The article is an initial attempt to identify, represent, and classify verbs of oscillatory motion in Norwegian. The mentioned verbs belong to the lexical-semantic group of motion verbs, but while preserving the integral feature of the semantic group (the physical movement of living beings and objects in space), they have their own characteristic features. Verbs denoting motion in which the object, while moving from the initial point to another, tends to return to it and generally remains within the confines of a more or less defined location, are grouped as verbs of oscillatory motion. The authors of studies conducted on the material of other languages divide this group into two subgroups: verbs of oscillatory motion per se (swaying) and verbs of vibrational motion. The second subgroup is beyond the scope of this article. The linguistic material is drawn from the online explanatory Norwegian dictionary [NAOB] and supplemented with data collected from contemporary mass media sources. As a result of the study, we identified and described 32 verbs of oscillatory motion. The results of this study can be used for further typological studies of Norwegian and other languages
The article introduces Alexander Kuchin and his “Small Russian-Norwegian dictionary”, which was published in 1907 by the publishing house “Pomor” (Finnmarken) in Vardø (Norway) and was very popular at that time. Its author, Alexander Stepanovich Kuchin, a man with a unique destiny, is known to compatriots as the only Russian who participated in the discovery of the South Pole in the Roald Amundsen’s expedition, and also as the first of our countrymen who, after the discovery of Antarctica in 1820 by the expedition of Faddey F. Bellingshausen and Michael P. Lazarev, landed on the coast of the Southern continent. A talented young man who died in the expedition of Vladimir A. Rusanov at the age of only 25, made a great contribution to science, research and navigation. Born in the village of Kushereka in the Onega district of the Arkhangelsk province, Alexander received a good education for that time. He graduated from a two-grade parochial school in Kushereka, brilliantly studied at the Onega City School, attended classes at the Tromsø school for a year and was the only one in the course graduated from the Arkhangelsk Merchant and Maritime School with a gold medal. He read H. Ibsen, K. Hamsun, J. Falkberget and other writers in the original. Alexander was also lucky to work at the biological station in Bergen under the direction of Bjørn Hjelland-Hansen, one of the founders of oceanography as a science; here he also met Fridtjof Nansen, one of the national Norwegian heroes, which played a significant role in A. Kuchin’s life. The “Small Russian-Norwegian dictionary” was published in 2,000 copies and was very popular that time. The dictionary contains around 4,000 words on 48 pages. There are no proper names in it, but at the end of the dictionary basic information about the phonetics and grammar of the Norwegian language is disposed. It is focused on Russian users and arouses undoubted interest among linguists, since it appeared in 1907, two years after the termination of the union with Sweden. It is valuable that Alexander Kuchin, not being a linguist, fixed the language used by common people such as fishermen and trawlermen in the North of Norway (particularly in Finnmark and Troms). Such a democratic version of the language is also of special scientific interest. In general, the dictionary was caused by necessity, appeared at a proper time, was well compiled and completely fulfilled the functions assigned to it
Language interaction has always been a matter of interest to linguists. Despite the fact of profound influence of Latin on many languages in many sciences, including medicine, the question concerning the borrowings of anatomical vocabulary, namely somatisms, or body parts, from Latin in Norwegian and its influence on the Norwegian anatomical terminology is of particular interest. The study focuses on the influence of Latin on the names of different body parts in Norwegian, thereby revealing some peculiarities of somatisms in the Norwegian language. Taking into account the historical background and cross-cultural interaction, some groups of somatisms have been distinguished. The most abundant group includes single word somatisms and compounds that do not have their norwegianized Latin form. The second group consists of the Norwegian somatisms, which have identical or nearly identical morphemic form with somatisms in Latin, incorporating single word somatisms as well as some compounds where one or even two parts are norwegianized Latin forms with some semantic peculiarities. We have also singled out the anatomical terms that have a norwegianized Latin form and a parallel native form. Mostly the borrowings in this group underwent orthographic changes adapting them to the Norwegian language. The results show that on the whole the Norwegian language preserves its identity, uniqueness and selective modifying purism in anatomical vocabulary, with some instances of being dependent on Latin
The development of any language has always been the focus of close attention and thorough study in linguistics, especially at different historical stages. The Norwegian language is a good example to trace the development of anatomical terminology based on its historical stages, including Norwegian somatisms as well as those from other languages, mainly Latin and Greek, including the word-forming elements. Starting with Ancient Scandinavian through the period of Christianity, the Hanseatic League and further on, several structural models have been identified and distinguished. Each period is associated with adoption and adaptation (assimilation) of somatisms. The first group includes one-word somatisms of Germanic origin, one-word non-assimilated and assimilated somatisms of Latin or Greek origin. The second and the largest group consists of two-word somatisms formed by compounding according to different models based on different parts of speech (noun, adjective, numeral, and verb) and the word-forming elements. Each element in a collocation is represented by either a norwegianized Latin or a native part. Three-word somatisms are not so numerous in anatomical terminology. Despite its seeming simplicity, compounding is an interesting phenomenon for studying due to many patterns of combining words in the formation of somatisms. Concerning compounding special remarks are made, taking into account combinatory flexibility and plasticity of the Norwegian language, which makes it possible to enrich its anatomical vocabulary at low cost and to use its own language capacity and resources for developing this language segment
This article explores the representation of mental disorders in Norwegian podcasts. The study aims to analyze the linguistic strategies used by podcast participants — including hosts, experts, and people with lived experience — to construct the image of illness and to identify approaches to destigmatizing mental disorders within these podcasts. The research is based on the analysis of spoken texts from projects such as Hverdagspsyken (‘Psychology of Everyday Life’) and Noia (‘Noia’). The findings reveal that mental health podcasts contribute to shaping a constructive image of illness, presenting it as a complex yet manageable condition that can be treated and reevaluated in a positive light. This approach seeks to reduce stigma and integrate mental health into everyday discourse, fostering a more inclusive society where individuals feel valued and accepted. Persons with lived experience, alongside other podcast participants, actively challenge entrenched stereotypes. By sharing their personal experiences, they often use artistic devices to create a more tangible and relatable depiction of disorder for an empathetic audience. Moreover, they present the disorder not only as a source of suffering but also as a catalyst for personal growth, which helps diminish feelings of hopelessness and cultivates a more optimistic view of mental health conditions. The podcast format lends itself to informal, conversational discussions of mental health issues, which, despite remaining partially taboo in society, are addressed with openness and authenticity. This creates an immersive listening experience for the listeners. Even in the absence of editorial censorship, hosts and experts consistently use politically correct language, reflecting the distinctive features of Norwegian public discourse.
