MovieChat Forums > Sult (1968) Discussion > spoken language(s) in film

spoken language(s) in film

posted 15 years ago by kaream
5 replies | jump to latest

IMDb gives the language spoken in the film as being Danish, but I think the director was saying that since it was an all-Scandinavian project, each actor was in fact speaking in his or her own native language - Swedish, Danish or Norwegian - all being able to sufficiently understand the others.

I don't know any of these languages (and find all of them extremely difficult to follow, compared to the well-enunciated Hochdeutsch you hear in German films; they all sound to me as though most of their consonants are swallowed). It's my general impression that Danish and Norwegian are very similar to each other, with Swedish being rather different from either.

Can anyone confirm the language(s) spoken by the various actors? Oscarsson and Lindblom are Swedish; Federspiel, Rex, Petersen and Ottosen are Danish; Kolstad, Bjornstad, Hansen, Skjonberg, Heiberg and Fjelstad are Norwegian.

[–] o_sundstrom 15 years ago

The actors speak their own native languages in this film. The languages are very similar and it's rather usual in Scandinavian cinema that actors from other Scandinavian countries speak their own languages. The Scandinavian languages are essentially the same but with certain differences between them. For instance, written Norwegian has more in common with Danish (on paper it's pretty much the same language), but orally it has more in common with Swedish. I guess you can compare it with a German film with German, Austrian and Swiss actors. They all speak German but with different dialects.

Your list of actors and nationalities seems to be correct as well.

[–] kaream 15 years ago

Thanks very much!

The written/spoken distinction you make is helpful to know.

[–] kaream 15 years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Norwegian_Bokmal_and_ Standard_Danish:

"Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) can read each other's languages without great difficulty. This holds especially true of Danish and Norwegian. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. Danish speakers generally do not understand Norwegian as well as the extremely similar written norms would lead one to expect. Some Norwegians also have problems understanding Danish, but according to a recent scientific investigation Norwegians are better at understanding both Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. Nonetheless, Danish is widely reported to be the most incomprehensible language of the three."
...

"The difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. Although written Norwegian is very similar to Danish, spoken Norwegian more closely resembles Swedish.
...
It is often humorously claimed that Danes have an easier time understanding drunk Norwegians than sober ones, as the former often use a more slurred manner of speech that resembles Danish."

[–] ChrystalShip 13 years ago

I'm Danish so I can only speak for the Danish point of view, but this is my take on it and I think this would be the general opinion of a Dane:

A Danish person is able to understand both Norwegian and Swedish. Norwegian is definitely the easier language to understand both written and orally while one need to concentrate a lot more when listening to Swedish.

Funnily enough, I find it easier to speak Swedish than Norwegian. No doubt due to the fact that a lot of Swedish children's movies were aired in Denmark undubbed with a Danish narrator and that there generally are aired more Swedish tv-shows and movies than Norwegians.

As a footnote I can add that we in high school read both Norwegian and Swedish texts - not a lot but we do read it and it is expected of us to understand it though we do get a few translations of the words we are not possibly able to recognise from Danish.

[–] 13 years ago

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