The history of the Norwegian language
The whole process of creating a written mother tongue was created around the time when Norway was converted to Christianity. Before this Scandinavia had the runes, which still were around the same time as the conversion to Christianity, but they chose the Latin alphabet over the runes. This was during the 11th century, and the creation of the written mother tongue lasted until the 14th century. Of course there has been development after this, and it will be explained in the following text.
It is also in this part of the history where other countries created their written languages based on the Latin alphabet. The first written form of Norwegian may have been used for the first time in Ireland and the rest of the British Islands (NSH1, Skard, p. 69, l. 20-23).
It was also during this time that schools was created near the newly build abbeys. The people who were able to write at this time, were the ones who new Latin and often other languages as well. The church actually educated the king and his officials to be able to write messages.
In the end of the 14th century the Kalmar Union was created, and the king was now ruler of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. During this period the Norwegian language underwent a few changes, there were some who still wrote Gammelnorsk, but more and more wrote Mellemnorsk, and even more started writing Nynorsk (not the language Ivar Aasen created, but Nynorsk in the sense that it was after Gammelnorsk etc.). This Nynorsk soon became Danish because of the Kalmar Union and since the king and his officials who mostly used a written language. In 1523 the Kalmar Union was dissolved, but because Norway was so weak politically in comparison to their two neighbour countries Denmark and Sweden, Norway was under Danish rule still.
It was also in the 16th century that something important happened in Germany, the
Before the invention of the printing press, any writing done, whether it was a book, or drawing, or copies of the Bible had to be completed painstakingly by the hand. Every letter, every word, every sentence, had to be written down by hand. It took almost over an entire year to write a single book. In addition to the large amount of time spent, people often made mistakes delaying the publishing of the book. The effects of these scarce, handwritten copies were that education and learning was very limited. Desperate for fame and money, German Johannes Gutenberg changed all of that. In 1450, Gutenberg created the first ever printing press, built and improved existing printing methods. Soon, by the 1500’s printing shops were located everywhere in the major cities of Europe. People had a better way of spreading ideas and findings of new lands during the Age of Exploration, the period of time when Europeans began exploring the world by sea in search of new discoveries, trade routes, and goods found in other countries. The Age of Exploration was affected by the printing press more than the Protestant Reformation was, because it helped publicize recent findings, inspiring and
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
...er schools, opening them to peasant boys as well as nobles. Charlemagne never stopped studying. He brought an English monk, Alcuin, and other scholars to his court. He learned to read Latin and some Greek but apparently did not master writing. At meals, instead of having jesters perform, he listened to men reading from learned works.
They lived with a different lifestyle then other religions, always on the move, adjusting to climates, doing what it took to not just survive but also attempt conquering during the medieval times of Scandinavia. The present day countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark made up Scandinavia. The Norsemen first made a name for themselves around 750 for their bloody, violent raids in Europe. Norsemen and Northern men are other names for Vikings. The Vikings took advantage of their unique ways of survival and daily life techniques to new heights during the Viking Age. They were highly skilled builders; they built ships durable enough to take on the ocean. Vikings were the most intelligent navigators in their day, which eventually made them tremendous traders. The Vikings decided to quit their big armies of violence, stopped raiding and began farming and trading instead. Their last raid was England before deciding to give up their violent ways. When Scandinavians started practicing Christianity, some Vikings headed east to Russia, some moved to France, most headed to England’s coast, Ireland, or the islands above Scotland. The Norwegian Vikings were the first population in Europe to move west. “Stepping across the North Atlantic, Norse Colonists reached the Faeroe Islands by around AD 825, Iceland by around AD 875, and Greenland by around AD 895. Both Iceland and the Faeroe Islands were uninhabited at the time of the Norse colonization” (Gestsdottir and Price 130). The Vikings during the medieval period were a very powerful force. They got themselves out of the control of the Norwegian king, they were very good craftsman, and used many resources.
Writing is the process of recording ideas by the means of using characters or marks forming a type of communication (The Ency.). There is no specific time of the origin of writing, though early writings go as far back 3000 BC mostly because this was the earliest known form of logographic writing. Logograms are signs that represent complete words, so the writing at this time was only read in vague terms, but they could later be translated by use of the principle of phonetic transfer. Which basically, takes logograms and makes them into words (“Writing).
Before the implications of the printing press can be understood, it is important to consider what life was like before the printing revolution. All writing and illustrations were the work of an individual slaving over the text to write it by hand. Not just any old peasant could do the tedious work of a scribe, most of them lived and worked in monasteries, where they would silently and diligently copy the text with utmost precision. Since transcribing was such a cumbersome task, books were generally owned by monasteries, educational institutions, and well-to-do aristocrats. If a family was lucky enough to have owned a book, it would have most likely been a bible, for religious texts were most commonly transcribed.
