Norwegian

About Norwegian

Norwegian is the official language of Norway and one of the North Germanic languages, close enough to Swedish and Danish that their speakers can often understand each other. It has two official written forms: Bokmål, used by most people, and Nynorsk, used mainly in western Norway. There is no official spoken standard, and people speak their local dialect everywhere, at work and on television too.

Like Swedes, Norwegians address almost everyone as du. The letters æ, ø and å come at the end of the alphabet, and å sounds close to the o in "more". Norwegian has a musical pitch accent that gives it a sing-song sound.

FamilyIndo-European, North Germanic
Official inNorway
Written standardsBokmål and Nynorsk
ScriptLatin alphabet, 29 letters
Codesno (ISO 639-1), nor (ISO 639-3)

Classification: Wikidata. Retrieved 26 September 2026.

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