Bokmål

From Free net encyclopedia

Bokmål (lit. "book language") is the most commonly used of two official written standards of Norwegian, the other being Nynorsk. Bokmål is used by around 85-90% of the population (regardless of spoken dialect) and is the standard most commonly taught to foreign students of Norwegian. Bokmål and Riksmål (see below) are based mostly on written Danish language and also adhere more closely to Eastern Norwegian, particularly the variants spoken around the capital of Oslo. The various dialects of Norwegian that are traditionally written using Bokmål orthography are the ones that have evolved away from Old Norse under the influence of Danish and Middle Low German. In contrast, the west-coast dialects that are commonly written using Nynorsk, retain certain features typical of the older form of the language.

Previously, the official term for Bokmål was Riksmål. The latter name is still used for an unofficial writing standard that is even more conservative than Bokmål and is now used by a minority of the population. Bokmål was developed slowly from Danish, after 1814 when Norway left Danish influence, and gained internal independence united with Sweden. From about 1550 to 1814, Norwegian as a written language was banned, and Danish was the only one allowed in writing and church services. This had the effect that many educated people spoke almost Danish with a norwegian accent, while common people on the countyside spoke a considerably different language. From this situation the name Bokmål comes. All books were written in danish, and Bokmål was based on the books although not so many during the 19th century spoke like that.

Neither Bokmål nor Nynorsk are considered languages in themselves; they are thought of as merely written standards of the same language – the Norwegian language. A few people however do wish to call Bokmål and Nynorsk separate languages, often for the sake of language genealogy: the former is considered an East North Germanic language (like Danish and Swedish), the latter a West North Germanic language (like Faroese and Icelandic). Few people speak either form literally, but some dialects are closer to Bokmål than to Nynorsk or vice versa. For dialects that are equally close to both written standards or differ significantly from both, the choice of orthography may be a political decision by the municipalities, or self-determined by parents in primary and secondary schools where the municipalities teach both, or self-determined by students in tertiary school, colleges and universities.

See also

• Dano-Norwegian
• Riksmål
• Høgnorsk
• Landsmål
• Nynorsk

External link

• Forskrift om målvedtak i kommunar og fylkeskommunar - Legal document in Norwegian listing which counties and municipalities have declared their official written standard to be specifically Bokmål, Nynorsk or undeclared. (Note that six municipalities have declared Northern Sami co-official in addition with Norwegian).

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