Søndagsspørsmål #13 - Sunday Question Thread

[u/dwchandler]

This is a weekly (heh) post to ask any question that you may not have felt deserved its own post, or have been hesitating to ask for whatever reason. No question too small or silly!

Past posts:

• Søndagsspørsmål #12 - det/den, jus/lov/rettsvitenskap, bergensdialecten

• Søndagsspørsmål #11 - rural dialects, å ville, broren sin

• Søndags spørsmål - døgn/dag, han/ham

• Søndagsspørsmål #10 - tidligere/forrige/før

• Søndagsspørsmål #9 - an

• Søndagsspørsmål #8 - conditionals, trådte

• Søndagsspørsmål #7 - grunn

• Søndagsspørsmål #6 - past tense

• Søndagsspørsmål #5 - ennå/enda, herlig/nydelig/deilig/pen, fremdeles/fortsatt, begge/begge to/begge deler

• Søndagsspørsmål #4 - concatenating words, ått, lik/like, nettopp/nett

• Søndagsspørsmål #3 - Dialects

• Søndagsspørsmål #2 - Definite articles

• Søndagsspørsmål #1 - How easy is Norwegian to learn, really?

Note: if it's been more than a day or two since this post then new questions might not be noticed here, and you should consider posting a separate thread.

[u/[deleted]]

Where are the dialect variants of 'dø' (døy, dau) found?

How would you explain the words 'liksom,' 'altså,' and 'nokså'?

[u/FairlyFaithfulFellow → u/[deleted]]

A good overview of "dø" in different dialects would probably require university-level studies of Norwegian (for native Norwegians), so I won't attempt that.

• Nokså - fairly, rather. Can often be replaced with "ganske".
• Altså - therefore, accordingly, consequently. "OL er i gang, altså er TV'en på." -> "The Olympics are in progress, so the TV is on." It can also be used as an amplifier "Han er god altså!" -> "He's so good!". Or it could be used in the start of a sentence, to signify continuation (like "well"): "Altså, det var ikke det jeg mente." -> "Well, that's not what I meant."
• Liksom - like, as if, somewhat, a little, sort of. "Han skulle liksom hjelpe til." -> "He was supposed to help.", "Han var lærer liksom moren." -> "He was a teacher like [his] mother.", "Vi gjorde det bare på liksom." -> "We were just pretending."

[u/[deleted] → u/FairlyFaithfulFellow]

One of my undergrad degrees is Norwegian, and I've got several semesters of both Old Norse and Scandinavian Linguistics under my belt...so if you're willing to explain the dø/døy/dau isoglosses I'm willing to listen!

[u/FairlyFaithfulFellow → u/[deleted]]

I was trying to say that I'm not qualified to comment on it (and few around here are). I'd love to give an explanation if I could, but it would be bad at best, and wrong at worst.