Nynorsk ( Urban East Norwegian: [ˈnỳːnɔʂk] ; lit. ' New Norwegian ' ) is one of the two official written standards of the Norwegian language , the other being Bokmål . From 12 May 1885, it became the state-sanctioned version of Ivar Aasen 's standard Norwegian language ( Landsmål ), parallel to the Dano-Norwegian written standard known as Riksmål . The name Nynorsk was introduced in 1929. After a series of reforms, it is still the written standard closer to Landsmål , whereas Bokmål is closer to Riksmål and Danish.
100-780: Kongsberg School of Mines ( Norwegian : Det Kongelige Norske Bergseminarium , or Bergseminaret på Kongsberg , or Kongsberg bergseminar ) was an academic institution for mining technology in Kongsberg , Norway from 1757 to 1814. At the 1769 Census , Kongsberg was the second largest city in Norway (after Bergen), with more than 8,000 inhabitants, and the number of employees at the Kongsberg Silver Mines exceeded 4,000. In 1757, after an initiative from mining engineer Michael Heltzen and chemist and physician Johan Heinrich Becker , Det Kongelige Norske Berg-Seminarium
200-595: A , e i lit en stjerne – stjern a or even e i lit a stjerne – stjern en . Choosing either two or three genders throughout the whole text is not a requirement either, so one may choose to write tida ("the time" f ) and boken ("the book" m ) in the same work in Bokmål. This is not allowed in Nynorsk, where the feminine forms have to be used wherever they exist. In Nynorsk, unlike Bokmål, masculine and feminine nouns are differentiated not only in
300-412: A -verbs get the following inflections: All e -verbs (with -de in preterite) and j -verbs get the following inflections: All other e -verbs (those with -te in preterite) get the following inflections: All short verbs get the following inflections: Present participles are like all other living Scandinavian languages not inflected in Nynorsk. In general, they are formed with
400-405: A copy of the Nynorsk dictionary into a barrel of flames. After strong reactions to this book burning , they apologized and chose not to use the video. Bokmål has a much larger basis in the cities and generally outside of the western part of the country. Most Norwegians do not speak either Nynorsk or Bokmål as written, but a Norwegian dialect that identifies their origins. Nynorsk shares many of
500-497: A dictionary which documented the Nynorsk language in Sunnfjord. In 1749, Erik Pontoppidan released a dictionary of Norwegian words that were incomprehensible to Danish people, Glossarium Norvagicum Eller Forsøg paa en Samling Af saadanne rare Norske Ord Som gemeenlig ikke forstaaes af Danske Folk, Tilligemed en Fortegnelse paa Norske Mænds og Qvinders Navne . Pontoppidan's dictionary was criticised by Torleiv Hannaas for being
600-435: 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
700-493: A feminine form, one of which is the adjective liten as is shown in the inflection table below. Adjectives have to agree with the noun in both gender and number just like Bokmål. Unlike Bokmål, Nynorsk has a more completed system of adjective agreement comparable to that of the Swedish language (see Nynorsk past participles ). Just like in Bokmål, adjectives have to agree after certain copula verbs, like in this case
800-440: 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
900-566: A library of about 900 books on mining, mineralogy, chemistry, physics and mathematics. The mining curricula were eventually transferred to Christiania , after the Universitas Regia Fredericiana was established (1811–). After the establishment of the Norwegian Institute of Technology in the 1910s, the education of mining engineers was further moved to Trondheim . Today, the historical building
1000-564: A more radical approach, based on the principle that the spoken language of people living in the Norwegian countryside, who made up the vast majority of the population, should be regarded as more Norwegian than that of upper-middle class city-dwellers, who for centuries had been substantially influenced by the Danish language and culture. This idea was not unique to Aasen, and can be seen in the wider context of Norwegian romantic nationalism . In
1100-441: 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
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#17328009889751200-501: 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
1300-435: A plural definite that follows the inflection pattern of a feminine word: mennene (the men). The word son which means son is another word that is inflected just like a masculine word except for the plural, where it is inflected like a feminine noun with an umlaut : søner (sons), sønene (the sons). Here is a short list of irregular nouns, many of which are irregular in Bokmål too and some of which even follow
1400-417: A somewhat haphazard collection of rarities, and for being written by someone who was not proficient in Nynorsk, in contrast with Jensøn's dictionary. It is agreed, and also admitted by Pontoppidan himself, that the scope of Pontoppidan's work was not to provide a complete or rigid study of Nynorsk, but to make an attempt to further the understanding of the language. A systematic study of the Norwegian language
1500-466: A standard that Aasen called Landsmål. New versions detailing the written standard were published in 1864 and 1873, and in the 20th century by Olav Beito in 1970. During the same period, Venceslaus Ulricus Hammershaimb standardised the orthography of the Faroese language . Spoken Faroese is closely related to Landsmål and dialects in Norway proper, and Lucas Debes and Peder Hansen Resen classified
