Norwegian culture research paper

Traditions, language, how you dress, and how you are, make up your culture. Culture can be different depending on where it is taking place. It can depend on what families in those areas like to do with their free time. Culture is something that’s different. Other cultures take place in other parts of the world, therefore, they are completely different. Simple things like weather can change cultures too. Anything that can cause something to happen in a culture, making it tradition, cultures all have stories.

The background of my family is very Norwegian. From both sides of my family my parents and their parents have some kind of Norwegian in them. It is really just a coincidence that both families have this in common. Everyone in my family mostly has a weird name because in Norway it would be considered common. Our culture changes how we live in a way, because for holidays we usually do the same things every year.

Norway is placed in the western part of the Scandinavian Peninsula. It stretches about 1,100 miles from the North Sea along the Norwegian Sea to more than 300 miles above the Arctic Circle, further than any other European country. It is a little bigger than New Mexico. Nearly seventy percent of Norway is uninhabitable and covered by mountains, glaciers, rivers, and more. The hundreds of deep fjords (rivers) that cut into the coastline give Norway an overall of more than 12,000 miles of ocean. Galdho Peak, at 8,100 feet, is Norway's highest point and the Glama (Glomma) is the greatest river, at 372 miles long.

Norwegians, like the Danes and Swedes, are of Teutonic origin (ancestory). The Norsemen, also known as Vikings, trashed the coasts of northwest Europe from the eighth to the eleventh century and were ruled by a local person in charge. Olaf II Haraldsson became the first effective king of all Norway in 1015 and began converting the Norwegians to Christianity. After 1442, Norway was ruled by Danish kings until 1814, when it was united with Sweden, although keeping independence and receiving a new constitution was an uneasy partnership. In 1905, the Norwegian parliament arranged a peaceful separation and invited a Danish prince to the Norwegian throne (King Haakon VII). A treaty with Sweden provided that all disputes be settled by arbitration and that no forts would be neededon the common frontier.



This location puts Norway by the ocean Which affects the culture greatly. People there over summer go swimming, fishing, and lots of other water games, many people have a boat. Since it is winter there like 10 months of the year, everyone dresses pretty warm and bundled up.

On my father’s side of the family is a mix of German and Norwegian. One of his parents (his dad) is German but also Norwegian, his mother has some Norwegian in her also. His dad grew up in Germany, and there when he was about nineteen, he met my grandmother, who had some German and some Norwegian in her. Things we do to celebrate holidays and that stuff include many variety of things. For Christmas we make Yulelog cakes, which is a cake rolled in chocolate frosting. For Christmas and other good holidays we make meatballs out of pork, turkey, and beef but I have no idea why we do that.



In Norway basically everyone speaks English and Norwegian. Everyone there is required to learn English in like second grade. Another thing about Norway is that everything there is super expensive. Minimum wage is about twenty dollars an hour. Their economy is pretty different from ours. Research, personal experience, and reputation reveals that people in Norway have a more serene culture than in the United States.
















Works Cited

http://wanttoknowit.com/where-is-norway-located/
Lyche, Kari. Personal interview. 13 Mar. 2012.
http://www.nhh.no/en/about-nhh/living-in-norway/what-to-expect-when-you-first-meet-a-norwegian.aspx