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80-480: The Isdal Woman ( Norwegian : Isdalskvinna , c. 1930–1945 – November 1970) is a placeholder name given to an unidentified woman who was found dead at Isdalen ("The Ice Valley") in Bergen , Norway, on 29 November 1970. Although police at the time ruled a verdict of likely suicide , the nature of the case encouraged speculation and ongoing investigation in the years since. Half a century later, it remains one of

160-528: A dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects , in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages , constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While

240-742: A continuum with both Brabantic and West Flemish. Standard Dutch is primarily based on the Hollandic dialect  (spoken in the Western provinces of the Netherlands) and to a lesser extent on Brabantian , which is the dominant dialect in Flanders , as well as in the south of the Netherlands. The supra-regional, semi-standardized colloquial form ( mesolect ) of Dutch spoken in Belgium uses

320-671: A dentist in either East Asia, Central Europe, Southern Europe or South America. In 2018, NRK and the BBC World Service published a podcast series titled Death in Ice Valley , which included interviews with eyewitnesses and forensic scientists, also suggesting that the Isdal Woman's birthplace may have been southern Germany or the French-German border region, and that she was probably born in or around 1930. She

400-435: A distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; there is, however, a renewed interest in preserving dialects. Norwegian nouns are inflected for number (singular/plural) and for definiteness (indefinite/definite). In

480-548: A few dialects, definite nouns are also inflected for the dative case . Norwegian nouns belong to three noun classes (genders): masculine, feminine and neuter. All feminine nouns can optionally be inflected using masculine noun class morphology in Bokmål due to its Danish heritage. In comparison, the use of all three genders (including the feminine) is mandatory in Nynorsk. All Norwegian dialects have traditionally retained all

560-400: A high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent)—the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis or focus, and corresponds in function to the normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone , such as English. That rise culminates in

640-465: A loanword from French), and duimspijker (a compound of Dutch duim "thumb" and spijker "nail") meaning "thumbtack" (common standard Dutch: punaise , a loanword from French). Among the belgicisms, there are also many words that are considered obsolete, formal, or purist in standard Dutch. Moreover, many belgicisms have their origin in the Belgian official nomenclature . For example, misdaad "felony"

720-474: A matrilineal line of descent originating in South East Europe or South West Asia. The woman also seems to have had a French passport based on the fact that an unidentified French national was registered on one of the flights she took to Norway. Author Dennis Zacher Aske proposed that the Isdal Woman was a sex worker , based on the way that her route was planned (goal oriented and always returning to

800-501: A noun, unlike English which has a separate article, the , to indicate the same. In general, almost all nouns in Bokmål follow these patterns (like the words in the examples above): In contrast, almost all nouns in Nynorsk follow these patterns (the noun gender system is more pronounced than in Bokmål): There is in general no way to infer what grammatical gender a specific noun has, but there are some patterns of nouns where

880-421: A single language, to be called Samnorsk . A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at the time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk

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960-428: A single vote. The name Nynorsk , the linguistic term for modern Norwegian , was chosen to contrast with Danish and emphasise the historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today, this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål. Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into

1040-413: Is Bokmål will study Nynorsk as a mandatory subject throughout both elementary and high school. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing

1120-411: Is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The now-abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål and is far closer to Danish while

1200-497: Is also reported to have seen the woman in the area of Penguin missile testing in Stavanger; her presence in Stavanger is corroborated by a shoe salesman who sold her a pair of rubber boots. The taxi driver who took the woman from the hotel to Bergen railway station was never found. In 1991, however, a taxi driver wishing to remain anonymous said that after picking up the unknown woman at the hotel, they were joined by another man for

1280-552: Is not a legal term in the Netherlands, but it is in Belgium. The English adjective Flemish (first attested as flemmysshe , c.  1325 ; compare Flæming , c.  1150 ), meaning "from Flanders ", was probably borrowed from Old Frisian . The Old Dutch form is flāmisk , which becomes vlamesc , vlaemsch in Middle Dutch and Vlaams in Modern Dutch . The word Vlaams itself

1360-609: Is regulated by the Norwegian Academy , which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk , discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet , but has found no widespread use. In 2010, 86.5% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while 13.0% receive education in Nynorsk. From

1440-474: Is the majority language in northern Belgium, being used in written language by three-fifths of the population of Belgium. It is one of the three national and state languages of Belgium, together with French and German , and is the only official language of the Flemish Region . The various Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium contain a number of lexical and grammatical features that distinguish them from

1520-459: Is to write in dialect for informal use. When writing an SMS, Facebook update, or fridge note, many people, especially young ones, write approximations of the way they talk rather than using Bokmål or Nynorsk. There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create

