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Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of mutually intelligible local and regional variants. These continental Scandinavian languages together with the insular languages Faroese, Icelandic, as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages). Faroese and Icelandic are no longer 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 (literally "book language") and Nynorsk (literally "new Norwegian"). The Norwegian Language Council recommends the terms "Norwegian Bokmål" and "Norwegian Nynorsk" in English.

There is no officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian, but the sociolect of the urban upper and middle class in East Norway, upon which Bokmål is primarily based, is the form generally taught to foreign students. This so called Standard Østnorsk (Standard East Norwegian) can be regarded as a de facto spoken standard for Bokmål.

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, 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 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 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 only 13% are frequently writing nynorsk, although the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Bokmål and Riksmål are more commonly seen in urban and suburban areas; Nynorsk in rural areas, particularly in Western Norway. The Norwegian broadcasting corporation (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). In spite of concern that Norwegian dialects would eventually give way to a common, spoken, Norwegian language close to Bokmål, dialects find significant support in local environments, popular opinion, and public policy.

Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries 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 or translation costs.

History

From Old Norse to distinct Scandinavian languages

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 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 Norway (including its overseas settlements in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands), while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark and south-central 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 Norwegian.

In the period traditionally dated to 1350–1525, Norwegian went through a Middle Norwegian transition toward Modern Norwegian. The major changes were simplification of the morphology, a more fixed syntax, and a considerable adoption of Middle Low German vocabulary. Similar development happened in Swedish and Danish, keeping the dialect continuum in continental Scandinavia intact. This did however not happen in Faroese and Icelandic so these languages lost mutual intelligibility with continental Scandinavia.

Under Danish and Swedish rule

In 1397, the Kalmar Union 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 process, involving grammatical simplification and Norwegianized pronunciation. When the union ended in 1814 the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become the mother tongue of a substantial part of the Norwegian élite, 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 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. 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.

From 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 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, 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, 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, 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 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 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 (literally "Book language"), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (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, 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. The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002.

Phonology

Template:Topics about the Norwegian language

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 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 "bønder" (farmers) is pronounced using tone 1, while "bønner" (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 intonational 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, 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, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic.

Written language

The alphabet

The Norwegian alphabet is as follows:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Z Æ Ø Å (29 letters)

a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x z æ ø å

The letters c, q, w, x and z are only used in loanwords. Some also spell their otherwise Norwegian family names using these letters.

Some letters may be modified by diacritics: é, è, ê, ó, ò, â, and ô. In Nynorsk, ì and ù 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) — 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, particularly Bokmål. 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 today comparable to American and British English differences.

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, 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 433 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, Dagbladet and VG) are published in Bokmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad), 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; but there is 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 and Icelandic, the living language closest to Old Norse:

Bokmål/Riksmål/Danish: Jeg kommer fra Norge
Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Eg kjem frå Noreg.
Old Norse: Ek kem frá Noregi.
Icelandic: Ég kem frá Noregi.
Swedish: Jag kommer från Norge.
English: I come from Norway.
Faroese: Eg komi frá Noregi.
German: Ich komme aus Norwegen.
Dutch: Ik kom uit Noorwegen.

Bokmål/Riksmål: Hva heter han?
Danish: Hvad hedder han?
Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Kva heiter han?
Old Norse: Hvat heitir hann?
Icelandic: Hvað heitir hann?
Swedish: Vad heter han?
English: What is his name?
Faroese: Hvat eitur hann?
German: Wie heißt er?
Dutch: Hoe heet hij?

Bokmål/Riksmål/Danish: Dette er en hest.
Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Dette er ein hest.
Old Norse: Þetta er hross/Þetta er hestr.
Icelandic: Þetta er hross/hestur.
Swedish: Detta är en häst.
English: This is a horse.
Faroese: Hetta er eitt ross/ein hestur.
German: Das ist ein Hengst/ Roß/ Pferd.
Dutch: Dit is een paard.

Bokmål: Regnbuen har mange farger.
Riksmål/Danish: Regnbuen har mange farver.
Nynorsk: Regnbogen har mange fargar.
Høgnorsk: Regnbogen hev mange fargar. (Or better: Regnbogen er manglìta).
Old Norse: Regnboginn er marglitr.
Icelandic: Regnboginn er marglitur.
Swedish: Regnbågen har många färger.
English: The rainbow has many colours.
Faroese: Ælabogin er litríkur/ er marglitur.
German: Der Regenbogen hat eine Menge Farben.
Dutch: De regenboog heeft vele kleuren.

Morphology

Nouns

Norwegian nouns are inflected or declined in definiteness (indefinite/definite) and number (singular/plural). In some dialects, definite nouns are furthermore declined in case (nominative/dative).

