{"id":6385,"date":"2012-11-09T20:29:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T20:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.widmann.org.uk\/?p=6385"},"modified":"2012-11-09T20:29:19","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T20:29:19","slug":"the-orthography-of-danish-was-changed-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/the-orthography-of-danish-was-changed-today\/","title":{"rendered":"The orthography of Danish was changed today"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n
\nFenja og Ewers Aabenraa<\/a>
\nOriginally uploaded by Niels J. Buus Madsen<\/a>
\n<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The orthography of the Danish language is regulated by Dansk Sprogn\u00e6vn<\/a> through their official orthographical dictionary, “Retskrivningsordbogen”.<\/p>\n

Any revisions take effect as soon as a new edition is published, so if you’re keen to spell correctly, you have to learn the changes immediately.<\/p>\n

The changes introduced today<\/a> include the following:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Abolishing alternative forms that correspond to pronunciations that aren’t used any more:\n
      \n
    • Baskerlandet or<\/i> Baskien > Baskerlandet\n
    • federal or<\/i> f\u00f8deral > f\u00f8deral\n
    • langust or<\/i> languster > languster\n
    • taifun or<\/i> tyfon > tyfon\n
    • \u00f8jel\u00e5g or<\/i> \u00f8jenl\u00e5g > \u00f8jenl\u00e5g\n
    • roastbeef or<\/i> rostb\u00f8f > roastbeef\n
    • billiondel or<\/i> billiontedel > billiontedel<\/ul>\n
    • Abolishing simplified spellings of loanwords that haven’t caught on:\n
        \n
      • croquis or<\/i> kroki > croquis\n
      • h\u00e5ndmikser > h\u00e5ndmikser or<\/i> h\u00e5ndmixer\n
      • jogurt or<\/i> yoghurt > yoghurt\n
      • krep or<\/i> crepe > crepe\n
      • majon\u00e6se or<\/i> mayonnaise > mayonnaise<\/ul>\n
      • Introducing an alternative ending -ie<\/i> for some words ending in -ium<\/i>:\n
          \n
        • kriterium > kriterie or<\/i> kriterium\n
        • ministerium > ministerie or<\/i> ministerium\n
        • sanatorium > sanatorie or<\/i> sanatorium<\/ul>\n
        • Abolishing simplified spellings of native words that haven’t caught on (I’m personally very unhappy about these changes!):\n
            \n
          • elleve or<\/i> elve > elleve\n
          • tredive or<\/i> tredve > tredive\n
          • dr\u00f8bel or<\/i> dr\u00f8vel > dr\u00f8bel<\/ul>\n
          • Bizarrely, merging two words that in my idiolect have different pronunciations and different meanings:\n
              \n
            • sauce > sauce or<\/i> sovs\n
            • sovs > sauce or<\/i> sovs<\/ul>\n
            • Messing about with the hyphens in some compounds:\n
                \n
              • e-mail-adresse > e-mailadresse\n
              • stand-up-comedy > standupcomedy\n
              • play-off-kamp > playoffkamp\n
              • roll-on > rollon or<\/i> roll-on\n
              • built-up-tag > builtuptag\n
              • tagselvbord > tag selv-bord\n
              • T-bone-steak > T-bonesteak\n
              • a-v\u00e5ben-fri > a-v\u00e5benfri\n
              • DAMP-barn > DAMP-barn or<\/i> damp-barn or<\/i> dampbarn<\/ul>\n
              • Introducing some optional instances of -t<\/i> in some adverbs (which actually comes as a surprise to me — I thought -t<\/i> was already allowed here):\n
                  \n
                • gladelig > gladelig or<\/i> gladeligt\n
                • klogelig > klogelig or<\/i> klogeligt\n
                • un\u00e6gtelig > un\u00e6gtelig or<\/i> un\u00e6gteligt<\/ul>\n
                • Making it possible to drop the space in some compound prepositions when followed by a complement. The space was never allowed when the prepositions occurred without a complement (e.g., han fulgte bag efter\/bagefter manden<\/i>, but han fulgte bagefter<\/i> (not *bag efter<\/i>):\n
                    \n
                  • bag efter > bag efter or<\/i> bagefter\n
                  • bag i > bag i or<\/i> bagi\n
                  • inden for > inden for or<\/i> indenfor\n
                  • neden under > neden under or<\/i> nedenunder\n
                  • oven p\u00e5 > oven p\u00e5 or<\/i> ovenp\u00e5\n
                  • ud over > ud over or<\/i> udover\n
                  • frem for > frem for or<\/i> fremfor<\/ul>\n

                    Interestingly, many compound prepositions still don’t allow this freedom. For instance, in the following four sentences it is not allowed to write *udaf<\/i>, *optil<\/i>, *udefra<\/i> and *opad<\/i>:<\/p>\n

                      \n
                    • De har altid haft sv\u00e6rt ved at komme ud ad d\u00f8ren i ordentlig tid.\n
                    • Pl\u00e6neklipperen k\u00f8rer op til 4 timer p\u00e5 en opladning.\n
                    • Ude fra gaden l\u00f8d der et stort brag.\n
                    • Vejen gik stejlt op ad bakke.<\/ul>\n

                      I’m pretty happy about some of the changes, whereas some of the others are annoying me. However, I need to learn the new rules so that I can spell Danish correctly if I need to, even if I might defy the rules on my blog.<\/p>\n

                      (PS: Don’t ask me about the photo — it was the only result I got when I searched for Retskrivningsordbogen<\/i> on Flickr.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                      Fenja og Ewers Aabenraa Originally uploaded by Niels J. Buus Madsen The orthography of the Danish language is regulated by Dansk Sprogn\u00e6vn through their official orthographical dictionary, “Retskrivningsordbogen”. Any revisions take effect as soon as a new edition is published, so if you’re keen to spell correctly, you have to learn the changes immediately. The changes introduced today include the following: Abolishing alternative forms that correspond to pronunciations that aren’t used any more: Baskerlandet or Baskien > Baskerlandet federal or f\u00f8deral > f\u00f8deral langust or languster > […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[157,159,117],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-da","category-en","category-linguistics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/widmanniana.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}