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Norwegian language



 
 
Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
 language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 spoken primarily in Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the USA, especially in the central northern states. Together with Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 and Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
, Norwegian forms a continuum
Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
 of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants (see Danish language#Classification
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
).

These continental Scandinavian languages together with the insular languages Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 and Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
, as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
 (also called Scandinavian languages).






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Encyclopedia


Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
 language
Language

A language is a form of symbol communication in which elements are combined to represents something other than themselves. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon....
 spoken primarily in Norway
Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a constitutional monarchy in Northern Europe that occupies the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula....
, where it is an official language. It is also spoken as a second language among Norwegian-Americans in the USA, especially in the central northern states. Together with Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 and Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
, Norwegian forms a continuum
Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
 of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants (see Danish language#Classification
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
).

These continental Scandinavian languages together with the insular languages Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 and Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
, as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages
North Germanic languages

The North Germanic languages or Scandinavian languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages, a sub-family of the Indo-European languages, along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages....
 (also called Scandinavian languages). Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form, because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them.

As established by law and governmental policy, there are two official forms of written Norwegian Bokmål
Bokmål

Bokm?l , also known as Riksm?l or Dano-Norwegian, is the more commonly used of the two Norwegian language written standard languages, the other being Nynorsk....
(literally "book language") and Nynorsk
Nynorsk

Nynorsk is one of the two official Norwegian language standard languages, the other being Bokm?l. Just above 10% of the Norwegian population use Nynorsk as their primary written language....
(literally "new Norwegian"). The Norwegian Language Council
Norwegian Language Council

The Norwegian Language Council is the Government of Norway advisory body in matters pertaining to the Norwegian language and language planning....
 recommends the terms "Norwegian Bokmål" and "Norwegian Nynorsk" in English.

There is no officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian, and most Norwegians speak their own dialect in all circumstances. The sociolect
Sociolect

In linguistics, a sociolect is a variety of language associated with a particular social group. The term derives from the morphemes ?socio-,? meaning social and ?-lect,? meaning a variety of language....
 of the urban upper and middle class in East Norway, upon which Bokmål is primarily based, can be regarded as a de facto spoken standard for Bokmål. This so-called standard østnorsk ("Standard Eastern Norwegian") is the form generally taught to foreign students.

From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism
Nationalism

Nationalism refers to an ideology, a feeling, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. While there is significant debate over the historical origins of nations, nearly all Expert accept that nationalism, at least as an ideology and social movement, is a Modernity phenomenon originating in Europe....
, rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianized variety of Danish, while Nynorsk is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic
Linguistic purism

Linguistic purism is the definition of one variety as purer than other varieties, often in reference to a perceived decline from an ideal past or an unwanted similarity with other languages, but sometimes simply to an abstract ideal....
 opposition to Danish. The now abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål, and the unofficial Høgnorsk
Høgnorsk

H?gnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for conservative varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk. In practice, H?gnorsk is the same as Landsm?l, but has other connotations....
 more conservative than Nynorsk.

Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, nynorsk writing is widespread in Western Norway, though not in major urban areas; it is little used elsewhere. The Norwegian broadcasting corporation
Norsk Rikskringkasting

The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation , which is usually known as the NRK, is the Norway government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and the leading Mass media company of Norway....
 (NRK) broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, Nynorsk in 8% (2000).

Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council
Nordic Council

The Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers is a partially dormant intergovernmental forum for co-operation between the Nordic countries....
. Under the Nordic Language Convention
Nordic Language Convention

The Nordic Language Convention is a Treaty of linguistic rights which came into force in March 1, 1987, under the auspices of the Nordic Council....
, citizens of the Nordic countries
Nordic countries

File:Location Nordic Council.svgThe Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and far northeastern North America, called the Nordic region, consisting of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories which include the Faroe Islands, Greenland and ?land....
 speaking Norwegian have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation
Interpretation

An interpretation is an explanation of the meaning of some Object of attention. It also refers to making ideas more understanding, including translation....
 or translation
Translation

Translation is the hermeneutics of the Meaning of a text and the subsequent production of an Dynamic and formal equivalence text, likewise called a "translation," that communicates the same message in another language....
 costs.

