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and Norwegian
(the most common standard form of written ) are very similar , but differences between them do exist. The languages are , with the primary differences being in pronunciation and in the sound system as a whole.
Generally, speakers of the three largest
(Danish, Norwegian and ) can read each other's languages without great difficulty. This holds especially true of Danish and Norwegian. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. Danish speakers generally do not understand Norwegian as well as the extremely similar written norms would lead one to expect. Many Norwegians - especially in northern and western Norway - also have problems understanding Danish, but according to a recent scientific investigation Norwegians are better at understanding both Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. Nonetheless, Danish is widely reported to be the most incomprehensible language of the three[].
In general, Danes and Norwegians will fluently understand the other language with only a little training.
Main article:
was Danish. The urban Norwegian upper class spoke , a form of Danish with Norwegian pronunciation and other minor local differences. After the two countries separated, Danish remained the official language of Norway, and remained largely unchanged until language reforms in the early 20th century led to the standardization of forms more similar to the Norwegian urban and rural vernaculars. Since 1929, this written standard has been known as . Later attempts to bring it closer to and eventually merge it with the other Norwegian written standard, , constructed on the basis of Norwegian dialects, have failed due to widespread resistance. Instead, the most recent reforms of Bokm?l (2005) have included certain Danish-like constructions that had previously been banned.
Danish text
I 1877 forlod Brandes K?benhavn og bosatte sig i Berlin. Hans politiske synspunkter gjorde dog, at Preussen blev ubehagelig for ham at opholde sig i, og han vendte i 1883 tilbage til K?benhavn, hvor han blev m?dt af en helt ny gruppe af forfattere og taenkere, der var ivrige efter at modtage ham som deres leder. Det vigtigste af hans senere arbejder har vaeret hans vaerk om William Shakespeare, der blev oversat til engelsk af William Archer og med det samme blev anerkendt.
Norwegian (moderate Bokm?l)
I 1877 forlot Brandes K?benhavn og bosatte seg i Berlin. Hans politiske synspunkter gjorde imidlertid at det ble ubehagelig for ham ? oppholde seg i Preussen, og i 1883 vendte han tilbake til K?benhavn, der han ble m?tt av en helt ny gruppe forfattere og tenkere, som var ivrige etter ? motta ham som sin leder. Det viktigste av hans senere arbeider er hans verk om William Shakespeare, som ble oversatt til engelsk av William Archer, og som straks ble anerkjent.
Translation of the Bokm?l sample into Danish
I 1877 forlod Brandes K?benhavn og bosatte sig i Berlin. Hans politiske synspunkter gjorde imidlertid at det blev ubehageligt for ham at opholde sig i Preussen, og i 1883 vendte han tilbage til K?benhavn, hvor han blev m?dt af en helt ny gruppe forfattere og taenkere, som var ivrige efter at m?de ham som deres leder. Det vigtigste af hans senere arbejder er hans vaerk om William Shakespeare, som blev oversat til engelsk af William Archer, og som straks blev anerkendt.
English translation
and took up residence in . However, his political views made
an uncomfortable place to live, and in 1883 he returned to Copenhagen, where he was met by a completely new group of writers and thinkers, who were eager to accept him as their leader. The most important of his later works is his work about , which was translated to English by
and received recognition immediately.
Excerpts from the articles about Danish critic
and . The translation of the Bokm?l sample into Danish was created for the purpose of this article.
Main article:
This article contains
phonetic symbols. Without proper , you may see
instead of
characters.
Generally, Norwegian orthography is more simplified and regularized and closer to actual pronunciation than Danish. As a rule, the graphic differences between the two languages do not reflect actual differen while there are significant phonetic and phonological differences, they are rarely expressed in writing. The few exceptions are noted below.
In writing, Danish may employ either the letter e or the letter ae to signify the
/?/. Norwegian almost always uses e. Example: Danish laegge (to lay), sende (to send) vs Norwegian legge, sende.
