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Government Pension Fund of Norway

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Norges Bank ( Bokmål : Norges Bank , Nynorsk : Noregs Bank , lit.   ' Bank of Norway ' ) is the central bank of Norway. It is responsible for managing the Government Pension Fund of Norway , which is the world's largest sovereign wealth fund , as well as the bank's own foreign exchange reserves .

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87-635: The Government Pension Fund of Norway ( Norwegian : Statens pensjonsfond ) is the sovereign wealth fund collective owned by the government of Norway . It consists of two entirely separate sovereign wealth funds: the Government Pension Fund Global and the Government Pension Fund Norway. The Government Pension Fund Global ( Statens pensjonsfond utland ), also known as the Oil Fund ( Oljefondet ),

174-435: A distinct dialect at the level of farm clusters. Dialects are in some cases so dissimilar as to be unintelligible to unfamiliar listeners. Many linguists note a trend toward regionalization of dialects that diminishes the differences at such local levels; there is, however, a renewed interest in preserving dialects. Norwegian nouns are inflected for number (singular/plural) and for definiteness (indefinite/definite). In

261-548: A few dialects, definite nouns are also inflected for the dative case . Norwegian nouns belong to three noun classes (genders): masculine, feminine and neuter. All feminine nouns can optionally be inflected using masculine noun class morphology in Bokmål due to its Danish heritage. In comparison, the use of all three genders (including the feminine) is mandatory in Nynorsk. All Norwegian dialects have traditionally retained all

348-485: A krone, divided into 100 øre. This was done to prepare for Norway's entry, on 16 October that year, into the Scandinavian Monetary Union . This union had been established between Denmark and Sweden in 1873 on the recommendation of a joint commission (in which Norway participated) to establish a common Scandinavian coin based on gold. It meant that the other countries' coins were to be legal tender on

435-511: A mitigating force to the supranational forces of globalization. The issue with this is that such practices may lead to a general increase in protectionism as nations attempt to wrestle back control of their economies from external forces, an outcome that most economic intergovernmental organizations , such as the International Monetary Fund , would like to see avoided. Some commentators, like Professor Gordon L. Clark of

522-441: A new Norwegian language at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from the dialects and comparing the dialects among the different regions. He examined the development of Icelandic , which had largely escaped the influences under which Norwegian had come. He called his work, which was published in several books from 1848 to 1873, Landsmål , meaning 'national language'. The name Landsmål

609-501: A noun, unlike English which has a separate article, the , to indicate the same. In general, almost all nouns in Bokmål follow these patterns (like the words in the examples above): In contrast, almost all nouns in Nynorsk follow these patterns (the noun gender system is more pronounced than in Bokmål): There is in general no way to infer what grammatical gender a specific noun has, but there are some patterns of nouns where

696-686: A separate board and separate government entity, still named Folketrygdfondet . The Government Pension Fund – Norway had a value of NOK 384 billion autumn 2024. Unlike the Global division, it is required to limit its investments to companies in the Norwegian stock market, predominantly on the Oslo Stock Exchange . The Fund is not allowed to own more than a 15% interest in any single Norwegian company. Norwegian language Norwegian ( endonym : norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] )

783-487: A significantly higher pace than either global GDP or global trade of goods and services , increasing by 175% over a period at which the former two metrics increased by 53% and 93% respectively. The domestic fund, the Government Pension Fund Norway, is managed by Folketrygdfondet. The global investment fund is managed by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), part of the Norwegian Central Bank on

870-413: Is Bokmål will study Nynorsk as a mandatory subject throughout both elementary and high school. A 2005 poll indicates that 86.3% use primarily Bokmål as their daily written language, 5.5% use both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and 7.5% use primarily Nynorsk. Thus, 13% are frequently writing Nynorsk, though the majority speak dialects that resemble Nynorsk more closely than Bokmål. Broadly speaking, Nynorsk writing

957-581: 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. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages , constitute