History


From Old Norse to distinct Scandinavian languages

Old Norse, Ca 900
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
Viking

A Viking is one of the Norsemen explorers, warriors, merchants, and Piracy who raided and colonized wide areas of Europe from the late eighth to the early eleventh century....
 traders spread the language across Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and into Russia
Russia

Russia , or the Russian Federation , is a list of countries spanning more than one continent country extending over much of northern Eurasia....
, 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 runic alphabet
Runic alphabet

The runic alphabets are a set of related alphabets using Letter known as runes to write various Germanic languages prior to the adoption of the Latin alphabet and for specialized purposes thereafter....
 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
Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 came to Norway, bringing with it the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
. 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
Iceland

Iceland, officially the Republic of Iceland , is an island country located in the North Atlantic Ocean between mainland Europe and Greenland....
 in the 9th century, carrying with them the Old Norse language. Over time, Old Norse developed into "Western" and "Eastern" variants. Western Norse covered Norway (including its overseas settlements in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands), while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark
Lands of Denmark

The three lands of Denmark historically formed the Denmark from its unification and consolidation in the 9th century:*Sk?neland on the Scandinavian peninsula, with Lund as a centre...
 and south-central Sweden
Lands of Sweden

File:Sverigekarta-Landsdelar, namn och landskap.svgThe lands of Sweden are three unofficial parts, essentially three collectives of provinces of Sweden, in Sweden....
. The language of Iceland and Norway was practically the same up until the 1300s, when they started to deviate from each other.

The language phase traditionally dated to 1350–1525, is known as Middle Norwegian and is seen by many as a transitional period from Old Norse
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
 to Modern Norwegian
Modern Norwegian

Modern Norwegian is the Norwegian language that emerged after the Middle Norwegian transition period . The transition to Modern Norwegian is usually dated to 1525, or 1536, the year of the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Denmark-Norway ....
. The reason for this is that although most languages are in a state of constant change, Norwegian phonology, morphology and syntax changed considerably during this time. The use of grammatical case, and a great portion of the conjugation of verbs was lost and replaced by a more fixed syntax, use of prepositions and a greater use of auxiliary based verb forms. During the late Old Norse period and this period there was also a considerable adoption of Middle Low German
Middle Low German

Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League....
 vocabulary. Similar development in grammar and phonology happened in Swedish and Danish, keeping the dialect continuum
Dialect continuum

A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater....
 in continental Scandinavia intact, but with greater dialectal variation. This process did not, however, occur in the same way in Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 and Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
. These languages remain conservative to this day, when it comes to grammar and vocabulary, so mutual intelligibility with continental Scandinavia was lost.

Danish and Swedish rule

In 1397, the Kalmar Union
Kalmar Union

The Kalmar Union is a historiography term meaning a series of personal unions that united the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden under a single monarch, though intermittently....
 unified Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and from 1536 Norway was subordinated under the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway. Danish became the commonly written language among Norway's literate class. Spoken Danish was gradually adopted by the urban elite, first at formal occasions, and gradually a more relaxed variety was adopted in everyday speech. The everyday speech went through a koinéization
Koine language

In linguistics, a koin? language is a standard language or dialect, that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language....
 process, involving grammatical simplification and Norwegianized pronunciation. When the union ended in 1814 the Dano-Norwegian koiné
Koine language

In linguistics, a koin? language is a standard language or dialect, that has arisen as a result of contact between two mutually intelligible varieties of the same language....
 had become the mother tongue of a substantial part of the Norwegian elite, but the more Danish-sounding solemn variety was still used on formal occasions.

Norway was forced to enter a new personal union with Sweden, shortly after the end of the former one with Denmark. However, Norwegians began to push for true independence by embracing democracy
Democracy

Democracy is a form of government in which power is held directly or indirectly by citizens under a free electoral system. It is derived from the Greek language d?????at?a , "popular government" which was coined from d???? , "people" and ???t?? , "rule, strength" in the middle of the 5th-4th century BC to denote the political syst...
 and attempting to enforce the constitutional declaration of being a sovereign state. Part of this nationalist movement was directed towards the development of an independent Norwegian language. Three major paths were available: do nothing (Norwegian written language, i.e. Danish, was already different from Swedish), Norwegianize the Danish language, or build a new national language based on Modern Norwegian dialects. All three approaches were attempted.

Danish to Norwegian

From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianized Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen
Knud Knudsen

Knud Knudsen was a Norway linguistics. He was involved in the Norwegian language struggle of the Riksm?l and Bokm?l form of the written Norwegian language....
 proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with the Dano-Norwegian koiné, known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction was implemented in the first official reform of Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917.

Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen
Ivar Aasen

Ivar Andreas Aasen was a Norway philologist, lexicographer, playwright and poet.Aasen was born at ?sen in ?rsta , in the district of Sunnm?re, on the west coast of Norway....
, a self-taught linguist, began his work to create a new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country, comparing the dialects in different regions, and examined the development of Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
, 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
Landsmål

Landsm?l, meaning "national language", was the name Ivar Aasen gave the Norwegian language orthography he created in the 19th century. In 1885 it was adopted as an official language in Norway alongside Danish language....
, meaning national language. The name "Landsmål" is sometimes interpreted as "rural language" or "country language," but this was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning.

