Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is an official language. Norwegian is closely related to and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Together with these, as well as Faroese, Icelandic and a number of extinct languages, Norwegian belongs to the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages). Due to isolation, Faroese and Icelandic are no longer mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form, because mainland Scandinavian has diverged from them.
Spoken Norwegian forms a continuum of local and regional variants that are all mutually intelligible. There is no officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian, but there is a de facto spoken standard of Bokmål known as Standard Østnorsk (Standard East Norwegian), spoken mainly by the urban upper and middle class in East Norway. Standard Østnorsk is the form generally taught to foreign students.

History
The languages now spoken in Scandinavia developed from the Old Norse language, which did not differ greatly between what are now Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish areas. In fact, Viking traders spread the language across Europe and into Russia, making Old Norse one of the most widespread languages for a time. According to tradition, King Harald Fairhair united Norway in 872. Around this time, a runic alphabet was used. According to writings found on stone tablets from this period of history, the language showed remarkably little deviation between different regions. Runes had been in limited use since at least the 3rd century. Around 1030, Christianity came to Norway, bringing with it the Latin alphabet. Norwegian manuscripts in the new alphabet began to appear about a century later. The Norwegian language began to deviate from its neighbors around this time as well.
Viking explorers had begun to settle Iceland in the 9th century, carrying with them the Old Norse language. Over time, Old Norse developed into "Western" and "Eastern" variants. Western Norse covered Norway (including its overseas settlements in Iceland, Greenland, the Faroe Islands and the Shetland Islands), while Eastern Norse developed in Denmark and south-central Sweden. The languages of Iceland and Norway remained very similar until about the year 1300, when they became what are now known as Old Icelandic and Old Norwegian.
In the period traditionally dated to 1350–1525, Norwegian went through a Middle Norwegian transition toward Modern Norwegian. The major changes were simplification of the morphology, a more fixed syntax, and a considerable adoption of Middle Low German vocabulary. Similar development happened in Swedish and Danish, keeping the dialect continuum in continental Scandinavia intact. This did however not happen in Faroese and Icelandic so these languages lost mutual intelligibility with continental Scandinavia.

From Old Norse to distinct Scandinavian languages
In 1397, the Kalmar Union unified Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and from 1536 Norway was subordinated under the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway. Danish became the commonly written language among Norway's literate class. Spoken Danish was gradually adopted by the urban elite, first at formal occasions, and gradually a more relaxed variety was adopted in everyday speech. The everyday speech went through a koinéization process, involving grammatical simplification and Norwegianized pronunciation. When the union ended in 1814 the Dano-Norwegian koiné had become the mother tongue of a substantial part of the Norwegian élite, but the more Danish-sounding solemn variety was still used on formal occasions.
Norway was forced to enter a new personal union with Sweden, shortly after the end of the former one with Denmark. However, Norwegians began to push for true independence by embracing democracy and attempting to enforce the constitutional declaration of being a sovereign state. Part of this nationalist movement was directed to the development of an independent Norwegian language. Three major paths were available: do nothing (Norwegian written language, i.e. Danish, was already different from Swedish), Norwegianize the Danish language, or build a new national language based on Modern Norwegian dialects. All three approaches were attempted.

Under Danish and Swedish rule

Main article: Norwegian language struggle Phonology

Consonants

Vowels
Norwegian is a pitch accent language with two distinct pitch patterns. 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 tone 1, while "bønner" (beans or prayers) uses tone 2, just like in Danish. Though the difference in spelling occasionally allow the words to be distinguished in written language, in most cases 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/focus and which corresponds in function to 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 that is so 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 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 which makes it fairly easy to distinguish from other languages. Interestingly, accent 1 generally occurs in words that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, and accent 2 in words that were polysyllabic.

Accent

Written language
The Norwegian alphabet is as follows:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å (29 letters)
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ ø å
The letters c, q, w, x and z are only used in loanwords. Some also spell their otherwise Norwegian family names using these letters.
Some letters may be modified by diacritics: é, è, ê, ó, ò, â, 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 the word, e.g.: for (for/to), fór (went), fòr (furrow) and fôr (fodder). Loanwords may be spelled with other diacritics, most notably ü, á and à.

