Tyssedal is a village in

Ullensvang Ullensvang is a Municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland Counties of Norway, county, Norway. It is located in the Districts of Norway, traditional district of Hardanger. The administrative centre is the Odda (town), town of Odda. Some o ...

municipality in

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The village is located on the shore of the Sørfjorden about north of the town of

Odda Odda () is a list of former municipalities of Norway, former municipality in the old Hordaland counties of Norway, county, Norway. The municipality existed from 1913 until its dissolution in 2020 when it was merged into Ullensvang Municipality i ...

. Tyssedal is located in an environment in a valley between the

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

to the west and the mountains leading up to the

Hardangervidda Hardangervidda () is a mountain plateau ( Norwegian: ''vidde'') in central southern Norway, covering parts of Vestland, Telemark, and Buskerud counties. It is the largest plateau of its kind in Europe, with a cold year-round alpine climate, and o ...

mountain plateau to the east. Tyssedal Church is located in this village. The lake Ringedalsvatnet and the Trolltunga cliff are located just to the east, higher up in the valley. The village has a population (2019) of 601 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

of .

History

Tyssedal is a typical

monotown A monotown (a calque from Russian , ) is a city/town whose economy is dominated by a single industry or company. This means that most employment (except for service to residents like schools and shops) is by the main company. Russia The term ' ...

, depending upon the energy received from the

hydropower station Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is Electricity generation, electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies 15% of the world's electricity, almost 4,210 TWh in 2023, which is more than all other Renewable energ ...

. The first hydropower station in Tyssedal, Tysso I, is today part of the Norwegian Museum of Hydropower and Industry. The

ilmenite Ilmenite is a titanium-iron oxide mineral with the idealized formula . It is a weakly magnetic black or steel-gray solid. Ilmenite is the most important ore of titanium and the main source of titanium dioxide, which is used in paints, printi ...

smelter "Tinfos Titan and Iron" (TTI) (once owned by

Tinfos Tinfos is a private Norway, Norwegian holding company. Its roots dates back to 1875, and has today the head office in Oslo, Norway. The firm is one of the oldest companies in its field of activity in Europe. Its main products are silicomangane ...

, to Wikipedians known as the Eramet Titanium & Iron plant) is located here and is the largest employer in the village. The smelter was converted from making

aluminium Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

in the late 1980s. Tyssedal grew up around this smelter in the early-twentieth century. In 2024 Eramet sold its plant to Ineos Enterprises for $245 million.

Language

Tyssedal drew migrants from different parts of Norway, who spoke different Norwegian dialects. From these there developed a compromise dialect, what linguists call a

koiné language In linguistics, a koine or koiné language or dialect (pronounced ; ) is a standard or common dialect that has arisen as a result of the contact, mixing, and often simplification of two or more mutually intelligible varieties of the same langu ...

. Tyssedal and the nearby town of

—which arose in the same time and socio-economic circumstances but from a more homogeneous population—provided valuable insights to linguists studying this phenomenon. Professor

Paul Kerswill Paul Kerswill, FBA, is a sociolinguist. Since 2012, he has been professor in the department of language and linguistic science at the University of York. After completing his undergraduate degree and doctorate at Gonville and Caius College, Cam ...

conducted an intensive study of the Norwegian spoken in the two communities, relating them to very different geographical origins: The workers in Odda came predominantly (86%) from western Norway. In Tyssedal only about one third came from western Norway; one third came from eastern Norway; and the rest from other parts of the country. The dialects that evolved in these two communities were radically different from each other, though spoken at a short

geographical distance Geographical distance or geodetic distance is the distance measured along the surface of the Earth, or the shortest arch length. The formulae in this article calculate distances between points which are defined by geographical coordinates in t ...

from each other.

History

Language

See also

References

Related reading