'Barn Latin' Organization Accused of Fraud
Since I have told stories showing how stupid Swedes are, and have been frequently accused of Anti-Americanism, I guess I should tell something that is not very flattering about Norway.
We have two different, but very similar, written languages. They reflect different extremeties in Norwegian dialects. One, bokmål or book norwegian, is mostly closely resembling the spoken language in most cities. The other, nynorsk or New Norwegian, most resembles dialects on the countryside. Norwegians have few problems reading both, but the grammar is quite different. My urban self can't really write New Norwegian, though I managed a decent grade in school (yes, both are complusory. Schools select which receives primary and secondary status in education).
If you are American, imagine that southern American English and northern were two official written languages, and that all official documents and school books had to exist in both forms, and that TV channels were forced to have at least 25% of each. A country with 250 million people could easily pull it off, of course, but we're only 4.5 million people, clinging to the world's longest scree and harassing each other with two languages (and the most expensive beer in the world; don't get me started!).
Like all really stupid ideas, this one has an historical background. Until 1814 Norway was under Denmark. We had a common written language, even though there are notable differences between the spoken forms. As we gained independence, the written language slowly evolved away from Danish. Too slow for some.
In a spree of Nationalism, some authors designed a new written language. It was based on the most 'pure' forms of Norwegian, uncontaminated by Danish, and that they found on the countryside. It was also heavily inspired by archaic forms. New Norwegian was born! As urbanisation progressed and 'book Norwegian' evolved to become more like spoken Norwegian, the new language remained a minority form. Today, what is (un)popularly called barn latin by school children is upheld by zealots and outdated laws. No major national newspapers use it. Very little popular prose uses it.
So I experienced a massive sense of glee when I just read that the youth organization supporting this linguistic profanity has been exposed on TV2 in massively boosting its membership records, to fraudulently claim more support from the state. It is also accused of other cases of fraud to trick money out of the state. The actual membership is less than a third of what they claim.
8:02:00 PM 
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