1600-587: Is today to a large extent the same language as Bokmål though somewhat closer to the Danish language. It is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy , which translates the name as 'Standard Norwegian'. The other is Høgnorsk ('High Norwegian'), a more purist form of Nynorsk, which maintains the language in an original form as given by Ivar Aasen and rejects most of the reforms from the 20th century; this form has limited use. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, but not for how to speak

1680-552: Is used a lot in television dramas and comedies. Often, middle-class characters in a television series will be speaking tussentaal , lower-class characters use the dialect of the location where the show is set (such as Western Flanders), and upper-class characters will speak Standard Dutch. That has given tussentaal the status of normalcy in Flanders. It is slowly being accepted by the general population, but it has met with objections from writers and academics who argue that it dilutes

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1760-405: Is uvular [ ʁ ] or [ χ ] . And in the dialects of North-Western Norway, it is realized as [ r ] , much like the trilled ⟨rr⟩ of Spanish. Norwegian is a pitch-accent language with two distinct pitch patterns, like Swedish. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example, in many East Norwegian dialects,

1840-496: Is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, and also in the upper parts of mountain valleys in the southern and eastern parts of Norway. Examples are Setesdal , the western part of Telemark county ( fylke ) and several municipalities in Hallingdal , Valdres , and Gudbrandsdalen . It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in many rural parts of Trøndelag (mid-Norway) and

1920-466: The Dano-Norwegian language that replaced Middle Norwegian as the elite language after the union of Denmark–Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and then evolved in Norway, while Nynorsk was developed based upon a collective of spoken Norwegian dialects. Norwegian is one of the two official languages in Norway, along with Sámi , a Finno-Ugric language spoken by less than one percent of

2000-587: The Germanic languages evolved, further branching off into the North Germanic languages , of which Norwegian is one. Proto-Norse is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during the first centuries AD in what is today Southern Sweden. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions,

2080-638: The Hanseatic League between 1250 and 1450 in the main Scandinavian cities brought large Middle Low German –speaking populations to Norway. The influence of their language on Scandinavian is comparable with that of French on English after the Norman conquest . In the late Middle Ages, dialects began to develop in Scandinavia because the population was rural and little travel occurred. When

2160-564: The Reformation came from Germany, Martin Luther 's High German translation of the Bible was quickly translated into Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. Norway entered a union with Denmark in 1397 and Danish, over time, replaced Middle Norwegian as the language of the elite, the church, literature, and the law. When the union with Denmark ended in 1814, the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become

2240-451: The standard language . It incorporates phonetic, lexical and grammatical elements not part of the standard language but drawn from local dialects. It is a relatively new phenomenon that has been gaining popularity during the past decades. Some linguists note that it seems to be undergoing a process of (limited) standardisation or that it is evolving into a koiné variety . Tussentaal is slowly gaining popularity in Flanders because it

2320-475: The 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are comparable to American and British English differences . Riksmål

2400-473: The Bergen police force, she was buried in a zinc coffin to both preserve her remains and for ease of disinterment. Her ceremony was also photographed in case relatives came forward at a later date. Much remains unanswered about the case, especially the reasons for the woman's many identities and unexplained travel plans, which raise the question of espionage or criminal activity. Multiple investigations point to

2480-512: The Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy throughout the years. Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative , depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses

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2560-637: The Swiss banker François Genoud , and that Norwegian Intelligence Service interfered with local police investigations. The newspaper sourced the suggestion to a "professional fact-checker". Norwegian language Norwegian ( endonym : norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway , where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish , Norwegian forms

2640-551: The body, and affected by the fire, were an empty bottle of St. Hallvard liqueur ; two plastic water bottles; a plastic passport holder; rubber boots, a woolen jumper and a scarf; nylon stockings; an umbrella, purse, and a matchbox. There was also a watch, two earrings and a ring. Around the body were traces of burned paper, and beneath it was a fur hat which was later found to have traces of petrol. All identifying marks and labels on these items had been removed or rubbed off. Three days later, investigators found two suitcases belonging to

2720-424: The charred body of a woman located among some scree . Bergen police responded quickly and launched a full-scale investigation, filed as case name "134/70". Examining the site, police noted the woman's supine position , her clenched hands up by her torso and the evidence of a nearby campfire. The front of her body and her clothes had been severely burned, and her face was unrecognisable. Also located or placed near

2800-695: The context. These include: Glottolog considers Western Flemish to be a separate language, classified as a part of the Southwestern Dutch family together with the Zeelandic language. According to Glottolog, Western Flemish includes the dialects of French Flemish and West Flemish. Brabantian and East Flemish are classified as Dutch dialects, under the Central Southern Dutch dialect group. Ethnologue considers Limburgish and West Flemish to be separate (regional) languages. Dutch

