# Norwegian: stein/sten (in moderation)



## Gasta

Hello!

I was just wondering about the Norwegian word for "stone": why are there two alternative forms? Are there any "rules" about their usage? For instance, why "The Sword in the Stone" is translated as "Sverdet i stenen" - with "sten" and not "stein"? Is it just a choice or using "steinen" would have been different, in some ways?

It might be a silly and pointless question, I was just wondering.
Thank you everybody


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## hanne

I think most of the answer to your question is covered by the section *The nynorsk/bokmål split of Norwegian?* of our FAQ, so I suggest you take a look at that for a start. I think there's plenty of information to find on the topic (at least now that you know what to look for ), so I don't think there's much point in anyone starting an explanation from scratch in this thread .


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## Gasta

I asked because as far as I could understand that's not a matter of bokmål/nynorsk, in the sense that the alternatives are found only in bokmål,  whilst in nynorsk there is only "stein" (note: it seems I'm not allowed  to post links, I wanted to paste the link to a page from Bokmålsordboka  | Nynorskordboka of the University of Oslo). So I was asking why there are two different forms, but in the same variety of Norwegian.
Anyway, I'll have a look at the page you linked, thanks.


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## mosletha

It _is_ a matter of nynorsk/bokmål. See, the Norse word was "steinn" and the Danish form was "sten". Both forms of this word have been used in Norway. And nynorsk almost always favours Norse forms (in this case "stein") and bokmål almost always favours Danish (in this case "sten"). 

Nynorsk is also puristic by nature, so while bokmål allows both forms, nynorsk allows only one.


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## Cerb

I'll try to chip in on usage. 

While it is a matter of preference, "sten" does come across as a bit more dated or formal to me in current bokmål. Some dialects use it without those connotations (Bergen quite likely to name one), but to me living in Oslo I'd expect to hear "sten" used by older people or in a slightly more formal context. "Sverdet i stenen" is probably a bad example as it's a proper name for a fictional work where the use of "stenen" is fixed. I bet translating the title using "steinen" would be unthinkable in bokmål when the book came out 1938 however.

You'll come across this in other words like "ben"/"bein" (bone), "gren"/"grein" (cried) and probably lots more. I'd liken it to the preference of declining nouns as masculine (-en) over feminine (-a). It can come down to sosiolects, attempting to speak "prettier", being in the nature of a dialect or simply dated language.


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## Gasta

Cerb said:


> I'll try to chip in on usage.
> 
> While it is a matter of preference, "sten" does come across as a bit more dated or formal to me in current bokmål. Some dialects use it without those connotations (Bergen quite likely to name one), but to me living in Oslo I'd expect to hear "sten" used by older people or in a slightly more formal context. "Sverdet i stenen" is probably a bad example as it's a proper name for a fictional work where the use of "stenen" is fixed. I bet translating the title using "steinen" would be unthinkable in bokmål when the book came out 1938 however.
> 
> You'll come across this in other words like "ben"/"bein" (bone), "gren"/"grein" (cried) and probably lots more. I'd liken it to the preference of declining nouns as masculine (-en) over feminine (-a). It can come down to sosiolects, attempting to speak "prettier", being in the nature of a dialect or simply dated language.



Tusen, tusen takk!  That's exactly the kind of explanation I was looking for.
So we can say that the choice between the two forms - inside the context of bokmål - has a certain sociolinguistic value.
Thank you again


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## NorwegianNYC

If anything, "stein" (= stone), "grein" (= branch) and "bein" (= leg) are the correct forms in Norwegian. The rationale is that at least 85% of Norwegians will use these forms (the number is most likely even higher). There is no such thing as a standard spoken Norwegian, which means that USAGE defines CORRECTNESS (i.e. a descriptive approach), and since the vast majority of Norwegian will use "bein", "grein" and "stein" these form are the ones a Norwegian learner ought to use as well. To insist that "sten" is the correct form is like telling an English learner that one ought to say 'come hither' (which is technically correct) as oppose to saying 'come here'.

However, written and spoken form often differ. Very few are likely to say "sten" in spoken language, but you are much more likely to come across it in writing. Another example is "slik and "sånn". A recent study revealed that 80% of Norwegian write "slik" whereas 80% use "sånn" in their daily speech. Also - more than 80% of Norwegians use the 3-gender system while speaking, but less than 40% use it in writing. This means that most people change their style when writing because they THINK there is a conservative written norm, but are more likely to use their natural forms while speaking it.


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## Gasta

NorwegianNYC said:


> If anything, "stein" (= stone), "grein" (= branch) and "bein" (= leg) are the correct forms in Norwegian. The rationale is that at least 85% of Norwegians will use these forms (the number is most likely even higher). There is no such thing as a standard spoken Norwegian, which means that USAGE defines CORRECTNESS (i.e. a descriptive approach), and since the vast majority of Norwegian will use "bein", "grein" and "stein" these form are the ones a Norwegian learner ought to use as well. To insist that "sten" is the correct form is like telling an English learner that one ought to say 'come hither' (which is technically correct) as oppose to saying 'come here'.
> 
> However, written and spoken form often differ. Very few are likely to say "sten" in spoken language, but you are much more likely to come across it in writing. Another example is "slik and "sånn". A recent study revealed that 80% of Norwegian write "slik" whereas 80% use "sånn" in their daily speech. Also - more than 80% of Norwegians use the 3-gender system while speaking, but less than 40% use it in writing. This means that most people change their style when writing because they THINK there is a conservative written norm, but are more likely to use their natural forms while speaking it.