Danish regularly, although not always, uses the letter combinations nd, ld instead of the double consonant letters nn, ll. In most cases this isn't
justified. In Norwegian, only the etymologically justified spellings occur. Example: Danish kende (to know,
kenna), denne (this //, ON
?enna) and sende (to send, ON senda) vs Norwegian kjenne, denne (but sende); Danish ilde (bad, ON illa), ville (to want, Old Norse vilja) and holde (to hold, Old Norse halda) vs Norwegian ille, ville (but holde).
Unlike Norwegian, Danish often uses ds instead of double s. Example: ridse (to scratch) but visse (certain [plural]) vs Norwegian risse, visse. Likewise in some other contexts, Danish bedst (best), sidst (last) vs Norwegian best, sist (ON bezt, sizt, where z denoted consonant combinations like ds etc.).
Unlike Norwegian, Danish does not use double consonants word-finally. Example: Danish vis can signify both the adjective pronounced /vi:?s/ (wise) and the adjective pronounced /ves/ (certain), even though the plural forms of the adjectives, where the consonant occurs medially, are distinguished in writing by means of a double s in the second word (vise vs visse). In contrast, Norwegian does distinguish between vis and viss in the same way as between vise and visse.
Danish preserves the above rule both before
endings, beginning in a consonant, and in . Norwegian, too, prohibits word-final double consonants before inflexional endings, beginning in a consonant, (unless
needs to be avoided), but not before derivational endings and in compounding. Example: Danish al (all //) - alt (all //) - alle (all //) - altid (always, literally "all time"); Norwegian all - alt - alle, but alltid.
Norwegian has preserved the spellings gj, kj, and skj in the beginning of words when followed by e, ae, ?, while modern Danish has simply g, k and sk. Today, this in part reflects the fact that these words are also pronounced differently in the two languages, see below. Examples: Danish gemme (keep, hide), kaer (dear), sk?nt (although) vs Norwegian gjemme, kjaer, skj?nt.
are spelled as ej and ?j in Danish, but as ei and ?y in Norwegian. The exact pronunciation of these diphthongs is also somewhat different in the two languages, see below, and the different spellings are phonetically justified at least for the second diphthong. Examples: Danish vej (way), l?j (lied //) vs Norwegian vei, l?y.
forms of the 1st and 2nd person pronouns and of
pronouns, the ei/ej diphthong is spelled ig in Danish, but eg in Norwegian: mig, dig, sig vs meg, deg, seg.
In Danish, the preposition af "of, from" is spelled with f (pronounced [a] or, in compounds, [ɑ??]), whereas Norwegian has av with v like Swedish.
In loanwords, Danish generally has tended to partly preserve the spelling of the source language, whereas Norwegian traditionally usually has adapted the spelling to its own rules in order to reflect the expected pronunciation. Examples: Danish bureau (bureau), chauff?r (chauffeur), information (information), garage (garage), centrum (centre), zone (zone) vs Norwegian byr?, sj?f?r, informasjon, garasje, sentrum, sone.
Traditional Danish punctuation requires that a comma be placed before and after every , and although two recent reforms permit, optionally, the dropping of a comma before the , the old system is still in general use. In contrast, Norwegian only requires a comma after a comma is placed before it only if the clause is
(the same rule as in English). Example sentence:
hvordan manden,
(som) du snakker om,
hvordan mannen
(som) du snakker om,
what (lit. how) the man
(that) you're talking about
looks like.
Note, however, Norwegian John, som hadde sett mannen, visste hvordan han s? ut (John, who had seen the man, knew what he looked like), where the dependent clause is parenthetic.
This article contains
phonetic symbols. Without proper , you may see
instead of
characters.
The difference in
between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and . Although written Norwegian is very similar to Danish, spoken Norwegian more closely resembles Swedish.