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1044-555: Is a fund into which the surplus wealth produced by Norwegian petroleum income is deposited. Its name changed in January 2006 from the Petroleum Fund of Norway. The fund is commonly referred to as the Oil Fund ( Oljefondet ). The purpose of the fund is to invest parts of the large surplus generated by the Norwegian petroleum sector , mainly from taxes of companies but also payment for licenses to explore for oil as well as

1131-440: Is a pitch-accent language with two distinct pitch patterns, like Swedish. They are used to differentiate two-syllable words with otherwise identical pronunciation. For example, in many East Norwegian dialects, the word bønder ('farmers') is pronounced using the simpler tone 1, while bønner ('beans' or 'prayers') uses the more complex tone 2. Though spelling differences occasionally differentiate written words, in most cases

1218-411: Is a language form based on Norwegian dialects and puristic opposition to Danish. The now-abandoned official policy to merge Bokmål and Nynorsk into one common language called Samnorsk through a series of spelling reforms has created a wide spectrum of varieties of both Bokmål and Nynorsk. The unofficial form known as Riksmål is considered more conservative than Bokmål and is far closer to Danish while

1305-419: Is also strong evidence to suggest that sovereign wealth funds are unlikely to gain board of directors seats in their acquisitions. Additionally, Norway's GPF-G is especially unlikely to gain any board-of-directors seats in a company headquartered in an OECD country. Furthermore, some experts directly contradict fears regarding the destabilizing effect of sovereign wealth funds, arguing that these funds increase

1392-736: Is comparable with that of French on English after the Norman conquest . In the late Middle Ages, dialects began to develop in Scandinavia because the population was rural and little travel occurred. When the Reformation came from Germany, Martin Luther 's High German translation of the Bible was quickly translated into Swedish, Danish, and Icelandic. Norway entered a union with Denmark in 1397 and Danish, over time, replaced Middle Norwegian as

1479-423: Is now considered their classic forms after a reform in 1917. Riksmål was, in 1929, officially renamed Bokmål (literally 'book language'), and Landsmål to Nynorsk (literally 'new Norwegian'). A proposition to substitute Danish-Norwegian ( dansk-norsk ) for Bokmål lost in parliament by a single vote. The name Nynorsk , the linguistic term for modern Norwegian , was chosen to contrast with Danish and emphasise

1566-609: Is regulated by the Norwegian Academy , which determines acceptable spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. There is also an unofficial form of Nynorsk, called Høgnorsk , discarding the post-1917 reforms, and thus close to Ivar Aasen's original Landsmål. It is supported by Ivar Aasen-sambandet , but has found no widespread use. In 2010, 86.5% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while 13.0% receive education in Nynorsk. From

1653-542: Is responsible for the management of the Government Pension Fund - Global . NBIM also manages Norges Bank's foreign exchange reserves . NBIM invests the fund's assets and the foreign exchange reserves in international equities and fixed income instruments , money market instruments and derivatives . The following is a list of past and present governors of the Norges Bank. The Act of 1892 gave

1740-697: Is rising in the first syllable and falling in the second syllable or somewhere around the syllable boundary. The pitch accents (as well as the peculiar phrase accent in the low-tone dialects) give the Norwegian language a "singing" quality that makes it easy to distinguish from other languages. Accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse , and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters. The letters c , q , w , x and z are only used in loanwords . As loanwords are assimilated into Norwegian, their spelling might change to reflect Norwegian pronunciation and

1827-526: Is sometimes interpreted as 'rural language' or 'country language', but this was clearly not Aasen's intended meaning. The name of the Danish language in Norway was a topic of hot dispute throughout the 19th century. Its proponents claimed that it was a language common to Norway and Denmark, and no more Danish than Norwegian. The proponents of Landsmål thought that the Danish character of the language should not be concealed. In 1899, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed

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1914-531: Is taking steps to become more active in company governance. In the second quarter of 2013, the sovereign fund voted in 6,078 general meetings as well as 239 shareholder proposals on environmental and social issues. Norway's Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG) has the potential to influence the corporate governance market in Europe, and possibly China as well, greatly. It has also started to become active in pushing for lower executive pay. The rise of globalization as

