$img kershus.jpg

* Norwegian

Norwegian is a North Germanic language.

** Bokmål and New Norwegian

There are two written forms, bokmål (book tongue) and nynorsk (new
norwegian). Bokmål came from Denmark, as under their rule they forced the
Norwegian population to write in Danish. This has led to bokmål as a written
variant with many similarities to that language. The other variant, nynorsk, was
invented by Ivar Aasen. He travelled around the country and collected samples of
regional dialects, creating a written form of Norwegian which would mimic the
spoken variants.

I write bokmål. New Norwegian features many more diphtongs than bokmål and has a
vastly different vocabulary.

** Alphabet

The letters are pronounced as monophtongs by themselves in most cases, unlike
the diphtong pronounciation of some letters in English (like 'a').

Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages have 3 additional vowels, æ (like the
'a' in 'can'), ø (like the 'u' in 'purse'), and å (like the 'o' in 'floor').

** Dialects

Norwegian has no standard way of speech, and the regional dialects reflect
this. The dialects originated because of the difficulty of moving between
different parts of the country, due to factors like the mountains. This lead to
sealed off areas where dialects were able to flourish. It is unknown how many
there are, however they tend to resemble the ones they are close to.

** Other

{https://www.sprakradet.no/svardatabase/sporsmal-og-svar/hen/ Hen} is the
official gender neutral pronoun in Norwegian.

{https://git.sr.ht/~jole/nous The NOUS keyboard layout}
