Norwegian Academy

The Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature (Norwegian: Det Norske Akademi for Språk og Litteratur) is a Norwegian learned body on matters pertaining to the Dano-Norwegian language. Its primary role is regulating the written standard known as Riksmål (in English: National Language).

The academy was founded in 1953 by several notable Norwegian authors and poets, among them Arnulf Øverland, Sigurd Hoel, A.H. Winsnes, Cora Sandel and Francis Bull. They disagreed with the official language policy aiming to merge Bokmål with Nynorsk and protested against what they called state discrimination against the dominant Norwegian written standard Riksmål. This was Norway's de facto written language, used by most large newspapers and by the majority of the population as a written standard (although not necessarily a spoken one). The Academy was modelled after the Swedish Academy and the French Academy.

In addition to regulating Riksmål, the most conservative and Danish-near form of Norwegian, the academy publishes dictionaries and supports the publishing of literature in Riksmål. To-day, after several reforms worth in the official Bokmål and in the traditional Riksmål, Bokmål in its "moderate" version and modern Riksmål coincide.

The Academy has 50 members (2017), each of whom is a specialist in miscellaneous areas of analysis, investigation and expertise. These include Nordic studies, German, English and French languages and literature, history, philosophy, law, political science, poetry et cetera. The President of the Academy is Nils Heyerdahl, former Head of Radio Drama in NRK, and the Presidium also consists of Vice President Helene Uri, linguist and author, as well as Per Qvale, translator and author Karin Gundersen, professor of French Literature and Erik Fosnes Hansen, author.

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