The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute through the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson

Bj?rnstjerne Martinus Bj?rnson was a Norway writer and the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. Bj?rnson is considered as one of "The Great Four" Norwegian writers; the others being Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland....
 proposed the neutral name Riksmål, meaning national language like Landsmål, and this was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name "Riksmål" is sometimes interpreted as "state language," but this meaning is secondary at best, compare to Danish rigsmål
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 from where the name was borrowed.

After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was in 1929 officially renamed Bokmål
Bokmål

Bokm?l , also known as Riksm?l or Dano-Norwegian, is the more commonly used of the two Norwegian language written standard languages, the other being Nynorsk....
 (literally "Book language"), and Landsmål to Nynorsk
Nynorsk

Nynorsk is one of the two official Norwegian language standard languages, the other being Bokm?l. Just above 10% of the Norwegian population use Nynorsk as their primary written language....
 (literally "New Norwegian"). A proposition to substitute Dano-Norwegian for Bokmål lost in parliament by a single vote. The name Nynorsk, the linguistic term for Modern Norwegian
Modern Norwegian

Modern Norwegian is the Norwegian language that emerged after the Middle Norwegian transition period . The transition to Modern Norwegian is usually dated to 1525, or 1536, the year of the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the Denmark-Norway ....
, was chosen for contrast to Danish and emphasis on the historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål.

Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into one language, called "Samnorsk" (Common Norwegian). A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at the time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to the 1959 standard. Therefore a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts uses a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk
Høgnorsk

H?gnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for conservative varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk. In practice, H?gnorsk is the same as Landsm?l, but has other connotations....
. The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002.

Phonology

The sound system of Norwegian is similar to Swedish. There is considerable variation among the dialects, but the variant generally taught to foreign students is Standard Østnorsk.

Consonants


Vowels


Accent

Norwegian is a pitch accent
Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a linguistics term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in Pitch to give prominence to a syllable or Mora_ within a word....
 language with two distinct pitch patterns. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example in many East Norwegian dialects, the word "" (farmers) is pronounced using tone 1, while "" (beans or prayers) uses tone 2, just like in Danish. Though the difference in spelling occasionally allow the words to be distinguished in written language, in most cases the minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonation
Intonation (linguistics)

In linguistics, intonation is variation of pitch while speaking which is not used to distinguish words. Intonation and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody ....
al nature (phrase accent), the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis/focus and which corresponds in function to the normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone
Tone (linguistics)

Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning?that is, to distinguish or inflection words. All languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called intonation , but not all languages use tones to distingu...
, such as English. That rise culminates in the final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall that is so common in most languages is either very small or absent.

There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2 is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around the syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality which makes it fairly easy to distinguish from other languages. Interestingly, accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic.

Written language


Alphabet

The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters.

The letters c, q, w, x and z are only used in loanword
Loanword

A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept whereby it is the Meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself....
s. Some also spell their otherwise Norwegian family names using these letters.

Some letters may be modified by diacritic
Diacritic

A diacritic is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation or to distinguish between similar words. The term derives from the Greek language d?a???t???? ....
s: é, è, ê, ó, ò, and ô. In Nynorsk, ì and ù and ? are occasionally seen as well. The diacritics are not compulsory, but may in a few cases distinguish between different meanings of the word, e.g.: for (for/to), fór (went), fòr (furrow) and fôr (fodder). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ü, á and à.

Bokmål and Nynorsk

Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board" Språkrådet
Norwegian Language Council

The Norwegian Language Council is the Government of Norway advisory body in matters pertaining to the Norwegian language and language planning....
 (Norwegian Language Council) that determines, after approval from the Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy through the years, and much work lies ahead.

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.

Riksmål

Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of the 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are comparable to American and British English differences
American and British English differences

This is one of a series of articles about the differences between American English and British English, which, for the purposes of these articles, are defined as follows:...
.

Riksmål is regulated by the Norwegian Academy, which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary.

Høgnorsk

There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk, discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet
Ivar Aasen-sambandet

Ivar Aasen-sambandet is an umbrella organization of associations and individuals promoting the use of the H?gnorsk variant of the Norwegian language....
, but has found no widespread use.