2001-459: Is to write in dialect for informal use. When writing an SMS, Facebook update, or fridge note, many people, especially young ones, write approximations of the way they talk rather than using Bokmål or Nynorsk. There is general agreement that a wide range of differences makes it difficult to estimate the number of different Norwegian dialects. Variations in grammar, syntax, vocabulary, and pronunciation cut across geographical boundaries and can create

2088-534: Is today to a large extent the same language as Bokmål though somewhat closer to the Danish language. It is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy , which translates the name as 'Standard Norwegian'. The other is Høgnorsk ('High Norwegian'), a more purist form of Nynorsk, which maintains the language in an original form as given by Ivar Aasen and rejects most of the reforms from the 20th century; this form has limited use. Nynorsk and Bokmål provide standards for how to write Norwegian, but not for how to speak

2175-496: Is widespread in western Norway, though not in major urban areas, and also in the upper parts of mountain valleys in the southern and eastern parts of Norway. Examples are Setesdal , the western part of Telemark county ( fylke ) and several municipalities in Hallingdal , Valdres , and Gudbrandsdalen . It is little used elsewhere, but 30–40 years ago, it also had strongholds in many rural parts of Trøndelag (mid-Norway) and

2262-634: The British Isles , France ( Normandy ), North America, and Kievan Rus . In all of these places except Iceland and the Faroes, Old Norse speakers went extinct or were absorbed into the local population. Around 1030, Christianity came to Scandinavia , bringing with it an influx of Latin borrowings and the Roman alphabet . These new words were related to church practices and ceremonies, although many other loanwords related to general culture also entered

2349-628: The European Central Bank , is that non-market investment motives may lead sovereign wealth funds managers to make decisions that go against market logic, in turn causing an unexpected and potentially disastrous ripple effect. The protectionist argument, mentioned above in relation to sovereignty and sovereign wealth funds, is essentially a fear that sovereign wealth funds could be used in a non-market, protectionist manner where competing states would perpetuate ever-increasing anti-global free trade movements. However, despite these fears, there

2436-613: The Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age . Today there are two official forms of written Norwegian, Bokmål (Riksmål) and Nynorsk (Landsmål), each with its own variants. Bokmål developed from the Dano-Norwegian language that replaced Middle Norwegian as the elite language after the union of Denmark–Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and then evolved in Norway, while Nynorsk

2523-467: The Oil Fund has become a hot political issue, dominated by three main issues: There are diverse concerns and predicted effects of sovereign wealth funds on international financial markets and the global economy as a whole, with experts expressing strong fears regarding destabilization and protectionism stemming from sovereign wealth funds. The destabilization argument, often cited by Roland Beck of

2610-511: The State's Direct Financial Interest and dividends from the partly state-owned Equinor . Current revenue from the petroleum sector is estimated to be at its peak period and to decline in the future decades. The Petroleum Fund was established in 1990 after a decision by the country's legislature to counter the effects of the forthcoming decline in income and to smooth out the disruptive effects of highly fluctuating oil prices. As its name suggests,

2697-678: The University of Oxford , express concerns regarding non-profit considerations motivating the practices of the GPF-G, especially in regards to its ethical concerns and how these considerations may be used as a means of exerting Norwegian standards on foreign firms . On the other hand, the OECD has stated that sovereign wealth funds have had a stabilizing influence on international markets due to their ability to provide capital during times of domestic investor pessimism. The OECD has taken steps to minimize

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2784-423: The real GDP of oil-exporting states is linked with the price of oil, it has been a goal of these exporters to stabilize oil consumption patterns, and a host of these exporting states singled out sovereign wealth funds as an effective policy tool for achieving this outcome. The adoption of the GPF-G has been in line global economic trends, especially investment patterns. International investment has increased at

