Norwegian language facts – an infographic

Fun facts about the Norwegian language

Did you know that Norwegian is considered one of the easiest languages to learn? This may sound unexpected because Norwegian isn’t often on the list of modern foreign languages to learn when you’re considering a course. But we think it is an amazing language for anyone to try to learn and if you ever decide to do it we have pun together the most important Norwegian language facts for your consideration.

Don’t want to read this whole article? We have created an infographic for it, which you can download as an image, or you can get it in PDF format from here.

Alternatively read below for more fun facts about the Norwegian language.

Norwegian language facts

If you’re thinking about learning Norwegian it’s always good to know a little about the origins and history of the language you are learning. Here, we offer some fascinating Norwegian language facts to grab your interest.

North Germanic language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language and is initially derived from Old Norse. Norwegian shares many uniqueness with the other Scandinavian languages as well as the rest of the North Germanic languages. It is mutually clear with Danish and Swedish.

Seems to be English

There are several words than you may imagine that are closely the same in Norwegian as they are in English. They are of course pronounced in a different way, but are really written the same way and have the same meaning. You will be surprised to find that reading a simple newspaper would actually come pretty easy for you. Some words are the same, like bank, over and problem.

Tonal Language

It is a very exotic language as it is very tonal. It sounds very lyrical in order to distinguish between things like homonyms.

The Speakers

Norwegian is mainly spoken in Norway, where it is an official language. There are around 5 million native Norwegian speakers.

4 Variations

This language is divided into 4 variations, Bokmål, Riksmål, Nynorsk and Høgnorsk.

No Word For Please

Norwegian tends to be a more polite language generally, so maybe it can be forgiven for missing a simple please. So, there is no actual word for please.

No, we’re not done yet, there are more Norwegian language facts you should be aware of.

Forms

Norwegian has 2 official forms of written language: Bokmål and Nynorsk.

• Bokmål is the most widely used form of written Norwegian.
• Nynorsk is used by around 10% of Norway’s population.

Missing Letters

The letters “c”, “q”, “w”, “x” and “z” are only used in a few foreign words which are used in the Norwegian language.

Structure

A Norwegian sentence follows the usual structure: subject – predicate – object.

The Similarities

On one hand, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible owing to their common history. Icelandic, on the other hand, is not mutually intelligible with Norwegian, despite the two languages being correlated.

The “R”

Most Norwegian dialects have a rolled R. In adding up it is important to pronounce the R at the end of a word.

Easier to Learn

For speakers of Norwegian it is easier to learn Danish and Swedish conversations than for Danish and Swedish speakers following Norwegian conversations. The reason is the location of the country: Norway is between Denmark and Sweden.

Weekend Drinking

A good dose of weekend drinking is lovingly named Helgefylla to make it an actual event rather than one of those things that just “happens”.

Yes, we are done with the Norwegian language facts for now. If you want to learn more about the language follow our blog. If on the other hand you’re looking for professional translation services from and into the Nordic languages, get in touch!