Puneet Varma (Editor)

Modern Norwegian

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Region
  
Norway

ISO 639-2
  
nor

Writing system
  
Latin

Era
  
16th century to present

Language family
  
Indo-European Germanic North Germanic Continental Scandinavian Norwegian Danish Modern Norwegian

Early forms
  
Old Norse Old West Norse Old East Norse Old Norwegian Old Danish Middle Norwegian Medieval Danish Norwegian dialects Dano-Norwegian Modern Norwegian

Modern Norwegian (Norwegian: nynorsk, moderne norsk) is the Norwegian language that emerged after the Middle Norwegian transition period (1350-1536) and Dano-Norwegian. The transition to Modern Norwegian is usually dated to 1525, or 1536, the year of the Protestant Reformation and the beginning of the kingdom of Denmark–Norway (1536-1814).

In contrast to Old Norse, Modern Norwegian has simplified inflections and a more fixed syntax. Old Norse vocabulary is to a considerable degree substituted by Low German, and this is the main reason why Modern Norwegian, together with contemporary Norwegian in general, Danish and Swedish, is no longer mutually intelligible with Insular Nordic (Icelandic and Faroese).

While Modern Norwegian is a linguistic term with a specific historical meaning, contemporary Norwegian also includes the Dano-Norwegian koiné now commonly known as Standard Østnorsk (Standard East Norwegian) and the related official written standard Bokmål. Standard Østnorsk is spoken by a large and rapidly growing minority of Norwegians, and Bokmål is by far the most widely used written language, even among users of Modern Norwegian dialects.

In contrast to Nynorsk

The Norwegian linguistic term for Modern Norwegian is nynorsk, literally New Norwegian. Nynorsk is also the name of a Norwegian written standard based on Modern Norwegian dialects, as opposed to Bokmål, which branched off the Danish language after the dissolution of Denmark–Norway in 1814 and was gradually reformed using the Norwegian dialects and Nynorsk as a guideline.

The terms Nynorsk, Modern Norwegian and Contemporary Norwegian are somewhat confusing, because in Norwegian the same term Nynorsk is used for the first two, while Contemporary Norwegian could easily be called moderne norsk (literally Modern Norwegian) in Norwegian.

References

Modern Norwegian Wikipedia