Norwegian language

Norwegian
norsk
Pronunciation	[nɔʂk] (East and North) [nɔʁsk] (West)
Native to	Norway
Native speakers	5 million (2014)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic disputed Norwegian
Early forms	Old Norse disputed Norwegian
Standard forms	written Bokmål (official)  • written Riksmål (unofficial) written Nynorsk (official)  • written Høgnorsk (unofficial)
Writing system	Latin (Norwegian alphabet) Norwegian Braille
Signed forms	Norwegian Sign Language
Official status
Official language in	Norway Nordic Council
Regulated by	Language Council of Norway (Bokmål and Nynorsk) Norwegian Academy (Riksmål)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	no – inclusive code Individual codes: nb – Bokmål nn – Nynorsk
ISO 639-2	– inclusive code Individual codes: nob – Bokmål nno – Nynorsk
ISO 639-3	– inclusive code Individual codes: nob – Bokmål nno – Nynorsk
Glottolog	norw1258
Linguasphere	52-AAA-ba to -be; 52-AAA-cf to -cg
Areas where Norwegian is spoken, including North Dakota (where 0.4% of the population speaks Norwegian) and Minnesota (0.1% of the population) (Data: U.S. Census 2000).
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no – inclusive code
Individual codes:
nb – Bokmål


– inclusive code
Individual codes:
nob – Bokmål

Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants.

These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them.

As established by law and governmental policy, the two official forms of written Norwegian are Bokmål (literally "book tongue") and Nynorsk (literally "new Norwegian"). The official Norwegian Language Council (Språkrådet) is responsible for regulating the two forms, and recommends the terms "Norwegian Bokmål" and "Norwegian Nynorsk" in English. Two other written forms without official status also exist, one, called Riksmål ("state language"), is today to a large extent the same language as Bokmål though somewhat closer to the Danish language. It is regulated by the unofficial Norwegian Academy, which translates the name as "Standard Norwegian". The other is Høgnorsk ("High Norwegian"), a more purist form of Nynorsk, which maintains the language in an original form as given by Ivar Aasen and rejects most of the reforms from the 20th century; this form has limited use.