Talk:Riksmål

Is Högsvenska the same language as Swedish (Swenska)? If so, it might be an idea to alter the spelling. --IJzeren Jan 00:01, 29 May 2005 (PDT)

You mean to "Högswenska" - with a W rather than V? I suppose you're right, but Benct Philip would certainly know more about this than me. I'm not sure if they're considered the same language anymore. It may well be that the term "Högsvenska" has come to mean pre-reform literary Swedish. Boreanesia 00:40, 29 May 2005 (PDT)

Ahem!! I just looked at my sources, and it seems that the Swedes did indeed use W instead of V in the 19th century. So I'll alter the spelling accordingly. Boreanesia 00:54, 29 May 2005 (PDT)

Indeed. More exactly W was used in Fraktur and V in Antikva. I think that the insistence on W in Swenska is a later phenomenon dictated by a wish among the Swenskifrare to be graphically different from Danish and Riksmål. IIRC I explain it that way in the Swedish article. At any rate I should! BPJ 13:00, 18 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Actually I do right at the bottom of the article, but it could be more expressive. BPJ 13:10, 18 Jun 2005 (PDT)

By the way, should I assume that áll occurences of "Rigsmaal/Rigsmål" should become "Riksmål", except for those cases when the pre-SR Dano-Norwegian is meant? If so, then there are still quite some pages around with links to the old version. See here. --IJzeren Jan

Yes, that's right. Wow! What would I do without you! Thanks for that list! There's also a couple of more pages that need to be renamed to conform to the new orthography. For instance, there are the Rigets Tidende and Rigets Radio pages that ought to be called "Rikets Tidende" and "Rikets Radio" respectively. Should I create new pages and nominate the old ones for deletion? Boreanesia 05:16, 29 May 2005 (PDT)

No, but you can rename the articles in question. If you push "move" (above the article itself, next to "article", "discussion", "edit" and "history") you'll see by yourself what to do. "Move" simply means: transport all content and history of a page to another page. The old page then automatically becomes a redirect.

If you want to know which pages link to it, try "What links here" in the toolbox, on the left side of the screen. You'll see that Rigets Tidende is linked to in two articles, Rigets Radio in a few more.

Cheers, --IJzeren Jan 12:26, 29 May 2005 (PDT)

Historical romanticism

Shouldn't there be a clause about historical romanticism playing a rôle in the decision to base Riksmål spelling on Old Norse "etymology"? After all it all took place in the heyday of that fad! BPJ 12:55, 18 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Done! --Boreanesia 00:48, 19 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Nynorsk?

How did the Norwegian Landsmål/Nynorsk faction react to the Riksmål reform? They ought to have been quite pleased, although trying to smuggle in Norwegian words like gutt!

What is "boy" in Riksmål BTW? Hardly stråk or dreng -- the latter since it is "farm hand" in Swedish. BPJ 13:30, 18 Jun 2005 (PDT)

I think that no matter what is done, there will always be a bit of bickering among the cultural elite. The Norwegian Landsmål/Nynorsk faction would have probably have prefered, for instance, to preserve the Old Norse diphthongs and the three grammatical genders. But if you compare them to the Høgnorsk faction *here*, they're no doubt more pleased with Riksmål *there* than they would be with Riksmål *here*.

They would have had no problems smuggling words like gutt. In fact, gut has become just as Danish *here*, so I suppose gutt is used in Riksmål as well to mean "boy". The word dreng could be one of those Riksmål words with multiple meanings -- it could mean "boy" or "farm hand" depending on context and/or dialect.

Boreanesia 02:05, 19 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Does gosse look like anything else in Danish? After all gosi and bosi are attested in ON. BPJ 14:08, 20 Jun 2005 (PDT)

I can't say it does. But then again, Danish is not my mother tongue. Boreanesia 14:46, 20 Jun 2005 (PDT)

According to my very limited dictionaries there are no similar words in Danish or Norwegian, so perhaps gosse is the unambiguous word for 'boy' in Riksmål. (Danish is your "father tongue" right? I'm not too fluent in my mother tongue (German) either, alas!) BPJ 01:33, 22 Jun 2005 (PDT)

How to transliterate Fraktur?