The Danish pronunciation is typically described as 'softer', which in this case refers mostly to the frequent
corresponding to Norwegian and historical
in some positions in the word (especially the pronunciation of the letters d and g), as well as the realisation of r as a
in Danish as opposed to the Norwegian
It is often jokingly claimed that Danes have an easier time understanding drunk Norwegians than sober ones, as the former often use a more slurred manner of speech that resembles Danish. Also, Danish people make jokes about Norwegians sounding childish, because of their sing-song sounds in their language.
Note that in the following comparison of Danish and Norwegian pronunciation, the East Norwegian pronunciation of
is taken as the norm. In practice, most Norwegians will speak a local dial furthermore, Bokm?l itself is not a spoken standard, and is likely to be pronounced with clearly regional features. The most obvious instances are the uvular (rather than alveolar) pronunciation of /r/ and the lack of retroflexes in much of Western Norway, and the pronunciation, in some cases, of a retroflex flap instead of /l/ in much of Eastern Norway, including the less "refined" forms of the Oslo dialect. All of this is ignored in the following exposition.
Arguably the most acoustically striking differences in vowels are that:
In Danish, the
a corresponds, in most contexts, to the pronunciation of a , often even
front vowel ([a] or [ae]), closer to the unusual English a (more specifically, like English a ). In Norwegian, a is invariably an
[ɑ]. Example: Danish bane
vs. Norwegian bane
(course, orbit).
The grapheme u corresponds to (more or less )
in Danish, but usually to a
(/?/) in Norwegian. Example: Danish [hu:s] vs. Norwegian [h?:s].
As a whole, Norwegian still preserves the old pairs of short and long vowels, as suggested by the writing system, pretty close to each other, even though the long ones are usually closer. Thus, the grapheme e corresponds to long [e:] (sene [se:n?], late [plural]) and short [?] (sende [s?n:?], to send), while the grapheme i corresponds to long [i:] (sine [si:n?], his/her/its/their own) and short [?] (sinne [s?n:?], anger). In Danish, the tendency of differentiation has led to a qualitative overlapping: also here, e can stand for long [e:] (sene [se:n?], late [plural]) and for short [?] (sende [s?n?], to send), but i, besides signifying long [i:] (sine [si:n?], his/her/its/their own), has come to correspond to short [e] ([nogen]sinde [sen?], ever) and, to complicate things further, a short [i] pronunciation is maintained in some cases (sidste [sist?], last). Most Danish vowels have also many
conditioned , especially more open ones when preceded or followed by /r/ .
The following is a table that compares the most common Danish and the Norwegian pronunciations of a letter (without taking into account the grouping of sounds into phonemes, as well as many sub-rules, exceptions and subtleties). Note that in many cases, even when the same
transcription is used, the sounds may still be somewhat different in the two languages.
[a & ae], [ɑ]1)
[?ae:(??)]
[e:?, ?:?]
[?a & ?ɑ], [?a & ?a??] 2)3)
unstressed
[?ae], [?i]
[?], [?] 6)
[?u: & ?o:]
[?] 7), [u]
[??] 7), [?u & ?o]
[?] 7), [y]
[?oe] 7), [?y]
[y?], [??] 8)
[?ae:(??)]
[?a & ɑ], [?a & ?a??] 3)
[?oe], [??] 10)
2) But [ae] before /r/
4) But [o:] before /ɡ, v/
5) but, in some cases, [u] (notably before rt, nd, and sometimes st)
6) in some words before /?/, /s/, /n/, /m/ (& older ō)
7) almost universally before /m, n, ?/
8) only in fyrre "40"
9) But [?:], when, by exception, not followed by /r/
10) before /n/
Interestingly, while the more open realisations of /?/ and /?:/ before /r/ are allophonic in Danish, they have acquired
status as /ae/ and /ae:/ in Norwegian, and the Norwegian letter ae has come to be used almost only to signify them. The
of /ae/ was mostly a collateral effect of the merger of some other sounds: Danish ae /?:/ vs. e /e:/ and sj /sj/ vs. rs /??s/ have come to be pronounced in the same way in Norwegian (respectively /e:/ and /?/), thus rendering the occurrences of /ae/ unpredictable.