So yes, writing has improved much from when it was formed by the Sumerians in 3200 B.C. We went from clay, to paper, and have many different sorts of writing that are available to people today to use and to develop; such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics from thousands of years ago. Here in the present day, we even partake in diverse types of writing in literature such as fiction, non-fiction, scientific, etc. to create different feelings for the reader.
civilization. They started the Olympic games. Greeks come up with the idea of an alphabet
Ink manufactured for writing originated in Egypt and China originally dating back to around 2500 BC. This ink was composed of soot bound together with gums. This paste was formed into rods and dried before being mixed with water immediately before use. Ink of this time was only used for handwriting. Printing would then be created by the Chinese in 3000 BC. The invention of the writing brush made from hair is attributed to General Meng Tien of China. This allowed writing to be done on silk rather than with bamboo pens on strips of bamboo. Bamboo is heavy, bulky and awkward, but for all its virtues, silk is expensive. They used a mixture of coloured earth, soot and plant matter for pigments, again mixed with gums for a binder. Actual printing consisted of ink being drawn onto moveable slabs outlined with letters and signs. Then in 1440, when Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press with moveable type, was beginning to be made of soot bound with either linseed oil or varnish, materials extremely similar to those that are used in ink today. Following this in 1772 colored ink was introduced, however, the drying agents for colored ink would not be introduced until the nineteenth century....
As early as 2,800 years before Christ, the pen was beginning to appear as a writing implement in the world. Its first form was that of a dried reed, its tip cut at an angle so to create a line of ink instead of a blot. To write with it, simply dip the cut tip of the reed into an ink supply, then gently press the dipped tip against the paper .
The Phoenicians are very historically significant. They created the alphabet and many empires based their lettering system of theirs. Each letter stood for a sound and their were vocals involved. The Chinese and Babylonians had symbols representing actions or objects with pictures or lines. It was a completely different way to record things, but it was much more simple to do. It was passed to the Greeks, Romans, and our alphabet even comes from
The Italic languages, as its name suggest, come from the ancient Indo-European languages that were spoken in Italy. The most prominent of these languages is Latin, which mostly gave rise to many of the surviving Italic languages in the modern age. Latin began as a local language among others and it was not anticipated to dominate among its sister languages (Fortson 245). It was originally spoken among a tribe that worked on agricultural settlements named Latini, whose origins were in a region called Latium. Latium was located on the western coast and spread out centrall...
Nevertheless, some may find that the Old English is uncomplicated and a more consistent language since with it every letter specifically and invariably relates to a single sound. Unlike the modern English there are not silent letters or phonetic inconsistencies to confuse them. Several of the commonly used words today in English have their roots in Old English. Such words as water, strong, house, earth and many more can be traced to Old English. Also at some point in the 6th Century the Old English “sk” consonant cluster changed to “sk” consequentially changing words “skield” to “shield”. This change affected all “sk” words in existence in the language at that time. Therefore, any “sk” clusters in modern English became part of the English language after the 6th Century. Followed by, around the 7th Century, a shift in vowel pronunciation took place. With this vowels began to be pronounced more to the frontal area of the mouth. Consequently, the plural of several nouns also began to have modified vowel pronunciation instead of changes in inflection. This resulted at times in revised spelling which lead to the inconsistent modern English word pairing for example goose/geese, mouse/mice or blood/bleed to name a few. Late in the 8th Century the Viking from Scandinavia began to make raids on
The beginnings of English can be found in the occupation of England from the 5th century by north and west German ethnic groups who brought their 'indigenous dialects' (Seargeant, P. 2012, p. 1). The Oxford English Dictionary defines English as 'Of or related to the West Germanic language spoken in England and used in many varieties throughout the world' (Seargeant, P. 2012, p. 7). Invasion in the 9th century by Scandinavians, who settled in the north of England and the establishment of Danelaw in 886 AD defining the area governed by the Danes in the north and east, had a marked effect on the language spoken there (Beal, J. 2012, p. 59). These periods are known as Early and Later Old English (Beal, J. 2012, p. 50).
During this time concrete Anglo-Saxon kingdoms emerged most notably Wessex. The Scandinavian Danes tried to assert their power and claim lands from the Anglo-Saxons which eventually led to the signing of the Treaty of Wedmore, creating an area known as Danelaw, an area assigned to the Danes to live within. The influence of Scandinavian language over Old English is hard to define as both languages are derived of the same Indo-European family of languages. Some of the noticeable differences are in the recognition of the sh sound changing to a sk sound as in ship, sky, skin, scrape and the retention of the hard k and g sounds . The Scandinavian era of Old English witnessed the decline of inflectional endings as dialects developed and merged.