Norwegian

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Towards One World-Language?
We live in a world were our language is constantly changing, and in the recent past our language has been affected because of a globalized world and technological development. The influence of English has become a global phenomenon. The question ''Will the Norwegian language survive or not?'' is something that is discussed alot today. Maybe it's time to protect Norwegian from English, and to preserve wealth of the Norwegian language, litterature and even the traditions. In this essay I am goign to write about how this globalization influences the Norwegian language.
English has a strong position as an international language in many areas of society, as in bussniess, in techology, and especially in the media. The fact that English and perhaps especially American culture dominates in several areas in Norway, is something I think most of us are aware of.
In my opinion one of the important factors is slang. Slang are words ad phrases that deviate from normal language, so every slang words is chosen as an alternative to a more neutral and normal variation of words with the same meaning. Many current Norwegian slang comes to us via media such as film, television and the internet, and it is almost impossible not to be affected by this. Because of this there is now a phenomenon that has been named anglonorwegian. Anglonorwegian is Norwegian with clear influence from the English language. Norwegian takes many loanwords from English. Sometimes we use the English words as they are, jeans and corner are two examples, other times we norwegianize English words, for example kult, beib, stilig etc.
The techological develpoment has led to more and more Norwegians communicating digitally. Therefore besides slang, ther...

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...ess time to write and people can communicate faster. Alot of teenagers have a urge to follow todays trend, and will always have a certain need to differentiate themselves from the growing generation. By using new words in their vocabulary, language functions as a marker of identity. Teenagers adopt English words that media and society serve them. Some people seem to think that English words and phrases are important to communicate with the outside word.
There are of course many arguments both for and against the Norwegian language becoming more and more influenced by English. There is no doubt that English is very important today, not only in Norway but in the whole world. The modern society we live in today is constantly evolving. New technology and new inventions are leading to a need for new words. Where this leads us, remains to be seen.

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