A closer look at Nordic humor

Why not lighten up with a little laughter?

Photo: Ilan Kelman
The original comedy-drama “Rottefangeren” rehearsing in Sagene, Oslo.

Ilan Kelman
Agder, Norway

A Norwegian, a Swede, a Dane, and a Finn walk into a bar. No, actually, finishing this joke would be pejorative, kowtowing to stereotypes and seeking chuckles through meanness. As usual, any groups listed in a joke, from hair color to religion, are interchangeable, to make fun of whomever we wish.

Also told in Scandinavia, “What is the easiest way of sinking a submarine run by [insert any group]? —Dive to the hatch and knock.”

Why make fun of particular groups, rather than just enjoying a non-derogatory joke? Or use an imaginary group? Or relate non-insulting, geographic-specific jokes: “Where do you pay a bridge-crossing fee in Norway? — At a troll booth.” Others feel that celebrities and politicians are fair game, as in “Wanna hear a Norwegian joke? ­—Jonas Gahr Støre” (he is the current prime minister of Norway) or substitute with your least favorite public figure.

For other ways of being annoying, punish with punctilious puns.

In Norwegian, “six” sounds like “sex” accounting for a good proportion (perhaps sex-ty percent?) of wisecracks. Less (se)X-rated, the temperature Fahrenheit sounds like “the father was named” in Norwegian. And thus, “What was Celsius’ mother’s name? / Dunno, but the father was named Fahrenheit.” In other words, the father was named “the father was named!”

Norwegians falling into the water could be a fjordian slip while their old way of communicating was Norse Code.

Enough.

Considering Old Norse, used from around 1150-1350, apparently no dialect had a word for contemporary English’s notion of “humor.” Scientist Hannah Burrows recently examined alternatives, listing “gaman (amusement), skemmtun (entertainment), leikr (game, play), hlægi (ridicule), glens (jesting), háð (mockery), and others.”

Also from the previous millennium, researcher Birgit Hertzberg Johnsen spent the summers of 1989-1992 traveling around northern Norway with “professional humorist” Tore Skoglund. They recorded storytelling involving and conducted interviews about humor. Johnsen noticed the overwhelmingly male bias in their respondents and so developed a survey about social contexts of humor which, in 1995, elicited responses from 50 women and 35 men.

The differences in Norwegian male and female approaches to humor seemed to be based in either cultural expectations of or preferences for their social roles. Examples are how to converse in a group and comfort in using obscenities. It would be fascinating to repeat this study more than a generation later.

Certainly, a 2010 paper by Inger-Lise Kalviknes Bore identified perceptions that humor is unfeminine. The research compared British and Norwegian television audience viewpoints of women in comedy shows. Respondents believed that men do not value women’s comedy, mostly based on assumptions of what comedy should be and how women should behave. Sexist baselines meant that women were not seen to have skills in being funny and their alleged highlighting of presumed “women’s issues” was deemed to be less important than male comedians’ material.

Then again, Elise Margrethe Vike Johannessen’s 2021 study of Norwegian boys’ high school humor with their friends explains how the prevalence of racist and homophobic terms does not make them racist, homophobic, or bullies. While the analysis might credibly identify a seeming lack of immediate discrimination and prejudice, effects on people not within the groups and on the boys’ long-term attitudes are not fully studied.

Yet, in the end, not all individually or culturally targeted humor is necessarily offensive. In 2006, a Norwegian television show aired a spoof on how hard Danish is to understand, not just for Swedes and Norwegians, but also for Danes. It was well received in Denmark (at least, according to Norwegians).

Six (Sex? Not again.) years later, the comedy group Ylvis, comprised of two Norwegian brothers, released their song “Jan Egeland.” Named after the Norwegian diplomat and humanitarian, it mocked and honored his efforts to end conflicts and respond to disasters. Despite sexist and homophobic lyrics, the word on the street is that it introduced younger Norwegians to their country’s internationalism and galvanized interest in contributing to humanitarianism.

Humor can do good. And so, after appearing on a talk show together to discuss the song, Egeland and Ylvis walked into a bar …

Pieces in this article in order:

Old Norse: doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56646-3_3

Gender differences: doi.org/10.16995/ee.891

Television shows: doi.org/10.1177/1367549409352272

High school: doi.org/10.1177/11033088211006924

Danes cannot understand Danish: youtube.com/watch?v=s-mOy8VUEBk

Ylvis “Jan Egeland”: youtube.com/watch?v=Yn-oemgzlEU

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of  The Norwegian American.