Language Research

SCHOOLS

Over 80% of Norwegian schoolchildren have Bokmål as their primary language while between 16% - 17% are Nynorsk speakers. Writing Bokmål or Nynorsk is a matter of choice. School pupils may decide which language they want as their "main" language although they will have to study both for 6 to 8 years. Nevertheless the two languages are equal and all official papers exist in the two variants.

SAMI

Sami speakers have several Sami newspapers and magazines. NRK Radio started broadcasting in Sami in 1946. Since then programs have been expanded and given a more varied content. In 1996 twelve immigrant magazines received a grant in total amount of NOK 1,2 million.

The Sami people's right to use their language in contact with administrative authorities is regulated in Chapter 3 in the Sami Act. Section 3-3 states that any person who contacts a local public body in the administrative area in the Sami language has the right to get a reply in Sami. Accordingly, any person who makes a written request in Sami to a regional public body in the administrative area has the right to receive a written reply in Sami. The same applies in court proceedings.

Sami as a beginning language in certain elementary schools was initiated in 1967. Later legislation extended the use of the Sami language in schools. Since 1975, school districts with a mixed language basis are permitted to establish Sami school districts at parental request. This provides an opportunity for the use of the Sami language as a means of education as well as instruction in the language itself. A new curriculum in Sami education was created in connection with educational reforms in 1997. This primarily applies to pupils who reside in areas, which are administrated according to the Sami Act's language regulations. Furthermore, basic material about Sami matters has been added to the national curricula.

King Olav V opened the Sami Parliament in 1989. The Sami Parliament's plenary body consists of 39 elected representatives from 13 electoral districts. The Parliament convenes four times a year for weeklong plenary sessions. The Sami Parliament's main administration is located in Karasjok. The Sami Parliament Council leads the legislative body's day-to-day political activities. Various professional advisory councils have been established under the subordination of the Sami Parliament. These are the Sami Cultural Monuments Council, the Sami Culture Council, the Sami Business Council, and the Sami Language Council. They function as professional organs for the Sami Parliament and assist in the management of allocations and subsidies.

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Updated (September 2002)

EDUCATION

Tøyen Primary School in Oslo focuses on minority language students and bilingual education. Out of 355 pupils, 304 are minority language speakers of 25 different languages (Urdu, Tamil, Arabic, Somali, Vietnamese, Turkish etc.). All pupils receive education both in Norwegian and in their mother tongue. This year also the first Sámi class was formed having four children who will get their education completely in the Sámi language.

Tor Helgesen, the headmaster of the school, explains that its principle of bilingual education is based on a research conducted in 1997 on Spanish-American pupils in the United States. The study showed that minority language children are successful in bilingual education, whereas they tend to drop out from education that is conducted only in the majority language of the country.

In Oslo, around 30 percent of all school children come from minority language background, whereas in Norway generally the number is around 6-7 percent. It is their right to get education in their mother tongue until they are able to fully master Norwegian, says Mr. Helgesen.

The children in Tøyen Primary School, from grade 1 to 7 (age 6 to 12), receive education partly in their mother tongue and partly in Norwegian. The main focus on mother tongue education is however, from grade 1 to 4. Forty teachers guarantee education in twenty minority languages. In some classes, two teachers are present at the same time, helping with translation.

This is the fifth school year since Tøyen school has followed the American model, and the headmaster says that it has already proved to be successful. "We have noticed very good results. The children enjoy themselves and school becomes more meaningful when they can express themselves without language barriers. We have also developed much better contacts with the parents, because when they know that they can speak with us in Turkish or any other language, it is easier for them to approach us."

Regarding a new Sámi class, which is the first one in Oslo, it is a result of growing demand of roughly 6,000 Sámis living in the capital. A full time Sámi teacher is employed for the class and Sámi curriculum runs parallel to the standard Norwegian curriculum.

However, most of the Sámis live in the northern region of Finnmark, and thus education in Oslo is a cooperation project of Finnmark and Oslo municipalities.

Source: Eurolang, www.eurolang.net, Brussels, August 20, 2002, by Eva Blässar

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Updated (January 2003)

MICROSOFT TRANSLATED SOFTWARE INTO NYNORSK

Initial calls from Norwegian language organizations to translate "Office" software (the software is currently available in more than thirty languages) into the country's second official language were ignored by Microsoft, due to the expenses connected with the translation. Only after the majority of schools teaching in Nynorsk agreed to boycott Microsoft's products, the software giant gave in.

Nynorsk is one standard written form of Norwegian developed in the late 19th Century by Ivar Aasen. The other Norwegian written standard that was developed around that time is Bokmål, based on the Danish written language and "norwegianized" according to the norms of urban upper-class speech.

There are four million Norwegians, and more than 98 percent of them use one of the Norwegian varieties as their primary language (often a dialect for speech and one of the standards for writing). No census has been taken to find out the proportion of Bokmål vs. Nynorsk users; however, according to the sources, 17 percent of all school children are taught Nynorsk as their first written variety and the rest use Bokmål. It is reasonably realistic to assume that there are approximately half a million Nynorsk users, i.e. around 12 percent, mainly in western Norway.

Source: Eurolang News, Brussels, January 6, 2003, by Margret Oberhofer, http://217.136.252.147/webpub/eurolang/pajenn.asp?ID=4022

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