— Ch. 1 · Origins And Evolution —
Norwegian language.
~6 min read · Ch. 1 of 6
The Hole Runestone, carved between 1 and 250 CE, bears the inscription idiberug/n. This artifact stands as the oldest known writing in Norway and across all of Nordics. It marks the earliest stage of a characteristically North Germanic language called Proto-Norse. Proto-Norse evolved as a northern dialect of Proto-Germanic during the first centuries AD in what is today Southern Sweden. The script used for these early inscriptions was the Elder Futhark, the oldest form of the runic alphabets. These carvings served as memorials to the dead or contained magical content. Later inscriptions were chiseled into large stones rather than loose objects. Around 800 AD, the script simplified to the Younger Futhark, and inscriptions became far more abundant. The Viking Age then spread Old Norse to Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands. Viking colonies also existed in parts of the British Isles, France, North America, and Kievan Rus. In most of these places except Iceland and the Faroes, Old Norse speakers eventually went extinct or were absorbed into local populations. Christianity arrived around 1030, bringing Latin borrowings and the Latin alphabet. The Hanseatic League dominated Scandinavian cities between 1250 and 1450, introducing Middle Low German influences comparable to French on English after the Norman conquest. When Norway entered a union with Denmark in 1397, Danish replaced Middle Norwegian as the language of the elite.
Political Standardization Wars
Ivar Aasen began his work to create a new written Norwegian at the age of 22. He traveled around the country collecting words and examples of grammar from various dialects. His project, published in several books from 1848 to 1873, was called Landsmål, meaning national language. Meanwhile, Knud Knudsen proposed changing spelling and inflection in accordance with Dano-Norwegian koiné, known as cultivated everyday speech. An official reform of the Danish language in Norway occurred in 1862, followed by more extensive reforms in 1907 and 1917. Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson proposed the neutral name Riksmål in 1899, which was officially adopted along with the 1907 spelling reform. In 1929, Riksmål was officially renamed Bokmål, while Landsmål became Nynorsk. A state policy to merge these forms into a single language called Samnorsk reached its peak after a 1938 reform. A 1946 poll showed that 79% of Norwegians supported this merger policy. However, opponents created a massive protest movement against Samnorsk in the 1950s. The 1959 reform partially reversed the 1938 changes in Bokmål but moved Nynorsk further toward Bokmål. The Samnorsk policy had little influence after 1960 and was officially abandoned in 2002. Today, Bokmål is used in 92% of all written publications, while Nynorsk accounts for only 8%. A small minority of Nynorsk enthusiasts use a more conservative standard called Høgnorsk.