ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Introductory notes on learning Norwegian</title> <meta name="description" content="Introductory notes on learning Norwegian"> <link href="http://www.linguata.com/styles/newstyle.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <link href="http://www.linguata.com/lightbox/lightbox.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.linguata.com/lightbox/lightbox.js"></script> </head> <body> <div id="header"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com"> <img src="http://www.linguata.com/images/logo.gif" title="Linguata language learning software" border="0" /></a></div> <div id="menuarea"> <div id="menu"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com">Home</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Languages.html">Languages</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Ordering.html?language=none">Buy</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/learnnorwegian.html">Learn Norwegian</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/About_Us.html">About</a> </div> </div> <div id="wrapper"> <div id="content"> <div id="threetier" align="center"> </div> <div id="maincentred"> <p> <!- All text goes under here -!> <h1>The Norwegian Language - Introduction</h1> <p>Norwegian is a member of the North Germanic group of languages, which includes the other Scandinavian languages, <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Swedish.html">Swedish</a> and <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Danish_Phrases.html">Danish</a>, and the Icelandic and Faroese languages. Norwegian is therefore also related to English, a member of the West Germanic group. This relationship can be seen in similarities between sentence structure and  deep vocabulary, i.e. old words which can be shown to have a common origin. Later borrowings also provide useful common ground between the two languages.</p> <p>There is a close relationship between Norwegian and the other two Scandinavian languages. All three are mutually intelligible, but this does not apply to Icelandic and Faroese from which they have diverged too far. </p> <p>There are a number of important Norwegian dialects with a markedly regional distribution, but the written language has two official forms, <i>Bokmål</i> and <i>Nynorsk</i>. <i>Bokmål</i> is the version used by over 80% of Norwegians as their written language and it is taught in the majority of primary schools. Spoken Norwegian is strongly shaped by regional dialects with the influence of <i>Bokmål</i> strongest in the North and East, and that of <i>Nynorsk</i> in the West. </p> <p><i>Bokmål</i> is the version of choice for foreigners learning the language and it is therefore the form used by <i>Linguata</i>. </p> <h2>Brief Notes on the History of Norwegian</h2> <p>Norwegian, like the other members of the North Germanic family, developed from a common Old Norse language. This was the language spoken by the Vikings whose raiding and trading activities meant that Old Norse was spoken over a wide area, and left extensive traces in the form of runic inscriptions across Northern Europe and into Russia and the Black Sea region. </p> <p> Records, initially written in the runic alphabet and later, with the arrival of Christianity in the early 11th century, written in the Latin alphabet, indicate that Old Norse remained stable with little variation across the region until about 1300 A.D. A transitional phase between Old Norse and Modern Norwegian, referred to as  Middle Norwegian , is described between 1350 and 1525. During this phase the Scandinavian region as a whole imported a large number of words from Middle Low German. Norwegian also underwent changes induced by the influence of Danish. </p> <p>In 1397 the Kolmar Union of Norway, Sweden and Denmark had formalised a degree of union between the three countries under a single monarch. However there were conflicts of interest between Sweden and Denmark which eventually led to a series of rebellions and re-conquests, culminating after the infamous Stockholm massacre of 1520 in Sweden s independence and the de facto end of the Kolmar Union. After 1536 Norway remained as a subordinate member of the Danish-Norwegian kingdom and, as a result, Danish became the language of officialdom and hence of the Norwegian literate classes. By the time Norway gained independence from Denmark in 1814, the Norwegian élite spoke a variant language closer to Danish than that used by their rural compatriots. </p> <p>This  Dano-Norwegian variant gave rise to <i>Bokmål</i>, while <i>Nynorsk</i> was based on an attempt to create a form of Norwegian purged of centuries of Danish influence. This approach was pioneered in the mid-19th century by a self-taught Norwegian linguist, Ivar Aasen, who studied Norwegian dialects and compared them with Icelandic, which had been relatively unaffected by Danish influences. Aasen s work promoted <i>Landsmål</i>, meaning  language of the country or  national language which was officially named <i>Nynorsk</i> in 1929 at the same time that the name <i>Bokmål</i> ( book language ) was given to its  Dano-Norwegian counterpart.</p> <p>The issues touched on above remain controversial to this day and a vocal minority has successfully resisted attempts to merge the two forms into <i>Samnorsk</i> (common Norwegian). </p> <p> Graham Rooth</p> <small><h3>References and Recommended Reading</h3></small> <small><p>Wikipedia- <i>The Norwegian Language</i> at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language.</p> <p>Louis Janus, <i>Norwegian: Verbs and Essentials of Grammar </i>(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1998) </p></small> <br> <h2>Related languages</h2> <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Danish_Phrases.html">Danish</a>, <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/Learn_Swedish.html">Swedish</a> <BR><BR> <!- No more text goes under here -!> </p> </div> </div> <img src="http://www.linguata.com/images/contentbottom.gif" /><br /> <div id="footer"> <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/words_and_phrases.html" title="Words and phrases in different languages" >WORDS AND PHRASES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/language_faqs.html" title="Questions and answers on different languages">LANGUAGE FAQS</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/language-learning.html" title="A reference to many world languages" >DICTIONARY OF LANGUAGES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/pronunciation.html" title="An introduction to the pronunciation of many languages" >PRONUNCIATION</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/general-articles-on-language.html" title="Articles on language and language learning" >ARTICLES</a> | <a href="http://www.linguata.com/articles/history-of-languages.html" title="A brief history on the development of languages" >HISTORY</a>| <a href="http://www.linguata.com/linguata/search.html" title="Search this site" >SEARCH</a> </div> </div> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://cetrk.com/pages/scripts/0005/1332.js"> </script> </body> </html>