TWIL #026 - Norway Has Two Official Written Languages for the Same Spoken Language
Bokmål and Nynorsk are both official written standards in Norway - two different ways to write what is essentially the same spoken language, with a 19th-century political history behind the split.
- #language
- #linguistics
- #history
Norway has a linguistically unusual situation: it maintains two separate official written standards for the Norwegian language - Bokmål ("book language") and Nynorsk ("new Norwegian") - and all government agencies are required to use both.
The split is historical. When Norway was under Danish rule for nearly 400 years, the written language used by educated Norwegians was essentially Danish. After independence in 1814, there was a cultural effort to reclaim a distinctly Norwegian written identity.
Two approaches emerged:
- Bokmål evolved from the existing Danish-influenced written norm, gradually Norwegianised over time. It's now used by roughly 85–90% of Norwegians as their primary written standard.
- Nynorsk was constructed in the 1850s by linguist Ivar Aasen, who travelled rural Norway documenting dialects and synthesised a written standard based on Western Norwegian dialects and Old Norse - deliberately avoiding Danish influence.
Both are taught in schools. All Norwegian children learn to read and write in both, though they choose one as their primary. Government documents must be available in both. Norwegian broadcasters are required to air a certain percentage of Nynorsk content.
The practical frustration with Nynorsk is real - many urban Norwegians find it unfamiliar and inconvenient, and it has been declining slowly in usage. But it remains constitutionally enshrined, and its supporters see it as a genuine linguistic heritage rather than a bureaucratic relic.
It's an unusual case of a country officially maintaining two written standards for the same language, for explicitly political and cultural reasons.