Norwegian Language Translation

World class Norwegian language translation from qualified professional linguists

•  Number of Norwegian native speakers globally: 5 million
• Norway has exploited the oil fields in its surrounding seas since 1966 and has gradually become one of the world’s richest countries, with a GDP per capita of 60 per cent above the EU average in 2015

There are two official forms of the written Norwegian language: Bokmål (‘book tongue’) and Nynorsk (‘new Norwegian’). So, what do we mean when we refer to ‘Norwegian’? The development of a modern, written language has been complicated and controversial.

Both Norwegian languages belong to the grouping of North Germanic languages. They are considered to be mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish, a result of a shared political history. From 1397, when Norway entered a union with Denmark, until 1814, when the union was dissolved, ‘Dano-Norwegian’ was the language of Norway.

This 400 years of union meant that post-1814, ‘Dano-Norwegian’ (essentially Danish with some Norwegian words and differences in spelling) remained the language of the metropolitan elite, the church, literature, and the law in Norway. Indeed, it remained the only official language until 1885.

In the 1840s, Ivar Aasen, a young linguist from a farming background in Norway’s Western coast, began to document the local dialects spoken throughout Norway. His Dictionary of the Norwegian Dialects was published in 1850, and formed the basis of a new language for Norway. He called it Landsmaal (country language). This has evolved to become Nynorsk (New Norwegian) which is now considered an official language of Norway, alongside the descendant of Dano-Norwegian, known as Bokmål.

Controversial attempts over the years to merge the two languages into one have failed and now peace has broken out with the policy being to let Bokmål be Bokmål and Nynorsk be Nynorsk. Norwegians are educated in both languages, though 85% of Norwegians use Bokmål as their primary written language. Unless otherwise requested, a translation by Alexika into Norwegian will be into Bokmål.