The Danish diphthongs [a??] and [???] (spelled as ej and ?j) correspond to the Norwegian diphthongs (in Oslo pronunciation) [ae??] and [oe??] (spelled as ei and ?y). Besides that, a great many letter combinations are pronounced as diphthongs in Danish, but as usual vowel-consonant combinations in Norwegian. That is mostly due to the Danish letters g and v (colloquially also b) being pronounced as
[??] and [??] after a vowel: thus, dag (day) is pronounced [d?ae(??)] in Danish, but [dɑ:ɡ] in N lov (law) is pronounced [l???] in Danish, but [lo:v] in Norwegian. Similarly, [a??] and [???] are often spelled as eg and ?g in Danish (eg may be pronounced [ae??] in Norwegian, too, e.g. in regne, "to rain"). The Danish pronunciation is therefore, as with a above, closer to English, while the Norwegian is more conservative, closer to its spelling.
A significant
(rather than simply a difference in pronunciation) is the fact that Danish has long monophthongs (e /e:/, ? /?:/) in some words, where Norwegian has restored the
of old Norse diphthongs (ei [ae??], ?y [oe??] and au [ae??]) as alternatives or, sometimes, replacement of the Danish ones. Examples: Danish ben (leg, bone) - Norwegian ben or bein; Danish h? (hay) - Norwegian h?y; Danish h?j (hill) - Norwegian haug.
The most notable differences are, as already mentioned, the pronunciation of approximants in Danish, corresponding to voiced and voiceless stops in Norwegian and of r as a -
in Danish, corresponding to an
in (East) Norwegian (skrige , "shriek" vs skrike ). Furthermore, Danish has replaced the / opposition in /p, t, k/) vs /b, d, ɡ/) with an /nonaspirated one ([p?, t?, k?] vs [b?, d?, ɡ?]), and the contrast between the two is neutralized syllable-finally and before
(in practice, in the core of native words, this means it is lost everywhere except word-initially). Thus, begge (both) and baekke (brooks) are pronounced alike as [b??ɡ??]. In Norwegian, the opposition is still voiced vs voiceless and it is preserved everywhere, with /p, t, k/ being aspirated in the onset of a stressed syllable (as in English and German).
In stressed
Elsewhere (single)
Elsewhere (double)
In stressed
[-, ??, ??]
The Danish /r/ is either vocalized or dropped altogether, after having influenced the adjacent vowels, in all positions but word-initially and pre-stress.
Some letter combinations that are pronounced quite differently are:
rd, rl, rn, rs, rt are pronounced as spelled in Danish (with the /r/ dropped), but in the part of Norway using trilled r, they are always or almost always merged into
consonants ([?], [?], [?], [?], [?]), as in Swedish.
sj is pronounced [?] in Danish, but as [?] in most of Norway.
Some notable sound correspondences are:
Danish has /b/ (spelled b), /?/ (spelled d), and [??, ??] (spelled g) after long stressed vowels, where Norwegian has restored/preserved the /p/, /t/ and /k/ from Old Norse. Examples: Danish fod (foot), reb (rope), syg (sick) - Norwegian fot, rep, syk - Old Norse fótr, reip, sjúkr. In a handful of cases, however, Norwegian has kept the Danish form (lege, doctor, tegn, sign, bedre, better, vs Old Norse laeknari, teikn, betri). In most of these cases, the Nynorsk equivalents have retained the old consonants (laekjar (variant form), teikn, betre).