I know it's just me, but italics to represent words in a language supposed to be written in Fraktur just doesn't feel right. I'd much rather use bold for supposed Fraktur with italics for the supposed interspersed Antikva, till the day we can get real Fraktur that is! BPJ 14:09, 20 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Good point! I agree with you. --Boreanesia 14:30, 20 Jun 2005 (PDT)

The ON masc.nom.sg. ending

Shouldn't it be explicitly mentioned that the Old Norse (masculine*) nominative singular ending -r is dropped in Riksmål?

(*Some feminine proper names have the ending too; an old feature reflected in Sanskrit and Greek as well! :-) BPJ 01:28, 22 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Ah yes, of course!! I took that for granted. I'll fix that. --Boreanesia 03:14, 22 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Old Norse f

The rules as they stand won't work:

• Old Norse fn is vn in Riksmål.

The same applies at least to fl fr and dr as well.

• Old Norse f is v in Riksmål when both Rigsmaal and Högswenska have v.

This doesn't work since 19th century Swedish wrote [v] as fv between vowels and as f word-finally and before voiced consonants much as Old Norse itself.

Perhaps the simplest formulation is that single ON f becomes v after vowels.

Or perhaps I should just change my username to Nitpicker #1!

BPJ 10:32, 24 Jun 2005 (PDT)

That makes sense. Thanks! And don't worry about nitpicking, I appreciate any help I can get. Boreanesia 14:00, 25 Jun 2005 (PDT)

Hovedſide?

Kristian, what about a Hovedſide in Riksmål? (Of course there should be none in Swedish/Danish/Norwegian! :) I'm willing to undertake the translation, if nothing else as an experiment in a longer text, and in the Swedish flavor of Riksmål -- there ought to be one as AFAIK only orthography and not grammar is standardized! BPJ 04:30, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Go ahead! But keep in mind that although the grammar may not have been standardized, the affixes should be regularized. So far only the plural and definite affixes are covered in the Riksmål article. But there are bound to be other nominal as well as verbal affixes that have been regularized. Unfortunately, I have been too busy to have given it much thought. Boreanesia 01:13, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

What's the deal with plurals in -e? Do they apply to neuters that have zero plural in the source languages as well? And what about the subjunctive? BPJ 08:27, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I should have added that zero plural is optional. So singular Hus can be plural Hus or Huse depending on dialect. The latter form is Danish. As for the subjunctive, I haven't yet thought much about verbs, but I'm open to suggestions. Boreanesia 23:54, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I think you mean Huſe, right? The code for long s is ſ. For some reason I can't currently type it on my computer, so I updated the font to also contain it at $: Hu$e!

The subjunctive will be formed by adding an -e in the present.

Also there is the question of the past tense of skulle and ville: should they be identical to the infinitive or should they be skulde and vilde as in 19th century Danish? NB the change was made because people confused the spellings of infinitive and p.t., and also Swedish had p.t. skulle and ville all the time.

BPJ 06:04, 18 Jul 2005 (PDT)

You're right, it's Huſe rather than Huse. From what I can see in the old Danish books I have, s remains s only in compound words and prefixes. E.g. Lys, Lyſet, Lyskilde, Misbrug. Also, unlike in German, double-s is written as sſ. E.g., Rusland, Rusſer, Rusſiſk. I don't know if it's different in Swedish. But if it is, this may affect the rule regarding ſ in Riksmål.

Regarding skulle, skulde, etc.; I think it would be more IB to keep the distinction between the infinitive and the past tense.

