Languages
Native
Norwegian (Bokmål)
85%
Norwegian (Nynorsk)
15%
Language Samples
Hei, hvordan har du det?
Hello, how are you?
Jeg har det veldig bra, takk.
I am very well, thanks.
En, to, tre, fire, fem, seks, sju, åtte, ni, ti.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Norwegian is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse. A quirk of its history is that Norway lacks a single unified written standard: Bokmål ('book tongue') evolved from written Danish used during the 400-year union with Denmark and is used by roughly 85–90% of the population, while Nynorsk ('New Norwegian') was constructed in the 19th century by linguist Ivar Aasen from rural dialects to give Norwegians a written form rooted in their own spoken vernacular. Both forms are official, and Norwegian children are taught to read both. Spoken dialects vary considerably across the country, and it is widely considered socially acceptable to use one's local dialect in nearly any context.
Similar Languages
Swedish
90%
Danish
88%
German
58%
English
55%
Media
Bryggen wharf in Bergen, a former Hanseatic trading post whose Low German merchants heavily influenced Norwegian vocabulary.
Photo: Diego Delso · CC BY-SA 4.0
Did You Know
01
Norway is one of the few countries with two official written standards for the same language — Bokmål and Nynorsk — and all government documents must be available in both.
02
Norwegian and Swedish are so mutually intelligible that speakers can generally converse in their own language and understand each other without translation.
03
The Sámi languages, spoken by the indigenous Sámi people in northern Norway, have co-official status in several municipalities and are entirely unrelated to Norwegian.