1600-458: A uniting expression for all Norwegian dialects, what he called the fundamental dialect ; Einar Haugen called it Proto-Norwegian . The idea that the study should end up in a new written language marked Aasen's work from the beginning. A fundamental idea for him was that the fundamental dialect should be Modern Norwegian , not Old Norwegian or Old Norse . Therefore, he did not include grammatical categories which were extinct in all dialects. At
1700-413: 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
1800-581: 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
1900-440: 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
2000-411: 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
2100-736: 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
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#17328009889752200-410: Is decided by referendum within the local school district. The number of school districts and pupils using primarily Nynorsk has decreased from its height in the 1940s, even in Nynorsk municipalities. Nynorsk is also part of the school curriculum in high school and elementary school for all students in Norway, where students are taught to write it. The prevailing regions for Nynorsk are the rural areas of
2300-491: Is mostly used in scripted contexts, like news broadcasts from television stations, such as NRK and TV2 . It's also widely used in theaters, like Det Norske Teatret and by teachers. Since the 1970s, the motto of the Nynorsk movement has largely been "speak dialect, write Nynorsk", which has marginalized the use of normed Nynorsk speech to mainly scripted contexts. This is in contrast to the normed Bokmål speech which many speakers use in all social settings. Outside of scripts, it
2400-423: 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
2500-579: Is owned by the Kongsberg Group, which, in collaboration with the University of Southeast Norway (USN), plans to renovate the building into a modern center for knowledge and innovation, thereby helping to shape the technological landscape of the future. 59°39′58″N 9°38′43″E / 59.6660°N 9.6453°E / 59.6660; 9.6453 Norwegian language Norwegian ( endonym : norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] )
2600-427: Is quite common to rather speak a Norwegian dialect. Compared to many other countries, dialects have a higher social status in Norway and are often used even in official contexts. At the same time, it is not uncommon for dialect speakers to use a register closer to the Nynorsk writing standard when deemed suitable, especially in formal contexts. Nynorsk is a North Germanic language , close in form to both Icelandic and
2700-556: 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
2800-697: 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
2900-537: Is slightly more complicated in Bokmål, which has inherited the Danish two-gender system. Written Danish retains only the neuter and the common gender. Though the common gender took what used to be the feminine inflections in Danish, it matches the masculine inflections in Norwegian. The Norwegianization in the 20th century brought the three-gender system into Bokmål, but the process was never completed. In Nynorsk these are important distinctions, in contrast to Bokmål, in which all feminine nouns may also become masculine (due to
3000-473: 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
3100-459: Is the only Norwegian-language form of publication, among them are Dag & Tid and Framtida.no . Many local newspapers have also chosen Nynorsk as the only language form of publication, like Firdaposten , Hallingdølen , Hordaland and Bø blad . Many newspapers are also officially neutral, conforming to either Nynorsk or Bokmål in an article as they see fit, like Klassekampen and Bergens Tidende . Commercial products produced in
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3200-508: Is the same as the neuter form of the adjective, just like in Bokmål. For instance Han gjør lite (he does little). Adverbs are not inflected, like most European languages. The system of agreement after copula verbs in the Scandinavian languages is a remnant of the grammatical case system. The verbs where the subject and predicate of the verb had the same case are known as copula verbs. The system of grammatical case disappeared but there
3300-459: 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
3400-534: 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
3500-491: Is unnecessary, and that students would be better off spending their time on learning a foreign language, or simply focusing on one of the language forms. Some critics of obligatory Nynorsk and Bokmål as school subjects have been very outspoken about their opposition. For instance, during the 2005 election, the Norwegian Young Conservatives made an advertisement where a candidate for parliament threw
3600-496: 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
3700-634: 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
3800-613: 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
3900-569: The western counties of Rogaland , Vestland and Møre og Romsdal , where an estimated 90% of the population writes Nynorsk. Some of the rural parts of Innlandet , Buskerud , Telemark and Agder also write primarily in Nynorsk. In the Sunnmøre region of Møre og Romsdal, all municipalities (except the Bokmål-majority Ålesund) have stated Nynorsk as the official standard. In Vestland, almost all municipalities have declared Nynorsk as
4000-411: The "standard-neutral" counties have declared Nynorsk as their official standard. Ålesund was the largest municipality with Nynorsk as its official language form, until the area of Haram, Norway (a Nynorsk-majority area) was separated from the rest of the municipality from 1 January 2024, and the remaining Ålesund municipality opted for "standard-neutrality". The main standard used in primary schools