French cuisine is famous all over the world, and French dishes are cooked and served everywhere, including Norway. Along with the dishes, their names have been borrowed, undergoing spelling, phonetic and semantic changes. Since French names of dishes and products have been penetrating into European languages for several centuries, many of them are not perceived as borrowed by the speakers of these languages. The article examines the place of French loanwords in Norwegian culinary discourse: the use of such vocabulary in home cooking and its functioning in cafés and restaurants. Purist sentiments have always been quite strong in Norway, which is explained by the history of the country and the Norwegian language. This fact also manifests itself in relation to the culinary vocabulary, which contains a significant number of borrowings mainly from the French language. A comparison of borrowings of this kind found in Norwegian with borrowings into the Russian culinary lexicon, which has experienced the exceptionally strong French influence, demonstrates that both in quantity and composition these lexical-semantic groups in the two languages are comparable. The English translations of Norwegian words in the paper show that often the same French lexemes were borrowed into English, too. As for the composition of Norwegian culinary designations of French origin, these are nouns (mainly names of products and dishes) and verbs (designations of food processing methods). French substantive borrowings have entered everyday Norwegian long ago and firmly, and the finely developed French terminology of food processing is widely used in the professional discourse of chefs. Cafés and restaurants are visited to satisfy hunger in a festive atmosphere, an element of which is the French names of dishes. The desire of purists to eliminate French loanwords from the Norwegian culinary vocabulary is hardly realisable. In the field of cookery, however, the translator’s false friends are revealed.
Особенности требований к литературному редактору и зачастую отсутствующий институт корректуры в норвежских издательствах становятся причиной появления ошибок и неточностей в литературных текстах, издающихся в Норвегии. Проблема авторских ошибок стоит особняком в ряду переводческих сложностей и заставляет переводчика решать, каким образом поступить с авторской ошибкой или недочетом в переводимом тексте. Сейчас при издании норвежской переводной литературы на русском языке от переводчика не требуется вносить изменения в авторский текст, в том числе и исправлять ошибки, однако такая стратегия не всегда оправдана. При сохранении ошибок в тексте перевода существенно снижается качество самого текста, а авторитет автора и издательства в глазах читателя может упасть. Среди авторских ошибок можно выделить следующие группы: очевидные и неочевидные фактические ошибки; непроверенные и не подтвержденные фактами утверждения; внутренние текстологические расхождения, связанные с сюжетной составляющей произведения. Последние особенно свойственны произведениям художественной литературы. При работе с текстом, содержащим авторские ошибки, переводчик способен отчасти сгладить и устранить их. Хотя единую стратегию работы переводчика с авторскими ошибками определить сложно, разрабатывая подобную стратегию, переводчику следует руководствоваться тем, насколько текст выполняет свои функции и, исходя из этого, выбирать стратегию, подходящую для каждого отдельного случая. Так, большинство ошибок первой группы переводчик способен исправить самостоятельно, ошибки второй группы желательно оставить на усмотрение научного редактора или фактчекера, а ошибки третьей группы целесообразнее урегулировать с автором
The article analyzes the lexical-semantic group “fire” in the Old Norse and the modern Norwegian languages. Old Norse is the ancestor language of modern Norwegian, which opens up wide opportunities for comparative analysis of the chosen lexical units’ semantic content. The aim of the study is to compare historical and modern lexical-semantic variants of the selected lexemes. The authors distinguish the following Old Norse lexemes of the lexical-semantic group “fire”: eldr, bál, bruni, brenna, and log (logi); in modern Norwegian those are ild, bål, brann, lue, flamme, bluss, and fyr. The material for the analysis is a text corpus including Icelandic sagas and Norwegian works of fiction and news articles, which serve as a basis for contextual analysis aimed to identify the inherent meanings of the words. The authors conclude that the modern Norwegian language retains a great variety of vocabulary with the basic meaning of “fire”, which also was typical of the Old Norse language. Each of the studied words has a number of lexical-semantic variants, and not all the Norwegian lexemes considered derive their etymology from the Old Norse ones. Moreover, several lexical units in modern Norwegian have acquired a number of additional meanings, which can be explained by historical and technological development of society. The authors note that the group of lexemes under consideration is also characterized by the phenomena of metonymic and metaphorical transfer. Metaphorical transfer is of particular interest, as it is manifested in the description of strong feelings and emotions, both in Old Norse and in modern Norwegian.