By Sarah-Claire Jordan
Norwegian is part of the North Germanic language family and is mostly spoken in Norway, though it can be found in other Scandinavian countries as well. Like all Scandinavian languages, Norwegian traces its roots back to Old Norse. Norwegian shares many characteristics with the other Scandinavian languages as well as the rest of the North Germanic languages.
However, there are some things that everyone should know about Norwegian that make it particularly unique. Here are four facts that show just how interesting the Norwegian language is:
1. Norwegian and Danish are extremely similar
All Scandinavian languages, which are Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese, originally come from Old Norse, so it would make sense that they all have some things in common. Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish share even more traits, with Norwegian and Danish being the most similar languages in the group. In fact, Denmark and Norway used to be part of the same kingdom, where the elite class of Norway spoke exclusively Danish. This union of the two countries allowed for the two languages to influence each other greatly, leaving us with two languages that are almost more like two dialects of the same language.
2. Norwegian has two official writing systems
If you try to find a webpage written in Norwegian, you might run into an issue: there is no written version of Norwegian that is simply called “Norwegian”. There are, instead, two official writing systems that are regulated by the Norwegian Language Council. They are called “Bokmål” (“book tongue”) and “Nynorsk” (“new Norwegian”), and written versions of Norwegian will either be specified as being in Norwegian Bokmål or Norwegian Nynorsk rather than simply “Norwegian”. There are two other unofficial writing systems as well, but they don’t have official status. The most prominent of the two unofficial ones is Riksmål, which translates to “national language” and is regulated by the Norwegian Academy. Riksmål is also known as Standard Norwegian.
3. Norwegian is a language with a pitch accent
Have you ever heard someone speaking Norwegian and wondered why it sounds so much like they are singing? This is because Norwegian is a pitch accent language, meaning that there are different pitches, or tones, used to pronounce the stressed vowel of many words. The pitch used will generally change the meaning of the word as well. In the case of Norwegian, as well as Swedish, there are two pitch patterns, generally a low flat tone and a high tone that falls sharply. Depending on the dialect of Norwegian, this can vary, but it does give Norwegian that singing quality.
4. Compound words in Norwegian have interesting rules
Many recognize the Scandinavian languages as the ones with incredibly long words, which are actually compound words. In Norwegian, compound words are always written together, with no spaces between words. The part of the word that determines the class of the word, also known as the “head”, is always the last part of the compound word. Many times, if a compound word that is made up of two different words is written with a space between the words, the meaning changes. For example, “røykfritt” means “no smoking”, while “røyk fritt” means “smoke freely”.
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