| Languages of Norway | |
|---|---|
| Official | Norwegian[a] Sámi[b] |
| Minority | Kven Finnish Romani Romanes |
| Foreign | English (>90%) |
| Signed | Norwegian Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
Many languages are spoken, written andsigned inNorway.
In Norway, the indigenous languages,Norwegian andSámi,[b] have official status. Out of them, Norwegian is the most widely spoken language in Norway.English, a foreign language, is the second most widely spoken language in Norway. As of 2013,[update] there are 4.5 million fluent English-speakers (approximately 88% of the Norwegian population).
The most widely spoken language inNorway is Norwegian. It is aNorth Germanic language, closely related toSwedish andDanish, all linguistic descendants ofOld Norse. Norwegian is used by some 95% of the population as a first language. The language has two separatewritten standards:Nynorsk ("New Norwegian", "New" in the sense of contemporary or modern as opposed to old Norse) andBokmål ("Book Language/Tongue/Speech"), both of which are official.
Known asSpråkstriden in Norwegian, theNorwegian language struggle is a movement rooted in both Norwegian nationalism and the 400 years ofDanish rule in Norway (seeDenmark-Norway). Thekoiné language (mixed language) known asDano-Norwegian (Dansk-Norsk) which developed in Norwegian cities was the result of Danish replacing Norwegian as the language of the upper classes in that country (Danish was used in the courts of law and by the ruling class, and after theLutheran Reformation of 1536 it replacedLatin as aliturgical language). The adoption of a few elements of Norwegian orthography into the Danish language gave rise to the written standard ofRiksmål, which later became Bokmål. Nynorsk, a new standard of Norwegian based upon the spoken language in rural Norway, was acknowledged by the parliament in 1885, and in 1892 it was first possible to use Nynorsk as a language of primary instruction. By 1920, Nynorsk was being used widely in western Norway and the mountain valleys, where it still has its stronghold, and Bokmål was used in the more populous areas of the country. Later, attempts were made to reconcile the two standards intoSamnorsk, or "Common Norwegian", although this never came to fruition.
Bokmål, the written language of some 80% of the Norwegian population[1] and understood by practically the entire population, is based on a combination of Danish and Nynorsk. It differs from its mostly Danish predecessor Riksmål in terms of genders, lexicon, counting system, a tendency to permit concrete noun endings in abstract situations and diphthongs versus single vowels. Riksmål was officially changed to Bokmål in 1929.
Nynorsk was developed by the linguistIvar Aasen in the 1850s, based on rural, spoken Norwegian, rather than the cultured, Danish-influenced Norwegian spoken in cities. Its first official codification was in 1901, was given the name Nynorsk in 1929, and has been used officially (alongside Bokmål) since 1938. Its usage, however has declined: in 1944 it was used by 34.1% (the highest recorded number), in 1971 by 17.5% of the population, today, some 15% of schoolchildren are taught Nynorsk as their written language, and Nynorsk is reportedly used as the main form of Norwegian by around 7.4% of the total population, whereas an additional 5% switch between Bokmål and Nynorsk.[1]
Nynorsk is most commonly used in the western and southern parts of Norway, and is much less common in areas within range ofEuropean route E6 (Eastern Norway, Trøndelag, and northern Norway). Though Nynorsk is understood by a large majority of the country's population, it is not widely understood among teenagers, and it is frequently discussed whether to continue to make Nynorsk obligatory in schooling or not.[2][3]
A more conservative variation of Nynorsk exists, calledHøgnorsk. It has few active users, but is supported by theIvar Aasen-sambandet organization, founded in 1965 in response to thesamnorsk policy of the government at the time.
TheSami people areindigenous to Northern Scandinavia,[4][5] and though they havelargely adopted Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, orRussian—due in no small part to official assimilation policies[6]—some still speak theirindigenousSámi languages. Alongside speaking those languages, practically all speakers of Sámi languages in Norway also have Bokmål as their second or first language.