As in most Indo-European languages (English language being one of a few exceptions), nouns are classified by gender, which has consequences for the declension of agreeing adjectives and determiners. Norwegian dialects have three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, except the Bergen 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. The two-gender form is now mostly replaced by the three-gender form in spoken Standard Østnorsk, but it is sometimes used in conservative Bokmål.

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.

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

Adjectives

Norwegian adjectives have two inflectional paradigms. The weak inflection is applicable when the argument is definite, the strong inflection is used when the argument is indefinite. In both paradigms the adjective is declined in comparison (positive/comparative/superlative). Strong, positive adjectives are furthermore declined in gender and number 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.

Verbs

Norwegian finite verbs are inflected or conjugated in mood: indicative/imperative/optative. The optative mood is constrained to a handful of verbs. The indicative verbs are conjugated in tense, present / past. In Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk, the present tense also has a passive form. In some dialects, indicative verbs are also conjugated in number. Conjugation in gender is lost in Norwegian.

There are four non-finite verb forms: infinitive, passive infinitive, and the two participles 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 (not in Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk) and number like strong, positive adjectives. The definite form of the participle is identical to the plural form.

As with other Germanic languages, Norwegian verbs can be either weak or strong.

Pronouns

Norwegian personal pronouns are declined in case, nominative / accusative. Some of the dialects that have preserved the dative 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, gender, and number 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, demonstrative and relative pronouns are no longer regarded to be pronouns.

Pronouns are a closed class.

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 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 of Norwegian determiners are declined in gender and number in agreement with their argument. Not all determiners are inflected.

Particle classes

Norwegian has five closed classes without inflection, i.e. lexical categories with grammatical function and a finite number of members that may not be distinguished by morphological criteria. These are interjections, conjunctions, subjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs. The inclusion of adverbs here requires that traditional adverbs that are inflected in comparison be classified as adjectives, as is sometimes done.

Compound words

In Norwegian compound words, the head, i.e. the part determining the compound's class, is the last part. Only the first part has primary stress. For instance, the compund 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 estimator) and menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner (human rights organisations). Another example is the title høyesterettsjustitiarius (originally a combination of supreme court and the actual title, justiciar). 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, i.e. "free from smoking") 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 rings", 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)
• Pult ost ("Fucked cheese") instead of Pultost ("Soft cheese")

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 "checker")
• kokebok (cookbook) or koke bok (cook a book)
• ekte håndlagde vafler (real handmade waffles) or Ekte hånd lagde vafler. (a real hand made some 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, 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). 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 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
• Norsk Ordbok
• Riksmålsforbundet
• Russenorsk
• List of Indo-European languages
• Numbers in various languages

References

1. Kristoffersen, Gjert (2000). The Phonology of Norwegian. Oxford University Press. pp. 6–11. ISBN 9780198237655.
2. "Ordet 4/2005 - Bare 7,5 % nynorsk". Retrieved 2007-02-28.
3. Konvention mellan Sverige, Danmark, Finland, Island och Norge om nordiska medborgares rätt att använda sitt eget språk i annat nordiskt land, Nordic Council website. Retrieved on April 25, 2007.
4. 20th anniversary of the Nordic Language Convention, Nordic news, February 22, 2007. Retrieved on April 25, 2007.

Bibliography

• Rolf Theil Endresen, Hanne Gram Simonsen, Andreas Sveen, Innføring i lingvistikk (2002), ISBN 82-00-45273-5

External links

• Collection of Norwegian bilingual dictionaries
• Stortinget og språksaken – A historical review of the Parliament and Norwegian language (in Norwegian)
• Ethnologue report for Norwegian, bokmål
• Ethnologue report for Norwegian, nynorsk
• Norway: Small country with two written languages - article from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• Norwegian-English Dictionary
• Norwegian-English Dictionary (2)
• Tritrans: translations between English, Spanish and Norwegian
• Bokmålsordboken and Norsk Riksmålsordbok – Norwegian dictionary
• Bokmålsordboka og Nynorskordboka – Norwegian dictionary
• Norwegian spelling and punctuation (bokmål)
• Norwegian pronunciation guide (with sound clips)
• nynorsk.no - News about Nynorsk (in Norwegian)
• Forskrift om målvedtak i kommunar og fylkeskommunar – Legal document in Norwegian listing which counties and municipalities have declared their official written standard to be specifically Bokmål, Nynorsk or undeclared. (Note that six municipalities have declared Northern Sami co-official in addition with Norwegian).
• ALBIS Vocabulary tool with Norwegian (bokmål)

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• Norwegian language
• Languages of Norway
• North Germanic languages