-Jens Persson wrote:
Example: The

> Nynorska pronouns 'de' (=you, plural) and 'me' (=we) which are 'ni'
> and 'vi', respectively, in Swedish. My dialect has 'da'/'dä'
> and 'ma'/'mä', respectively. Another example: Nynorska 'gaupa'
> (=lynx) which is 'lo(djur)' in Swedish, but 'göupa'/'gö´öup' in
> Jamtlandic.

*me* or *mi* for English "we" is extensively used in South
Norway. The Agder variety is *mi*, if I recall correctly.
And this in spite of the claim being made that the language
spoken there is Danish.

Actually, it is very difficult to say "there and there"
they speak "such and such". That is because my focus is
usually on understanding the meaning of what is being
said, and not on classifying dialects.

During the weekend, as I listened to some TV debates,
I thought about this, and it occurred to me that I
ought to tape-record some of it, and then write
down phonetically how they actually speak.
In this example they were 2 or 4 journalists from SW
Norway discussing the Irak war. For me it was informative
to see that none of them spoke what I would call "bokmål"
or "riksmål". But some of them I know from their daily
columns where the language they use (in writing) is
actually bokmål. This is, I think, typical for a large
section of the population: that they speak differently
from how they write.

I think I'll try to find some samples of different
varieties of written language in my next post, which
I hope will clarify how much the discussed written languages
actually differ, and in what ways they differ. More
specifically, I will try to find a sample text in Old
Icelandic, and then compare with various Danish and Norwegian
translations.

Best
Xigung