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In 1814 Norway gained her independence from Denmark after nearly 400 years of Danish domination when the written language was Danish. Oficially Officially Norway was in a union with Denmark and oficially officially the two countries were equal partners. However, in the union Denmark was a lot more equal than Norway , which at the time in reality was nothing but a Danish backwater. The King lived in Copenhagen, if Norwegians wanted to study attend university they had to go to Copenhagen, people in key positions, such as priests and lawyers, were usually Danish or of Danish descent etc.
The Norwegian independence was short lived and begrudgingly Norway had to enter into a union with Sweden. (For details see any book of Norwegian history; 1814).
The 19th second part of the19th century saw an awakening of Norwegian national identity. One of the things the leaders of the nationalist revival sought to change was the language. Ivar Aasen, born in Sunnmøre, Western Norway, wanted to return as much as possible to the old language from before the union with Denmark. To this end he walked the length and breadth of Southern Norway, concentrating on hidden valleys and settlements where the language had been the least influenced by Danish. He wrote down samples of the various dialects he encountered and from these he created a synthesis which he called Landsmaal.. (the å-sound was written aa at the time). Ivar Aasen had hoped that Norwegians would welcome embrace his Landsmål with open arms. However, this did not happen , mainly due to resistance in resistance from South-Eastern Norway. The up-shot of this was that Riksmål was used in Eastern Norway and in administration and national newspapers and magazines. Landsmål was mainly used in the more sparcely populated areas of Western Norway and Eastern Norwegian valleys. The term Landsmål has since given way to the term Nynorsk.A different shcool of thought, led by Knud Knudsen, was to make the written Danish more Norwegian by changing the Danish spelling of words to reflekt the Norwegian pronunciation. The
There was another school of thought led by the linguist Knud Knudsen whose aim was to give a more Norwegian coloring to the literary Danish language used in Norway by adapting the orthography and syntax to Norwegian usage and by substituting Norwegian words for foreign derivatives wherever possible. According to Knudsen's reforms the soft consonants b g d were substituted with the hard p k t. håbe ~ håpe (to hope), købe ~ kjøpe (to buy), kage ~ kake (cake), smage ~ smake (to taste), flad ~ flat (flat), node ~ note (note) etc. This norwegianized Danish was called Riksmål and forms the basis for modern Bokmål, . Knudsen thus developed a language that he called Riksmaal. The up-shot was that Riksmål was used in South-Eastern Norway and in administration and national newspapers and magazines. Landsmål was mainly used in the more sparsely populated areas of Western Norway and Eastern Norwegian valleys. The term Landsmål has since given way to the term Nynorsk and Riksmål forms the base of modern-day Bokmål which is now written by some 85% of Norway's population. This written norm, however, is not spoken by 85% of the population. Except for in With the exception of in and around Oslo most Norwegians speak a form of local dialect.
In 1917 it was decided that (, by means of several reforms) the , the two languages should gradually merge into one. This policy faltered due to strong opsosition opposition from both camps and in 1966 the idea of rapprochement was abandoned. As a result of this policy rapprochement a series of optional forms were introduced. To mention a few: People could choose whether to write fram (akin to Nynorsk) or frem (akin to Riksmål) or , utdanning (Nynorsk) or utdannelse (Riksmål), veg (Nynorsk) or vei (Riksmål). People could write huset mitt (Nynorsk) or mitt hus (Riskmål). One One can choose between a-ending in the definite singular form of feminine words; boka, jenta, musa, kåpa (akin to Nynorsk) or en-endngs; boken, jenten, musen, kåpen (akin to Riksmål). In preteritum In the preterite form of regular verbs group 1 we , group 1, we can use a-endings; hoppa, kasta, snakka or et-endings; hoppet, kastet, snakket. This This policy has resulted in a chaotic languages situation where anybody, wherever in Norway they come from, can find an accepted norm that reflects their local dialect and still call it Bokmål. Nynorsk is rather less liberal in the use of optional forms . and until recently did not allow words of Greek or Latin origin such as: eksempel, eskortere, evaluere etc. and use words originating in Old Norse instead: døme, følgje, verdsetja,
Sami is the third Norwegian language. It is the language of the indigenous population of the Northern part of Europe now inhabiting a number of related languages spoken by the indigenous populations of the Northern reaches of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia. Sami is a Finno-Ugric language, i.e. an Asian language and totally unrelated to the Germanic languages of Norway and Sweden or Indo-European Russian. The Samy have Samypeople have been subjected to a ruthless policy of norwegianization. Originally the Sami had a shamanistic religion. In the early 18th century a written norm was developed so they could read the Bible in their own language . Schools were established where the Sami learned to read and write thier language. (Originally they had a shamanistic religion). As norwegianization intensified Norwegian became the only language taught in their schools. Only in the late 1960s were Sami children taught in their native language. These days you will see Sami subtitles on tv-programmes dealing with issues of special interest to the Sami population.
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