- Official language in
- Norway
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Norway's Language Act (lov om språk) names Norwegian ("norsk") the national main language of Norway. The same law states that Bokmål and Nynorsk are equally valid languages that can be used in all parts of society, and that in public bodies, Bokmål and Nynorsk have equal status as written languages. According to Norway's Language Council, Bokmål is used by around 90 percent of those who write Norwegian in Norway.
Sources
- Lov om språk (språklova), LOV-2021-05-21-42 — § 4 Norsk språk
- Språkrådet — "Spørsmål og svar om bokmål og nynorsk" — Share of Bokmål vs. Nynorsk writers
Script & pronunciation
Bokmål is written in the Latin alphabet. Norway's Language Council explains that Norwegian added the extra letters æ, ø, and å to represent vowel sounds in Norwegian speech that the original Latin alphabet did not have, adapting the Latin alphabet to Norwegian's sound system already in the medieval period. This app's cards show these letters in ordinary words, such as æ and å in Vær så snill ("Please") and ø in Et øyeblikk ("Just a moment").
Sources
- Språkrådet — "Kvifor har vi æ, ø og å i alfabetet?" — Origin of the letters æ, ø, å
Grammar essentials
Norway's Language Council describes the most common word order in Norwegian as subject–verb–object, the pattern followed by this app's card Jeg snakker ikke norsk ("I can't speak Norwegian"), word for word "I speak not Norwegian." That card's own grammar note explains that Norwegian places the negation word ikke ("not") after the verb rather than before it; the Language Council's own example for the imperative follows the same pattern, placing ikke after the verb, as in Forkludr ikke opplegget ("Don't mess up the plan"). A Norwegian noun marks its definite form ("the ...") with an ending attached to the noun itself rather than with a separate word, as in this app's card Hvor er toalettet? ("Where is the toilet/bathroom?"), whose own grammar note explains that toalettet is the definite neuter form of toalett.
Sources
- Språkrådet — "Setninger med omvendt eller vanskelig ordstilling" — Baseline SVO word order
- Språkrådet — "Imperativ" — Bokmål negation example: "Forkludr ikke opplegget"
Politeness & etiquette
Norway's Language Council notes that the polite pronoun forms De, Dem, and Deres are now used markedly less than before, with the nineteen-seventies an important period of transition, and that using De today can create unwanted distance and come across as just as curt as polite. Most public bodies have switched over to using du, deg, and din instead, which the Language Council describes as unmarked rather than impolite. This app's cards follow that pattern: the card Snakker du engelsk? ("Do you speak English?") and the card for du itself both note that Norwegian uses du with everyone, including strangers, describing the formal De as essentially obsolete.
Sources
- Språkrådet — "Høflighetsformene De, Dem og Deres" — Decline of the polite De/Dem/Deres forms