Editing Odda (section)

==History==
[[File:Tysso I-hh.jpg|thumb|left|Tysso I power station]]
[[File:Odda Smelteverk portalbygg1906.jpg|thumb|left|Offices of Odda Smelteverk, former North Western Cyanamide Company and Alby United Carbide Factory, 1906.]]
The [[Røldal Stave Church]] was built in the years 1200&ndash;1250 in the present-day village of [[Røldal]]. This was one of the oldest structures in the municipality.

During the 19th century, Odda became a significant tourist destination. Visits ranged from English pioneers around 1830 to the German Emperor [[Kaiser Wilhelm II]], who visited Odda every year between 1891 and 1914. This led to the construction of several hotels in the municipality.

Odda Municipality was centred on the modern town of [[Odda (town)|Odda]] which grew up around smelters built at the head of the [[Sørfjorden (Hardanger)|Sørfjorden]] branch of the [[Hardangerfjord]] in the mid-twentieth century, drawing migrants from different parts of Norway.<ref name="EB">{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Odde}}</ref>

The [[carbide]] production and the subsequent production of [[cyanamide]] was started in 1908 after the water power plant was operational and provided the necessary electricity for the arc furnaces. The plant was the largest in the world and remained operational till 2003 shortly after the plant was sold to [[Phibro|Philipp Brothers Chemicals Inc.]] The Norwegian government tried to get the site recognized together with other industrial plants as a [[UNESCO World Heritage Site]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Heiden, Noland R |year=1952 |title=Odda and Rjukan: Two Industrialized Areas of Norway |journal=Annals of the Association of American Geographers |volume=42 |issue=2 |pages=109–128 |doi=10.1080/00045605209352058 |jstor=2560975}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Rjukan/Notodden and Odda/Tyssedal Industrial Heritage Sites, Hydro Electrical Powered Heavy Industries with associated Urban Settlements (Company Towns) and Transportation System |url=https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5472/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191031021257/http://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5472/ |archive-date=2019-10-31 |access-date=2010-06-29 |publisher=UNESCO}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Torpey |first=Paul |date=3 October 2007 |title=Industrial revolution |work=The Guardian |location=London |url=https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2007/oct/03/norway.heritage |url-status=live |access-date=2012-11-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140228140540/http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2007/oct/03/norway.heritage |archive-date=2014-02-28}}</ref> In 2010 an international report stated: ''What makes Odda smelteverk so important and central to the application of Norway’s hydro power sites and pioneer chemical industry as a World Heritage Site is the fact that here in an internationally unique way the physical remains of an early chemical production process are still present.''<ref>{{Cite web |title=Taming the Waterfalls |url=http://www.riksantikvaren.no/filestore/Tamingthewaterfalls_AxelRolffinal.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140222023754/http://www.riksantikvaren.no/filestore/Tamingthewaterfalls_AxelRolffinal.pdf |archive-date=2014-02-22 |access-date=2014-02-05 |publisher=Riksantikvaren }}</ref>

===Dialect===
[[File:Lake Votna Hordaland Norway 3015 6 7 fused.jpg|thumb|right|Lake Votna]]
Odda grew up around this smelter in the early-twentieth century, drawing migrants from different parts of Norway. As a result, there developed a new dialect, a mixture of that spoken in the home regions of the migrants - a phenomenon termed by linguists "a [[Koiné language]]". The town of Odda and neighboring village of [[Tyssedal]] - which arose in the same time and socio-economic circumstances as those of Odda - provided valuable insights to linguists studying this phenomenon. The researcher [[Paul Kerswill]] 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]] from each other.