Hvordan har du det?

'How are you?' in Norwegian

Photo by John O'Nolan

Language

Norwegian

Germanic Family

Left to Right Script

Gendered Language

Norwegian, a North Germanic language, is spoken by about 5.3 million native speakers, primarily in Norway. It uses the Latin alphabet with additional characters like "æ," "ø," and "å." Norwegian has two written standards: Bokmål, influenced by Danish, and Nynorsk, based on rural dialects. Its grammar features two grammatical genders (common and neuter in Bokmål, three in Nynorsk), a simple case system, and verb conjugations that don’t vary by person. Pronunciation varies widely due to regional dialects, with a pitch accent similar to Swedish. Vocabulary derives from Old Norse, with loanwords from German, Danish, and English. As Norway’s official language, Norwegian is key to its culture and literature, with mutual intelligibility with Swedish and Danish.

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Flashcards

NOR Determiner 21

som

that

A demonstrative pronoun used to refer to a specific thing or person previously mentioned or understood; also a relative pronoun introducing a restrictive clause.