The alphabet

Main articles: Bokmål and Nynorsk Bokmål and Nynorsk

Main article: Riksmål Riksmål

Main article: Høgnorsk Høgnorsk
About 86.2% of the pupils in the primary and lower secondary schools in Norway receive education in Bokmål, while about 13.8% receive education in Nynorsk. From the eighth grade onwards pupils are required to learn both. Out of the 433 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. Some major regional newspapers (including Bergens Tidende and Stavanger Aftenblad), many political journals, and many local newspapers use both Bokmål and Nynorsk.

Current usage

Main article: Norwegian dialects Dialects
Below are a few sentences giving an indication of the differences between Bokmål and Nynorsk, compared to the conservative (nearer to Danish) form Riksmål, Danish, as well as Old Norse, Swedish and Icelandic, the living language closest to Old Norse:
Bokmål/Riksmål/Danish: Jeg kommer fra Norge Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Eg kjem frå Noreg. Old Norse: Ek kem frá Noregi. Icelandic: Ég kem frá Noregi. Swedish: Jag kommer från Norge. English: I come from Norway. Faroese: Eg komi frá Noregi. German: Ich komme aus Norwegen.
Bokmål/Riksmål: Hva heter han? Danish: Hvad hedder han? Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Kva heiter han? Old Norse: Hvat heitir hann? Icelandic: Hvað heitir hann? Swedish: Vad heter han? English: What is his name? Faroese: Hvat eitur hann? German: Wie heißt er?
Bokmål/Riksmål/Danish: Dette er en hest. Nynorsk/Høgnorsk: Dette er ein hest. Old Norse: Þetta er hross/Þetta er hestr. Icelandic: Þetta er hross/hestur. Swedish: Detta är en häst. English: This is a horse. Faroese: Hetta er eitt ross/ein hestur. German: Das ist ein Roß/ Pferd.
Bokmål: Regnbuen har mange farger. Riksmål/Danish: Regnbuen har mange farver. Nynorsk: Regnbogen har mange fargar. Høgnorsk: Regnbogen hev mange fargar. (Or better: Regnbogen er manglìta). Old Norse: Regnboginn er marglitr. Icelandic: Regnboginn er marglitur. Swedish: Regnbågen har många färger. English: The rainbow has many colours. Faroese: Ælabogin er litríkur/ er marglitur. German: Der Regenbogen hat eine Menge Farben.

Examples

Morphology
Norwegian nouns are inflected or declined in definiteness (indefinite/definite) and number (singular/plural). In some dialects, definite nouns are furthermore declined in case (nominative/dative).
As in most Indo-European languages (English language being one of a few exceptions), nouns are classified by gender, which has consequences for the declension of agreeing adjectives and determiners. Norwegian dialects have three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter, except the Bergen dialect which has only two genders: common and neuter. Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk traditionally have two genders like Danish (and the Bergen dialect), but so called radical varieties have three genders. The two-gender form is now mostly replaced by the three-gender form in spoken Standard Østnorsk, but it is sometimes used in conservative Bokmål.
The declension of regular nouns depends on gender. Some dialects and variants of Nynorsk furthermore have different declension of weak and strong feminines and neuters.
As of July 1st 2005, all feminine nouns can be written as masculine nouns.

Nouns
Norwegian adjectives have two inflectional paradigms. The weak inflection is applicable when the argument is definite, the strong inflection is used when the argument is indefinite. In both paradigms the adjective is declined in comparison (positive/comparative/superlative). Strong, positive adjectives are furthermore declined in gender and number in agreement with their argument. In some southwestern dialects, the weak positive is also declined in gender and number, with one form for feminine and plural, and one form for masculine and neuter.

Adjectives
Norwegian finite verbs are inflected or conjugated in mood: indicative/imperative/optative. The optative mood is constrained to a handful of verbs. The indicative verbs are conjugated in tense, present / past. In Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk, the present tense also has a passive form. In some dialects, indicative verbs are also conjugated in number. Conjugation in gender is lost in Norwegian.
There are four non-finite verb forms: infinitive, passive infinitive, and the two participles perfective/past participle and imperfective/present participle.
The participles are verbal adjectives. The imperfective participle has no further declension, but the perfective participle is declined in gender (not in Bokmål and Standard Østnorsk) and number like strong, positive adjectives. The definite form of the participle is identical to the plural form.
As with other Germanic languages, Norwegian verbs can be either weak or strong.