4100-429: The 1840s, Aasen traveled across rural Norway and studied its dialects. He preferred the rural dialects of Vestlandet and inland Østlandet , whilst avoiding the city dialects and focusing less on the dialects of southern Østlandet and southern coast of Skagerrak , which he considered to be too much corrupted by Danish. In 1848 and 1850, he published the first Norwegian grammar and dictionary, respectively, which described
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4200-574: 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
4300-475: 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
4400-501: 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
4500-462: The Faroese tongue as Norwegian in the late 17th century. Faroese is now regarded as a separate language. Aasen's work is based on the idea that Norwegian dialects had a common structure that made them a separate language alongside Danish and Swedish. The central point for Aasen therefore became to find and show the structural dependencies between the dialects. In order to abstract this structure from
4600-455: 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
4700-479: 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
4800-524: The Norwegian language in use after Old Norwegian , 11th to 14th centuries, and Middle Norwegian , 1350 to about 1550. The written Norwegian that was used until the period of Danish rule (1536-1814), closely resembles Nynorsk (New Norwegian). A major source of old written material is Diplomatarium Norvegicum in 22 printed volumes. In 2023 Jon Fosse received the Nobel Prize in Literature . He
4900-461: The Nynorsk areas of Norway are also often distributed with Nynorsk text, like types of Gamalost . Many computer programs and apps that serve the whole country often present a choice between Bokmål and Nynorsk, especially those produced by the Norwegian government. There are also requirements by law that many Norwegian institutions have to follow. These laws are in order to keep Nynorsk and Bokmål as equals, which has been seen as an important case since
5000-466: The creation of the language forms. For instance the State-owned broadcaster NRK is required by law to have at least 25% of their content in Nynorsk. This means that at least one quarter of their content on broadcast and online media has to be in Nynorsk. There is also a requirement for state organs and universities to have content written in Nynorsk. Every student in the country should be presented
5100-644: 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
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#17328009889755200-422: The feminine forms are not optional, they have to be used. As for adjectives and determiners, the list of words with a feminine inflection form are quite few compared to those for the masculine and neuter after the 2012 language revision. All the past participles for strong verbs are for instance no longer inflected for the feminine (with an inflection ending -i ) and there is just a handful of adjectives left with
5300-485: 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
5400-448: The following noun also gets the definite inflection - a form of double definiteness. Nynorsk requires the use of double definiteness, where as in Bokmål this is not required due to its Danish origins, but the usage in Bokmål depends on the formality of the text. That is, in Bokmål it is perfectly fine to write I første avsnitt (which means; "in the first paragraph"), while the same sentence in Nynorsk would be I det første avsnittet which
5500-501: 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
5600-449: 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'). Nynorsk Between 10 and 15 percent of Norwegians (primarily in the west around the city of Bergen ) have Nynorsk as their official language form, estimated by
5700-417: 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
5800-459: The incomplete transition to a three-gender system) and inflect using its forms, and indeed a feminine word may be seen in both forms, for example boka or boken ("the book") in Bokmål. This means that e n lit en stjerne – stjern en ("a small star – the star", only masculine forms) and e i lit a stjerne – stjern a (only feminine forms) both are correct Bokmål, as well as every possible combination: e n lit en stjerne – stjern
5900-467: 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
6000-549: 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
6100-555: 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
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#17328009889756200-531: 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
6300-502: 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
6400-430: 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
6500-414: 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
6600-533: The number of students attending secondary schools. Nynorsk is also taught as a mandatory subject in both high school and middle school for all Norwegians who do not have it as their own language form. Norway had its own written and oral language— Norwegian . After the Kalmar Union , Norway became a less important part of Denmark . At that time, Danish was declared the written language of Norway until 1814, and Danish with Norwegian intonation and pronunciation
