Samnorsk

Poster of the Norwegian Radio Association: "Against Samnorsk on the radio" (1955).

Samnorsk ("common Norwegian") refers to a planned language and language policy in Norway that was predominant in the 1950s and 1960s in particular.

The aim was to create a common Norwegian language by mixing the two official languages Bokmål and Nynorsk .

However, Samnorsk was massively rejected by the population, and political opponents organized the parents' action against Samnorsk . In the 1950s, the Samnorsk dispute was one of the most important political issues and was bitter. Official politics no longer takes up the idea of ​​a Samnorsk today.

Through linguistic reforms (1981, 2003), the official Bokmål was liberalized and brought closer to the Riksmål again .

"Samnorsk" is still used disparagingly today as a term for "radical" Bokmål, which contains Nynorsk or dialectal expressions.

In the novel A Fire on the Deep by the American SF author Vernor Vinge , Samnorsk becomes a common language in the space colonies of a distant future.

See also

• Svorsk

Web links

• Landslaget for språklig samling Initiative for a common written language (Norwegian)
• Gudleiv Forr: Global norsk Dagbladet , April 17, 2004 (Norwegian)
• Camilla Lunde (2006): Debates rundt samnorsk (Norwegian)