Sometimes Danish has /v/ ([??], spelled v) after originally long stressed vowels, where Norwegian has restored/preserved /ɡ/ from Old Norse. Example: Danish skov (forest), mave (belly) - Norwegian skog, mage - Old Norse skógr, magi. However, in many cases Norwegian has kept the Danish form (lyve "tell a lie" - Old Norse ljúga), and variation is permitted (mave, lyge, and even ljuge).
Danish has /ɡ/, /k/, and /sk/ (spelled g, k and sk) in stressed syllable onsets, where Norwegian usually has /j/, /?/ and /?/ (spelled as in Danish before i, y, ei and ?y, and gj, kj and skj elsewhere). Examples: Danish gemme (keep, hide), kaer (dear), sk?nt (although), gyse (shiver), kilde (source, spring) vs Norwegian gjemme, kjaer, skj?nt, gyse, kilde.
In Norwegian, each
syllable must contain, phonetically, either a long vowel or a
(e.g. male [mɑ:l?], "to paint" vs malle [mɑl:?], "catfish") . In Danish, there are no phonologically long consonants, so the opposition is between long and short vowels ([mae:l?] vs [mal?]. Both languages have a
opposition between two "accents", derived from syllable count in Old Norse and determined partly phonologically, partly morphologically and partly lexically. However, the exact nature of this prosodic contrast is very different. In Norwegian, the contrast is between two , accent 1 and 2, which characterise a whole word in Danish, it is between the presence and the absence of the
(a kind of ), which characterises a syllable (though usually a syllable that bears at least ). Example: Danish l?ber "runner" ['l?:b??] vs l?ber "runs" ['l?:?b??], Norwegian l?per2 [l??:p?r] vs l?per1 [l??:p?r]. Note Danish landsmand ['lan?sman?] "compatriot" (one word, two st?ds) as opposed to Norwegian landsmann [lɑ?nsmɑn:] (one word, one accent).
Note: The pronunciation of the tone accents varies widely between N the
tone accent transcriptions above reflect South-East Norwegian pronunciation (found e.g. in Oslo). There is usually also high pitch in the last syllable, but it is not transcribed here, because it belongs to the prosody of the phrase rather than the word.
This article contains
phonetic symbols. Without proper , you may see
instead of
characters.
Danish has two
(indefinite article en and definite article -en) and
(indefinite article et and definite article -et). In Norwegian, the system is generally the same, but some common words optionally use special feminine gender declension patterns, which have been preserved from Old Norse in Norwegian dialects and were re-introduced into the written language by the language reforms of the early 20th century. Hence, three genders are recognized -
(morphologically identical to Danish common, with indefinite article en and definite article -en),
(indefinite article ei and definite article -a) and neuter (morphologically identical to its Danish counterpart, with indefinite article et and definite article -et, pronounced /?/). The likelihood of a feminine as opposed to common form being used depends on the particular word, as well as on style: common gender forms are often more formal or sometimes even bookish, while feminine forms tend to make a more colloquial and sometimes even rustic impression. Examples: Danish en mand - manden ("a man - the man"), en sol - solen ("a sun - the sun"), et hus - huset ("a house - the house") vs Norwegian en mann - mannen ("a man - the man"), ei sol - sola or en sol - solen ("a sun - the sun"), et hus - huset ("a house - the house").
The Norwegian feminine can also be expressed in the indefinite singular declension of the word liten, which has a special feminine form lita beside the neuter lite. Danish has only lille, which is the definite singular form in both languages.
In Danish, the plural endings are -er, -e or zero-ending. The choice of ending is difficult to predict (although -er is especially common in polysyllables, loanwords and words ending in unstressed e; -e is most us and zero-ending is most usual in neuter monosyllables). In Norwegian, the system is rather regularized, as the -e ending has never been part of the language, and -er is dominant in masculine/feminine nouns (and some neuters), while zero-ending is prevalent in neuter gender monosyllables. Examples: Danish en appelsin - appelsiner, en hund - hunde, et hus - huse, et fald - fald, vs Norwegian en appelsin - appelsiner, en hund - hunder, et hus - hus, et fall - fall (singular and plural forms of "orange", "dog", "house" and "fall").
