Variant subtag proposal: Høgnorsk variety of Norwegian

[Leif Halvard Silli]

Michael Everson, Thu, 7 Jan 2010 13:54:09 +0000:
> For what it is worth, a colleague I know who is a bit of a Nynorsk  
> activist dislikes Høgnorsk because it splits the opposition to Bokmål.

Then I am sure he would not like it if Høgnorsk were defined out of 
Nynorsk, or if we defined Høgnorsk as separate from Nynorsk.

I'm not sure, though, why Doug said what he said. But perhaps it helps 
looking at what we  call "conservative Nynorsk" - and which share many 
of the ideas of the Høgnorsk movement. If you are a "loyal" 
conservative Nynorskian, then you will not follow the Høgnorsk 
orthography. One can be a conservative Nynorskian and still not see why 
the Høgnorsk orthography is important. Or, one may see that it is 
important, but seeing loyalty and a unified opposition as more 
important. 

In truth, the conservative Nynorskians most often do not choose the 
most typical Høgnorsk variants which the official Nynorsk norm defines. 
They instead tend to write conservatively within the so called 
schoolbook norm. Their conservatism is seen in choice of words, in 
saying no to Bokmål loan words and in choosing the conservative 
inflection/declension variants - when the so called schoolbook norm 
permits it, and in emphasizing good Norwegian wording.

If official Nynorsk, as it is practised in schoolbooks and info from 
the government, used the full width of the schoolbook norm - and if we 
saw that it actually worked, that authors really mastered the language 
and that it made good Norwegian blossom, then Høgnorsk would have much 
less playing ground. But instead we see that only a much narrower norm, 
close to Bokmål, and sometimes entirely Bokmålized, is permitted/used - 
mixed up with apt doses of "I feel I need to write like this". 

Anyway, I hope Doug now really really is satisfied with putting 
'hognorsk' in the registry as "orthographic".
-- 
leif halvard silli