Current usage

About 86.2% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while about 13.8% receive education in Nynorsk. From the eighth grade onwards pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 431 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 state publications in 2000 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål. The large national newspapers (Aftenposten
Aftenposten

Aftenposten is Norway's largest subscription newspaper , and second largest newspaper over all . It is based in Oslo. The morning edition, which is distributed across all of Norway, had a circulation of 250,179 in 2007....
, Dagbladet
Dagbladet

Dagbladet is Norway's third largest newspaper with a circulation of 146,512 copies in 2006, 15,557 papers less than in 2005 . The newspaper was founded in 1869, and its format was changed to tabloid in 1983....
 and VG
Verdens Gang

Verdens Gang , commonly known as VG, is Norway's largest newspaper with a Newspaper circulation of 309 610 copies in 2007. It is published daily in tabloid format, and is a classic Tabloid#As a sensational.2C gossip-filled newspaper....
) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende
Bergens Tidende

'Bergens Tidende' is Norway's fourth largest newspaper and largest regional newspaper with a circulation of about 87,000 copies . Founded in 1868, it is a Norway language newspaper published daily in Bergen, Norway....
 and Stavanger Aftenblad
Stavanger Aftenblad

Stavanger Aftenblad or simply Aftenbladet is a daily newspaper in Stavanger, Norway. It was founded in 1893 by the priest Lars Oftedal, and was for a long period a publication for the Liberal Party of Norway....
), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Dialects


There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create a distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; there is, however, a renewed interest in preserving distinct dialects.

Examples

Below are a few sentences giving an indication of the differences between Bokmål and Nynorsk, compared to the conservative (nearer to Danish) form Riksmål, Danish, as well as Old Norse, Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic (the living language closest to Old Norse) and other modern Germanic languages:

Language Phrase
I come from Norway What is his name? This is a horse The rainbow has many colours
Bokmål
Bokmål

Bokm?l , also known as Riksm?l or Dano-Norwegian, is the more commonly used of the two Norwegian language written standard languages, the other being Nynorsk....
 
Jeg kommer fra Norge Hva heter han? Dette er en hest Regnbuen har mange farger
Riksmål Regnbuen har mange farver
Danish
Danish language

Danish is one of the North Germanic languages , a sub-group of the Germanic languages branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language....
 
Hvad hedder han?
Nynorsk
Nynorsk

Nynorsk is one of the two official Norwegian language standard languages, the other being Bokm?l. Just above 10% of the Norwegian population use Nynorsk as their primary written language....
 
Eg kjem frå Noreg Kva heiter han? Dette er ein hest Regnbogen har mange fargar
Høgnorsk
Høgnorsk

H?gnorsk, meaning "High Norwegian", is a term for conservative varieties of the Norwegian language form Nynorsk. In practice, H?gnorsk is the same as Landsm?l, but has other connotations....
 
Regnbogen hev mange fargar
Regnbogen er manglìta
Old Norse
Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic languages that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....
 
Ek kem frá Noregi Hvat heitir hann? Þetta er hross/hestr Regnboginn er marglitr
Icelandic
Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic languages, the language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese language and Norwegian dialects such as Telemark dialect and Sognam?l....
 
Ég er frá Noregi Hvað heitir hann? Þetta er hross/hestur Regnboginn er marglitur
Swedish
Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic languages language, spoken by around 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along the coast and on the ?land islands....
 
Jag kommer från Norge Vad heter han? Detta är en häst Regnbågen har många färger
Faroese
Faroese language

Faroese , often also spelled Faeroese , is a West Nordic or West Scandinavian language spoken by 48,000 people in the Faroe Islands and about 12,000 Faroese people in Denmark....
 
Eg komi frá Noreg/Norra Hvussu eitur hann? Hetta er eitt ross/ein hestur Ælabogin hevur nógvar litir
German
German language

German is a West Germanic languages, thus related to and classified alongside English language and Dutch language. It is one of the world's world language and the most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union....
 
Ich komme aus Norwegen Wie heißt er? Dies ist ein Hengst/Roß/Pferd Der Regenbogen hat viele Farben
Dutch
Dutch language

Dutch is a West Germanic languages spoken by over 22 million people as a first language, and about 5 million people as a second language."1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language speakers of Dutch is very small. Most native...
 
Ik kom uit Noorwegen Hoe heet hij? Dit is een paard De regenboog heeft veel kleuren
Afrikaans Ek kom van Noorweë Hoe heet hy? Dit is 'n perd Die reënboog het baie kleure


Morphology


Nouns

Norwegian noun
Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open class lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition....
s are inflected
Inflection

In grammar, inflection or inflexion is the way language handles grammatical relations and relational categories such as grammatical tense, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical case....
 or declined
Declension

In linguistics, declension is the occurrence of inflection in nouns, pronouns and adjectives, indicating such features as grammatical number , grammatical case , and grammatical gender....
 in definiteness
Definiteness

In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
 (indefinite/definite) and number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 (singular/plural). In some dialects, definite nouns are furthermore declined in case
Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
 (nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
/dative
Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
).

