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Norwegian Language Facts
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| Extinct: no |
| Family: Indo European |
| Branch: Germanic - Old Norse |
| Continent: Europe |
| Country: Norway |
| Region: BOKMAAL: Also spoken in Canada, Ecuador, Sweden, UAE, USA. NYNORSK: None SIGN: None |
| Countries Where Spoken: BOKMAAL: 4,250,000 including Nynorsk, 99.5% of population (1991 WA). Population total all countries 5,000,000 (1999 WA). NYNORSK: No estimate available. SIGN: 4,000 deaf users out of about 4,000 deaf (1986 Gallaudet Univ.) |
| Countries Where Official: Norway |
| Native Speakers: 4,250,000 |
| Speakers Total: 5,000,000 |
| Phrasebase members who speak this language at a native level: 41 |
| Phrasebase members who speak this language at a conversational level: 41 |
| Phrasebase members primary language they are trying to learn: 70 |
| Phrasebase members secondary language they are trying to learn: 262 |
| Three Letter Code: NRR |
| Alternative Names: BOKMAAL, RIKSMAAL, DANO-NORWEGIAN, NORWEGIAN, LANDSMAAL, NEW NORSE, NYNORSK, NORWEGIAN, |
| Dialects: |
| Summary: BOKMAAL: Norwegian form of Danish and based on urban dialects. One of the two norms for written Norwegian. Spoken Norwegian has many dialects, grouped as shown under the dialect list. It was reported in 1971 that 82.5% of the pupils used Riksmaal as their main written language. Primarily urban. National language. Dictionary. Grammar. SVO. Bible 1834-1978. NYNORSK: The linguist Ivar Aasen founded this written variety in the 1850s from spoken Norwegian and Old Norse. Primarily rural and based on rural dialects. One of the two norms for written Norwegian. In 1971 30% of the people used Nynorsk as their main written language. National language. SVO. Bible 1921-1938. SIGN: Intelligible with Danish and Swedish sign languages with only moderate difficulty. Not intelligible with Finnish Sign Language. Used since 1815. The first deaf school was begun in 1825, first club in 1878. It is passed to the next generation mainly through the schools. 3 dialects are associated with 3 schools. Signed Norwegian is used by teachers; pupils use Norwegian Sign Language among themselves. Signed interpretation required in court, provided some for college students, in mental health programs. Sign language instruction provided for parents of deaf children. Many classes for hearing people. There is a committee on national sign language. There is a manual system for spelling. Films, TV, videos. Alphabet The Norwegian alphabet consists of 29 letters, the first 26 or which are the same as the Latin alphabet used in English. The three last letters are Bokm嬠and Nynorsk Two official written forms of the Norwegian language are in existence. Bokm嬼/em> (literally "Book language") is the most widely used variant, while Nynorsk (literally "New Norwegian") is used by a significant minority (15-20 %). The unofficial form Riksm嬼/em> is the same language as Bokm嬠with more conservative (closer to Danish) forms. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003, the official Bokm嬠is almost identical with modern Riksm嬮 The unofficial H?sk is a variant of Nynorsk, usually based on grammar and spelling of the 1917 language reforms, used by a small minority. Ivar Aasen, father of NynorskIn 1397, Norway entered a personal union with Denmark, which came to be the dominating part, and Danish was used as Norway's written language. In the 19th century, a nationalistic movement based in the western provinces strove for the development of a new written Norwegian, which was developed by Ivar Aasen. Nynorsk was based on the provincial dialects of some selected districts, mostly in the west of the country. Therefore, Nynorsk never became more than a minority language. The Danish language, as used in Norway, evolved into what is now Riksm嬠and Bokm嬠(used by 85 %). Both the variants of Norwegian have survived until today. For a long period during the 20th century it was official policy to merge the two variants into a common form called Samnorsk (literally "Common Norwegian"). This resulted in massive protests and has now been given up as official policy. Bokm嬠is used mostly in the eastern and northern parts of Norway and Nynorsk is used mainly in the western parts of Norway. It is worth noting that the differences between Bokm嬠and Nynorsk are limited and smaller than the differences between many of the Norwegian spoken dialects. In national broadcasting all read (written) material is spoken in either Bokm嬠or Nynorsk, while interviews, talks etc. may be spoken in the dialect of the person speaking. Below are a few sentences giving an indication of the differences between Bokm嬠and Nynorsk: B: Jeg kommer fra Norge. N: Eg kjem fr堎oreg. E: I come from Norway. B: Hva heter han? N: Kva heiter han? E: What is his name? B: Dette er en hest. N: Dette er ein hest. E: This is a horse. B: Regnbuen har mange farger. N: Regnbogen har mange fargar. E: The rainbow has many colours. Grammar The number of grammatical genders in Norwegian is somewhat disputed, but the official view is that Norwegian nouns fall into three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. The inflection of the nouns depends on the gender. Bokm嬍 m.: en gutt gutten gutter guttene (a boy) (the boy) (boys) (the boys) f.: en/ei d?d?d? d? d? (a door) (the door) (doors) (the doors) n.: et hus huset hus husene/husa (a house) (the house) (houses) (the houses) Note that feminine nouns can be inflected like masculine nouns in Bokm嬮 Riksm嬠rejects the feminine gender and merges it with the masculine into a common gender, like in Danish. Nynorsk m.: ein gut guten gutar gutane (a boy) (the boy) (boys) (the boys) f.: ei d? d? d? d? (a door) (the door) (doors) (the doors) n.: eit hus huset hus husa (a house) (the house) (houses) (the houses) Nynorsk has a greater difference in inflection between the genders than Bokm嬮 Trivia Compound words are written together in Norwegian, which can cause words to become very long, e.g. sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator). However, because of the increasing influence the English language is having on Norwegian, this is often forgotten, sometimes with a humorous result. Instead of writing e.g. lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter ("lame chops"). |
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