2871-574: The 1959 standard. Therefore, a small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts use a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk . The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960, and was officially abandoned in 2002. While the sound systems of Norwegian and Swedish are similar, considerable variation exists among the dialects. The retroflex consonants only appear in East Norwegian dialects as a result of sandhi , combining / ɾ / with / d / , / l / , / n / , / s / , and / t / . The realization of

2958-475: The 20th century, being used by large newspapers, encyclopedias, and a significant proportion of the population of the capital Oslo, surrounding areas, and other urban areas, as well as much of the literary tradition. Since the reforms of 1981 and 2003 (effective in 2005), the official Bokmål can be adapted to be almost identical with modern Riksmål. The differences between written Riksmål and Bokmål are comparable to American and British English differences . Riksmål

3045-494: The 70s. This reality, coupled with the desire to mitigate volatility stemming from fluctuating oil prices , motivated the creation of Norway's Oil Fund, now the Government Pension Fund-Global (GPF-G). The instability of oil prices has been of constant concern for oil-dependent countries since the start of the oil boom , but especially so in the decades following the first oil shocks in the 1970s. As

3132-501: The Dano-Norwegian koiné , known as "cultivated everyday speech." A small adjustment in this direction was implemented in the first official reform of the Danish language in Norway in 1862 and more extensively after his death in two official reforms in 1907 and 1917. Meanwhile, a nationalistic movement strove for the development of a new written Norwegian. Ivar Aasen , a botanist and self-taught linguist, began his work to create

3219-415: The Government Pension Fund Global is invested in international financial markets, so the risk is independent from the Norwegian economy. The fund is invested in 8,763 companies in 71 countries (as of 2024). As of November 2024, the fund's value was over 19 trillion Kroner, according to its official website. Norway has experienced economic surpluses since the development of its hydrocarbon resources in

3306-455: The Ministry of Culture, official spelling, grammar, and vocabulary for the Norwegian language. The board's work has been subject to considerable controversy throughout the years. Both Nynorsk and Bokmål have a great variety of optional forms. The Bokmål that uses the forms that are close to Riksmål is called moderate or conservative , depending on one's viewpoint, while the Bokmål that uses

3393-406: The Ministry of Finance announced that 17 tobacco companies had been excluded from the fund. The total divestment from these companies was $ 2 billion (NOK 14.2 billion), making it the largest divestment caused by ethical recommendations in the history of the fund. In March 2014, as the result of both domestic and international pressure, the parliament appointed a panel to investigate whether

3480-615: The Ministry of Finance recommended divestiture from its oil and gas exploration and production holdings. This came after the August 2017 Lofoten Declaration which demanded leadership in a global fossil fuel phase-out from the countries that can most afford to act, such as Norway. Green energy is becoming an important aspect for the Government Pension Fund since fossil fuel stocks simply are not producing as much value as they used to. As of 2019, new guidelines will prohibit

3567-479: The North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of

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3654-751: The Norwegian business newspaper Dagens Næringsliv in February 2012 showed that Norway has invested more than $ 2 billion in 15 technology companies producing technology that can and has been used for filtering, wiretapping , or surveillance of communication in various countries, among them Iran , Syria , and Burma . Although surveillance tech is not the primary activity of all the 15 companies, they have all had or still have some kind of connection to such technology. The Ministry of Finance in Norway stated that it would not withdraw investing in these companies or discuss an eventual exclusion of surveillance industry companies from its investments. On 19 January 2010

3741-556: The Second World War, the seat of Norges Bank was temporarily moved to London in 1940, in that the Norwegian government-in-exile established a new board. The bank's gold reserves were evacuated via Åndalsnes, Molde and Tromsø to London, and from there to New York and Ottawa. This gold and the bank's other currency reserves were under the control of the London board. At the same time, the bank continued its operations in Norway under

3828-460: The behalf of the Ministry of Finance . As of June 2011, it was the largest pension fund in the world, but it is not a pension fund in the conventional sense, as it derives its financial backing from oil profits, not pension contributions. In September 2017, the fund exceeded US$ 1 trillion in value for the first time, a thirteen-fold increase since 2002. With a population of 5.2 million people,

