ling

LOCAL ORGANIZATION AND VALUES

[ ... J The majority of those who claim local descent show a strong sense of local

identification. To be a hcemnesvcerin8 "Hemnes resident" in their view is like belonging to a

team characterized by commonalty of descent. [ ... J The dialect is an important marker

of their common culture.

[ ... J

The meaning attached to local descent and dialect use-to being part of the

"local team"-is clearly seen when we consider those members of the community who

dissociate themselves from this "team." Traditionally, in northern Norway the local

community of equals was separated from the landowning commercial and administrative

elite by a wide gulf of social and judicial inequality. Since the latter were the introducers

and users of standard Norwegian, the standard form was-and to some extent still

is-associated with this inequality of status. Many of the functions of the former elite

have now been incorporated into the local social system. Individuals who fill these

functions, however, continue to be largely of nonlocal descent. Although they may pay

lip service to locally accepted rules of etiquette and use the dialect on occasion, their

experience elsewhere in Norway, where differences in education, influence, and prestige

much more pronounced, leads them to associate the dialect with lack of education and

sophistication. Therefore, they show a clear preference for the standard.

Such attitudes are unacceptable to locals, who view lack of respect for and refusal

speak the dialect as an expression of social distance and contempt for the "local team"

and its community spirit. It is not surprising, therefore, that their loyalty to the dialect

is. thereby reaffirmed. For a local resident to employ (B) forms with other local residents

in their view to snakk fint or to snakk jalat - "to put on airs. ')

[ ... J