In addition, the formation of the definite plural forms are somewhat different in the two languages. In Danish, plural forms in -er transform into definite plural -erne, while plurals in -e and zero-ending become -ene. Norwegian has generalized -ene for nearly all masculine and feminine words, and an -ene or -a for neuter words. A few masculine words also have an alternative ending -a, derived from -a(ne)/-aene in the spoken language (en feil - feila/feilene, “a mistake/error - the mistakes/errors”). Examples: Danish en sag - sager - sagerne, en dag - dage - dagene, et fald - fald - faldene, et ben - ben - benene vs Norwegian en sak - saker - sakene, en dag - dager - dagene, et fall - fall - fallene, et be(i)n - be(i)n - be(i)na/be(i)nene (singular, plural, and plural definite forms of "thing", "day", "fall" and "bone"/"leg").
In both languages, single nouns use a postpositive definite article. However, in Danish, when a noun is modified by an adjective, a prepositive definite article is used instead of the postpositive one. Norwegian both adds a prepositive article and keeps the postpositive. Example: Danish hus - huset, et stort hus - det store hus, vs Norwegian hus - huset, et stort hus - det store huset (indefinite and definite forms of "a/the house" and "a/the big house"). The same difference applies when a
is used: Danish Jeg elsker den mand vs Norwegian Jeg elsker den mannen (I love that man).
To denote second person plural ("you people" or "y'all"), Danish uses I ( form jer,
jeres), while Norwegian uses dere (oblique dere, possessive deres).
The 1st person plural possessive pronoun ("our") is vores () in modern Danish, but v?r (: neuter v?rt, plural v?re) in Norwegian. Example: Danish vores ven/hus/venner vs Norwegian v?r venn/v?rt hus/v?re venner or, like in the spoken language, vennen v?r/huset v?rt/vennene v?re ("our friend/house/friends"). In Danish, the original
variant vor (vort, vore) occurs only in more solemn or archaic style.
The possessive pronouns always precede what they are modifying in D in Norwegian, they may also be placed after a definite noun or noun phrase. The choice of construction in Norwegian depends on the particular word and on style (the Danish-like construction is more formal or emphatic, the other one is more colloquial). Example: Danish min ven, min nye ven vs Norwegian vennen min or min venn, den nye vennen min or min nye venn ("my friend", "my new friend"). Nynorsk does not allow the Danish construction, which in Bokm?l was inherited from Danish.
sin ("his/her/its own") can't refer to a plural
in Danish, but it can do so in Norwegian. Example: Danish Han vasker sine klaeder like Norwegian Han vasker klaerne sine ("He is washing his [own] clothes"); but Danish De vasker deres klaeder vs Norwegian De vasker klaerne sine ("They are washing their [own] clothes").
In Danish, the pronoun that expresses an unspecified, generalized person or group (corresponding to English "one", French "on" and German "man") is man in its main form, but its oblique form is en and its genitive form is ens. In Norwegian, en can also be used as a main form. Example: Danish man kan ikke g?re det vs Norwegian man/en kan ikke gj?re det ("one/people can't do that").
In Danish, the pronouns "such" and "so (=in this way)" are usually translated with s?dan (slig is obsolete and solemn). In Norwegian, the most usual form is slik, but s?dan is also correct (s?nn can be somewhat colloquial).
There are significant differences between the numeral systems of the two languages.
In Danish, the number 7 is called syv. In Norwegian, it is called sju (although the 2005 language reform re-introduced syv as an alternative to sju).
In Danish, 20 and 30 are called tyve and tredive. These forms (with tredive shortened to tredve) were replaced in Norwegian in 1951 by the native tjue /??:?/ and tretti. Like syv, which was replaced by sju at the same time, they still occur in Norwegian. The unofficial Riksm?l standard retains the old forms.
