What Language Is In Norway

Differences From Modern Layout

Substituting characters

The QWERTY layout depicted in Sholes’s 1878 patent is slightly different from the modern layout, most notably in the absence of the numerals 0 and 1, with each of the remaining numerals shifted one position to the left of their modern counterparts. The letter M is located at the end of the third row to the right of the letter L rather than on the fourth row to the right of the N, the letters X and C are reversed, and most are in different positions or are missing entirely. 0 and 1 were omitted to simplify the design and reduce the manufacturing and maintenance costs they were chosen specifically because they were “redundant” and could be recreated using other keys. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the uppercase letter for the digit one, and the uppercase for the zero.

The 0 key was added and standardized in its modern position early in the history of the typewriter, but the 1 and exclamation point were left off some typewriter keyboards into the 1970s.

Combined characters

In the era of mechanical typewriters, combined characters such as é and õ were created by the use of for the , which did not move the paper forward. Thus the and e would be printed at the same location on the paper, creating é.

Africa The Caribbean And South Asia

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English is spoken widely in southern Africa and is an official or co-official language in several countries. In , English has been spoken since 1820, co-existing with and various African languages such as the and . Today, about 9 percent of the South African population speaks as a first language. SAE is a non-rhotic variety, which tends to follow RP as a norm. It is alone among non-rhotic varieties in lacking intrusive r. There are different L2 varieties that differ based on the native language of the speakers. Most phonological differences from RP are in the vowels. Consonant differences include the tendency to pronounce /p, t, t, k/ without aspiration , while r is often pronounced as a flap instead of as the more common fricative.

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Nigerian English is a spoken in . It is based on British English, but in recent years, because of influence from the United States, some words of American English origin have made it into Nigerian English. Additionally, some new words and collocations have emerged from the language, which come from the need to express concepts specific to the culture of the nation . Over 150 million Nigerians speak English.

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What Is The Language Of Sweden And Norway

Due to the close cultural ties between these countries, people think that there is a single national language that is spoken in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. But each country has a different official language. There is no single official language of Sweden and Norway and the people of the countries speak Swedish and Norwegian respectively. Every common language of Scandinavian countries has its own unique features.

Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish form a dialect continuum of Scandinavian languages. They belong to the North Germanic language group. They are all descendants of Old Norse, the language of the Viking Era. However, the three are also different from each other in many ways. Even the mutual intelligibility of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish vary from one dialect to the next. Some dialects make one language very different from the other.

Besides English, Dutch is another Germanic language that has influenced Scandinavian vernaculars. They all belong to the Indo European family.

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Three Circles Of English

The Indian linguist distinguished countries where English is spoken with a . In his model,

• the “inner circle” countries have large communities of native speakers of English,
• “outer circle” countries have small communities of native speakers of English but widespread use of English as a second language in education or broadcasting or for local official purposes, and
• “expanding circle” countries are countries where many people learn English as a foreign language.

Kachru based his model on the history of how English spread in different countries, how users acquire English, and the range of uses English has in each country. The three circles change membership over time.

Three Circles of English

Countries with large communities of native speakers of English include Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, Ireland, and New Zealand, where the majority speaks English, and South Africa, where a significant minority speaks English. The countries with the most native English speakers are, in descending order, the , the , Canada , , South Africa , , and New Zealand . In these countries, children of native speakers learn English from their parents, and local people who speak other languages and new immigrants learn English to communicate in their neighbourhoods and workplaces. The inner-circle countries provide the base from which English spreads to other countries in the world.

Nouns And Noun Phrases

English nouns are only inflected for number and possession. New nouns can be formed through derivation or compounding. They are semantically divided into and common nouns. Common nouns are in turn divided into concrete and abstract nouns, and grammatically into and .

Most count nouns are inflected for plural number through the use of the plural –s, but a few nouns have irregular plural forms. Mass nouns can only be pluralised through the use of a count noun classifier, e.g. one loaf of bread, two loaves of bread.

Regular plural formation:

• Singular: man, woman, foot, fish, ox, knife, mouse
• Plural: men, women, feet, fish, oxen, knives, mice

Possession can be expressed either by the possessive –s , or by the preposition of. Historically the -s possessive has been used for animate nouns, whereas the of possessive has been reserved for inanimate nouns. Today this distinction is less clear, and many speakers use –s also with inanimates. Orthographically the possessive -s is separated from a singular noun with an apostrophe. If the noun is plural formed with -s the apostrophe follows the -s.

Possessive constructions:

• With -s: The woman’s husband’s child
• With of: The child of the husband of the woman

Adjectives

Pronouns, case, and person

Both the second and third persons share pronouns between the plural and singular:

Prepositions

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Dying Languages Of Norway

Dying languages only fluent users are older than child-bearing age, which makes it almost impossible to revitalize them through transmission in the home.