3915-556: The companies in the Norwegian Pension Fund's portfolio for issues such as severe human rights violations, particularly regarding child labor, forced labour, and violations of individual rights in conflict areas as well as gross environmental degradation and corruption. RepRisk has been working with the Council on Ethics since 2009 and in 2014, re-won the tender for ESG data provision for 2014–2017. An investigation by

4002-666: The direction of the Nazis until the war was over and the London board stepped down. A commission of inquiry after the war concluded that the bank's Oslo management had taken a firm and correct attitude towards the Nazi authorities. In 1962, the Mint Supervisory Authority and the Royal Mint were transferred from the state to Norges Bank. Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) is a separate branch of Norges Bank and

4089-644: The eighth grade onwards, pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 431 municipalities in Norway, 161 have declared that they wish to communicate with the central authorities in Bokmål, 116 (representing 12% of the population) in Nynorsk, while 156 are neutral. Of 4,549 state publications in 2000, 8% were in Nynorsk, and 92% in Bokmål. The large national newspapers ( Aftenposten , Dagbladet , and VG ) are published in Bokmål or Riksmål. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad ), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk. A newer trend

4176-411: The end of 2019. According to the forecast, a worst-case scenario for the fund value in 2030 was forecast at $ 455 billion, and a best case scenario at $ 3.3 trillion. With 2.33 percent of European stocks, it is the largest stock owner in Europe. In 1998, the fund was allowed to invest up to 40 percent of its portfolio in the international stock market . In June 2009, the ministry decided to raise

4263-472: The ethical guidelines: The fund does not announce exclusions until it has completed sales of its positions, so as not to affect the share price at the time of the transaction. In 2016, Norges Bank decided to exclude 52 coal companies from the fund. Several previously excluded companies have later been reinstated to the fund because the companies were no longer involved in the activities that had led to their exclusion. As an alternative to full exclusion from

4350-485: The first centuries AD in what is today Southern Sweden. It is the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language, and the language attested in the Elder Futhark inscriptions, the oldest form of the runic alphabets . A number of inscriptions are memorials to the dead, while others are magical in content. The oldest are carved on loose objects, while later ones are chiseled in runestones . They are

4437-501: The forms that are close to Nynorsk is called radical . Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsmål and forms that are close to Bokmål. Opponents of the spelling reforms aimed at bringing Bokmål closer to Nynorsk have retained the name Riksmål and employ spelling and grammar that predate the Samnorsk movement. Riksmål and conservative versions of Bokmål have been the de facto standard written language of Norway for most of

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4524-623: The fund divested from 53 coal companies around the world, including 16 companies in the US (among them Peabody Energy , Arch Coal , and Alpha Natural Resources ), 13 companies in India (including Coal India ) and 3 companies in China. As a result, the total value of the fund's coal holdings fell by 5% to $ 9.7 billion. In 2014, the fund also sold its stakes in 59 out of 90 oil and gas companies in which it holds shares by $ 30 billion. On 8 March 2019,

4611-464: The fund from investing in companies that produce over 20 million tons of coal annually. The fund plans to sell off over $ 10 billion in stocks from companies using too many fossil fuels. In hopes of improving the Norwegian economy, the firm is becoming more environmentally-friendly by investing in companies that promote renewable energy. For example, the fund will continue to hold stakes in firms like Shell using renewable energy divisions. In March 2021, it

4698-408: The fund is allowed to invest in a number of arms-producing companies, as only some kind of weapons, such as nuclear arms , are banned by the ethical guidelines as investment objects. To support the ethical screening process, the Council on Ethics works with RepRisk ESG Business Intelligence, a global research firm and provider of environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk data. RepRisk monitors

4785-446: The fund on ethical grounds . The Government Pension Fund Norway is smaller and was established in 1967 as a type of national insurance fund. It is managed separately from the Oil Fund and is limited to domestic and Nordic investments and is therefore a key stock holder in many large Norwegian companies, predominantly via the Oslo Stock Exchange . The Government Pension Fund Global ( Norwegian : Statens pensjonsfond Utland , SPU)

