Knut Halverson struggled not only with his God and with nature, but also with a new language; and we can well imagine the conversation when he met one of his Polish or German neighbors, as each tried to make himself understood in a third language unfamiliar to both. But as Halverson learned new English words, he attempted to incorporate them into his diary by "Norwegianizing" them. In this he was following the pattern so ably demonstrated in Einar Haugen's The Norwegian Language in America (Philadelphia, 1953).
For example, he uses the word "swamp" throughout the diary; he has no suitable substitute for it in Norwegian because there are, strictly speaking, few swamps (flom) in Norway; mostly they are myr (marshes or peat bogs). He attempts to adapt "swamp" by spelling it svamp. When he has been in the swamp, he says he has been i svampen. After swamping out rails (that is, snaking them to a skidway) he has svampede ut rels. To say, "I have grubbed," he writes jeg har grubbede. The word "field" he naturally slurs to fila. Repairing a fence, he says he fixsede fens. He krillede (cradled) winter wheat and he haaede (hoed) some weeds in kornet (the corn). He hauled his water from krikken (the creek) in a baril. He took his oats to be ground at the fidmøllen (feed mill). He bought groseri (groceries) at storet (the store). [210] He splitted (split) some wood and he kliret (cleared) some fence line. He kattetede (cut) corn and he hauled ponkis (pumpkins). As for logs, he was not sure whether to call them log or tømmer. He repaired the sjanty (shanty) roof, built a corn kryb, helped his brother Ole cut sjingels (shingles), and was often in the swamp cutting sqver stik (square sticks —actually hewed timbers) for sills of houses or barns. On February 6, 1877, the snow was almost gone from farmene (the farms), and one afternoon he suverte (surveyed) some land. And on April 25, 1877, he heard the hyprevil (whippoorwill) for the first time.
