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Thread: Sweden vs Norway final showdown

  1. #51
    Quote Originally Posted by thedunno View Post
    Because Mew is a pop band? <ducking>
    No reason to duck or hide -- nothing wrong with pop bands.

    I don't actually consider Mew to be a "prog" group anyway, but I do think that sometimes they dip into actual "progressive pop" in the true sense, like on No More Stories...

  2. #52
    Quote Originally Posted by Scrotum Scissor View Post
    there were 25-30 YOs who somehow pretended not to understand basic, clearly spoken Norwegian and would rather have me address them in my fluent English - which I promptly refused to.
    I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. Kinda sad, it was always so nice that we all understood each other. I have many Danish friends with whom language is never a problem, but of course they're my generation.

    This situation was of course prophesized by Norwegians back in the early 2000s (it's a skit from a Norwegian comedy show):


    One thing I know, is that Finns, although they all understand Swedish, are not too fond of being spoken to in Danish or Norwegian. When in Finland I always have to resort to English, they won't even accept my faux-Swedish.

  3. #53
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    I'm just a Merkin but even I laughed at that bit!
    funny stuff


    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. Kinda sad, it was always so nice that we all understood each other. I have many Danish friends with whom language is never a problem, but of course they're my generation.

    This situation was of course prophesized by Norwegians back in the early 2000s (it's a skit from a Norwegian comedy show):


    One thing I know, is that Finns, although they all understand Swedish, are not too fond of being spoken to in Danish or Norwegian. When in Finland I always have to resort to English, they won't even accept my faux-Swedish.
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  4. #54
    In all this nobody's mentioned Hidrian Spacefolk?
    Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.

  5. #55
    Member Since: 3/27/2002 MYSTERIOUS TRAVELLER's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Sturgeon's Lawyer View Post
    In all this nobody's mentioned Hidrian Spacefolk?
    post 33 about 2/3 of the way down
    Why is it whenever someone mentions an artist that was clearly progressive (yet not the Symph weenie definition of Prog) do certain people feel compelled to snort "thats not Prog" like a whiny 5th grader?

  6. #56
    ^^^Thanks, though looking at that post it's easy to see how I missed it. My eyes tend to glaze over on those long list posts.
    Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.

  7. #57
    But to get back to the original showdown: Norway's best prog album of all times is undoubtedly Thule's Natt. With Sweden it has to be either Landberk's Riktigt Äkta or Änglagård's Epilog, I can't quite make up my mind there. But either way those examples show a basic, shall we say spiritual difference between the two countries, where Sweden has the pastoral, woodsy melancholy whereas Norway has more of an existential, wintery dread. There, I solved it for you.

  8. #58
    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    But either way those examples show a basic, shall we say spiritual difference between the two countries, where Sweden has the pastoral, woodsy melancholy whereas Norway has more of an existential, wintery dread. There, I solved it for you.
    I really like the way you illustrated that.

  9. #59
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    I find the entire Scandinavian scene to be a cheap copy of the original Vinland bands like The Leifs who are still remembered for their amazing version of “Hej Johan”.
    Last edited by Buddhabreath; 01-13-2019 at 10:15 AM.

  10. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndiSexgang View Post
    Incorrect in two ways, first of all Scandinavia is not a geographical term in the sense of describing an area simply on geographical borders, it is a cultural term for three countries that all stem from one people. Secondly the heart of Scandinavia back in the middle ages was Skåne (Scandia) in the south of Sweden and Denmark, which at one time ruled Skåne. The odd thing is though that no one in Sweden uses the word Skandinavien.
    Sigh.....

