Bokmål and Nynorsk: two written languages in one country

Two standards, one language

Bokmål and Nynorsk are not two different languages. Someone who writes Bokmål reads Nynorsk without trouble, and the other way round. The differences are in spelling, some inflections and a number of words, roughly like British and American English, only a bit bigger.

Bokmål is clearly the larger one. Around 85–90 percent of pupils in primary and lower secondary school have Bokmål as their main written language, and almost all newspapers in Oslo, Trondheim and Northern Norway use it. Nynorsk is used by about 10–12 percent, mostly in Western Norway: Sogn og Fjordane, Sunnmøre, Hardanger and parts of Telemark and Valdres. The newspapers Framtida and Dag og Tid are written in Nynorsk, and so is a large share of Norwegian poetry, from Olav H. Hauge to Jon Fosse, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2023.

A bit of history: Wergeland, Knudsen and Aasen

When Norway got its own constitution in 1814, Norwegians wrote Danish. The question was how to arrive at a Norwegian written language. There were two answers.

One was to make Danish more Norwegian step by step. The poet Henrik Wergeland was already using Norwegian words in his texts in the 1830s, and the teacher Knud Knudsen spent decades adapting spelling to the way educated people actually spoke. This line led to Riksmål and later Bokmål.

The other answer came from Ivar Aasen, a farmer’s son from Ørsta in Sunnmøre. He travelled around the country collecting dialects and published a grammar in 1848 and a dictionary in 1850. From this material he built Landsmål, a written language based on the dialects, especially the western ones. In 1885 the Storting decided that Landsmål should have equal status with the Danish-based written language. In 1929 the two got the names Nynorsk and Bokmål.

Samnorsk – the attempt to merge them

In the first half of the 20th century politicians wanted to end the language conflict by gradually merging the two standards into one common ‘Samnorsk’. The spelling reforms of 1917 and 1938 brought in forms shared by both, for example a-endings such as boka (the book) and husa (the houses) in Bokmål.

It did not go as planned. Many people in the Oslo area did not want their children to learn ‘radical’ forms, and in the 1950s the Parents’ Campaign against Samnorsk collected over 400,000 signatures. Parents even corrected their children’s textbooks by hand. The policy was slowly changed, and in 2002 the Samnorsk goal was formally removed from language policy.

You can still see the traces: Bokmål has many optional forms. Both boken and boka are correct, and so are kastet and kasta. As a learner, pick one form and use it consistently.

What does Nynorsk look like?

The quickest way to see the difference is to compare an everyday sentence. Bokmål: ‘Jeg er ikke hjemme i dag, hva vil du?’ Nynorsk: ‘Eg er ikkje heime i dag, kva vil du?’ (I’m not at home today, what do you want?)

Some words you will meet all the time: jeg – eg (I), ikke – ikkje (not), hva – kva (what), hvem – kven (who), hvordan – korleis (how), noen – nokon (someone), mye – mykje (much), hjem – heim (home), fra – frå (from). Question words starting with hv- in Bokmål usually start with k- in Nynorsk.

Inflection differs a little too. Bilene (the cars) becomes bilane, husene (the houses) becomes husa, and jentene (the girls) stays jentene. In the past tense many verbs end in -a: ‘Ho kasta ballen’ (Bokmål: Hun kastet ballen – She threw the ball). Hun (she) is ho, and vi (we) can be written vi or me. Nynorsk also uses more words from the dialects, such as gut for gutt (boy) and å vere for å være (to be).

School, municipality – and which one you should choose

Each municipality chooses a written standard for its administration: Bokmål, Nynorsk or neutral. About a quarter of municipalities have chosen Nynorsk, most of them in Vestland and Møre og Romsdal. Schools also choose a main standard, and parents have a say. All pupils learn both: in upper secondary school there is an exam in sidemål, the standard that is not your main one. Many pupils complain about it, and the debate comes back every year.

The state has to use both. Under the Language Act, state bodies must use at least 25 percent of each standard, and NRK has the same requirement. If you reply to a letter from Nav in Bokmål, you get an answer in Bokmål.

So which should you choose? As a learner you should almost always learn Bokmål first. There is far more material, most courses for adults follow Bokmål, and it is what you see most often. The Norwegian test (Norskprøven) and the citizenship test can be taken in either, but Bokmål is the default. If you move to Voss, Førde or Ørsta, it is worth learning to read Nynorsk over time. Your children may bring home homework in Nynorsk, and the municipality’s website may be written in it.