As in most Indo-European languages (English
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
 being one of a few exceptions), nouns are classified by gender
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
, which has consequences for the declension of agreeing adjective
Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
s and determiner
Determiner

A determiner is a noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase in the context, including quantity, rather than attributes expressed by adjectives....
s. Norwegian dialects have three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, except the Bergen
Bergen

Bergen is the second largest city in Norway, with a population of 252 051 as of January 1st, 2009. Bergen is the administrative centre of Hordaland county....
 dialect which has only two genders: common and neuter. Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk traditionally have two genders like Danish (and the Bergen dialect), but so called radical varieties have three genders.

Noun forms
båt (boat) in Bokmål
Singular Plural
Indefinite Definite Indefinite Definite
en båt båten båter båtene


The declension of regular nouns depends on gender. Some dialects and variants of Nynorsk furthermore have different declension of weak and strong feminines and neuters.

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


As of July 1st 2005, all feminine nouns can be written as masculine nouns.

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


Adjectives

Norwegian adjective
Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a word whose main syntax role is to grammatical modifier a noun or pronoun, giving more information about the noun or pronoun's definition....
s have two inflectional paradigms. The weak inflection is applicable when the argument is definite
Definiteness

In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
, the strong inflection is used when the argument is indefinite
Definiteness

In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
. In both paradigms the adjective is declined in comparison
Comparison

Comparison may refer to:*Comparison *Comparison *Comparison *Three degrees of comparison*Price comparison...
 (positive/comparative/superlative). Strong, positive
Positive (linguistics)

Positive is the form of an adjective or adverb on which comparative and superlative are formed with suffixes -ier, -lier, -iest, or -liest, or the forms more/less for polysyllabic adjectives/adverbs....
 adjectives are furthermore declined in gender
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 and number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 in agreement with their argument. In some southwestern dialects, the weak positive is also declined in gender and number, with one form for feminine and plural, and one form for masculine and neuter.

Weak adjective forms
grønn (green) in Bokmål
Positive
Positive (linguistics)

Positive is the form of an adjective or adverb on which comparative and superlative are formed with suffixes -ier, -lier, -iest, or -liest, or the forms more/less for polysyllabic adjectives/adverbs....
Comparative
Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than, as...as, etc....
Superlative
Superlative

In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context....
grønne grønnere grønneste


Strong adjective forms
(grønn (green) in Bokmål)
Positive
Positive (linguistics)

Positive is the form of an adjective or adverb on which comparative and superlative are formed with suffixes -ier, -lier, -iest, or -liest, or the forms more/less for polysyllabic adjectives/adverbs....
Comparative
Comparative

In grammar, the comparative is the form of an adjective or adverb which denotes the degree or grade by which a person, thing, or other entity has a property or quality greater or less in extent than that of another, and is used in this context with a subordinating conjunction, such as than, as...as, etc....
Superlative
Superlative

In grammar the superlative of an adjective or adverb is the greatest form of adjective or adverb which indicates that something has some feature to a greater degree than anything it is being compared to in a given context....
Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
grønn grønn grønt grønne grønnere grønnest


Verbs

Norwegian finite
Finite verb

A finite verb is a verb that is Inflection for grammatical person and for grammatical tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs....
 verb
Verb

In syntax, a verb is a word that usually denotes an action , an occurrence , or a state of being . Depending on the language, a verb may vary in form according to many factors, possibly including its grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood and grammatical voice....
s are inflected or conjugated
Grammatical conjugation

In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb, noun or adjective from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by grammatical person, grammatical number, grammatical gender, grammatical tense, Grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical voice, or other grammatical category....
 in mood
Grammatical mood

Grammatical mood is one of a set of distinctive verb forms that are used to signal Linguistic modality.It is distinct from grammatical tense or grammatical aspect, although these concepts are conflated to some degree in many languages, including English and most other modern Indo-European languages, insofar as the same word patterns are used...
: indicative/imperative/subjunctive. The subjunctive mood
Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
 is constrained to a handful of verbs. The indicative verbs are conjugated in tense
Grammatical tense

Grammatical tense is a temporal language quality expressing the time at, during, or over which a state or action denoted by a verb occurs.Tense is one of at least five qualities, along with grammatical mood, grammatical voice, grammatical aspect, and grammatical person, which verb forms may express....
, present
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
 / past
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
. In Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk, the present tense also has a passive form. In a few dialects, indicative verbs are also conjugated in number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
. Conjugation in person
Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
 is lost in Norwegian.