    I did say pure geography

    in English
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Peninsula

    Though I will say that the French Wikipedia version makes it a better distinction

    in French
    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9ninsule_Scandinave

    FTM: Finland is part of it as well with its highest mountain stuck in the strip between Norway & Sweden called Halti and part of a possible land exchange
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halti#..._border_change

    We also have the geographical concept of Fenno-Scandia or Fennoscandinavia considering the peninsula from St Petersburg to
    https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fennoscandie
    But that's nitpicking

    And we also have the Baltoscandia political concept (which TBH, I just discovered while searching the wiki links)
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltoscandia

    ==================

    For the rest, I agree with you that culturally speaking except for the islands in the gulf of Botnia and the western coast of Finland, Finland is not the cultural Scandinavia, while Denmark is.
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  11. #61
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    Bottom line is: They are distinct languages not dialects. Danish is as different to Swedish as Dutch is from German.
    Swedes generally understand most of what Norwegians say when they speak, but we haven't got a bloody clue what Danes are saying. I understand about 80% of spoken and written Norwegian, and live in a county that borders Norway, so I speak to Norwegians regularly. I only understand about 50% of written Danish and only about 5% of spoken Danish. To make a comparison I understand more spoken German, Russian and Italian than spoken Danish.

    As for Icelandic, it is so different because it is so ancient and did not develop along the same lines and at the same rate as the other Germanic languages.

  12. #62
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    Quote Originally Posted by Buddhabreath View Post
    I find the entire Scandinavian scene to be a cheap copy of the original Vinland bands like The Leifs who are still remembered for their amazing version of “Hej Johan”.
    Early incarnation of The Leifs, in their glam rock years!

    My Progressive Workshop at http://soundcloud.com/hfxx

  13. #63
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    Oh no, please no svenska dansbandsmusik!

  14. #64
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    Last edited by Buddhabreath; 01-13-2019 at 04:40 PM.

  15. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by AndiSexgang View Post
    Bottom line is: They are distinct languages not dialects. Danish is as different to Swedish as Dutch is from German.
    Swedes generally understand most of what Norwegians say when they speak, but we haven't got a bloody clue what Danes are saying. I understand about 80% of spoken and written Norwegian, and live in a county that borders Norway, so I speak to Norwegians regularly. I only understand about 50% of written Danish and only about 5% of spoken Danish. To make a comparison I understand more spoken German, Russian and Italian than spoken Danish.

    As for Icelandic, it is so different because it is so ancient and did not develop along the same lines and at the same rate as the other Germanic languages.
    This is interesting, because my take is very different. I am Norwegian, and I have no problem understanding both Swedish and Danish, oral and written (granted, I haven't met the Danish millennials Richard mentioned). To me there is no more difference between Norwegian, Danish and Swedish than there is between Norwegian dialects from the South and the North of the country. So I had to look this up, and sure enough, Wikipedia says:

    "The mutual intelligibility between the Continental Scandinavian languages is asymmetrical. Various studies have shown Norwegian speakers to be the best in Scandinavia at understanding other languages within the language group."

    I think this might have something to do both with Norwegian being a sort of middle ground between the other Scandinavian languages, and also that Norway has a famously wide spectrum of dialects, so wide that it has caused us to have two official languages, bokmål and nynorsk. So from a young age we are forced to work hard to understand each other.

  16. #66
    Also, to get all geeky and linguistic, Norway's long coastline means that there's been a lot of external influence on our language. Richard's hometown of Bergen has historically been an important harbour town for German trade - it was basically a Hanseatic outpost back in the day. So Bergen folks speak with a German r. Up north they have been closer to both Russian speakers, Finns and Lapps, consequently they have acquired some of that staccato, clipped pronounciation. And the far south, which is just a strenuous swim or a more comfortable ferry ride from Denmark, has the soft consonants and slight gutturality of Danish.

  17. #67
    And then, there's ABBA.
    Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.

  18. #68
    Member moecurlythanu's Avatar
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    I can still remember my first taste of Frusen Glädjé.

