# Norwegian: The Number System



## iglesias

Hi, 

     I have a question about the number system of  
     Norwegian.
     It seems there are more than one words which 
     represent number 1 and 7.
     Ex:
     1: *Én / ett / en
*     7: Syv / Sju

     I want to know which of them used when saying a  
     phone number ?
     Thanks.


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## Lemminkäinen

Don't confuse the indefinite article _en _with the numeral _en _(sometimes written _én_): en bok - a book; en/én bok - one book

In phone numbers (and other times when simply reciting numbers), you use _en_ and not _ett_. 

Whether you use _syv_ or _sju_ is simply up to you (in contrast to _en/ett _it's not a matter of the gender of a noun, but a stilistic difference).


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## oskhen

Hello

Personally, I think I would write "syv" in a formal context. "Sju" sounds a bit informal and more fitting in spoken Norwegian. But everyone may not agree. There are no rules concerning that.


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## Tjahzi

Could the spelling "sju" be a borrowing from Swedish (which spells it "sju" and "sju only)?


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## Pteppic

Tjahzi said:


> Could the spelling "sju" be a borrowing from Swedish (which spells it "sju" and "sju only)?


I suppose it's possible, but I think it's much more likely that both our languages have developed the "sju" version, and that "syv" is a result of Danish influence. Furthermore, the syv/sju divide exists only in Bokmål - in Nynorsk, "sju" is the only alternative.


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## Tjahzi

That's interesting, and it very much makes sense. 

But, how do you pronounce it? I reckon the Danish pronounciation is different from the Norwegian one. In Swedish it's pronounced "ɧʉ", or, at least that's how I pronounce it.


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## Pteppic

Tjahzi said:


> That's interesting, and it very much makes sense.
> 
> But, how do you pronounce it? I reckon the Danish pronounciation is different from the Norwegian one. In Swedish it's pronounced "ɧʉ", or, at least that's how I pronounce it.


[syʋ] and [ʃʉ]


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## MarX

Is there no confusion between *sju* and *tjue*?
The way some people say *sj* and *tj* is indistinguishable, IMO.


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## Tjahzi

Interesting. The latter is definatly very similar to Swedish, the former less so. Could the former way of pronouncing it have emerged from the Danish spelling? And, what determines a speakers choice of pronounciation, regional dialect, or do all dialects use both pronounciations freely interchangeably?


On a side note, I do realise we are a bit off topic here, but since the initial question has been answered, I hope you let us go on.


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## Pteppic

MarX said:


> Is there no confusion between *sju* and *tjue*?
> The way some people say *sj* and *tj* is indistinguishable, IMO.


Yes, the difference between the Norwegian palatal and post-alveolar voiceless fricatives seems to be disappearing, unfortunately. And sometimes, you do have to explain, either by pronouncing the number you were saying very clearly, or by using the Danish numbers.



Tjahzi said:


> Interesting. The latter is definatly very similar to Swedish, the former less so. Could the former way of pronouncing it have emerged from the Danish spelling? And, what determines a speakers choice of pronounciation, regional dialect, or do all dialects use both pronounciations freely interchangeably?
> 
> 
> On a side note, I do realise we are a bit off topic here, but since the initial question has been answered, i hope you let us go on.


*Syv* is most definitely inspired by the Danish spelling - Danish was the official language here for 417 years, so a lot of Danish words have made it into Norwegian, many of which are retained in Bokmål (and to a lesser degree in Nynorsk). We never adopted the Danish pronunciation, though (thank heavens ).

I don't really feel qualified to give an authorative answer to your second question, but my impression is that in speaking, the line is based on degree of conservativeness, rather than dialect. To take Oslo as an example, it's more common to say *syv* in the western part of the city, which is traditionally the home of the more conservative (and affluent) classes, while the traditionally working class "Eastenders" say *sju*, as does most of the rest of the country, I believe. There's a tendency, though, to make your speech more formal if speaking publicly and such (politicians usually say *syv*, unless they want to mark themselves as "one of the people").

