Norwegian language

Norwegian is a Germanic language spoken in Norway. Norwegian is closely related to, and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Together with these two languages, Norwegian belongs to the Northern, or Scandinavian group of the Germanic languages. Written Danish and Norwegian are particularly close, though the pronunciation of all three languages differs significantly. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the others.

There are two official forms of written Norwegian - Bokmål (which may be translated as "Standard Norwegian, literally it is meaning "book language") and Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian"). The Norwegian Language Council however recommends the terms Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk in English. There is also another widely used but unofficial written form of the Norwegian language, Riksmål (conservative, non-official Norwegian Bokmål) as well as the small minority form Høgnorsk (conservative, non-official Nynorsk). Bokmål or Riksmål (the differences between them are comparable to British vs. American written English) are used by the majority, around 85-90 % of the population (92 % in written publications). Speakers of this language often refer to it as simply "Norwegian"; others may prefer "Dano-Norwegian". Nynorsk is used by around 10-15 % of the population (8 % in written publications), particularly in Western Norway.

Norwegian spoken language consists of many different dialects, the majority of which are closer to Nynorsk than to Bokmål. The dialects used to have low prestige, not being widely spoken outside the local communities, but for the last 20 years there has been a dialect revival, and most people will speak their local dialect even when talking to a stranger. One notable exception is the area around the capital Oslo in Eastern Norway, where half of the country's population lives. Here the traditional dialects have largely been abandoned for the standard language (standardtalemål or dannet dagligtale) traditionally used by the educated class in Oslo and Eastern Norway.

Norwegian (norsk)
Spoken in:	Norway
Total speakers:	5 million
Ranking:	Not in top 100
Genetic classification:	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic (from Old Norse) East (Continental) Nordic **Bokmål and Riksmål West (Insular) Nordic Nynorsk**
Official status
Official language of:	Norway (Bokmål and Nynorsk)
Regulated by:	Bokmål and Nynorsk: Norsk språkråd (Norwegian Language Council) Riksmål: Norwegian Academy Høgnorsk: The Ivar Aasen Union
Language codes
ISO 639-1	no (Norwegian) nb (Bokmål) nn (Nynorsk)
ISO 639-2(B)	nor (Norwegian) nob (Bokmål) nno (Nynorsk)
SIL	NRR (Bokmål) NRN (Nynorsk)

Alphabet

The Norwegian alphabet consists of 29 letters, the first 26 of which are the same as the Latin alphabet used in English. The three last letters are Æ, Ø and Å. In addition to the 29 official letters, there are several diacritical signs in use (somewhat more in Nynorsk than Bokmål): à ä ç é è ê ñ ó ò ô ü. The diacritical signs are not compulsory, but may in a few cases alter the meaning of the word dramatically, e.g.: for (for), fór (went), fòr (meadow) and fôr (fodder).

Roots of the language

The languages now spoken in Scandinavia developed from the Old Norse language, which did not differ greatly between what are now Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish areas. In fact, Viking traders spread the language across Europe and into Russia, making Old Norse one of the most widespread languages for a time. According to tradition, King Harald Fairhair united Norway in 872. Around this time, a simple runic alphabet was used. According to writings found on stone tablets from this period of history, the language showed remarkably little deviation between different regions. Runes had been in limited use since at least the 3rd century. Around 1030, Christianity came to Norway, bringing with it the Latin alphabet. Norwegian manuscripts in the new alphabet began to appear about a century later. The Norwegian language began to deviate from its neighbors around this time as well.

Viking explorers had begun to settle Iceland in the 9th century, carrying with them the Old Norse language. Over time, Old Norse developed into "Western" and "Eastern" variants. Western Norse covered Iceland and Norway, while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark and Sweden. The languages of Iceland and Norway remained very similar until about the year 1300, when they became what are now known as Old Icelandic and Old Norse. In 1397, Norway entered a personal union with Denmark, which came to be the dominating part, and Danish was eventually used as Norway's written language. Danish, a language since mediaeval times mostly influenced by Low Saxon, came to be the primary language of the Norwegian elite, although adoption was slower among the commoners. The union lasted more than 400 years, until 1814 when Norway became independent of Denmark, but was forced to enter a personal union with Sweden. Norwegians began to push for true independence by embracing democracy and attempting to enforce the constitutional declaration of being a sovereign state. Part of this nationalist movement was directed to the development of an independent Norwegian language. Two major paths were available: modify the elite's Danish, or attempt to undo centuries of foreign rule and work with the commoners' Norwegian. Both approaches were attempted.

Bokmål, Riksmål, Nynorsk and Høgnorsk

History

In the 1840s, many writers began to "Norwegianize" Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life. Spelling and grammar were also modified. This was adopted by the Norwegian parliament as Riksmål, or "Standard Language" in 1899.

However, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen, a self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He travelled around the country, comparing the dialects in different regions, and examined the development of Icelandic, which had largely escaped the influences Norwegian had come under. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål, or "National Language" (it can also mean - and is often understood as - "Rural Language").

After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved, both languages were developed further. Riksmål was in 1929 officially renamed to Bokmål (literally "Book language"), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian") — the names Dano-Norwegian and Norwegian lost in parliament with one single vote, as the Danish label was (and still is) very unpopular among Bokmål/Riksmål users.

Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by reforms in 1917, 1938 and 1959. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into one language, called Samnorsk (Common Norwegian). This resulted in massive protests, and the policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. While Bokmål has returned to a more traditional, Danish-like style, Nynorsk has continued towards Bokmål. As a reaction to this, some people prefer to follow a more traditional way of spelling, called Høgnorsk.

Modern Norwegian

Today, two official written forms of the Norwegian language are still in existence. Bokmål and the unofficial form Riksmål (see below) are used by the majority (86-90 %), while Nynorsk is used by a minority (10-12 %) [1]. Norwegian spoken language is far more complicated. Most people (70-75 %) speak a dialect which has more in common with Nynorsk than Bokmål, but generally with severe deviations [2]. Some dialects are even so dissimilar — with respect to pronunciation, word endings, unique local words and expressions, and even small syntactical differences — that people in some cases have difficulties understanding each other if they're not accustomed to the particular dialect. For instance in the case of syntactical differences, which is rare and generally not a problem to most Norwegians, a simple sentence like What are you saying? will in most dialects be What say you? or What is it you say? while it in some northern dialects could be What you say?. The dissimilarities in the other aspects of the spoken language are far greater than this. Many people understand Danish and Swedish much better than they understand certain Norwegian dialects.

Opponents of the various spelling reforms have retained the name Riksmål as their own unofficial form of Norwegian and use more traditional spelling. Riksmål has been the de facto standard language of Norway for most of the 20th century, and is the language used by the largest Norwegian newspapers and encyclopedias, a very large proportion of the population of the capital and its surrounding areas, and the Norwegian elite. All the Norwegians who have received the Nobel Prize for literature (Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Knut Hamsun, and Sigrid Undset) wrote in Riksmål. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003, the official Bokmål can be written almost identical with modern Riksmål. There is an unofficial form of Nynorsk called Høgnorsk, which is very close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål.

Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative, depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical. Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål.

Today, Bokmål is used mostly in the eastern and northern parts of Norway, and Nynorsk is used mainly in the western parts of Norway. In national broadcasting all scripted material is spoken in either Bokmål or Nynorsk, while interviews, talks etc. may be spoken in the dialect of the person speaking.

Current usage

About 85.3 % of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while about 14.5 % receive education in Nynorsk (outside Western Norway only 2.7% received education in Nynorsk, while even in Western Norway, the majority was educated in Bokmål).

Out of the 434 municipalities in Norway, 162 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (which consists of 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral.

Of 4,549 Norwegian publications in 2000 were 8% in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål/Riksmål. All large national newspapers are published in Bokmål/Riksmål.

Examples

Below are a few sentences giving an indication of the differences between Bokmål and Nynorsk, compared to the conservative (Danish-near) form Riksmål and to Danish:

B=Bokmål
R=Riksmål
D=Danish
N=Nynorsk
H=Høgnorsk
E=English

B/R/D: Jeg kommer fra Norge
N/H: Eg kjem frå Noreg.
E: I come from Norway.

B/R: Hva heter han?
D: Hvad hedder han?
N/H: Kva heiter han?
E: What is his name?

B/R/D: Dette er en hest.
N/H: Dette er ein hest.
E: This is a horse.

B: Regnbuen har mange farger.
R/D: Regnbuen har mange farver.
N: Regnbogen har mange fargar.
H: Regnbogen hev mange fargar. (Or better: Regnbogen er manglìta).
E: The rainbow has many colours.

Grammar

The number of grammatical genders in Norwegian is somewhat disputed, but the official view is that Norwegian nouns fall into three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The inflection of the nouns depends on the gender.

Bokmål
m.: en gutt     gutten        gutter     guttene
    (a boy)     (the boy)     (boys)     (the boys)
f.: en/ei dør   døren/døra    dører      dørene
    (a door)    (the door)    (doors)    (the doors)
n.: et hus      huset         hus        husene/husa
    (a house)   (the house)   (houses)   (the houses)

Note that feminine nouns can be inflected like masculine nouns in Bokmål. Riksmål rejects the feminine gender and merges it with the masculine into a common gender (utrum), like in Danish.

Nynorsk
m.: ein gut     guten         gutar      gutane
    (a boy)     (the boy)     (boys)     (the boys)
f.: ei sol      sola/soli     soler      solene
    (a sun)     (the sun)     (suns)     (the suns)
    ei kyrkje/kyrkja kyrkja   kyrkjer/kyrkjor kyrkjene/kyrkjone
    (a church)  (the church)  (churches) (the churches)
n.: eit hus     huset         hus        husa/husi
    (a house)   (the house)   (houses)   (the houses)

Nynorsk is more consequent in inflection between the genders than Bokmål.

Trivia

Compound words are written together in Norwegian (see Nominal compositum), which can cause words to become very long, e.g. sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator). However, because of the increasing influence the English language is having on Norwegian, this is often forgotten, sometimes with humorous results. Instead of writing e.g. lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter ("paralysed chops"). The original message can also be reversed. Røykfritt (smoke-free) becomes røyk fritt (smoke freely).

External links

References

Einar Haugen, editor (1965, 1967, 1974). Norwegian-English Dictionary. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.