Norwegian language: overview, varieties and usage

The three mainland Scandinavian languages are closely related. With a little practice, Norwegians, Danes and Swedes can therefore often understand the language of their neighbours. However, the relationship with regard to the written language and pronunciation is to be distinguished. In particular, the Danish and Norwegian (in the variant "Bokmål") written languages differ only insignificantly, while that of Swedish differs more from the other two. The pronunciations of many Norwegian and Swedish dialects are often similar, forming a cross-border dialect continuum. Danish pronunciation, on the other hand, diverges quite a bit from the pronunciations of the other two languages, making oral communication with speakers of Norwegian or especially Swedish difficult. Overall, Norwegian occupies a certain "middle position" among the three languages, which facilitates communication with both neighbouring languages. Speakers of Norwegian - especially users of Nynorsk - are also somewhat better placed to learn Faroese and Icelandic, as these languages have their origins in the dialects of western Norway.

The origin of the Norwegian language lies in Old Norse, which was called Norrønt mál (Norse language) by Norwegians and Icelanders. Unlike most other medium and larger languages in Europe, however, the Old Norse written varieties have not been able to develop into a uniformly normalized standard over the centuries. The reasons for this are, firstly, the particular impassability of Norway and the consequently poor transport routes, which encouraged the dialects to develop comparatively uninfluenced and independently of each other; secondly, the long absence of an undisputed political and economic centre; and thirdly, the Danish dominance, which lasted from the late Middle Ages until the early 19th century, and which anchored Danish as the official language in Norway.

In the late Middle Ages and older modern times, Norwegian was strongly influenced by Low German and Danish. During the Hanseatic period, Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the North. Many Low German words were integrated as loan words. From 1380 to 1814 Norway was united with Denmark, initially as a Danish-Norwegian personal union, later as a real union. During this time, the old Norwegian written language fell increasingly out of use and disappeared completely in the course of the Reformation.

The original dialects, however, continued to be spoken in the countryside. After Norway's separation from Denmark in 1814, a national romantic wave arose in the course of the 19th century, as in other young states in Europe, which sought mainly to link up with the Norwegian past of the Middle Ages (i.e. the time before unification with Denmark). This also concerned the language: the supporters of this movement demanded that the original Norwegian language of the Middle Ages should be brought back to life in order to signal Norway's emancipation. Thus, a language debate ignited around the question of whether Danish influences in Norwegian should continue to be approved (Welhaven, Anton Martin Schweigaard), or whether an independent language should be created on the basis of traditional Norwegian dialects (Wergeland, P. A. Munch, Rudolf Keyser). While Wergeland and his followers wanted to ignore the past 400 years of Danish influence and promote medieval Norwegian, Schweigaard pointed out in 1832 in the newspaper Vidar that one could not simply ignore several centuries of cultural exchange; it was impossible to exclude again what had once been assimilated.

Finally, in the 1850s, the poet and linguist Ivar Aasen developed Landsmål, which has been officially called Nynorsk since 1929. The explicit aim was to give the - dialect-speaking - people their own written language, to stand alongside the Danish written language of the bourgeois urban upper class; Nynorsk thus became a central element of the democracy movement. Since 1885 Landsmål/Nynorsk has been an officially recognised written language. The basis for this new language was not a single dialect, but a common system that Aasen had found through scientific research of a large number of dialects from all parts of the country. In the course of the 20th century, Nynorsk, which had previously been dominated by West and Central Norwegian, was increasingly brought closer to the East Norwegian dialects on the one hand and to Bokmål, which was dominated by Southeast Norwegian, on the other, as part of several reforms, while Central Norwegian elements were pushed back. Nynorsk differs from a planned language in that it is anchored in closely related, living dialects.

At the same time, the grammar school teacher Knud Knudsen advocated a thoroughgoing language reform based on what he called the "colloquial language of the educated". His reform proposals were largely adopted by Parliament in the spelling reform of 1862 and formed the basis of Riksmål, which was renamed Bokmål by Parliament in 1929 and later split into Bokmål and Riksmål, each with its own norms and traditions, due to controversies over standardization.

Due to the strengthened national consciousness, Nynorsk was able to gain more and more supporters until 1944 and at that time had almost one third of the Norwegians on its side. In the meantime, their share in terms of population has declined to about 10-15 percent. There are several reasons for this: In urban areas, i.e. mainly in the Oslo region, Nynorsk is perceived as alienating. The urban middle classes have always rejected Nynorsk based on rural dialects anyway. Consequently, Nynorsk still lacks a real foothold in the economic and political centres. Secondly, Nynorsk is perceived as artificial by some rural dialects, especially in eastern Norway, since it seems like a dialectal patchwork; and finally, the grammar of Nynorsk is more difficult than that of Bokmål, although it must be admitted that most Norwegian dialects are nevertheless closer to Nynorsk than to Bokmål, which in turn has some phonological, morphological and other grammatical features quite alien to autochthonous Norwegian.

In the course of the 20th century, several spelling reforms were carried out in an attempt to bring the two written languages closer together (long-term goal: Samnorsk "Common Norwegian, Unified Norwegian"). Thus, in the 1917 reform, under pressure from the Nynorsk movement, a number of specifically "Norwegian" expressions were propagated to replace traditional Danish terms. Since this did not happen to the extent envisaged, another reform was passed in 1938: Numerous traditional Danish elements were no longer allowed to be used. However, this language was hardly accepted. Great disputes arose; parents corrected their children's schoolbooks, for example, because the conflict was, and still is, very much one of sentiment. At the same time, Nynorsk was also increasingly opened up to linguistically younger forms. In 1959, 1981 (Bokmål), 2005 (Bokmål) and 2012 (Nynorsk) further reforms took place, with those of 2005 in Bokmål again allowing a number of traditionally Danish forms. The result of all these reforms is the existence of "moderate" and "radical" forms in the spelling norm to choose between. The complicated system of official major and minor forms was abandoned in the Bokmål in 2005, and in the Nynorsk in 2012. The distant goal of a Samnorsk was explicitly dropped at the same time.