Four languages are considered dying in Norway, from least-threatened to most-threatened: Kven , Norwegian Traveller , Pite Sámi .

Ume Sámi is dormant, with no known native speakers remaining in Norway. The language has around 20 elderly users in Sweden.

Norway Land Of Many Dialects

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Norwegian Is Written According To Two Distinct Standards

Norwegian is not only Norwegian. More precisely, there are two standards for written Norwegian : one called bokmål and nynorsk . Bokmål is the modernised version of the Danish written standard that was used until the first major language reform in 1907. Nynorsk was created by linguist Ivar Aasen in the 1850s, based on various Norwegian dialects, with more than a nod to the pre-Danish, Norse past.

The movement away from Danish was fuelled by a strong, nationalistic need for cultural nation-building, when 300 years of Danish rule came to a screeching end in 1814. Two schools emerged: the reformers who wanted to gradually Norwegify Danish, and the New-Norwegianists.

In the famously inclusive Norway, both factions won, so schools in Norway now teach both versions of the one language, and if you write a letter in nynorsk to a civil servant, they are obliged by law to reply in kind. This has led to two things: letters from civil servants in rather bad nynorsk, and many immigrants feeling there is an unreasonable bar to employment in the civil service, because they find tackling nynorsk even more difficult than the indigenous population does.

Since the early 1980s, the line has been to allow several spelling alternatives for words in both written standards, to give greater freedom of choice. Unfortunately this has also given rise to much confusion for students and speakers of other languages trying to learn to write correctly.

Online Courses & Apps

Online courses are springing up to help beginners learn Norwegian. These are especially useful for people living outside Norway and/or find attending regular classes in-person difficult.

The two Ive personally used in the past are the more traditional lessons of Norwegian Class 101 and the story-based approach of The Mystery of Nils. Studying online can also be a great accompaniment to in-person classes, which brings me on to

Apps such as Duolingo and Memrise are a great way to reinforce what youve learned in the online courses, every single day. Both apps are free and offer paid versions with more features, but weve found the free apps to be really useful.

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What Language Do They Speak In Norway

Think about what language is spoken in Norway and youre likely to land on Norwegian pretty fast. However, Norwegian is not the only official language of Norway. The two official languages of Norway are actually Norwegian and Sami.

Ill discuss each of these below, along with various other languages of Norway, from native tongues to imported foreign languages. Lets dive into the details.

The English Language In Norway

It would be wrong of me to publish an article about what languages are spoken in Norway without mentioning the obvious elephant in the room: English!

English is taught from the third year of school, which is basically from the age of 8 onwards although some fun’ games involving counting, colours and so on could’ve started a year or two earlier.

Nevertheless, it’s common for kids to already have a decent grasp on the language by the age of 8 because of YouTube, Netflix and the like!

English is also increasingly becoming the business language of Norway. Of course this isn’t true for all sectors, but in science and engineering, many offices operate on an English-first policy.

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Bokml Vs Nynorsk Which One Should You Learn

Its very important to know that today, written Norwegian has two official forms: Bokmål and Nynorsk , each with its own variants.

To understand the difference between Bokmål and Nynorsk, we have to look back in time once again. In 1814, after Norway became independent from Denmark, Norwegians had to make a decision about their language. One was to adapt the Danish spelling and grammar to bring it closer to the upper class Norwegian that was already was based on Danish . And the other was Ivar Aasens proposal, a self-taught linguist that constructed a new language norm that continued the Old Norwegian tradition and was meant to eventually replace Danish. Also known as New Norwegian, this is what we earlier called Nynorsk.

Today, all Norwegians are educated in both Bokmål and Nynorsk. However, only about 20 percent of them use Nynorsk or New Norwegian as their primary written language. Thus, if you want to learn Norwegian, you should go with Bokmål.

Bokml The Written Language Of Norwegian

Bokmål is used as the written form of the language by the majority of the Norwegian population.This variant of Norwegian is more widespread than Nynorsk and developed later with strong influences from Danish.This variant is also dominant in everyday use, the professions and in the media.In the Norwegian course from 17 Minute Languaes you will learn Bokmål.

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Norwegian Has Several Dialects

There are two official ways of writing Norwegian , but lets not stop there. Norwegians have stubbornly held on to regional dialects that developed over the centuries and changed in different ways depending on whether they were spoken in a coastal region or inland.

The dialects are roughly divided into Eastern and Western . As a linguistic rule of thumb when it comes to Norwegian dialects, water connects and mountains divide. Norway has a mountain ridge that divides East from West, and the most distinct dialects are found in the more remote, mountainous areas .