There are four non-finite verb
Non-finite verb

In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflection by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical number, grammatical gender, and grammatical person....
 forms: infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
, passive infinitive, and the two participle
Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb verb, which can be used in compound Grammatical tense or Grammatical voice, or as a Grammatical modifier....
s perfective/past participle and imperfective/present participle.

The participles are verbal adjectives. The imperfective participle has no further declension, but the perfective participle is declined in gender
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 (not in Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk) and number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 like strong, positive adjectives. The definite
Definiteness

In grammar, definiteness is a feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between entities which are specific and identifiable in a given context and entities which are not ....
 form of the participle is identical to the plural form.

As with other Germanic languages, Norwegian verbs can be either weak
Germanic weak verb

In Germanic languages, including English language, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group....
 or strong
Germanic strong verb

In the Germanic languages, a strong verb is one which marks its past tense by means of Indo-European ablaut. In English, these are verbs like sing, sang, sung....
.

Verb forms in Nynorsk
leva (to live)
Finite
Finite verb

A finite verb is a verb that is Inflection for grammatical person and for grammatical tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs....
Non-finite
Non-finite verb

In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflection by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical number, grammatical gender, and grammatical person....
Indicative Subjunctive
Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
Imperative
Imperative mood

The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation....
Verbal noun
Verbal noun

A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb Stem , sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to infinitives and supines....
s
Verbal adjectives (Participle
Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb verb, which can be used in compound Grammatical tense or Grammatical voice, or as a Grammatical modifier....
s)
Present
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
Past
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
Infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
Imperfective Perfective
Active Passive Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural/Def
lever levde leve lev leva levast levande levd levd levt levde


Verb forms in Bokmål
leve (to live)
Finite
Finite verb

A finite verb is a verb that is Inflection for grammatical person and for grammatical tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs....
Non-finite
Non-finite verb

In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflection by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as grammatical tense, grammatical aspect, grammatical mood, grammatical number, grammatical gender, and grammatical person....
Indicative Subjunctive
Subjunctive mood

In grammar, the subjunctive mood is a verb grammatical mood that exists in many languages. It is typically used in dependent clauses to express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present....
Imperative
Imperative mood

The imperative mood is a grammatical mood that expresses direct commands or requests. It is also used to signal a prohibition, permission or any other kind of exhortation....
Verbal noun
Verbal noun

A verbal noun is a noun formed directly as an inflexion of a verb or a verb Stem , sharing at least in part its constructions. This term is applied especially to gerunds, and sometimes also to infinitives and supines....
s
Verbal adjectives (Participle
Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb verb, which can be used in compound Grammatical tense or Grammatical voice, or as a Grammatical modifier....
s)
Present
Present tense

The present tense is the Grammatical tense that may be used to express:* action at the present* a state of being;* a habitual action;* an occurrence in the near future; or...
Past
Past tense

The past tense is a verb grammatical tense expressing action, activity, state or being in the past of the current moment , or prior to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future ....
Infinitive
Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English language, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the grammatical particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives....
Imperfective Perfective
Active Passive Active Passive Singular Plural/Def
lever leves levde/ levet leve lev leve leves levende levd levde/ levet


Pronouns

Norwegian personal pronoun
Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun with or without a Determiner , such as Wiktionary:you and Wiktionary:they in English language....
s are declined in case
Grammatical case

In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject , of direct object, or of possession ....
, nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
 / accusative
Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
. Some of the dialects that have preserved the dative
Dative case

The dative case is a grammatical case generally used to indicate the noun to whom something is given. For example, in "John gave a book to Mary"....
 in nouns, also have a dative case instead of the accusative case in personal pronouns, while others have accusative in pronouns and dative in nouns, effectively giving these dialects three distinct cases.

In the most comprehensive Norwegian grammar, Norsk referansegrammatikk, the categorization of personal pronouns by person
Grammatical person

Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deixis reference to a participant in an event, such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns....
, gender
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
, and number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 is not regarded as inflection. As with nouns, adjectives must agree with the gender and number of pronoun arguments.

Other pronouns have no inflection.

The so called possessive
Possessive pronoun

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that attributes ownership to someone or something. Like all other pronouns, it substitutes a noun phrase and can prevent its repetition....
, demonstrative and relative
Relative pronoun

A relative pronoun is a pronoun that marks a relative clause within a larger Sentence . It is called a relative pronoun because it relates to the word that it modifies....
 pronouns are no longer regarded to be pronouns.

