Populærkulturens upopulære språk

The Letter (1940) was an American film noir by William Wyler, about one letter and two murders in a rubber plantation in British Malaya. The movie, with Bette Davis playing the main character, was nominated for seven Oscars. Movies for adult audiences are generally subtitled rather than dubbed in Norway. In 1964, NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation) televised the movie, and for the first time, a movie was broadcast with subtitles in Norwegian Nynorsk, the lesser-used Norwegian language compared to the dominant Norwegian Bokmål. Only 11 percent of the population had a television license at that time, and most of these viewers lived in a few cities, where Nynorsk was little used. Television viewers phoned in their protests to both the newspapers and NRK, and for some days, the Nynorsk subtitles were a major public issue. In this essay, I tell the whole story, presenting the arguments used, introducing those involved, analysing the context, and discussing how Norwegian Nynorsk became an unpopular language in popular culture in Norway. It is also a story about the development of a Nynorsk written culture and efforts to restrict this development.