6700-443: The official standard – the city of Bergen being one of only two exceptions. Written Nynorsk is found in all the same types of places and for the same uses ( newspapers , commercial products , computer programs , etc.) as other written languages. Most of the biggest newspapers in Norway have certain articles written in Nynorsk, like VG and Aftenposten , but are mainly Bokmål. There are also nationwide newspapers where Nynorsk
6800-584: 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
6900-594: The opportunity to take their exam in either Nynorsk or Bokmål. Nynorsk is first and foremost a written language form but it does appear as a spoken language. Spoken Nynorsk is often referred to as normed Nynorsk speech. Bokmål speech in Eastern Norway often conforms to Urban East Norwegian , whereas Bokmål speech in Bergen and Trondheim is called pen-bergensk (lit. fine Bergenish) and pen-trøndersk (lit. fine Trondheimish), respectively. Normed Nynorsk speech
7000-453: The other form of written Norwegian ( Bokmål ). Nynorsk grammar is closer in grammar to Old West Norse than Bokmål is, as the latter was influenced by Danish. Grammatical genders are inherent properties of nouns , and each gender has its own forms of inflection. Standard Nynorsk and all Norwegian dialects, with the notable exception of the Bergen dialect , have three grammatical genders : masculine , feminine and neuter . The situation
7100-442: 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
7200-617: The problems that minority languages face. In Norway, each municipality and county can choose to declare either of the two language standards as the official language or remain "standard-neutral". As of 2020, 90 municipalities had declared Nynorsk the official standard, while 118 had chosen Bokmål; another 148 were "neutral" between the two, numbers that have been stable since the 1970s. As for counties, three have declared Nynorsk as their official standard: Møre og Romsdal , Telemark and Vestland . Most municipalities in Rogaland and few in
7300-458: The process to create the common language form Samnorsk. A minor purist fraction of the Nynorsk population has stayed firm with the historical Aasen norm where these alterations of Nynorsk were rejected, which is known as Høgnorsk (English: High Norwegian , analogous to High German ). Ivar Aasen-sambandet is an umbrella organization of associations and individuals promoting the use of Høgnorsk, whereas Noregs Mållag and Norsk Målungdom advocate
7400-527: 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
7500-419: The same irregular inflection as in Bokmål (like the word in the first row: ting ): Expressing ownership of a noun (like "the girl's car") is very similar to how it is in Bokmål, but the use of the reflexive possessive pronouns sin , si , sitt , sine are more extensive than in Bokmål due to the preservation of historical grammatical case expressions. Compound words are constructed in exactly
7600-428: The same time, the categories that were inherited from the old language and were still present in some dialects should be represented in the written standard. Haugen has used the word reconstruction rather than construction about this work. From the outset, Nynorsk was met with resistance among those who believed that the Dano-Norwegian then in use was sufficient. With the advent and growth of mass media, exposure to
7700-413: The same way as Bokmål. A grammatical gender is not characterized by noun inflection alone; each gender can have further inflectional forms. That is, gender can determine the inflection of other parts of speech which agree grammatically with a noun. This concerns determiners , adjectives and past participles . The inflection patterns and words are quite similar to those of Bokmål, but unlike Bokmål
7800-412: The singular form but also in the plural forms. For example: That is, nouns generally follow these patterns, where all definite articles/plural indefinite articles are suffixes: The gender of each noun normally follows certain patterns. For instance will all nouns ending in -nad be masculine, like the word jobbsøknad (job application). Almost all nouns ending in -ing will be feminine, like
7900-606: 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
8000-464: The standard languages increased, and Bokmål's position is dominant in many situations. This may explain why negative attitudes toward Nynorsk persist, as is seen with many minority languages . This is especially prominent among students, who are required to learn both of the official written languages. There are however many individual reasons for both positive and negative attitudes towards Nynorsk. Many claim that obligatory learning of both language forms
8100-405: The suffix -ande on the verb stem; Ein skrivande student (a writing student). As can be seen from the inflection tables for adjectives and past participles , they all have their own inflection for definiteness. Just like Bokmål, when adjectives and past participles are accompanied by the articles in the following table below, the adjective/past participle gets the definite inflection and
8200-401: 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
8300-443: The time as Samnorsk. This project was later abandoned and Nynorsk and Bokmål remain the two officially sanctioned standards of what is today called the Norwegian language. Both written languages are in reality fusions between the Norwegian and Danish languages as they were spoken and written around 1850, with Nynorsk closer to Norwegian and Bokmål closer to Danish. The official standard of Nynorsk has been significantly altered during
8400-442: 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