Pronouns are a closed class
Closed class

In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items....
.

Pronouns in Bokmål
Nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
Accusative
Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
English equivalent
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
jeg meg I, me
du deg you (singular)
han ham/han he, him
hun/ho henne she, her
den den it (masculine/feminine)
det det it (neuter)
vi oss we, us
dere dere you (plural)
de dem they, them


Pronouns in Nynorsk
Nominative
Nominative case

The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun, which generally marks the subject of a verb, as opposed to its object or other verb arguments....
Accusative
Accusative case

The accusative case of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. The same case is used in many languages for the objects of prepositions....
English equivalent
English language

English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England and has lingua franca status in many parts of the world as a result of the military, economic, scientific, political and cultural influence of the British Empire in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries and that of the United States from the mid 20th century onwa...
eg meg I, me
du deg you (singular)
han han/honom he, him or it (masculine)
ho ho/henne she, her or it (feminine)
det det it (neuter)
me/vi oss we, us
de dykk you (plural)
dei dei they, them


Bokmål, like English, has two sets of 3rd person pronouns. Han and hun refer to male and female individuals respectively, den and det refer to impersonal or inanimate nouns, of masculine/feminine or neutral gender respectively. In contrast, Nynorsk and most dialects use the same set of pronouns (han (m.), ho (f.) and det (n.)) for both personal and impersonal references. Det also has expletive
Expletive

The word expletive is currently used in three senses: syntactic expletives, expletive attributives, and "bad language".The word expletive comes from the Latin verb explere, meaning "to fill", via expletivus, "filling out"....
 and cataphoric uses like in the English examples it rains and it was known by everyone (that) he had travelled the world.

Determiners

The closed class
Closed class

In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items....
 of Norwegian determiner
Determiner

A determiner is a noun modifier that expresses the reference of a noun or noun phrase in the context, including quantity, rather than attributes expressed by adjectives....
s are declined in gender
Grammatical gender

In linguistics, grammatical genders, sometimes also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once....
 and number
Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
 in agreement with their argument. Not all determiners are inflected.

Determiner forms
egen (own) in Bokmål
Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
egen egen/ega eget egne


Determiner forms
eigen (own) in Nynorsk
Masculine Feminine Neuter Plural
eigen eiga eige eigne


Particle classes

Norwegian has five closed class
Closed class

In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items....
es without inflection, i.e. lexical categories
Lexical category

In grammar, a lexical category is a linguistic category of words , which is generally defined by the syntactic or morphology behaviour of the lexical item in question....
 with grammatical function and a finite number of members that may not be distinguished by morphological criteria. These are interjection
Interjection

An interjection is a part of speech that usually has no grammatical connection with the rest of the Sentence and simply expresses emotion on the part of the speaker, although most interjections have clear definitions....
s, conjunctions
Grammatical conjunction

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, phrases or clauses together. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" should be defined for each language....
, subjunctions
Grammatical conjunction

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, phrases or clauses together. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" should be defined for each language....
, prepositions, and adverbs. The inclusion of adverbs here requires that traditional adverbs that are inflected in comparison
Comparison

Comparison may refer to:*Comparison *Comparison *Comparison *Three degrees of comparison*Price comparison...
 be classified as adjectives, as is sometimes done.

Compound words

In Norwegian compound words
Compound (linguistics)

In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one Word stem. Compounding or composition is the word-formation that creates compound lexemes ....
, the head
Head (linguistics)

In linguistics, the head is the word that determines the syntax type of the phrase of which it is a member, or analogously the word stem that determines the semantic category of a compound of which it is a component....
, i.e. the part determining the compound's class, is the last part. Only the first part has primary stress. For instance, the compound
tenketank (think tank) has primary stress on the first syllable and is a noun (some sort of tank).

Compound words are written together in Norwegian, which can cause words to become very long, for example
sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood
Maximum likelihood

Maximum likelihood estimation is a popular statistics method used for fitting a mathematical model to data. The modeling of real world data using estimation by maximum likelihood offers a way of tuning the free parameters of the model to provide a good fit....
 estimator
Estimator

In statistics, an estimator is a function of the observable sample data that is used to estimate an unknown population parameter ; an estimate is the result from the actual application of the function to a particular Sampling_ of data....
) and
menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner (human rights organisations). Another example is the title høyesterettsjustitiarius (originally a combination of supreme court
Supreme court

A supreme court, also called a court of last resort or high court, is in some jurisdictions the highest court within that jurisdiction's court system, whose rulings are not subject to further review by another court....
 and the actual title, justiciar
Justiciar

In medieval England and Ireland the Chief Justiciar was roughly equivalent to a modern Prime Minister of the United Kingdom as the monarch's chief Political minister....
). Note also the translation
En midtsommernattsdrøm (A Midsummer Night's Dream).

