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Hemsedal Drops Nynorsk in Schools After 85 Years

Home » News from Norway » Hemsedal Drops Nynorsk in Schools After 85 Years

The decision to switch to the Bokmål form of the Norwegian language school is a controversial one, and not supported by everyone.

After 85 years, a school in Hemsedal is to be called skole and not skule. The mountainous municipality Hemsedal voted to discontinue the use of the Nynorsk form of Norwegian in schools.

Snakkar du nynorsk - Nynorsk in schools concept graphic.

The vote by the local council was far from unanimous. Councillors voted 9 to 8 in favour of switching to the Bokmål form of Norwegian.

Hemsedal is best known as the location of one of Norway's best ski resorts. The mountainous municipality is about midway between Norway's two biggest cities, at 220 km from Oslo and 273 km from Bergen.

What is Nynorsk?

Nynorsk is both a new and an old language, depending on your perspective.

Following generations of Danish rule, the Norwegian language by the 19th century had become heavily influenced by Danish. That written language is today known as Bokmål.

Hemsedal hikers
Hemsedal is popular with tourists in summer and winter. Photo: Arkadij Schell / Shutterstock.com.

A nationalism movement served as the basis for construction of a new national language based on traditional dialects and clearly distinct from Danish.

The result–Nynorsk–is now one of two official written forms of Norwegian alongside Bokmål. However it's only used by approximately 10-15% of Norway's population.

Some municipalities conduct their affairs in Nynorsk–including teaching in schools–mainly in rural areas in the west of Norway. However, the majority of municipalities including all major cities use Bokmål.

What happened in Hemsedal?

This week, the local council in Hemsedal took the decision to replace Nynorsk with Bokmål in its schools.

Hemsedal ski cabins in the snow

The divided council–it passed by nine to eight–reflects the division in the community itself.

In September last year, a narrow majority of Hemsedal's population voted to keep Nynorsk. However, the municipal director advised the municipal council to choose Bokmål.

One of the main arguments was finance due to the cost of obtaining and/or translating material into Nynorsk.

“Choosing Nynorsk over Bokmål as the main languauge will require up to an additional 5.3 person-years in grades 1-7,” the Council in their justification.

Hemsedal ski slopes.

Unsurprisingly, the Centre party were the main proponents of keeping Nynorsk. Centre party council representative Norunn Rivedal said Nynorsk deserved “a second chance.”

She referred to the popularity of the song “Du fortenar ein som meg” (you deserve someone like me) by Daniel Kvammen as evidence that Nynorsk remains relevant.

The future of Nynorsk

Hemsedal is a relatively small municipality in Norway, so the change is unlikely to make a major impact. However, could it encourage more rural municipalities to consider making the change? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

About David Nikel

Originally from the UK, David now lives in Trondheim and was the original founder of Life in Norway back in 2011. He now works as a professional writer on all things Scandinavia.

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4 thoughts on “Hemsedal Drops Nynorsk in Schools After 85 Years”

  1. Helpful for me. My ancestors were from Hemsedal and I have cousins living there still on the same farms. I studied 3 years of Bokmål in Mpls, Mn.
    Would be good to use sometime. Had 2 trips cancelled with Covid restrictions.
    Interesting!!

    Reply
  2. As a non-native, I can comment and say it makes sense to me to switch. But I do not live there and my comment should not have any influence at all. Doing ancestral research, I wish I could find a translator app for both Nynorsk and Old Norsk. Some of the words look familiar, BUT I know that they do not have the same meaning. I have so many documents from relatives and using GOOGLE translate(bokmal) gives me some very odd phrases that make no sense.

    Reply
  3. Nynorsk has got to go, I live in Aukra which is Nynorsk, most of the families in my area comes from Molde which is Bokmål, every year there is a fight between the 1st grade parents on which language should be taught, it usually ends up with the class being split in two. This is not conducive to effective learning of the Norwegian language, once they become adults the Nynorsk becomes pointless as everything apart from text on NRK is in Bokmål. Children would be far better off with more intensive english lessens or learning a third language at an earlier stage than wasting time on Nynorsk.

    Reply

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