4872-473: The fund should divest its coal assets in line with its ethical investment mandate. The panel released its recommendations in December 2014, recommending the fund follow a strategy of corporate engagement rather than divestment. The parliament was set to make its decision early in 2015. In the event, the fund will be required to divest from companies that derive at least 30% of their business from coal. In 2014,

4959-558: The fund was worth $ 192,307 per Norwegian citizen. Of the assets, 65% were equities (accounting for 1.3% of global equity markets), and the rest were property and fixed-income investments. Norway can withdraw up to 3% of the fund's value each year. The first withdrawal in its history was made in 2016. In a parliamentary white paper in April 2011, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance forecast that the fund would reach $ 1 trillion by

5046-530: The fund, companies may be placed "under observation" to help put pressure on the company to improve. It was proposed that one more company, Goldcorp , should be placed under similar observation. Goldcorp, as of 2019, merged with another company and no longer exists. In October 2010 the fund spent NOK 600 million ($ 136.4 million as of October 2010) daily buying foreign currencies. That figure would be increased to 800 million kroner daily in November. This practice

5133-426: The gender can be inferred. For instance, all nouns ending in - nad will be masculine in both Bokmål and Nynorsk (for instance the noun jobbsøknad , which means 'job application'). Most nouns ending in - ing will be feminine, like the noun forventning ('expectation'). Norges Bank The history of the central bank of Norway can be traced back to 1816, when, two years after the separation from Denmark and

5220-417: The historical connection to Old Norwegian. Today, this meaning is often lost, and it is commonly mistaken as a "new" Norwegian in contrast to the "real" Norwegian Bokmål. Bokmål and Nynorsk were made closer by a reform in 1938. This was a result of a state policy to merge Nynorsk and Bokmål into a single language, to be called Samnorsk . A 1946 poll showed that this policy was supported by 79% of Norwegians at

5307-467: The language of the elite, the church, literature, and the law. When the union with Denmark ended in 1814, the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become the mother tongue of around 1% of the population. From the 1840s, some writers experimented with a Norwegianised Danish by incorporating words that were descriptive of Norwegian scenery and folk life, and adopting a more Norwegian syntax. Knud Knudsen proposed to change spelling and inflection in accordance with

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5394-610: The language. The Scandinavian languages at this time are not considered to be separate languages, although there were minor differences among what are customarily called Old Icelandic, Old Norwegian , Old Gutnish , Old Danish, and Old Swedish . The economic and political dominance of the Hanseatic League between 1250 and 1450 in the main Scandinavian cities brought large Middle Low German –speaking populations to Norway. The influence of their language on Scandinavian

5481-555: The language. No standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances. Thus, unlike in many other countries, the use of any Norwegian dialect, whether it coincides with the written norms or not, is accepted as correct spoken Norwegian. However, in areas where East Norwegian dialects are used, a tendency exists to accept a de facto spoken standard for this particular regional dialect, Urban East Norwegian or Standard East Norwegian (Norwegian: Standard østnorsk ), in which

5568-478: The languages in Europe, Norwegian derives from Proto-Indo-European . As early Indo-Europeans spread across Europe, they became isolated from each other and new languages developed. In northwest Europe, the Germanic languages evolved, further branching off into the North Germanic languages , of which Norwegian is one. Proto-Norse is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during

5655-502: The minimal pairs are written alike, since written Norwegian has no explicit accent marks. In most eastern low-tone dialects, accent 1 uses a low flat pitch in the first syllable, while accent 2 uses a high, sharply falling pitch in the first syllable and a low pitch in the beginning of the second syllable. In both accents, these pitch movements are followed by a rise of intonational nature (phrase accent)—the size (and presence) of which signals emphasis or focus, and corresponds in function to

