have to read Ibsen’s Et Dukkehjem (A Doll's House). Fortunately, I've read that before, so that's not so challenging.

Nynorsk has a very interesting history, and from the standpoint of a linguist, it is really fascinating. Norwegian died out as a written language not long after the creation of the Kalmar Union, and it remained an unwritten language until the nineteenth century. To say that Norwegian was not written does not mean that there was no writing taking place in Norway. Of course, educated Norwegians could read and write Latin, and if they wanted to write in a language more like their own, they used Danish. From this blending of Norwegian language with Danish writing came Bokmål. At one time, the purer the Danish one wrote, the «better» one wrote. As the Norwegian nasjonalromantikk (that’s right: national romanticism) developed in the early 19th century, one of the chief concerns and points of disagreement was the lack of a written form of Norwegian. Henrik Wergeland (second picture in this post) wanted to develop a more Norwegian written language, and so he began to use distinctively Norwegian words and morphology and wrote in several dialects. Alas, he died at the young age of 37, but others were interested in the issue. The most outstanding was a linguist and writer by the name of Ivar Aasen (third picture in this post), who is remembered today as the father of Nynorsk. He travelled throughout rural Norway (where the Danish influence on the spoken language was much less than in the cities) to record various dialects (many of which were very isolated from one another and thus, distinctive) and then he applied his knowledge of Old Norse and some good historical linguistics to create a written language that is a sort of mean of the various surviving dialects of Norwegian. This newly-created written language he called New Norwegian, or Nynorsk. It has also been called Landsmål («country language») in the past.

While many were interested in developing a more distinctively Norwegian style of Danish writing, not everyone was convinced that an entirely new written language was a good idea. One example is Henrik Ibsen (fourth picture in this post, which is a younger picture than most you see of Ibsen, and which is closer to the age he was when he wrote Brand and Peer Gynt), whose language today looks very Danish indeed, but who received complaints from his editor in Copenhagen when he started using distinctive «Norwegianisms» in Brand and Peer Gynt.

So, my Nynorsk class is fascinating. I was already familiar with the history of the language, as my Mum recounted it to me several times as I was growing up. What I am learning most from the class is the social and cultural aspects of Nynorsk within Norwegian society. Nynorsk must be learnt by all Norwegian students (as well as Bokmål), but as the majority of Norwegians prefer Bokmål, Nynorsk is resented and detested by many Norwegian students facing exams. The vocabulary is somewhat different, the morphology is significantly different, and there are a few other grammatical differences. It doesn’t help that nobody really «speaks» Nynorsk. Those who use Nynorsk as a written language usually speak another dialect from their local place of origin. Nynorsk is also associated with liberal politics, and in the most recent edition of Syn og Segn, a cultural journal in Nynorsk, the question is asked where Nynorsk is an elite language. There is also an article comparing the social aspects of Nynorsk with those of Irish. Both are essentially rural in the distribution of those who prefer them. Both are closely associated with national identity. Both are protected by government policies that support their use in the media and which require school children to study them, etc. It’s also interesting to note that Nynorsk users, like Irish speakers, tend to be fiercely defensive of their language.

The class work includes preparation of a group presentation (my group is presenting on Ivar Aasen this coming Thursday) and between 20 and 70 pages of reading each day (IN NYNORSK). We also go on «field trips», such as a visit yesterday to the offices of Det norske samlaget, the publishing company that publishes Syn og Segn and which also publishes our professor’s books.

I am also trying to get a bit into my reading for nyere norsk litteratur, because there is a LOT of it! We have to select two works from a list of three full-size works (Nåde, by Liv Ullmann [a novel]; Kjærlighet, by Hanne Ørstavik [another novel]; and Dødsvariasjonar, by Jon Fosse [a full-length play; BTW, J Fosse writes only in Nynorsk and is published by Det norske samlaget]) as well as a number of journal articles, short stories, and poems. There are a lot of pages to cover, but that is why I came, after all.

I am really trying to focus myself intensely on the work at hand, and for this, I have already got quite a reputation as a (too?) serious student. Jestina would be proud of me!

And that brings me to my last and most important point. Jestina, Essie, and Yan. I get to talk to them daily (as well as to our goddaughter, Valène) by videoconferencing through iChat. (It is wonderful that we’re Mac users!) It is so hard to be able to see and talk to the fam but not be able to give them a hug. Oh, how I shall hug them when I get home in August!