In addition to the Eastern and Western dialects, there is a much discussed distinction between rural and urban dialects. The city dialect of Bergen, for example, has only two grammatical genders, whilst normal Norwegian generously has three.

There is perhaps more of a conscious policy in Norway to retain and encourage use of dialect than in the other Scandinavian countries or in Europe in general. There is as such no official norm for spoken Norwegian . The use of dialects has been promoted nationally, and the current Prime Minister, Erna Solberg, speaks Bergen dialect, even in an official capacity .

Can Scandinavians Speak English

The mutual intelligibility of the native languages of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark means that their people can easily communicate with each other. But, the Norwegian language has many dialects that can be quite unique in pronunciation. The Swedish language has a writing system that makes it different from Norwegian and Danish. So, what happens when a Dane cannot understand a Swede? They resort to English because it is the lingua franca of the region.

Scandinavians can not only speak English but they are also pretty good at it. Their English language skills often surprise tourists. The reason behind the Scandinavians good English skills is that it is very easy for them to learn the vernacular. English, as well as the Scandinavian languages all belong to the Germanic language family. They may not be mutually intelligible but they do share a lot of similarities. So, if someone wants to see the Northern Lights but doesnt know any North Germanic languages, they can easily get around by speaking English.

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Faroese From Scandinavian Languages Similar To Norwegian:

The Faroese and Norwegian languages are closely related. Several vocabularies and grammatical patterns of Faroese are known to the Nordic languages.

The grammar of Faroese is comparable to that of Old Norse and Icelandic. But, the pronunciation is closer to that of Norwegian.

Faroese had an orthography identical to Norwegian and Icelandic until the 15th century. The ruling Danes, however, banned Faroese in schools and churches after 1536.

Norwegian Has Extremely Long Words

In English, compound nouns are used for some words, such as toothpaste, haircut or bedroom the resulting words are fairly short and manageable. Noun-noun compounding is a very important part of the Norwegian language, and it often leads to the creation of extremely long words.

Norwegian compound nouns will not necessarily be listed in the dictionary, because you can, literally, make them up as you go along. Take for instance menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner, which means human rights organisations. This is not in the dictionary, but it is correct.

Nearly endless possibilities for new compounds lead to lots and lots of squiggly red lines when you write Norwegian on an electronic device. Thankfully, in a country with six months of winter darkness, this phenomenon also gives rise to one of the favourite pastimes of the Norwegian population: pointing out mistakes in compounding words. A much-loved example is the shop announcing they have a special offer on lamme lår , when they in fact mean to offer lammelår .

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Verbs And Verb Phrases

Auxiliary verbs such as have and be are paired with verbs in the infinitive, past, or progressive forms. They form tenses, aspects, and moods. Auxiliary verbs differ from other verbs in that they can be followed by the negation, and in that they can occur as the first constituent in a question sentence.

Most verbs have six inflectional forms. The primary forms are a plain present, a third-person singular present, and a preterite form. The secondary forms are a plain form used for the infinitive, a gerund-participle and a past participle. The copula verb to be is the only verb to retain some of its original conjugation, and takes different inflectional forms depending on the subject. The first-person present-tense form is am, the third person singular form is is, and the form are is used in the second-person singular and all three plurals. The only verb past participle is been and its gerund-participle is being.

Further aspectual distinctions are shown by auxiliary verbs, primarily have and be, which show the contrast between a perfect and non-perfect past tense , and compound tenses such as preterite perfect and present perfect .

For the expression of mood, English uses a number of modal auxiliaries, such as can, may, will, shall and the past tense forms could, might, would, should. There are also subjunctive and , both based on the plain form of the verb , for use in subordinate clauses .

Phrasal verbs

Other Languages In Norway

National minorities

Today about 20 000 individuals in Norway have the Sámi language as their mother tongue. Sámi is a member of the Finno-Ugric branch of languages, and its roots in Norway may extend as far back as Norwegian. North Sámi is an official language on a par with Norwegian in the some districts of in the two northern counties.

Groups with long-term attachment to Norway are defined as national minorities, that is the Kvens, who speak Kven Jews , the so called Forest finns Rom or Gypsies , and the Romani people . Approximately 4 000 hearing impaired persons utilize Norwegian Sign Language.

Foreign languages

Most Norwegians aged 60 or younger studied English in school. Some of the elderly Norwegians will have problems communicating with foreigners in English, but not so for younger people. Today, English is Norway’s most important foreign language for international use, followed by German and French.

There is a large number of immigrants whose first language is not Norwegian as 10 percent of the Norwegian population are immigrants. Currently more than 120 different mother tongues are represented in Norwegian primary schools. The major immigrant languages besides Swedish and Danish are Urdu, Vietnamese, Somali, Persian and Turkish.

Olaf Husby, October 2010

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