5742-430: The neutral name Riksmål , meaning 'national language' like Landsmål , and this was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. The name Riksmål is sometimes interpreted as 'state language', but this meaning is secondary at best. (Compare to Danish rigsmål from where the name was borrowed.) After the personal union with Sweden was dissolved in 1905, both languages were developed further and reached what

5829-414: The normal accent in languages that lack lexical tone , such as English. That rise culminates in the final syllable of an accentual phrase, while the utterance-final fall common in most languages is either very small or absent. There are significant variations in pitch accent between dialects. Thus, in most of western and northern Norway (the so-called high-pitch dialects) accent 1 is falling, while accent 2

5916-584: The oldest written record of any Germanic language. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Around 800 AD, the script was simplified to the Younger Futhark , and inscriptions became more abundant. At the same time, the beginning of the Viking Age led to the spread of Old Norse to Iceland , Greenland , and the Faroe Islands . Viking colonies also existed in parts of

6003-521: The possibilities of economic protectionism by instituting the Freedom of Investment project, where participating states agree upon guiding sets of principles that seek to boost transparency and transnational investment, while also advising states on how to best handle issues of foreign investment in the sphere of national security . As a result of the large size of the fund relative to the low number of people living in Norway (5.2 million people in 2017),

6090-547: The predominant political-economic system has had several key effects on states, especially in regard to interdependence and sovereignty . The erosion of fully independent socioeconomic structures has provoked new questions regarding the role of the state and its ability to project its sovereignty on a set of global economic systems that seem largely out of reach both legally and pragmatically for most states. Sovereign wealth funds are an inherently nationalist type of investment vehicle , and there exists potential for their use as

6177-442: The principles of Norwegian orthography, e.g. zebra in Norwegian is written sebra . Due to historical reasons, some otherwise Norwegian family names are also written using these letters. Some letters may be modified by diacritics : é , è , ê , ó , ò , and ô . In Nynorsk, ì and ù and ỳ are occasionally seen as well. The diacritics are not compulsory, but may in a few cases distinguish between different meanings of

6264-527: The rhotic / ɾ / depends on the dialect. In Eastern, Central, and Northern Norwegian dialects, it is a flap [ ɾ ] , whereas in Western and Southern Norway, and for some speakers also in Eastern Norway, it is uvular [ ʁ ] or [ χ ] . And in the dialects of North-Western Norway, it is realized as [ r ] , much like the trilled ⟨rr⟩ of Spanish. Norwegian

6351-407: The same basis as those struck at home. The union functioned until 1914; thereafter it lacked all practical significance, but was not formally abolished until 1972. On 1 January 1897 the seat of Norges Bank was moved to Kristiania (Oslo) from Trondheim , and in 1906 a new headquarters building on Bankplassen was opened - for 80 employees including the workers in the banknote printing plant. During

6438-606: The southern part of northern Norway ( Nordland county). Today, Nynorsk is the official language of not only four of the nineteen Norwegian counties but also various municipalities in five other counties. NRK , the Norwegian broadcasting corporation, broadcasts in both Bokmål and Nynorsk, and all governmental agencies are required to support both written languages. Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, and Nynorsk in 8% (2000). Like some other European countries, Norway has an official "advisory board"— Språkrådet (Norwegian Language Council)— that determines, after approval from

6525-587: The stability of global finance due to the fact that they serve to increase the variety of owners of risky financial vehicles, minimizing exposure to shocks in any one particular industry , while also simultaneously limiting the absolute loss any actor can suffer in a particular global economic sector . Part of the investment policy debate is related to the discovery of several cases of investment by The Petroleum Fund in very controversial companies, involved in businesses such as arms production, tobacco and fossil fuels . The Petroleum Fund's Advisory Council on Ethics

6612-548: The stock portion to 60 percent. In May 2014, the Central Bank governor proposed raising the rate to 70 percent. The Norwegian government planned that up to 5 percent of the fund should be invested in real estate , beginning in 2010. A specific policy for the real estate investments was suggested in a report the Swiss Partners Group wrote for the Norwegian Ministry of Finance. Norway's sovereign wealth fund