If they are not written together, each part will naturally be read with primary stress, and the meaning of the compound is lost. This is sometimes forgotten, occasionally with humorous results. Instead of writing, for example,
lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter (lame, or paralyzed, chops). The original message can even be reversed, as when røykfritt (no smoking, lit. "smoke free") becomes røyk fritt (smoke freely).

Other examples include:
  • Terrasse dør ("Terrace dies") instead of Terrassedør ("Terrace door")
  • Tunfisk biter ("Tuna bites", verb) instead of Tunfiskbiter ("Tuna bits", noun)
  • Smult ringer ("Lard is calling", verb) instead of Smultringer ("Doughnuts")
  • Tyveri sikret ("Theft guaranteed") instead of Tyverisikret ("Theft proof")
  • Stekt kylling lever ("Fried chicken lives", verb) instead of Stekt kyllinglever ("Fried chicken liver", noun)
  • Smør brød ("Butter bread") instead of Smørbrød ("Sandwich")
  • Klipp fisk ("Cut fish", verb) instead of Klippfisk ("Clipfish")
These misunderstandings occur because most nouns can be interpreted as verbs or other types of words. Similar misunderstandings can be achieved in English too. The following are examples of phrases that both in Norwegian and English mean one thing as a compound word, and something different when regarded as separate words:
  • stavekontroll (spellchecker) or stave kontroll (spell c-h-e-c-k-e-r)
  • kokebok (cookbook) or koke bok (cooking a book)
  • ekte håndlagde vafler (real handmade waffles) or Ekte hånd lagde vafler. (a real hand made waffles.)


Vocabulary

By far the largest part of the modern vocabulary of Norwegian dates back to Old Norse. The largest source of loanwords is Middle Low German
Middle Low German

Middle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League....
, which had a huge influence on Norwegian vocabulary from the late Middle Ages onwards partially even influencing grammatical structures, such as genitive constructions. At present, the main source of new loanwords is English e.g.
rapper, e-mail, catering, juice, bag (originally a loan word to English from Old Norse). Norwegian is however considered to be less influenced by English than for instance Swedish or particularly Danish.

Some loanwords have their spelling changed to reflect Norwegian pronunciation rules, but in general Norwegianised spellings of these words tend to take a long time to sink in: e.g.
sjåfør (from French
French language

French is a Romance language spoken around the world by around 80 million people as first language, by 190 million as second language, and by about another 200 million people as an acquired tongue, with significant speakers in 54 countries....
 
chauffeur) and revansj (from French revanche) are now the common Norwegian spellings, but juice is more often used than the Norwegianised form jus, catering more often than keitering, service more often than sørvis, etc.

See also

  • Differences between the Norwegian and Danish languages
  • Det Norske Akademi for Sprog og Litteratur
  • Noregs Mållag
    Noregs Mållag

    Noregs M?llag is the main organisation for Norwegian Nynorsk , one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language. In the Norwegian language struggle, it advocates the use of Nynorsk....
  • Norsk Ordbok
    Norsk Ordbok

    Norsk Ordbok may refer to:* Norsk Ordbok * Norsk ordbok ...
  • Riksmålsforbundet
    Riksmålsforbundet

    Riksm?lsforbundet is the main organisation for Riksm?l, one of the written standard of the Norwegian language .The society was founded by subsequent Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Bj?rnstjerne Bj?rnson on April 7, 1907....
  • Russenorsk
  • List of Indo-European languages
    List of Indo-European languages

    The Indo-European languages include some 443 languages and dialects spoken by about three billion people, including most of the major language families and languages of Europe and western Asia, which belong to a single superfamily....
  • Numbers in various languages


Bibliography

  • Rolf Theil Endresen, Hanne Gram Simonsen, Andreas Sveen, Innføring i lingvistikk (2002), ISBN 82-00-45273-5
  • Torp, Arne, Lars S. Vikør (1993), Hovuddrag i norsk språkhistorie (3.utgåve), Gyldendal Norsk Forlag AS 2003


External links

  • - List of online resources of Norwegian language

Translation services

  • Easily translate words between English, Norwegian and Spanish.
  • Translate words and entire sentences between 35 languages.
  • Translation of words, text or websites(url) between Norwegian and common languages like English, Spanish, German etc..