In Danish, the number 40 is called fyrre. In Norwegian, it is f?rti, although f?rr is permitted in .
In Danish, the tens between 50 and 90 have different roots from the ones in most . Etymologically, like in
they ar in other words, the name of the number is based on how many times 20 it is. Thus, 60 is tres (short for tresindstyve, "3 times 20") and 50 is halvtreds (short for halvtredsindstyve, "2.5 times 20" or more literally "half-third times 20"). Similarly, 70 is halvfjerds, 80 is firs, and 90 is halvfems. In Norwegian, these numbers are constructed much like in English and German, as
of the respective unit and an old word for "ten": 50 = femti, 60 = seksti, 70 = sytti /s?t:i/, 80 = ?tti, 90 = nitti.
In Danish, units are placed before tens (as in ); in Norwegian, it's the other way round (as in English), although the Danish order is also used by some speakers. Example: Danish enogtyve ("one-and-twenty") vs Norwegian tjueen ("twenty-one") or enogtyve.
Concerning , "second" is always anden in Danish, but andre (or sometimes annen) (a definite form) in Norwegian.
Danish regular verbs can be divided in those that form their past tense and past participle with the suffixes -ede and -et /??/, respectively, (e.g. "to throw", kaste - kastede - kastet) and those that form them with the suffixes -te and -t (e.g. "to read", laese - laeste - laest). Although the group in -ede, -et is the largest one, the choice between these two conjugation patterns is mostly unpredictable. The corresponding Norwegian groups use -et, -et (kaste - kastet - kastet), and -te, -t (lese - leste - lest). However, unlike Danish, the choice of conjugation has come to be governed by a rule (with a few exceptions): verb
containing a short vowel, followed by a long consonant or a
(as in ramme), use -et, and verb stems containing a long vowel, followed by a short consonant (as in male), use -te (Danish ramme - ramte - ramt vs Norwegian ramme - rammet - rammet "to hit"; Danish male - malede - malet vs Norwegian male - malte - malt "to paint"). In addition, verb stems ending in a stressed vowel form a third group with no parallel in Danish, using the endings -dde, -dd ("to live [somewhere]" - bo - bodde - bodd). The corresponding Danish verbs nearly always use -ede, -et (bo - boede - boet).
Bokm?l has also introduced the optional use of the ending -a (taken from Norwegian dialects and used as the only allowed form in Nynorsk) instead of -et: thus, kaste - kasta - kasta, ramme - ramma - ramma, etc. The use of forms in -a is more common in speech than in writing.
Some Danish irregular verbs have longer forms, ending in unstressed -de, -ge and -ve, which have been dropped in Norwegian. In many cases, the Danish verbs may also be pronounced in the contracted way. Examples: Danish lade - lod - ladet, sige - sagde - sagt, blive - blev - blevet vs Norwegian la - lot - latt, si - sa - sagt, bli - ble(i) - blitt ("let", "say", "become"). Other examples are tage - tog - taget vs ta - tok - tatt ("to take"), have - havde - haft vs ha - hadde - hatt ("to have"), etc..
forms in Danish may be formed either with the
have "to have" (as in English) or with vaere "to be". Some verbs always use vaere (ske "happen", holde op "stop"), while others can use both auxiliaries, but with slightly different meanings: han har rejst "he has travelled (spent some time travelling)" emphasizes the action itself, while han er rejst "he has left (so he isn't here now)" emphasizes the result of the action. In Norwegian, ha "to have" may be - and increasingly is - used in all cases (han har reist), and no specific verbs require vaere (det har skjedd, it has happened).
Certain words present in both languages are used differently in each. This can result in identical sentences meaning different things in the two languages, or in constructions that make sense in one language becoming nonsensical in the other.