Thank you. I wasn't aware of this massive shift of forms from speaking to writing. I was aware there is, but not this much. So thank you both Cerb and NorwegianNYC 
After all, it seems that my question wasn't that much pointless.


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## NorwegianNYC

Hi Gasta - I do not think Norwegian is extreme in any way when it comes to using different words for written and spoken language. Famously, 'ne pas' is the negation in French, but French-speakers only use it in writing. In spoken French, it is just 'pas'. Every language has its quirks when it comes to this particular field. English uses "ain't" and "can't" in spoken form, but most people will write "am/are/is not" and "cannot".

When it comes to stein vs sten I recommend you go with 'stein'. As of 2012, 'sten' is a dialect word only used in certain Eastern inland dialects.


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## Cerb

I want to stress the part about writing in an imagined conservative written norm. I referred to it as "formal", but that's missing the essential point NorwegianNYC made.

Language nerds like us commonly frown upon this practice, especially in the more extreme cases where actual grammatical errors are made in an attempt to sound more formal or "appropriate". Repeat offenders are declension of feminine nouns as masculine when they have no masculine form in current written bokmål ("hytten", "solen", "jenten" etc.) as well as the refusal to use the object pronoun "dem" in favor of "de": 

"Jeg har snakket med de"
"Har du hørt fra de?"
"Er hun en av de?"

It's important to note that this is simply misguided. It's not a norm or practice you need to follow if you want to write proper Norwegian. You are of course free to use "sten", "ben", "gren" and so on as long as they're in the dictionary, but adding the "i" does come across as more natural when speaking and is perfectly fine in any written context as well.


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## Dan2

NorwegianNYC said:


> If anything, "stein" (= stone), "grein" (=  branch) and "bein" (= leg) are the correct forms in Norwegian.





Cerb said:


> You are of course free to use "sten", "ben", "gren" and so on as long as they're in the dictionary, but adding the "i" does come across as more natural when speaking and is perfectly fine in any written context as well.


Given the situation regarding these three words, one might think the same applies to "en" vs "ein".  But I get the impression that "ein" is distinctly Nynorsk and that even people who use stein/grein/bein (i.e., most Norwegians) will use "en" unless they follow the Nynorsk written conventions or speak a specific dialect in which "ein" is used.  Is that correct?

Thanks!


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## NorwegianNYC

The case of "en/ein" is along the same line, but even less predictable. A number of dialects using "ein" (i.e. nynorsk) will not necessarily pronounce it that way. Both "en" and "æn" (even "enn" and "ænn") may be heard. Likewise, several dialect using the bokmål standard will pronounce it "ein" or "æin". Sometimes the articles are rendered "enj/ennj", "ænj/ænnj", "einj/æinj" (i.e. palatalization).

However, in spoken Norwegian the masculine article is more often than not rendered "øhn" or "øhnj". An article is by definition a word that is half skipped - not unlike in English, where most speakers will render the sentence 'it is an apple' as "itsnapple"


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## Cerb

Dan2 said:


> Given the situation regarding these three words, one might think the same applies to "en" vs "ein".  But I get the impression that "ein" is distinctly Nynorsk and that even people who use stein/grein/bein (i.e., most Norwegians) will use "en" unless they follow the Nynorsk written conventions or speak a specific dialect in which "ein" is used.  Is that correct?
> 
> Thanks!


This seems intuitively correct to me, but then again I have some regional bias as my dialect is very close to written bokmål. Something to keep in mind here might be that picking the written form that comes closest to the way you speak can be a coin flip to some people. What written form to use has historically also been enforced with politically vested interest in some parts of the country.


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## NorwegianNYC

I could not agree more, Cerb! My Norwegian students complain that Norwegian allows for so many different written forms that it is incredibly hard for a Norwegian-learner to make sense of it. An example is past tense (preterit) of *å svi*. It can be either 'sved', 'svei' or even 'svidde' (*å by* can be 'bød', 'bøy' or 'bydde', and there are many more of these). Equally confusing is that most Norwegians consider their own dialect superior, and in many cases more correct, than the standard written form(-s). Truth is that no place in Norway do they actually speak _Nynorsk_. Also, the only place where they speak something close to _Bokmål_ is in certain parts of Finnmark, where they are (or were) bilingual, and the original language was Sami.

Norwegians like to excuse themselves, even in textbooks at school, for the lack of a standard spoken norm with "we lost our language in the union with Denmark". Which is total nonsense! By the time Norway entered the Union of Kalmar, Old Norse was already extinct, and modern Danish and modern Norwegian are very far removed from what the language looked like in 1814. Also, it does not do anything to explain why Norwegian is so close to Swedish that even children can understand it. In my work as a teacher, I have found that Norwegian-speaking children growing up abroad are as likely to understand Swedish as Stavanger or Trondheim dialects.

The fact the you can write both *stein* and *sten*, that fact that you can write *ei bok* and *en bok,* and *lyge* as well as *lyve* is an anomaly in Norwegian, because the language is descriptive, rather than normative. 50 years ago, people would change their dialects when they moved to a different place or held an important job (like people indeed to in the US, UK and France until this day). For some reason, people stopped doing this in Norway, which has led to a plethora of dialect even on newscasts on TV, and then slowly, but surely, new forms and spellings are going to creep into the vocabulary. 50 years ago, people might say 'bein', but would spell it 'ben'. Nowadays you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who shies away from spelling it b-e-i-n


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