2880-643: The death being either murder or assisted suicide , believing murder to be most likely. In 2019, after a publication of an article in the French newspaper Le Républicain Lorrain , a resident of Forbach claimed to have had a relationship with the Isdal Woman in the summer of 1970. According to this informant, the woman was a polyglot with a Balkan accent who often dressed herself up to look younger than her age (26), refused to share personal details and often received scheduled phone calls from abroad. Looking through

2960-399: The dialects and comparing the dialects among the different regions. He examined the development of Icelandic , which had largely escaped the influences under which Norwegian had come. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål , meaning 'national language'. The name Landsmål is sometimes interpreted as 'rural language' or 'country language', but this

3040-541: The dialects. The retroflex consonants only appear in East Norwegian dialects as a result of sandhi , combining / ɾ / with / d / , / l / , / n / , / s / , and / t / . The realization of the rhotic / ɾ / depends on the dialect. In Eastern, Central, and Northern Norwegian dialects, it is a flap [ ɾ ] , whereas in Western and Southern Norway, and for some speakers also in Eastern Norway, it

3120-522: The discovery of her body remain unknown. Police were able to decode the notepad entries, and determined that they indicated dates and places the woman had visited. As a result, based on handwritten check-in forms, police determined that the woman had travelled around Norway (i.e. Oslo , Trondheim , Stavanger ) and Europe ( Paris ) with at least eight fake passports and aliases . While details such as birthdays and occupations changed from one form to another, she consistently gave her nationality as Belgian;

3200-644: The eighth grade onwards, pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 431 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 state publications in 2000, 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål. The large national newspapers ( Aftenposten , Dagbladet , and VG ) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad ), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A newer trend

3280-403: The final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall common in most languages is either very small or absent. There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2 is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around

Isdal Woman - Misplaced Pages Continue

3360-501: The forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical . Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål. Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of

3440-438: The forms were filled out in either German or French. These were her false identities: With the exception of Rue de la Madeleine, all street names also turned out to be false. It was also learned that the woman previously stayed at several hotels in Bergen, and was known to change rooms after checking in. She often told hotel staff that she was a travelling saleswoman and antiquities dealer. One witness said that she overheard

3520-412: The gender can be inferred. For instance, all nouns ending in - nad will be masculine in both Bokmål and Nynorsk (for instance the noun jobbsøknad , which means 'job application'). Most nouns ending in - ing will be feminine, like the noun forventning ('expectation'). Flemish dialects The term Flemish itself has become ambiguous. Nowadays, it is used in at least five ways, depending on

3600-555: The language. No standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in many other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect, whether it coincides with the written norms or not, is accepted as correct spoken Norwegian. However, in areas where East Norwegian dialects are used, a tendency exists to accept a de facto spoken standard for this particular regional dialect, Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian (Norwegian: Standard østnorsk ), in which

3680-629: The local population. Around 1030, Christianity came to Scandinavia , bringing with it an influx of Latin borrowings and the Roman alphabet . These new words were related to church practices and ceremonies, although many other loanwords related to general culture also entered the language. The Scandinavian languages at this time are not considered to be separate languages, although there were minor differences among what are customarily called Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian , Old Gutnish , Old Danish, and Old Swedish . The economic and political dominance of

3760-462: The most profound cold case mysteries in Norwegian history. On the morning of 29 November 1970, a man and his two young daughters were hiking in the foothills of the north face of Ulriken , in an area known as Isdalen ("Ice Valley"); it was also nicknamed "Dødsdalen" ("Death Valley") due to the area's history of suicides in the Middle Ages and more recent hiking accidents. They came across

3840-486: The mother tongue of around 1% of the population. From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianised Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with the Dano-Norwegian koiné , known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction

3920-417: The oldest form of the runic alphabets . A number of inscriptions are memorials to the dead, while others are magical in content. The oldest are carved on loose objects, while later ones are chiseled in runestones . They are the oldest written record of any Germanic language. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 800 AD,

4000-467: The police to report this incident, but was told to forget about it. Therefore, neither the man's name nor his alleged sighting was recorded at that time. After the case was reopened in 2016, Norwegian broadcaster NRK commissioned the American artist Stephen Missal to create six alternative sketches of the Isdal Woman, which were shown to people who had seen her. In 2017, stable isotope analysis of

4080-810: The population. Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use it when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Like most of the languages in Europe, Norwegian derives from Proto-Indo-European . As early Indo-Europeans spread across Europe, they became isolated from each other and new languages developed. In northwest Europe,