6699-401: The three grammatical genders from Old Norse to some extent. The only exceptions are the dialect of Bergen and a few upper class sociolects at the west end of Oslo that have completely lost the feminine gender. According to Marit Westergaard , approximately 80% of nouns in Norwegian are masculine. Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages use a suffix to indicate definiteness of

6786-442: The time. However, opponents of the official policy still managed to create a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s, fighting in particular the use of "radical" forms in Bokmål text books in schools. In the reform in 1959, the 1938 reform was partially reversed in Bokmål, but Nynorsk was changed further towards Bokmål. Since then Bokmål has reverted even further toward traditional Riksmål, while Nynorsk still adheres to

6873-457: The union with Sweden, Norges Bank was established by an Act of the Storting (the Norwegian parliament) on 14 June. The bank then decided that the monetary unit was to be the speciedaler (rixdollar), divided into 120 skillings or five ort ("rigsort") of 24 skillings each. The Money Act of 17 April 1875 discontinued the terms daler and skilling, and it was decided that the monetary unit should be

6960-426: The unofficial Høgnorsk is more conservative than Nynorsk and is far closer to Faroese , Icelandic and Old Norse . Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. Each student gets assigned a native form based on which school they go to, whence the other form (known as Sidemål ) will be a mandatory school subject from elementary school through high school. For instance, a Norwegian whose main language form

7047-447: The vocabulary coincides with Bokmål. Outside Eastern Norway , this spoken variation is not used. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, Danish was the standard written language of Norway. As a result, the development of modern written Norwegian has been subject to strong controversy related to nationalism , rural versus urban discourse, and Norway's literary history. Historically, Bokmål is a Norwegianised variety of Danish, while Nynorsk

7134-568: The word, e.g.: for ('for/to'), fór ('went'), fòr ('furrow') and fôr ('fodder'). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ï, ü , á and à . The two legally recognized forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål (literally 'book tongue') and Nynorsk ('new Norwegian'), which are regulated by the Language Council of Norway ( Språkrådet ). Two other written forms without official status also exist. One, called Riksmål ('national language'),

7221-758: Was developed based upon a collective of spoken Norwegian dialects. Norwegian is one of the two official languages in Norway, along with Sámi , a Finno-Ugric language spoken by less than one percent of the population. Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use it when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Like most of

7308-563: Was established 19 November 2004 by royal decree . Accordingly, the Ministry of Finance issued a new regulation on the management of the Government Petroleum Fund, which also includes ethical guidelines. According to its ethical guidelines, the Norwegian pension fund cannot invest money in companies that directly or indirectly contribute to killing, torture, deprivation of freedom or other violations of human rights in conflict situations or wars. Contrary to popular belief,

7395-482: Was established in 1990 to invest the surplus revenues of the Norwegian petroleum sector . As of November 2024, it had over US$ 1.74 trillion in assets, and held on average 1.5% of all of the world's listed companies, making it the world's largest single sovereign wealth fund in terms of total assets under management. This translates to over US$ 325,000 per Norwegian citizen. It also holds portfolios of real estate and fixed-income investments. Many companies are excluded by

7482-461: Was reported that the Government Pension Fund was examining whether companies in the fund had used forced labor from Xinjiang internment camps . On 1 December 2021, the fund's head of Governance and Compliance, Carine Smith Ihenacho, told Reuters that companies in its portfolio will be asked to take more specific action on climate change. The following companies have been excluded from the Government Pension Fund of Norway for activities in breach of

7569-532: Was suspended in January 2011, and on 31 January it was announced that this would also be the case in February. The Government Pension Fund – Norway ( Statens pensjonsfond Norge , SPN) was established by the National Insurance Act ( Folketrygdloven ) in 1967 under the name National Insurance Scheme Fund ( Folketrygdfondet ). The name was changed at the same time as the former Petroleum Fund, on 1 January 2006. It continues to be managed by

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