Norwegian

Also known as: Norwegian, Bokmål, Bokmal

Norwegian (norsk) is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway and closely related to Danish and Swedish; mutual intelligibility is substantial but varies by language pair, medium, and speaker experience. It has two legally equal official written standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk, rather than two corresponding spoken languages. Bokmål developed through the Norwegianization of the Danish written language used during Danish rule, while Ivar Aasen constructed the basis of Nynorsk in the nineteenth century from comparative study of Norwegian dialects. Local dialects remain widely used in public and private life, and neither written standard prescribes a single pronunciation. Norwegian generally has verb-second order in main clauses, and many dialects distinguish two lexical pitch accents, though their realization varies and some dialects lack the contrast.