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4160-589: The possibility that she was a spy, given the Cold War context of the period. Norway had experienced other strange disappearances in the 1960s, close to military installations, which traced back to international espionage. The declassified records of the Norwegian Armed Forces also reveal that many of the woman's movements seem to correspond to top secret trials of the Penguin missile . A fisherman

4240-442: The principles of Norwegian orthography, e.g. zebra in Norwegian is written sebra . Due to historical reasons, some otherwise Norwegian family names are also written using these letters. Some letters may be modified by diacritics : é , è , ê , ó , ò , and ô . In Nynorsk, ì and ù and ỳ are occasionally seen as well. The diacritics are not compulsory, but may in a few cases distinguish between different meanings of

4320-554: The ride to the train station. In 2005, a Bergen resident, who was aged 26 in 1970, told a local newspaper that after seeing the sketch circulated, he had suspected that the Isdal Woman was a woman he had seen five days before the body was discovered, when he was hiking on the hillside at Fløyen . Surprisingly, she was dressed lightly for the city rather than a hike, and was walking ahead of two men wearing coats who looked "southern". The woman appeared resigned and seemed about to say something to him but did not. He went to someone he knew at

4400-453: The same point, probably her home), her wish to remain anonymous, her behaviour at hotels (including marking the doors in different ways) and the fact that the different men she was witnessed meeting never came forward. Aske argued that another person was probably at the crime scene when the woman died, based on evidence from the scene and her medically intoxicated condition in the hours before her death. He noted there were arguments that supported

4480-750: The script was simplified to the Younger Futhark , and inscriptions became more abundant. At the same time, the beginning of the Viking Age led to the spread of Old Norse to Iceland , Greenland , and the Faroe Islands . Viking colonies also existed in parts of the British Isles , France ( Normandy ), North America, and Kievan Rus . In all of these places except Iceland and the Faroes, Old Norse speakers went extinct or were absorbed into

4560-606: The southern part of northern Norway ( Nordland county). Today, Nynorsk is the official language of not only four of the nineteen Norwegian counties but also various municipalities in five other counties. NRK , the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, and Nynorsk in 8% (2000). Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board"— Språkrådet (Norwegian Language Council)— that determines, after approval from

4640-549: The standard Dutch. Basic Dutch words can have a completely different meaning in Flemish or imply different context, comparable to the differences between the British and North American variants of English . As in the Netherlands, the pronunciation of Standard Dutch is affected by the native dialect of the speaker. All Dutch dialect groups spoken in Belgium are spoken in adjacent areas of the Netherlands as well. East Flemish forms

4720-610: The syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality that makes it easy to distinguish from other languages. Accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse , and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters. The letters c , q , w , x and z are only used in loanwords . As loanwords are assimilated into Norwegian, their spelling might change to reflect Norwegian pronunciation and

4800-401: The three grammatical genders from Old Norse to some extent. The only exceptions are the dialect of Bergen and a few upper class sociolects at the west end of Oslo that have completely lost the feminine gender. According to Marit Westergaard , approximately 80% of nouns in Norwegian are masculine. Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages use a suffix to indicate definiteness of

4880-475: The two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . Today there are two official forms of written Norwegian, Bokmål (Riksmål) and Nynorsk (Landsmål), each with its own variants. Bokmål developed from

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4960-426: The unofficial Høgnorsk is more conservative than Nynorsk and is far closer to Faroese , Icelandic and Old Norse . Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. Each student gets assigned a native form based on which school they go to, whence the other form (known as Sidemål ) will be a mandatory school subject from elementary school through high school. For instance, a Norwegian whose main language form

5040-831: The usage of Standard Dutch. Tussentaal is used in entertainment television but rarely in informative programmes (like the news), which normally use Flemish accents with standard Dutch vocabulary. A belgicism is a word or expression that occurs only in the Belgian variant of Dutch. Some are rarely used, others are used daily and are considered part of the Belgian-Dutch standard language. Many belgicisms are loanwords and words or expressions literally translated from French (also called gallicisms ); others, in contrast, are actually remarkably purist , such as droogzwierder (a compound of Dutch droog "dry" and zwierder "spinner") meaning "spin dryer" (common standard Dutch: centrifuge ,

5120-521: The vocabulary and the sound inventory of the Brabantic dialects. It is often called an "in-between-language" or "intermediate language", intermediate between dialects and standard Dutch. Despite its name, Brabantian is the dominant contributor to the Flemish Dutch tussentaal . It is a rather informal variety of speech , which occupies an intermediate position between vernacular dialects and

5200-447: The vocabulary coincides with Bokmål. Outside Eastern Norway , this spoken variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism , rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk

