Phonology of Norwegian

A the end of the 14th century, Norway, having previously been an independent kingdom, became by conquest a province of Denmark and remained so for three centuries. In 1814, as part of the fall-out from the Napoleonic wars, the country became a largely independent nation within the monarchy of Sweden. By this time, however, Danish had become the language of government, commerce, and education, as well as of the middle and upper classes. Nationalistic Norwegians sought to reestablish native identity by creating and promulgating a new language based partly on rural dialects and partly on Old Norse. The upper and middle classes sought to retain a form of Norwegian close to Danish that would be intelligible to themselves and to their neighbours in Sweden and Denmark. The controversy has gone on ever since. One result is that the standard dictionaries of Norwegian ignore pronunciation, for no version can be counted as "received" This book is intended for undergraduates studying linguistics at intermediate level and above; Professionals and researchers with an interest in phonology such as, for example, speech pathologists, psychologists, cognitive scientists, and Norwegian language spec

The Phonology of Norwegian is a major contribution which will significantly advance phonologists' understanding of Norwegian, and which will be the standard reference work on this language for decades to come., The phonology of Norwegian is a book that no future student of Norwegian phonology can afford to ignore., Another aspect of the book that will make it useful as a reference book is the copious bibliography and the many good summaries of earlier work on Norwegian phonology. Since much of this work is published in Norwegian, Kristoffersen makes a substantial body of research available for the international linguistic community., The most important aspect of a book of the type under review is [therefore, in my opinion], to what extent it will prove successful as a reference book for future students of Norwegian phonology. In this respect, I find the book very promising., The book presents the most complete treatment of Norwegian phonology ... and is in itself a thing a univerity teacher of Norwegioan has only dreamt of ... splendid.

Gjert Kristoffersen is Professor of Nordic Languages at the University of Bergen, and was from 1984-1988 the Editor at the Norwegian University Press.