Sámi languages, like Kven and Finnish, belong to theUralic language family. By far the most spoken form of Sami in Norway isNorthern Sámi, spoken by around 15,000 Sami in Norway, equivalent to approximately 0.27% of the population. The others areLule Sámi (spoken by around 500 in Norway; 0.01%) andSouth Sámi (which has around 300 speakers in Norway). Sámi and Norwegian are the official languages of Norway, and Sámi is protected by the constitution.[7][8][9]
Spoken by theKven people, theKven language is a Finnic language, closely related toFinnish, and spoken by between 5,000 and 8,000 people (equivalent of up to 0.15% of the population) in northeastern Norway, particularly inTromsø (inTroms county) and also inFinnmark county. Mirroring the situation ofMeänkieli inSweden, Kven is sometimes considered to be a dialect of Finnish, and has a large degree ofmutual intelligibility with the language.
TheRomani people are a traditionally travelling people with roots/heritage from India, and today are spread across all ofEurope.
TheRomani language, anIndo-European,Indo-Aryan language (related to other languages spoken in India today), is split into a great number of dialects. Two of these,Tavringer Romani andVlax Romani, are spoken in Norway, by populations of 6,000 and 500, respectively.
Scandoromani is another Romani dialect indigenous to Norway, as well as Sweden. It is spoken by Romanisæl (Tater) Travellers. Because of the wandering nature of the Romani people, there is no geographic stronghold of the Romani language in Norway.
Spoken by theIndigenous Norwegian Travellers, a traditionally Itinerant population who almost exclusively inhabit Southwestern and Southern Norway which have a mixture from Romanisæl, also known as Tater (Norwegian & Swedish Romani) andYeniche (German Traveller) populations.
The Norwegian Traveller language, also known as Rodi, is based on Norwegian, but has heavy lexicon borrowing from Romani and GermanRotwelsch. Rotwelsch lexicon has entered through the Yeniche, and Romani lexicon has entered both from the Scandoromani spoken by the Romanisæl (Tater) Travellers of Norway and the Sinti-Romani dialect, as German Rotwelsch has Sinti influences.
Despite the lexicon of Romani and German Rotwelsch origin, the syntax, grammar and morphology of Rodi is entirely Nordic. Despite intermarriages and admixture from Yeniche Travellers and Romanisæl Travellers, Indigenous Norwegian Travellers have retained their own distinct culture, history, traditions, identity and history.
There is no estimate on how many Norwegian Traveller speakers there are in Norway, but it is known that the language is alive.
In 2017,Norway'simmigrant population consisted of 883,751 people, making up 16.8% of the country's total population[10] (this includes both foreign-born and Norwegian-born with two foreign-born parents, and four foreign-born grandparents). Of this number, 724,987 are foreign-born, while 158,764 are Norwegian-born with foreign-born parents.[11] The ten most common countries of origin of immigrants residing in Norway arePoland (97,197),Lithuania (37,638),Sweden (36,315),Somalia (28,696),Germany (24,601),Iraq (22,493),Syria (20,823),Philippines (20,537),Pakistan (19,973) andEritrea (19,957).[12] The immigrant population comprises people from a total of 221 countries and autonomous regions,[13] but 25% of the immigrants are from one of four migrant groups:Polish,Lithuanians,Swedes andSomalis.[14]
| Language | No. of speakers |
|---|---|
| Serbo-Croatian | 12,250 |
| Arabic | 11,489 |
| English | 11,130 |
| Somali | 10,904 |
| Kurdish | 7,100 |
| Tigrinya | 5,552 |
| Dari | 5,212 |
| Russian | 5,062 |
| Persian | 4,929 |
| Albanian | 4,535 |
In 2013, there were approximately 4.5 million people in Norway who were capable of conversing in English to some extent, out of a population of 5.1 million.[16] The country currently scores in the top 5 of theEF English Proficiency Index along with itsNordic neighbours.[17]
While pupils can pickGerman,French, orSpanish from Year 8 onwards, which becomes mandatory from Year 11 onwards, fluency in those languages is very low in Norway.[18]
Swedish, being significantlymutually intelligible, is well understood, and speakers of Norwegian and Swedish will usually converse verbally in their languages or in various versions ofSvorsk instead of conversing in English. In regards to school classes and credits, Swedish is not considered a true foreign language, as there are no class subjects specifically for Swedish, and thus no exams oruniversity credits dedicated to it either; some Swedish is taught as part of regular Norwegian classes from circa Year 7 onwards.[19]
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This article incorporatespublic domain material fromThe World Factbook (2006 ed.).CIA.
