Most closely related to Icelandic and Faroese, Norwegian hangs of the northern Germanic branch of the Indo-European family tree.
5,000,000 speakers
Norwegian is spoken in Norway, where it is the official language, and in parts of Denmark and Sweden.
Norwegian uses the Latin alphabet plus the three characters æ, ø, å.
Although roots can be traced back to Old Norse, modern Norwegian consists of two written forms: Nynorsk, literally new Norwegian, and Bokmål, book language. Nynorsk was formulated in the 19th century by a self-educated peasant called Ivar Aasen, and he gave examples in Prøver af Landsmaalet I Norge (Specimens of the Norwegian National Language), 1853. Bokmål is a variation of Danish, also formally developed in the 19th century.
Norwegian and Swedish are among the few European tonal languages, that is a language where the tone in a syllable of two otherwise identical words can change their meaning.
Key Phrases
Ja.
Yes.
Nei.
No.
Velkommen.
Welcome!
Hyggelig å treffe deg
Pleased to meet you.
Hallo.
Hello.
Ha det.
Goodbye.
Takk.
Thank you.
Mitt navn er ...
My name is ...
Snakker du engelsk?
Do you speak English?
Beklager, jeg snakker ikke norsk.
I'm sorry, I don't speak Norwegian.