8500-432: The two forms to use. In 1885, the parliament declared the two forms official and equal. Efforts were made to fuse the two written forms into one language. A result was that Landsmål and Riksmål lost their official status in 1929, and were replaced by the written forms Nynorsk and Bokmål, which were intended to be temporary intermediary stages before their final fusion into one hypothesised official Norwegian language known at
8600-426: 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
8700-450: The use of Nynorsk in general. The Landsmål (Landsmaal) language standard was constructed by the Norwegian linguist Ivar Aasen during the mid-19th century, to provide a Norwegian-based alternative to Danish , which was commonly written, and to some extent spoken, in Norway at the time. The word Nynorsk also has another meaning. In addition to being the name of the present, official written language standard, Nynorsk can also refer to
8800-492: The variety of dialects, he developed some basic criteria, which he called the most perfect form . He defined this form as the one that best showed the connection to related words, with similar words, and with the forms in Old Norwegian . No single dialect had all the "perfect forms"; each dialect had preserved different aspects and parts of the language. Through such a systematic approach, Aasen believed one could arrive at
8900-707: The verb conjugation class they pertain to, described in the verb section. In Nynorsk, the verb skrive (to write, strong verb) has the following forms: In fact, all strong verbs are conjugated in this pattern: Strong verbs had an optional feminine form -i prior to the 2012 language revision that still are used among some users. Some of the weak verbs have to agree in only number (just like in Bokmål), while many have to agree in both gender and number (like in Swedish). The weak verbs are inflected according to their conjugation class (see Nynorsk verb conjugation ). All
9000-437: The verb for "to be": vere ( er is its present tense). Other important copula verbs where predicative agreement happens are verte and bli (both mean "become"). Other copula verbs are also ser ut (looks like) and the reflexive verbs in Nynorsk . When verbs are used other than these copula verbs, the adjectives like in the example above will no longer be adjectives but an adverb. The adverb form of an adjective
9100-498: The verb functions as an adjective, are inflected just like an adjective. This is very similar to the system of agreement in the Swedish language , where all participles have an inflection for gender, number and definiteness. In contrast, participles in Bokmål are only in general inflected for number and definiteness and shares many of the inflections it got from the Danish language. The inflections of these participles are inferred from
9200-447: 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
9300-472: The word forventning (expectation). The -ing nouns also get an irregular inflection pattern, with -ar and -ane in the plural indefinite and plural definite (just like the masculine) but inflected like a feminine noun in every other way. There are a few other common nouns that have an irregular inflection too, like mann which means man and is a masculine word, but for plural it gets an umlaut (just like English): menn (men) and it gets
9400-568: 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'),
9500-758: 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
9600-560: Was established by an Order in Council from Frederick V of Denmark dated 19 September 1757. The institution combined both practical and theoretical education related to mining. Among the theoretical subjects were mathematics (in particular geometry and trigonometry ), mechanics (for construction of buildings and machinery), hydrostatics , hydraulics , physical chemistry , mineralogy , metallurgy and pyrotechnics . The new school building from 1783 has been preserved. The institution had
9700-415: Was made by Ivar Aasen in the mid 19th century. After the dissolution of Denmark–Norway and the establishment of the union between Sweden and Norway in 1814, Norwegians considered that neither Danish, by now a foreign language, nor by any means Swedish, were suitable written norms for Norwegian affairs. The linguist Knud Knudsen proposed a gradual Norwegianisation of Danish. Ivar Aasen, however, favoured
9800-407: Was on occasion spoken in the cities (see Dano-Norwegian ). With the independence of Norway from Denmark, Danish became a foreign language and thus lost much of its prestige, and a conservative, written form of Norwegian, Landsmål, had been developed by 1850. By this time, however, the Danish language had been gradually reformed into the written language Riksmål, and no agreement was reached on which of
9900-590: Was still specific gender forms that was left. Most adjectives will follow this pattern of inflection for adjectives, which is the same as in Bokmål: Examples of adjectives that follow this pattern are adjectives like fin (nice), klar (ready/clear), rar (weird). Adjectives/perfect participles that end in a diphthong (like the word grei , which means straightforward/fine) will follow this inflection pattern: All adjective comparison follow this pattern: Past participles of verbs, which are when
10000-565: Was the first person awarded this prize to write in Nynorsk. After the transition from Middle Norwegian to New Norwegian/Nynorsk ( c. 1525 ), several studies of the language were assembled. The oldest of these is a language overview and collection of proverbs from the early 1600s Vest-Agder. Later in the century, a dictionary from Robyggjelaget was written. Neither of these works were printed until more recently. In 1646, however, Christen Jensøn (1610-1653), born in Askvoll, Norway, released
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