Written Norwegian is more conservative in nature, though, so *syv* is more common there, as oskhen said. I would probably write *syv* in a job application, and *sju* in an e-mail to a friend. Other people might write *syv* regardless of the context.

As for iglesias's original question, the language reform of 1951 decrees that *sju* is actually the correct form in all cases. As a rule, though, people tend to ignore the reform, at least partially (as I said, *syv* is usually preferred in writing, and sometimes in speaking). However, according to an article about said reform, there is one (ironic) exception to the rule: Reciting telephone numbers . 

There are other numbers that have more than one name, too, though they have double digits, like 17 (*sytten*/*søtten*), 20 (*tyve*/*tjue*) and 30 (*tredve*/*tretti*). So, of course, you don't need these if you just say one digit at a time.


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## Joannes

Lemminkäinen said:


> Don't confuse the indefinite article _en _with the numeral _en _(sometimes written _én_): en bok - a book; en/én bok - one book


Are they pronounced differently? Or is it a mere 'grammatical' accent, as in the Spanish *el* 'the' - *él* 'he' distiction (or *qué* 'what?' vs. *que* 'that', etc.)


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## jonquiliser

Tjahzi said:


> That's interesting, and it very much makes sense.
> 
> But, how do you pronounce it? I reckon the Danish pronounciation is different from the Norwegian one. In Swedish it's pronounced "ɧʉ", or, at least that's how I pronounce it.



Well, in Swedish over here (Finland) most people would pronounce it [ʃʉ], as seems to be the case in Norwegian.


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## Magb

Joannes said:


> Are they pronounced differently? Or is it a mere 'grammatical' accent, as in the Spanish *el* 'the' - *él* 'he' distiction (or *qué* 'what?' vs. *que* 'that', etc.)



It's essentially the same thing. Basically what the <é> marks is that the word must have primary stress, which in turn means that it must have a long vowel and be an independent word. <en>, on the other hand, will normally attach to the following word and have a reduced vowel, typically [ɛ] or [ə] or somewhere in between.

Maybe this is the best way to explain it:

"Jeg så en bil" (I saw a car)
/jæ'so: en'bi:l/ = [jæ'so: əm'bi:l]

"Jeg så én bil" (I saw one car)
/jæ'so: 'e:n 'bi:l/ = [jæ'so: 'e:m 'bi:l]

Unless I'm mistaken, that's more or less the same thing as what's going on with Spanish <el> / <él>.


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## Christhiane

7 can be either 'syv' or 'sju.'

17 can be either 'sytten' or 'søtten.'

20 can be either 'tyve' or 'tjue.' 

30 can be either 'tredve' or 'tretti.'

The first of the pairs are perhaps slightly more formal, but they different pronounciations can all be used interchangably.


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## Tjahzi

Ahh, thanks for the interesting posts. I find it interesting that Norwegian has problems distinguishing "syv/sju/7" and "tyve/tjue/20", and in addition to that the fact that Finnish Swedish seems to use a pronounciation similar to the (only) Norwegian pronounciation as well. Since the case is that modern standard Swedish distinguishes these by using the, as I mentioned earlier, unique Swedish sound [ɧ] for "sju", [ɧʉ], and the widespread [ʃ] for "tjugo" ("twenty"), pronounced [ʃʉ:gu] (by me at least, but living in a metropolitan are (Gothenburg/Göreborg), I believe my pronounciaton, except for a few, known, peculiarities, is rather mainstreamed). Now, just thinking freely, does Swedish have the [ɧ] sound because it has emerged in Swedish as of late, or has it just disappeared in all other (neighboring) languages? 

Very off topic, but the issue interests me and I would appreciate your input.


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## Joannes

Thank you, Magb! Interesting.


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## oskhen

Christhiane said:


> 20 can be either 'tyve' or 'tjue.'
> 
> 30 can be either 'tredve' or 'tretti.'


 
Actually, I think I read somewhere that the kind of counting where you use 'tyve' and 'tredve', i.e. where you say the 'one digits' first ('to og tyve', 'fem og tredve', etc) became banned I don't know how many years ago, also in spoken language. At least, people who works in the media, politicians, etc shall not say it, far less write it, and I think that applies to everyone else as well. Few care, though.