Boreanesia 15:36, 20 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I like Rusland, Rusſer, Rusſiſk. Let's keep those spellings, even though I think Swedish was the other way around. Regarding skulle, skulde, etc.; OK let's keep the distinction, but it has no grounding in ON, only in traitional Danish, and think of the poor schoolchildren! ;-) BPJ 06:19, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Now that I think of it, sſ might have something to do with the fact that Danish does not have double-s at the end of words. But since it exists in Riksmål, I think it would make more sense to write double-s as ſs at the end of morphemes and as ſſ in the middle of morphemes or when suffixes are attached. E.g., Ruſsland, Ruſſer, ruſſiſk. I have just written up the rules regarding this in the Riksmål page. Check it out. Boreanesia 12:59, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I agree! BPJ 13:44, 21 Jul 2005 (PDT)

It's definitely prettier this way. And once you have ſs, why not fuse it into a ligature? Say, ß? The Jervan 02:00, 22 Jul 2005 (PDT)

As a ligature in Fraktur, ß represents ſz rather than ſs. As a ligature in Antiqua, ß represents ſs rather than ſz. Since Riksmål is predominantly written in Fraktur, I don't think ſs will be fused into ß. Boreanesia 04:05, 22 Jul 2005 (PDT)

IndoFraktur

If I hadn't looked at the diffences between the two version, I had never known about this. Is this a home-made font? Can it be downloaded somewhere? --IJzeren Jan 11:46, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

A version without the special Xrirampur characters and with long/short s in the correct Unicode positions can be downloaded at Riksmål#Script -- BPJ 13:38, 16 Jul 2005 (PDT)

I noticed earlier that you typed: <font face="IndoFraktur">Hovedside?</font>. I assume this means that a browser is suppose to display Hovedside in Fraktur. Yet, this does not occur with my browser (Internet Explorer 6) even after I have downloaded the font. Boreanesia 01:18, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

It's because I referenced the "wrong" font, thinking you still had my IndoFraktur font. I've changed the reference to Riksmaalsfraktur now, so it should work. BPJ 14:22, 17 Jul 2005 (PDT)

Rezekü enezükü in Nassland

Just a question, what might be the status of Riksmål in Nassland? Might it still be used e.g. in bussiness along with Low German (of Baltic League)? Jan II.

I'm sure the Nash, Estonians, and any other North Baltic country who were under Swedish influence are familiar with Scandinavian, and many no doubt speak it with a Fenno-Swedish flavour. Scandinavian is definitely one the more important languages in IB. So I'm sure that in Northern Baltic countries, like Nassland, Riksmål is required as part of the school curriculum. -Boreanesia 03:58, 19 Aug 2005 (PDT)

Benct's Commentary on Conculture

After reading this, I thought it might be interesting to include this in the Riksmål page. What say ye? BoArthur 14:55, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

BOARTHUR > But really, I've always thought of Riksmaal as somewhat of an Auxlang based essentially on Danish.

BENCT: It's an auxlang based on Old Norse but with its phonology and grammar adapted to Swedish and Danish, with a rather heavy overweight towards Swedish on the phonology side and slight overmeight towards Danish (only -e in endings) on the grammar side. Properly it should be connected with dotted lines to all of Icelandic, Danish and Swedish. By accident Riksmål comes closest to Norwegian, except that modern Norwegian as a written language doesn't exist *there*. I think we (Kristian and I) established that Ivar Aasen tried to create it -- anyway Aasen is mentioned in the Swedish article --, but he probably failed due to the fact that any ON word is a potential RM word and the permitted allomorphic latitude in RM ("There are no rules with regards to choice of particular vowels when it comes to allomorphic roots. E.g., "snow" can be Snju, Snjæ, or Snæ.")which would permit Norwegians to write a RM *very* close to their spoken language and in particular close to *here's* New Norwegian (essentially only missing the diphthongs). I have a hunch that *there* Aasen was less archaizing and used an orthography closer to actual West Norwegian pronunciation, but he would have failed all the more because of that, because NN *there* would have been even more of a local WN concern!