  19. #69
    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    Also, to get all geeky and linguistic, Norway's long coastline means that there's been a lot of external influence on our language. Richard's hometown of Bergen has historically been an important harbour town for German trade - it was basically a Hanseatic outpost back in the day. So Bergen folks speak with a German r. Up north they have been closer to both Russian speakers, Finns and Lapps, consequently they have acquired some of that staccato, clipped pronounciation. And the far south, which is just a strenuous swim or a more comfortable ferry ride from Denmark, has the soft consonants and slight gutturality of Danish.
    And funny too, that spoken norwegian from Finnmark (top of Norway, bordering Russia) is easier to understand for Danish people than many other dialects.
    It is said that, when Norway was Danish (up to 1814), the Danish authorities sent prisoners to Finnmark.
    Not sure its true, but it makes sense.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Holm-Lupo View Post
    This is interesting, because my take is very different. I am Norwegian, and I have no problem understanding both Swedish and Danish, oral and written (granted, I haven't met the Danish millennials Richard mentioned). To me there is no more difference between Norwegian, Danish and Swedish than there is between Norwegian dialects from the South and the North of the country. So I had to look this up, and sure enough, Wikipedia says:

    "The mutual intelligibility between the Continental Scandinavian languages is asymmetrical. Various studies have shown Norwegian speakers to be the best in Scandinavia at understanding other languages within the language group."

    I think this might have something to do both with Norwegian being a sort of middle ground between the other Scandinavian languages, and also that Norway has a famously wide spectrum of dialects, so wide that it has caused us to have two official languages, bokmål and nynorsk. So from a young age we are forced to work hard to understand each other.
    But that is wrong though, there is no "mutual intelligibility" as most Swedes do not understand spoken Danish, that's why they speak English to each other.

  21. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by AndiSexgang View Post
    But that is wrong though, there is no "mutual intelligibility" as most Swedes do not understand spoken Danish, that's why they speak English to each other.
    That’s why it says asymmetrical ...

  22. #72
    Also, I think this must be local or something. The whole premise of the tv show Broen wouldn’t work if Swedes and Danes flat out didn’t understand each other. And just as an example, my wife just attended an academic seminary where Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all lectured and discussed in their native tongue and it all worked fine...

  23. #73
    Member Zeuhlmate's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndiSexgang View Post
    But that is wrong though, there is no "mutual intelligibility" as most Swedes do not understand spoken Danish, that's why they speak English to each other.
    You are right, young people have problems, and Scrotums experience is the state of the situation. I think its a question of generations, and apparently going in the wrong direction.

    When I was young and lived close to Sweden, we watched a lot of Swedish television, they had 2 channels, and often broadcasted more interesting stuff than Danish TV (1 Channel). So we got used to swedish, no subtitles.
    I have no problems with Swedish, and my Swedish friends (my age) have no problems with properly spoken Danish.

    Today lots of young Swedes work in Copenhagen (café's & bars typically). It takes ½ hour commuting from Malmö by train, they speak an understandable 'swanish', probably because they have realised that young Danes dont understand Swedish.

    (People living in the southern part of Denmark watch German TV, and feel more connected to the continent than to Scandinavia, a minority speaks German as their first language)

  24. #74
    That's Mr. to you, Sir!! Trane's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AndiSexgang View Post
    But that is wrong though, there is no "mutual intelligibility" as most Swedes do not understand spoken Danish, that's why they speak English to each other.
    That must be the Pelle The Conqueror (Pelle Erobreren) effect.

    Or is it that the overdosed at Babettes gæstebud or Vinterberg Festen??

    Or ii it that like Søren Kragh-Jacobsen, all Danes Vil du se min smukke navle?...

    If Denmark is not doing well in prog since the 70's, I believe that they're on top of Scandinavia's film industry for decades (though to be fair, of late, I've seen a few good films from Iceland - the great Rams &Women At War - Norway - Thelma -, Finland - Toivon tuolla puolen - & Sweden - The Square)

    Nor will I mention LVT's Idioterne... Lars is the most deranged of them all
    my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.

  25. #75
    Member hFx's Avatar
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    Had lots of business with Danes in the 90s (Cph and Aarhus). My conclusion was - when Danes try to be intelligible to Swedes, we get to believe Danish isn't that hard to understand. However when they speak "real" Danish we're completely lost...
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