Verbs
Norwegian personal pronouns are declined in case, nominative / accusative. Some of the dialects that have preserved the dative in nouns, also have a dative case instead of the accusative case in personal pronouns, while others have accusative in pronouns and dative in nouns, effectively giving these dialects three distinct cases.
In the most comprehensive Norwegian grammar, Norsk referansegrammatikk, the categorization of personal pronouns by person, gender, and number is not regarded as inflection. As with nouns, adjectives must agree with the gender and number of pronoun arguments.
Other pronouns have no inflection.
The so called possessive, demonstrative and relative pronouns are no longer regarded to be pronouns.
Pronouns are a closed class.
Bokmål, like English, has two sets of 3rd person pronouns. Han and hun refer to male and female individuals respectively, den and det refer to impersonal or inanimate nouns, of masculine/feminine or neutral gender respectively. In contrast, Nynorsk and most dialects use the same set of pronouns (han (m.), ho (f.) and det (n.)) for both personal and impersonal references. Det also has expletive and cataphoric uses like in the English examples it rains and it was known by everyone (that) he had travelled the world.

Pronouns
The closed class of Norwegian determiners are declined in gender and number in agreement with their argument. Not all determiners are inflected.

Determiners
Norwegian has five closed classes without inflection, i.e. lexical categories with grammatical function and a finite number of members that may not be distinguished by morphological criteria. These are interjections, conjunctions, subjunctions, prepositions, and adverbs. The inclusion of adverbs here, requires that traditional adverbs that are inflected in comparison are classified as adjectives, as is sometimes done.

Particle classes
In Norwegian compound words, the head, i.e. the part determining the compound's class, is the last part. Only the first part has primary stress. For instance, the compund tenketank (think tank) has primary stress on the first syllable and is a noun (some sort of tank).
Compound words are written together in Norwegian, which can cause words to become very long; for example sannsynlighetsmaksimeringsestimator (maximum likelihood estimator) and menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner (human rights organisations). Another example is the title høyesterettsjustitiarius (originally a combination of supreme court and the actual title, justiciar). Note also the translation En midtsommernattsdrøm (A Midsummer Night's Dream).
If they are not written together, each part will naturally be read with primary stress, and the meaning of the compound is lost. This is sometimes forgotten, occasionally with humorous results. Instead of writing, for example, lammekoteletter (lamb chops), people make the mistake of writing lamme koteletter (paralyzed, or lame, chops). The original message can even be reversed, as when røykfritt (no smoking, i.e. "free from smoking") becomes røyk fritt (smoke freely).
Other examples include:
These misunderstandings occur because most nouns can be interpreted as verbs or other types of words. Similar misunderstandings can be achieved in English too. The following are examples of phrases that both in Norwegian and English mean one thing as a compound word, and something different when regarded as separate words:

Terrasse dør ("Terrace dies") instead of Terrassedør ("Terrace door")
Tunfisk biter ("Tuna bites", verb) instead of Tunfiskbiter ("Tuna bits", noun)
Smult ringer ("Lard rings", verb) instead of Smultringer ("Doughnuts")
Tyveri sikret ("Theft guaranteed") instead of Tyverisikret ("Theft proof")
Stekt kylling lever ("Fried chicken lives", verb) instead of Stekt kyllinglever ("Fried chicken liver", noun)
Pult ost ("Fucked cheese") instead of Pultost ("Soft cheese")
stavekontroll (spellchecker) or stave kontroll (spell "checker")
kokebok (cookbook) or koke bok (boiling a book)
ekte håndlagde vafler (real handmade waffles) or Ekte hånd lagde vafler. (a real hand made some waffles.) Compound words
By far the largest part of the modern vocabulary of Norwegian dates back to Old Norse. The largest source of loanwords is Middle Low German, which had a huge influence on Norwegian vocabulary from the late Middle Ages onwards partially even influencing grammatical structures, such as genitive constructions. At present, the main source of new loanwords is English e.g. rapper, e-mail, catering, juice, bag (originally a loan word to English from Old Norse). Some loanwords have their spelling changed to reflect Norwegian pronunciation rules, but in general Norwegianised spellings of these words tend to take a long time to sink in: e.g. sjåfør (from French chauffeur) and revansj (from French revanche) are now the common Norwegian spellings, but juice is more often used than the Norwegianised form jus, catering more often than keitering, service more often than sørvis, etc.

See also