Monday, August 20, 2007

A linguistic question, a knitting question!

I got scolded by Helene for learning Swedish before the Norwegian, and she's got the point, I have more Norwegian blogs on my bloglines than Swedish ones, and some of them are only in Norwegian. That settles the matter: I'm starting to learn both of the languages at the same time - it will give me an opportunity to compare them since they seem to be similar. *^v^* Be warned, I'll be asking linguistic questions and maybe even write some sentences in those languages on my blog! ^^

All right, Norwegian bloggers, first question: I've just found out that there are two official languages in Norway: Bokmaal and Nynorsk, so which one do you speak, and which one should I learn?!... (and let's not talk about Sami in the far north, I'm not considering learning this language in the near future...)


Today a new portion of my journal pages - I finished them last weekend.
This one was inspired when I was going on a bus and a little girl with her mother were sitting behind me. They were talking about this and that and sudenly the girl saw a huge flock of crows in the street, and exclaimed with joy and astonishment "Wow! Mum! Birds!". Which left me thinking about the child's ability to be astonished on every step, no matter what, no matter how many times that girl saw birds before, she would still shout it out. ^^

One day at the cottage I got into melancholic mood. I quoted here a poem called "Melancholy" by Krzysztof Baczynski, famous Polish poet.

That's an evening inspiration, with a full moon, starry sky and a poem called "Night" by Polish poet Boleslaw Lesmian (I love his poetry! ^^ Watercolors and white acrylic.
That's the belated reaction to Inspire Me Thursday's topic DNA. I printed out my recent photo, glued it onto a page, then worked with watercolors and pencil crayons.

This is a reminder that sometimes I talk too much, without thinking first... Well, I must learn to keep my mouths shut. ^^

That's the second part of the "Wow, Mum, birds" page - this is a quotation from Marillion's "Childhood's End?", my teenager's favourite band, which I dug out recently. I've been listening to this song when I heard the little girl shout on the bus! *^v^* In fact I think I may choose this song as my theme song (remember theme songs from "Ally McBeal"? ^^).
Funny thing, when I painted the magpie, I forgot these are the very runny watery watercolors, and white and black places intermixed with splashes of water, yuk...
But then I kicked the perfectionist in me in the butt and said, that it's my magpie and I made it that way, and it stays that way! Period!
It would have been so easy to rip out this page and try again on another, but it's just my journal and nobody will measure the magpie's white and black areas with a ruler or something! ^^ It's just for fun!

I must say that I am so very flattered and happy with all your comments on my journal pages, keep them coming, please! This is a new way of expressing myself and I'm learning how to do it, any words of encouragement is very welcome! *^v^*


I also have an urgent knitting question (to those knitting Silver Belle or anybody who can help me! ) - I'm stuck! I cast on for sleeves last night and I don't know how to knit one stitch, the one highlighted in green , which is described as "k1, p1, k1 into next stitch". I tried many combinations and I'm several stitches short at the end of the 16 stitches sequence (the next direction after this stitch is "k 3 tog"). i know I have to make three stitches out of the one, but I don't know how!...
Please, help!!!


And because it's my nameday today, I'm spending it fruitfully - my best friend Anna came this morning to help me clean our balcony, and then we took her to the train station (she was going outside Warsaw to get a second tattoo done, yikes! ^^), Robert took a day off, we went to the art bookstore to buy me a present (but it was closed, wrrrr...), then we went to the swimming pool and sauna and then for a lovely fried fish dinner. Now we are home, with some bubbly in the fridge! *^v^*
Happy nameday to all Joannas! *^v^*

13 comments:

  1. art pages are beautiful and happy name day:) Its mine today

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  2. Hi, I found a site that might help with your k1,p1,k1 into next stitch question. It is called Knitting Help.com. Type k1, p1, k1 into next stitch and it comes up with 10 answers. The last one seems to be the one you need. I'm making this sweater also. Good luck, Carol

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  3. It is Carol again. The site is one word - it should be KnittingHelp.com. Just type your question into the search area. Carol

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  4. how about danish?It is scandinavian too !!!I could help!well, how funny it is my DD´name too, and I didn´t know.....

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  5. Bokmål is by far the most used language in Norway.

    It's typical Norwegian to stick by your dialect for life, never changing it to suit other people. Because of it's "unhandy" geography Norway has developed very many dialects, and very different dialects. To the point that in my municipality of 6500 people, I can hear weather a person grew up in the eastern, the middle or the western part. Foreigners often make the mistake of taking a language course, believing that they understand Norwegian, and then find themselves somwhere in the country not understanding a thing ;-)

    The dialects in the eastern part of Norway - around Oslo - are very similar to Bokmål. Nynorsk is much closer to dialects from the west coast, and to old Norse.

    I live in a municipality with Nynorsk as the main language. Both languages are compulsary in school, but for me Nynorsk was the main language. I use Nynorsk at work every day, and feel very comfortable with it, but use Bokmål for my Norwegian blogging. Only about 13% of the Norwegians use Nynorsk, and I'm afraid it has a kind of rural image.


    And you thought this was going to be easy... ;-) guess again!!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nynorsk
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_dialects

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  6. More beautiful pages!! You have a gift! i especially like the one you did with the picture of you.
    Happy Name Day!!

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  7. Joanna - your journal pages astound me!! they arbeautiful and reallyy say the things that you mean themm to. I must go find that poem - melancholia.

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  8. Oh my... I'm probably only confusling you, but you asked which language we speak. Well, except from news anchors noone speek Nynorsk or Bokmål since they are both constructed, written languages. We all speak our native dialect.
    ;-)

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  9. This link I gave you does not work propperly so I uploaded pic with 'How-to k1,p1,k1' to photoalbum

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  10. Well, I'm swedish and I certaintly have problems with some norwegian dialects. Written it's no problem but spoken.... :)

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  11. I agree with Helene - learn Bokmaal. I think your art journal pages are beautiful and really inspiring :-)

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  12. First of all, thanks for reading my blog :) Hope it helps you to learn norwegian ;)
    I come from the north of Norway so we have a dialect very different from the rest of the country, which Helene also said, that there are a lot of different dialects. But my dialect is leaning towards nynorsk in many ways.
    But I'm writing in bokmaal, and I guess if I started writing in my dialect you woulden't understand much. We use alot of å,ø and æ in our dialeck.

    Håpe dåkker får ei kjæmpeflott hælg!

    = Hope you (as in you and your husband) have a great weekend!

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