Norwegian
Norwegian is a North Germanic Language spoken in Norway. It is a decedent of Old West Norse.
| Norwegian Norsk | |
| Spoken in: | Norway (Norge /(Nynosrk) Noreg) |
| Conworld: | Real world |
| Total speakers: | 4.8 million native. |
| Genealogical classification: | Indo-European
|
| Basic word order: | SVO, |
| Morphological type: | Isolating (mostly) |
| Morphosyntactic alignment: | nominative-accusative |
| Writing system: | |
| Created by: | |
| unknown | 1525 C.E. |
Norway
The primary location where Norwegian is spoken is in Norway. The name Norway in English comes from the Anglo-Saxon name Norðweg meaning North-way. This is also seen in Old Norse in the word Norðmaðr which means both North-man and Norwegian (in that sense they might be one in the same).
Norwegian has two standards, Nynorsk and the more popular written variation Bokmål. Norwegian Orthography is very close to that of Danish, because for a long time the Danish had control over Norway. However, the spoken language is closer to Swedish. This means Swedish and Norwegian people would more easily understand each other in conversation, while Danish and Norwegian people would better understand each other's written languages. This makes Norwegian as a dead center language between Swedish and Danish.
Phonetics and Phonology
Consonants
| Consonants | ||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | Labiod. | Alveolar | Post-alv. | Retroflex | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||||||||
| Nasal | m | n | ɳ | ŋ | ||||||||||||
| Plosive | p | b | t | d | ʈ | ɖ | k | g | ||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | ʃ | ʂ | ç | h | |||||||||
| Affricate | ʦ | (ʧ) | ||||||||||||||
| Approximants | j | |||||||||||||||
| Trill | r | (ɽ) | (ʀ) | |||||||||||||
| Lateral Approximant | l | ɭ | ||||||||||||||
- Most of the letters are identical with their IPA equivalents, such as: b, p, t, d, f, v, j, h, s, l, r, m, and n.
- When an r is in front of another consonant, it can make it retroflex these include rt /ʈ/, rd /ɖ/, rl /ɭ/, and rn /ɳ/. This also differs by dialect, and can result in /ʀt/, /ʀd/, /ʀl/, and /ʀn/ are used.
- The orthographic k is pronounced /k/ except when in front of a i /i/, y /y/ or j /j/, where it becomes a /ç/. tj is also pronounced /ç/.
- w is pronounced /v/.
- sk is pronounced /sk/ except when in front of i /i/, y /y/, or j /j/, where it becomes /ʃ/ (except in some dialect). sj is also pronounced /ʃ/.
- g is pronounced /g/ except when in front of i /i/, y /y/, or j /j/, where it becomes /j/.
- In some dialects /v/ is pronounced /ʋ/ instead.
Vowels
Grammar
Nouns
Gender
Norwegian originally had three genders, Masculine, Feminine, and Neuter. However, in many of the later stages and most of the modern dialects, the Masculine and Feminine genders have merged into a Common gender. However, even in Bokmål the feminine gender does occasionally exist. Because around 75% of nouns were once Masculine or Feminine, that is the amount which is Common, leaving 25% for the Neuter gender.
Articles
Genitive
Old Norse, like its (sometimes distant) relatives Old English, Icelandic, and High German, had a complex series of cases that would be used for every noun. All of them had around four (Old English had the remnants of a 5th, which later died away) and were as follows: Nominative (subject), Accusative (direct object), Dative (indirect object), and Genitive (possessives). However, in modern Norwegian, like Danish and Swedish, the first three cases were merged into one, and the Genitive somehow survived (like in Modern English). The ending, similar to English, is -s.
