# Norwegian: sen or sein?



## vthebee

Hei

I found two alternative spellings for "late" in Norwegian: sen and sein.

Which is most common? Is one bokmål and one nynorsk or is there any difference in use?

Tusen takk


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## Ben Jamin

No difference in meaning. Usage varies mostly geographic, and to some extent sociolectally.


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## mexerica feliz

It is just like ben/bein, sten/stein...


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## basslop

In Bokmål both are valid. In Nynorsk "sein" is the only one valid - I think.


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## Ben Jamin

basslop said:


> In Bokmål both are valid. In Nynorsk "sein" is the only one valid - I think.


Paradoxically Nynorsk is more puristic than Bokmål.


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## Svenke

Ben Jamin said:


> Paradoxically Nynorsk is more puristic than Bokmål.



Nynorsk and Bokmål of the purist varieties have different "enemies".
Nynorsk purism is mostly directed against Bokmål, Danish, and German. 
Bokmål purism, on the other hand, is directed against spoken Norwegian (and Nynorsk): against feminine gender, a-endings in verbs and nouns, diphthongs etc.
But of course, not all Nynorsk users are purists, nor all Bokmål users.

Svenke
-- a Nynorsk user who cares for both Bokmål and Nynorsk, but above all for Norwegian


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## vthebee

Tusen takk everyone for replying to my question. This forum always helps me as I want to be as good in Norwegian as I possibly can be!


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## Ben Jamin

Svenke said:


> Nynorsk and Bokmål of the purist varieties have different "enemies".
> Nynorsk purism is mostly directed against Bokmål, Danish, and German.
> Bokmål purism, on the other hand, is directed against spoken Norwegian (and Nynorsk): against feminine gender, a-endings in verbs and nouns, diphthongs etc.
> But of course, not all Nynorsk users are purists, nor all Bokmål users.
> 
> Svenke
> -- a Nynorsk user who cares for both Bokmål and Nynorsk, but above all for Norwegian


Those "bokmål purists" you speak about are rather undercover riksmål people, the official Bokmål rules are very tolerant. On the other hand, the official Nynorsk norm is much more restrictive.


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## Svenke

Ben Jamin said:


> Those "bokmål purists" you speak about are rather undercover riksmål people, the official Bokmål rules are very tolerant.



You are quite right about official Bokmål, but "undercover Riksmål people" appear to be a significant part of the Bokmål-using population, in the sense that conservative forms are vastly more frequent in use than the alternatives. The best-balanced text corpus available is _Leksikografisk bokmålskorpus_, and here is a selection of search results:

sen: 1616 hits
sein: 283 hits

skrev: 14 197 hits
skreiv: 345 hits

løs: 6252 hits
laus: 149 hits

natten: 9730 hits
natta: 2985 hits

kvinnen: 9913 hits
kvinna: 61 hits

fjellene: 2131 hits
fjella: 32 hits

husene: 2640 hits
husa: 91 hits

This tendency to use conservative forms is clearly motivated by purism, keeping Bokmål "clean" from dialect and Nynorsk forms.
There are exceptions, but these are few and far between:

øya: 4324 hits
øyen: 228 hits

jenta: 6261 hits
jenten: 177 hits

Svenke


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## Ben Jamin

Svenke said:


> You are quite right about official Bokmål, but "undercover Riksmål people" appear to be a significant part of the Bokmål-using population, in the sense that conservative forms are vastly more frequent in use than the alternatives. The best-balanced text corpus available is _Leksikografisk bokmålskorpus_, and here is a selection of search results:
> 
> sen: 1616 hits
> sein: 283 hits
> 
> skrev: 14 197 hits
> skreiv: 345 hits
> 
> løs: 6252 hits
> laus: 149 hits
> 
> natten: 9730 hits
> natta: 2985 hits
> 
> kvinnen: 9913 hits
> kvinna: 61 hits
> 
> fjellene: 2131 hits
> fjella: 32 hits
> 
> husene: 2640 hits
> husa: 91 hits
> 
> This tendency to use conservative forms is clearly motivated by purism, keeping Bokmål "clean" from dialect and Nynorsk forms.
> There are exceptions, but these are few and far between:
> 
> øya: 4324 hits
> øyen: 228 hits
> 
> jenta: 6261 hits
> jenten: 177 hits
> 
> Svenke


I think that we should relate to the official norm of the both varieties of the Norwegian language. What people choose inside the limits of the norm is a matter of their free choice.


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