| Norwegian is a North Germanic language with around 5 million speakers mainly in Norway. There are also some
speakers of Norwegian in
Sweden, Denmark,Spain,Germany,Canada, USA and the UK.
Early Norwegian literature,historical prose,and poetry was written in West Norse and
flourished between the ninth and the fourteenth centuries.
Norway came under Swedish and then Danish rule. Norwegian continued to be spoken but Danish was used for
officials purposes, as a literary language
and in higher education.
When Norway separated from Denmark in 1814, Danish still continued in schools until the 1830s,
when a movement to create a new national language emerged.
The reasoning behind the movement was that written Danish differed to such an extent from spoken
Norwegian that it was difficult to learn, and because they believed
that every country should have its own language. |
