Spelling Conventions

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oxknuckle
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Spelling Conventions

Postby oxknuckle » 2014-08-27, 21:55

I've been relying heavily on written text to learn vocabulary and have noticed variable spellings of the same word within the same book. For example I'll see ligne/likne, frem/fram, slippe/sleppe and so on. I know that there's variation between bokmål and nynorsk, but it seems like there is a certain amount of wiggle room with the individual writing systems as well. So I'd like to know how I should treat spelling variation. As an American it seems a bit odd to vary the spelling of a word in a single text, even when they are both correct.

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Ífaradà
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Re: Spelling Conventions

Postby Ífaradà » 2014-08-28, 9:08

The words you mention are free of choice, meaning you can choose whichever you prefer. I don't know what texts you're reading, but generally you'll want to be consistent in your use (which is why this seems a bit odd, especially if it's written by the same author).
-Native: Yoruba & Norwegian
-Intermediate: English

oxknuckle
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Re: Spelling Conventions

Postby oxknuckle » 2014-08-28, 21:20

Takk! The book wasn't originally written in Norwegian so I wouldn't we surprised if it suffered a bit in translation, but it's pretty badly written to start with so I'm not fretting too much.  It was just the first Norwegian text I could scrounge up.  Since then I got a Jo Nesbø novel so I expect that will be better.

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Dragelabb
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Re: Spelling Conventions

Postby Dragelabb » 2014-08-28, 21:30

The Norwegian language is in constant change, breeding spelling variations like these. For example, 'likne' is and older way of writing 'ligne', but it's still being used. 'Ligne' is used more often, especially among the youth. You can use whichever like, of course, but it's important to be consistent about it. It seems that you've read texts by a sloppy author.

In the case of 'slippe'/'sleppe', I've never seen 'sleppe' used in a serious text in bokmål.


EDIT: It appears you replied while I was typing. You should definitely expect material from Jo Nesbø to be of greater quality. I haven't read any of his works myself, but with all the popularity and praise he's received, I think you can consider it 'safe'.


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