I'm being taught norsk--I'm lucky that Seattle is historically a center of Scandinavian culture, so there's a language school that holds classes at a heritage museum in town. It's going slow but I do recognize a few words here and there. :)
The translation from a friend with ties to the country makes sense for the odd word choice. I'm guessing that they either picked out the norsk from the movie or made up their own, and either way, it could be a matter of a local dialect. There are multiple official languages in Norway, the two main ones being the sort of equivalent to Oxford English and the common vernacular spoken historically by people. Some dialects vary wildly even just across a mountain. I think I remember hearing that there are multiple dialects spoken in The 13th Warrior (which would make sense for a motley crew!), so like I said, that could be another reason for the quirky word choice.
I might take this to my instructor and ask him about it. Another possibility is that there's a fine distinction between word choice, and for a reason I don't understand, maybe these words are better. That's the frustrating thing about having to rely on translator tools or a dictionary.
We don't start classes again until the end of summer, though. The other thing is that I'm private about my fannish life to people I know in real life, so I'll have to figure out how to present this to him without getting a lot of teasing. :)
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Date: 2011-07-25 04:25 am (UTC)The translation from a friend with ties to the country makes sense for the odd word choice. I'm guessing that they either picked out the norsk from the movie or made up their own, and either way, it could be a matter of a local dialect. There are multiple official languages in Norway, the two main ones being the sort of equivalent to Oxford English and the common vernacular spoken historically by people. Some dialects vary wildly even just across a mountain. I think I remember hearing that there are multiple dialects spoken in The 13th Warrior (which would make sense for a motley crew!), so like I said, that could be another reason for the quirky word choice.
I might take this to my instructor and ask him about it. Another possibility is that there's a fine distinction between word choice, and for a reason I don't understand, maybe these words are better. That's the frustrating thing about having to rely on translator tools or a dictionary.
We don't start classes again until the end of summer, though. The other thing is that I'm private about my fannish life to people I know in real life, so I'll have to figure out how to present this to him without getting a lot of teasing. :)