Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Norwegian (endonym: norsk ⓘ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway, where it is an official language.Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, in particular, are very close.
In Norway, the indigenous languages, Norwegian and Sámi, [b] have official status. Out of them, Norwegian is the most widely spoken language in Norway. English, a foreign language, is the second most widely spoken language in Norway. As of 2013, there are 4.5 million English-speakers (approximately 88% of the Norwegian population).
The term Riksmål (Rigsmaal), meaning National Language, was first proposed by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in 1899 as a name for the Norwegian variety of written Danish as well as spoken Dano-Norwegian. It was borrowed from Denmark where it denoted standard written and spoken Danish.
This page was last edited on 17 December 2022, at 07:40 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
Old Norwegian (Norwegian: gammelnorsk and gam(m)alnorsk), also called Norwegian Norse, is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian.
Modern Norwegian (Norwegian: moderne norsk) is the Norwegian language that emerged after the Middle Norwegian transition period (1350–1536) until and including today. The transition to Modern Norwegian is usually dated to 1525, or 1536, the year of the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the kingdoms of Denmark–Norway (1537–1814).
Norwegian dialects (dialekter/ar) are commonly divided into four main groups, 'Northern Norwegian' (nordnorsk), 'Central Norwegian' , 'Western Norwegian' , and 'Eastern Norwegian' (østnorsk). Sometimes 'Midland Norwegian' ( midlandsmål ) and/or 'South Norwegian' ( sørlandsk ) are considered fifth or sixth groups.
In the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway (1536–1814), the official language — in the sense of written language — was Danish, not Norwegian. However it came to be seen as a common language of the kingdoms. The urban Norwegian upper class spoke Dano-Norwegian, a form of Danish with Norwegian pronunciation and other minor local differences. After ...