Anyone knows if I remember correctly?


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## Pteppic

oskhen said:


> Actually, I think I read somewhere that the kind of counting where you use 'tyve' and 'tredve', i.e. where you say the 'one digits' first ('to og tyve', 'fem og tredve', etc) became banned I don't know how many years ago, also in spoken language. At least, people who works in the media, politicians, etc shall not say it, far less write it, and I think that applies to everyone else as well. Few care, though.
> 
> Anyone knows if I remember correctly?


You remember correctly. It was the same reform from 1951 I mentioned earlier.  However, tyve and tredve are prefectly usable for the numbers 20 and 30, just not for 21, 36 and so on - it's completely mad.


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## Christhiane

I know that there was some ban on saying to og tredve etc. However, believing that you can actually make a law and that people will follow it in common speach is silly. I use the words and I was born a long time after 1951.

Edit: I just checked språrkradet's webpages, and in bokmål 'syv,' 'tyve,' and 'tredve' were again allowed in 2003.


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## oskhen

Christhiane said:


> believing that you can actually make a law and that people will follow it in common speach is silly.


 
Norway has no tradition limiting people's spoken language, just the written language. In addition, and in contrast to many other countries (including Germany, I believe), we don't learn any standard way of speaking at school, either. I suppose that's why it's so difficult to regulate how people speak here. I guess it's easier in some other countries. 

I suppose this is a bit off-topic, but I hope I'm forgiven


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## Grefsen

oskhen said:


> Norway has no tradition limiting people's spoken language, just the written language. In addition, and in contrast to many other countries (including Germany, I believe), we don't learn any standard way of speaking at school, either. I suppose that's why it's so difficult to regulate how people speak here. I guess it's easier in some other countries.
> 
> I suppose this is a bit off-topic, but I hope I'm forgiven



*Tusen takk *for your very valuable contributions to this thread.  

*Ogs**å velkommen til nordisk forum. *


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## oskhen

Grefsen said:


> *Tusen takk *for your very valuable contributions to this thread.
> 
> *Ogs**å velkommen til nordisk forum. *


 

Thank you very much.


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## Lemminkäinen

As a mod note, because of the wide nature of the thread's title, I don't feel discussions regarding other numerals than the ones asked about in the thread topic are irrelevant, so don't worry about discussing this fascinating topic.

Regarding the various forms for 17, Bokmålsordboka only lists *sytten *as a written form (*søtten* is there, but only as an interjection), however, the only form I've ever heard in spoken Norwegian is *søtten*; has anyone heard (or does anyone use themselves) *sytten* while speaking? It sounds quite archaic to me.


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## Christhiane

I say 'sytten' and 'søtten.' I don't have a clear regional accenent, but I talk a weird mixuture of 'refined' Drammen's dialect and Western Oslo dialect, I think. I don't have that much slang, except for a greater amount of English words than most.


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## oskhen

Lemminkäinen said:


> has anyone heard (or does anyone use themselves) *sytten* while speaking? It sounds quite archaic to me.


 
I think 'sytten' is, if not archaic, so at least belonging to a quite refined, upper class way of speaking - like in the classical dialects of western Oslo.

I'm not entirely sure about this, but it's clear that 'sytten' is very bokmål-ish. 

When I just tried out what of the two that came easiest to me, I felt I almost had to concentrate to say 'sytten', it didn't feel natural at all, and I speak relatively close to bokmål (though a quite 'radical' version of the tongue). I think many feel the same.


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## Lemminkäinen

oskhen said:


> When I just tried out what of the two that came easiest to me, I felt I almost had to concentrate to say 'sytten', it didn't feel natural at all, and I speak relatively close to bokmål (though a quite 'radical' version of the tongue). I think many feel the same.



The same for me, and I'm from western Oslo


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## Pteppic

Just to complete the set (I think):

70 = *sytti* / *søtti*

And some (older) people use *førr *instead of *førti* for 40. I've heard of extremely conservative people saying *hundrede* instead of *hundre* for 100, too, but only once.


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