5280-473: The woman talking to a man in German in a Bergen hotel. Others who met her mentioned that she also spoke Flemish or broken English and smelled of garlic . People who saw or met her also commented that she wore wigs. Composite sketches of the unknown woman, based on witness descriptions and analysis of her body, were circulated in many countries via Interpol . Despite the significant police resources deployed,

5360-490: The woman was never identified and the case was quickly closed. While authorities concluded that she had committed suicide by ingestion of sleeping pills, others believe that there is evidence that she was murdered. On 5 February 1971, the woman was given a Catholic burial (based on her use of saints' names on check-in forms) in an unmarked grave within the Møllendal graveyard located in Bergen. Attended by sixteen members of

5440-414: The woman which had been abandoned at Bergen railway station . In the lining of one suitcase, police discovered five 100 Deutsche Mark notes ( c. US$ 137 in 1970). Among other items, they also found clothing, shoes, wigs, makeup, eczema cream, 135 Norwegian kroner , Belgian, British and Swiss coins, maps, timetables, a pair of non-prescription glasses, sunglasses with partial fingerprints (which matched

5520-503: The woman's belongings, the informant found various wigs, colorful clothes and a photograph of the woman riding a horse. Suspecting she was a spy, he considered contacting the authorities but was afraid to do so. Both the informant's story and the photograph were published in a subsequent issue of the newspaper. On June 12, 2023, an article in Neue Zürcher Zeitung suggested that the Isdal Woman may have had connections with

5600-402: The woman's blood and stomach showed that she had consumed between 50 and 70 Fenemal brand sleeping pills, and found next to her body were a further twelve sleeping pills. At autopsy, her teeth and jaw were removed due to her unique dental work, and tissue samples of her organs were taken. Police then launched an appeal for information in the Norwegian media regarding the case. The last time she

5680-525: The woman's teeth (taken from her unburied jawbone) indicated that the woman had been born in about 1930, plus or minus four years, in or near Nuremberg , Germany , but had moved to France or the France–Germany border as a child. This reinforced earlier analysis of the woman's handwriting, which suggested that she had been educated in France or a neighbouring country. Analysis also indicated she had been to

5760-464: The woman), cosmetics and a notepad. All identification information had been removed from the items. An autopsy at the Gades Institutt concluded the woman had died from a combination of incapacitation by phenobarbital and poisoning by carbon monoxide . Soot was found in her lungs, indicating she was alive as she burned, and her neck was bruised, possibly from a fall or blow. Analysis of

5840-427: The word bønder ('farmers') is pronounced using the simpler tone 1, while bønner ('beans' or 'prayers') uses the more complex tone 2. Though spelling differences occasionally differentiate written words, in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses

5920-568: The word, e.g.: for ('for/to'), fór ('went'), fòr ('furrow') and fôr ('fodder'). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ï, ü , á and à . The two legally recognized forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål (literally 'book tongue') and Nynorsk ('new Norwegian'), which are regulated by the Language Council of Norway ( Språkrådet ). Two other written forms without official status also exist. One, called Riksmål ('national language'),

6000-678: Was also probably raised in French-speaking Belgium. In June 2019, the BBC revealed that listeners of the podcast had given more clues. Further, Colleen Fitzpatrick , a geneticist with the DNA Doe Project , contacted the Death in Ice Valley team to offer her help in identifying the woman through genetic genealogical isotope testing of autopsied tissues. It has since been revealed that she is of mtDNA haplogroup H24, indicating

6080-451: Was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to the 1959 standard. Therefore, a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts use a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk . The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. While the sound systems of Norwegian and Swedish are similar, considerable variation exists among

6160-480: Was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning. The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute throughout the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed the neutral name Riksmål , meaning 'national language' like Landsmål , and this

6240-453: Was implemented in the first official reform of the Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917. Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen , a botanist and self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from

6320-641: Was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name Riksmål is sometimes interpreted as 'state language', but this meaning is secondary at best. (Compare to Danish rigsmål from where the name was borrowed.) After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was, in 1929, officially renamed Bokmål (literally 'book language'), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally 'new Norwegian'). A proposition to substitute Danish-Norwegian ( dansk-norsk ) for Bokmål lost in parliament by

6400-490: Was seen alive had been on 23 November, when she checked out of Room 407 of the Hotel Hordaheimen. Hotel staff told police that she was good-looking and roughly 1.63 m (5 ft 4 in) tall, with dark brown hair and small brown eyes. Staff noted that the woman kept mainly to her room and seemed to be on guard. When she checked out, she paid her bill in cash and requested a taxi. Her movements between then and

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