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by jacobush 3339 days ago
This IS interesting. Some thoughts:

Norway was ruled from Denmark, so the danish ruling class in Norway probably spoke a similar dialect to yours. (See bokmål, basically danish style Norwegian.)

Norway has dialects VERY different from each other - these were used as stock for an attempt at standardization of non-danish-inspired language, which they call "nynorsk". Which is confusing, because it's basically a mix of OLDER norse dialects. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Aasen

In Norway, the very distinct local dialects makes sense, because people were separated by high mountain ridges. (The same story goes for Greek dialects, but I digress.)

So it IS indeed interesting that Denmark, which is very flat, still has these sharp boundaries. :)

1 comments

Everything you said. And yes, obviously I'm thinking primarily of Norwegian bokmål. Although I do comprehend at least som spoken fjeldnorsk. Having had a Faroese girlfriend, and some exposure to Icelandic does help :)

Rhythm and intonation of spoken Danish shifts markedly down towards the southern islands. No difficulty of compehension whatsoever, but it's clearly a dialectal belt with a history quite different from neighbouring parts of Sjælland (or "Zealand"). I'd love to see a genetic mapping of the local communities. I'm almost certain that lots of corresponding patterns would turn up.