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We can laugh at characters like the now retired language teacher Finn-Erik Vinje. At the same time, we must seriously consider the great damage they may have caused to the Norwegian language.
It was Dagsavisen that this weekend brought Norwegian dialects to life. In a full report (behind the subscription), several people spoke about the relationship with their own dialect and how they had been received.
Among other things, Professor Emeritus Finn-Erik Vinje was asked how have he would react if interviewed in the journalist’s childhood dialect, from Rudsbygd in the former municipality of Fåberg.
For younger readers: Finn-Erik Vinje (84) is nobody. He was a leading force in the Language Council, now at the Riksmålsforbundet, he helped standardize the official written language, and worse still: for more than 20 years he was a language consultant for NRK. It was everywhere.
And Mr. Vinje isn’t exactly trying hide his arrogance, to put it this way:
– I would not conclude that you were stupid or that your intelligence level was not very high, responds the journalist.
– Of course, it would be a terrible ending and too fast. But let me put it a little differently: you might conclude that you were not a particularly literate person, that you don’t write much, that you are not used to the art of writing to a great extent.
I myself am so lucky to belong to a generation that when we moved to Oslo to study or work, we decided to change our dialect; at least we should no do.
I quickly discovered that it was easier for us, from the west, north or south, to maintain the ambitious intention, perhaps because the spoken language is so different. For Orientals, it is obviously worse: at the beginning of my first job in the capital, I thought everyone in the editorial office was from Oslo. First in December, I heard phone calls whispering that: yes, Mom, I’m coming home for Christmas!
It is still the case that many twins, Døler and Østfoldings switch to a striped Oslo target as soon as they hit Ring 3. Perhaps it is not that strange, as Vinje in 2013 felt fully qualified to call the Fredrikstad dialect the ugliest in Norway. .
As one of my colleagues from the first Oslo era, former journalist and editor Halvor Elvik, writes on Facebook:
“It would be hasty to say that the professor is stupid, even though he may immediately appear so.”
The statement of lack of reading and knowledge of the art of writing should also apply to the likes of Jon Fosse, Tarjei and Halldis Moren Vesaas, Jakob Sande and Hans Børli, just to name a few who speak “dialect” in the teacher’s sense of the word. .
Think: Finn-Erik Vinje himself does not speak dialect. For this have lives, in Bekkestua in Bærum and certain parts of western Oslo, where decent people don’t speak dialect, he must know. There they speak “standardized standard language”, as people say should to do in Norway. Unlike Oslo East, for example. by the speaks the dialect.
Vinje was an official language consultant at NRK until 1993, but resigned as a professor at the University of Oslo until 2006. Perhaps we had to take some distance in time to understand the impressive arrogance behind such an understanding of the language.
In the interview on Dagsavisen he even boasts that he had a mentor and former university professor who he thought they should use rat poison in dialects. Sure, it is enough.
Perhaps it is no wonder, then, that we are a land of knots, with such open and dominating disregard for the mother tongue.
The great paradox is that only when ad-supported TV 2 appeared in 1992 did dialects begin to take their rightful place. Then all of a sudden Siri Kalvig and Elin Tvedt appeared on the screen as the most obvious weather forecasters in the new Stavanger and Ølen dialect.
The channel’s top management considered that the dialects were sustainable. commerciallyand people loved it.
This paved the way for encouraging reporters, news anchors, and Good Morning hosts to use the dialect, and 20 years later, even the NRK gave Ingerid Stenvold permission to use parts of her Målselv dialect in Dagsrevyen.
Not without Finn-Erik Vinje having to come out to express his “astonishment”, of course, and not without the reactions of some viewers who for years had received official acceptance for their prejudices.
And still, for example, people like Camilla Botilsrud Sagen can receive hate mail and harassment because she speaks Solør’s dialect on Good Morning Norway on TV 2.
Read more comments from Erik Stephansen
Now of course we can only laugh at Vinje and other language elves who left. The question remains when do we have the first research showing what to damage They did it: how many did not dare to raise their hands, did not want to speak in assemblies or did not feel comfortable in one of the written languages. That he was pushed into silence.
Don’t get me wrong: Professor Finn-Erik Vinje has received many well-deserved accolades over the years for his efforts in many fields. Now is the time to look at the shadows.
I let former colleague Halvor Elvik have the last word:
“It may seem like the time has come for the spoken language ‘MeToo’, where we hear from Vinje students about linguistic harassment, abuse and bullying.”
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