I saw a short article about UniMyra in an online Norwegian newspaper. It is only in Norwegian but Google translate doesn’t do a terrible job if any non-Norwegian speaker wants to check it out.
Congrats UniMyra on increasing the awareness of our sport among the Norwegian population! 
Oh and … Great Photo!!!
Yay, that photo is great, that’s a real big smile, like you only get on one wheel! 
Yes, I love the photo too!
“etthjulssykkel”. Is that the “official” Norwegian spelling?
When I visited Copenhagen in 1983 I visited Jean Ascher (Cirkus Changhigh). He told me there were three ways to say “unicycle” in Danish, but none was the “correct” one. I suggested it was up to him and the other unicycilsts of that time to assert what the correct one should be. Not sure how that played out though…
I am perhaps not the best person to answer this because I am a non-native speaker but some people say enhjulssykkel and others etthjulssykkel. Personally I tend to use enhjulssykkel but I only do this because it is what I came across first.
As a non-scientific test, I went to finn.no (a Norwegian website that amongst other things is a good place to buy and sell stuff second hand) and tried searching for both terms to see the number of hits. There are currently 24 results of enhjulssykkel and 7 for etthjulssykkel.
Doing this search also reminded me that some people also say “enhjuling” but this term is less specific. This is confirmed by the search results, which turns up lots of other things. There are 13 actual unicycles (of the type we are concerned with on this forum) in the results, judging by the pictures but I still think it is a worse term than either enhjulssykkel or etthjulssykkel because it is an overly generic description. Additionally, some of the results include one of the other terms anyway, e.g. “enhjuling / enhjulssykkel”
That all said, I would happily switch to etthjulssykkel if native Norwegian speakers clarified that this was preferred.
EDIT: I put a poll on Twitter because I have quite a few Norwegian native speakers following me.
EDIT 2: I wish Twitter could randomise the options as I put them in the order enhjulssykkel, etthjulssykkel and enhjuling, which will probably biased the results in favour of my preferred terms anyway.
Haha, thanks! Ruari doesn’t miss anything! I didn’t know it was published on line allready. It will be in this friday’s paper edition of D2, which is a glossy big sized magazine that follows Norway’s biggest(?) financial newspaper once a week.
The headline says “The world’s best mean of transportation if you’re not going anywhere”. I thougt of that ahead of the interview, and decided to try to get it in there if I got the chance. Google Translate says: “The world’s best way to come if you’re not going anywhere”. To me that sounds a bit weird. But otherwise Ruari is right, Google will tell you what the article says.
As for the term “etthjulssykkel” vs “enhjulssykkel”. We use both, and I’m not sure which is more correct. “Ett” and “en” means the same: one. We say “ett hjul” (one wheel) but “en sykkel” (one bike). So does “ett/en” (one) refer to the wheel (hjul) or to the bike (sykkel). Not sure.
Yeah I guess I didn’t really think about how it handled the title. But apart from that, Google Translate didn’t do a terrible job (this time). Certainly people would get the idea.
P.S. Do you have any rights to that picture of yourself? Because if you do you should reuse it wherever possible online. It’s a good one.
Let’s phrase it another way then. Rather than which is more correct, which do you generally use when describing your interest to others?
I think the photo came out great too. With all the rain we’ve had the forrest is very green an fresh. The photographer wanted the unicycle from the side which makes sense, but leaning at that angle with the brake engaged is kind of unatural. I would never have thought of it myself, but it looks cool. I don’t have any rights to the photo, but maybe I can use it in a non comercial way if I credit the photographer?
I say “enhjulssykkel” or the short term “enhjuling”. Maybe we’re influenced by Sweden. As a kid I used the other term “etthjulssykkel”.
Results are:
26 Votes
65% enhjulssykkel
8% etthjulssykkel
27% enhjuling
You seem to align nicely with the others who voted and my results from a finn.no search. I will stick with enhjulssykkel then I guess.
I knew I’d heard that name before, and I just remembered. It’s the guy that arranges the yearly costume unicycle race up an old tower in Copenhagen. I’ve been wanting to take the kids there.
Is he still doing that? That’s a long legacy! It was fairly new in 1983. He took me to the Rundtarn (Round Tower) one evening. This was in November, and the place was open, but little or no people in there after dark. I got to do the ride up and then back down. Very bumpy and steep in the top part, especially coming down, which is on the inside part of the spiral!
Great article and picture!
And the unicycle race in the tower sounds awesome!, it is even mentioned on Wikipedia 
And look what I found:
The Uni Racer Rally in Rundetaarn is still going on. Here is a video from 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fKjcUHesb4
På dansk er det enkelt. Det er blot en ethjuler. Ikke noget med cykkel.
Anyways does UniMyra mean something like Unicycle Ant? Is a “myr” not an ant? Now that I read ur article in Norwegian, I started wondering 
Interesting how few of the young kids hold their seat going uphill. I see the older ones do.
“Ethjuler” in Danish? I don’t agree. Normally it is either “ethjulet cykel” or “unicykel”. Or just “cykel” if you are together with other unicyclists 
(“Cykel” = bicycle in English. In Danish the cycle-part probably is more relevant than the bi-/uni-part.)
Best regards,
Sanne
Not sure how often you are on Twitter UniMyra but I am gonna guess this is about you.
The poster seems to suspect as much as well.
mhm My danish colleagues in Århus talk about ethjulere. They don’t ride and just laugh at me.
No, not me. I was 250 km away from Oslo on the date in question.