About The Norwegian Language

Norwegian is the official language of Norway, a country in the Scandinavian Peninsula in northern Europe. If you have plans to travel to Norway, or if you have Norwegian ancestors, you might want to learn more about the language. Even if you just like learning about different languages or about history, the Norwegian language is important because it is part of Norway's rich culture.

History

The Norwegian language belongs to the Scandinavian language family of the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages. The language has gone through many changes over time, and today includes numerous words that have been borrowed from German, English, French and Latin. However, the largest influences on the Norwegian language are those of the Danish and Swedish languages. In fact, Danish was the official language of Norway from 1520 through 1830.

Types

There are two different types of Norwegian. Some people refer to the two types as entirely different Norwegian languages, but in reality they are different dialects of the same language. The two dialects are bokmål and nynorsk. Bokmål is what linguists call the prestige dialect, one that is spoken in big cities and the dialect of choice for media. Nynorsk is based on the dialects of rural Norwegians and it is not as highly regarded.

Geography

Geographically, Norwegian is a notable language because the fluctuation of the boundaries between Norway, Sweden and Denmark throughout history. The various movements and changes of boundaries over time have caused the Norwegian, Swedish and Danish languages to become so closely related that even though there are differences, the three languages are what linguists call mutually intelligible. What this means, in essence, is that they can all understand each other.

Size

The size of the Norwegian-speaking population is relatively small, especially when compared to the population of English speakers. There are approximately 4.7 million speakers of the Norwegian language compared to 1.8 billion speakers of English. However, if the 9 million Swedish speakers and 6 million Danish speakers are added to the number of Norwegian speakers, the total becomes approximately 19.7 million. Because the three languages are so closely related linguistically and geographically, and because they are considered mutually intelligible, it is not a stretch for them to be counted together when looking at statistics.

Features

One notable features of the Norwegian language is that nouns are gender-marked, similar to Spanish and French nouns. For example, the English word "a," as in "a cat," would be marked masculine (en), feminine (ei) or neuter (et) in Norwegian. Another feature of Norwegian is the grammatical use of suffixes. Suffixes are used in the place of definite articles. For example, Norwegians do not have a separate word for "the," instead they use a suffix at the end of a word that adds the meaning of "the." Suffixes are also used in the Norwegian language to mark verbs. Instead of using a separate word for "he," as in "he walked," for example, a suffix with the meaning of "he" is added at the end of the verb.

Resources

• Norwegian Language Classes for Foreigners
• Study in Norway
• Online Norwegian Lessons