r/norsk • u/dwchandler • Aug 05 '18

Søndagsspørsmål #239 - Sunday Question Thread

This is a weekly 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!

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u/longsaao Aug 06 '18

Never thought about this, but we use that a lot, like "din jævel", "din morapuler", "din dust".

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u/trouserdance Aug 06 '18

And replacing 'din' with 'du' in those statements would be nonsense to your ear, yeah?

Paying attention to this particular thing recently, I've come across it with multiple nouns now. Just an interesting tidbit of Norwegian. I think it's the first language I've seen that does the 'vocative' case [when you're calling someone directly] with a ~possessive form of 'you.' German (du Schlampe), Spanish (tu idiota), etc., and even Chinese (你混蛋) all use uninflected 'you' for their vocative-style declarations. It's really fascinating to see Norwegian (and presumably Danish/Swedish as well?) change up the game.

Thanks for your input!

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u/RoomRocket Native Speaker Aug 06 '18

Danish ("dit ludder!") and Swedish ("din jävla idiot!") also use ""din" in insults.

Not sure about Icelandic and Faroese

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u/trouserdance Aug 06 '18

Huh, I wonder where this grammar concept came in? Had to be somewhere between old German and the north Germanic limb of languages as they started taking on their own shapes? I wonder about old Norse, whether it had already shown its head there.

Thanks for confirming Danish / swedish! I'm now curious too to see how far this goes (faroese/Icelandic/old norse, etc). Looks like there's some researching to be done.

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u/Eberon Aug 07 '18

old German

Not old German, Pro-Germanic. German is a cousin of the North-Germanic languages, not an ancestor.

I wonder about old Norse, whether it had already shown its head there.

I can't remember having seen it in an Old Norse text. (Which doesn't say much since there is far more that I haven't read than I have read.) But it does sound like something ON would do.

I'd say if Icelandic does it, ON most likely did it to. Maybe it's worth asking r/Icelandic/?