Examples include:
m?/kan - The word "m?" usually means "must" in Norwegian, but can mean "may", "can", or "must" in Danish.
der/som - Danish has both words for "which", although der is only used as the . In Norwegian, der is only used archaically or poetically.
nogle/nogen - in written Danish the counterparts of the English words "some" (in a plural sense) and "any" are spelled nogle and nogen, respectively - although in speech, nogle is pronounced just like nogen. In contrast, in Norwegian both are spelled identically, as noen (from Danish nogen).
kun/bare - in Danish, kun means roughly "only, solely" (referring to quantity or number) and bare "just, merely". While there are rules in Danish that govern when to choose which word, in Norwegian bare may be - and usually is - used with both meanings.
meget/mye - in Norwegian, the
meget (alternatively veldig etc.) modifies adjectives just like English "very", while mye is used like English "much, a lot". In Danish, meget is used in both cases.
enda/enn? (ennu) - in Norwegian, enn? means "still, yet" in a temporal sense, but enda, which normally means "yet, nevertheless" among other things, is used in conjunction with comparative forms in expressions such as enda bedre, "better still". In Danish, endnu (the equivalent of enn?) is used in both cases.
The primary difference in preposition usage in the Danish and Norwegian languages is the use of i / p?, (in
in / on). Although the two are generally used similarly in both languages, in certain cases the two languages choose a different preposition for the same construction. For example, "a quarter to five" would be kvart i fem in Danish, but kvart p? fem in Norwegian. To express a period of time during which something has happened, Danish always uses i, but Norwegian uses i in affirmative and p? in negative sentences: Danish jeg har (ikke) set ham i to ?r vs Norwegian jeg har sett ham i to ?r, jeg har ikke sett ham p? to ?r ("I have [not] seen him for two years").
genitive constructions - unlike Danish, Norwegian very often uses the preposition til ("to") as a more informal alternative of
constructions: boka til Peter, or Peters bok vs Danish Peters bog. Norwegian also uses a
with the , Peter sin bok, (Lit. Peter his book). This is in Norwegian bokm?l called "garpegenitiv" and is (in bokm?l) considered substandard.
Danish has adopted many
(particularly from
variants spoken by the ) words and
structures, while Bokm?l has rejected some of these imports. An example is the Danish and Swedish generally use the German names of countries, or at least the German ending. These names were used in Norwegian as well, but have in modern times (during the second half of the 20th century) to a large extent been replaced by the L this means that the usual ending is -a in Norwegian and -en or -et in Danish (the -en and -et endings are also the definite articles). Thus, ,
are known as Australien, Italien and Spanien in Danish, but as Australia, Italia and Spania in Bokm?l, although the earlier forms can be heard in speakers of more conservative forms (for instance ). Greece is Graekenland in Danish, but mostly referred to as Hellas (the Greek form of the name) in Norwegian, even though the Danish-like Grekenland is sometimes used. Nevertheless, Norwegians usually use greker (noun) and gresk (adjective) for "Greek", not hellener (noun) and hellensk (adjective); the latter are used only when talking about Ancient Greece, as in English and other languages. Unlike Danish, Norwegian speakers refer to the
as Nederland, as in , not as Holland, although Nederlandene is used in Danish in the same formal sense as The Netherlands would be in English. Similarly the Dutch language is known as nederlandsk in Norway, but is most often called hollandsk in Denmark.
Here are some examples of common words and expressions that are different in the two languages. Note that the Danish variant usually exists in Norwegian as an archaic or less frequent form (and/or vice versa).
bange, (arch., dial.:) raed
redd, but also bange (archaic, mostly used in standard expressions like "bange anelser")
afterwards
bagefter, derefter
etterp?, efterp? (conservative), deretter/derefter
sint, vred (archaic)
efter?r, (poet.:) h?st
h?st, etter?r/efter?r (archaic)
be correct, hold true
passe, stemme
dreng, (colloquial:) gut
gutt, dreng (archaic or used in a more narrow sense)
puste, ?nde
to comb (verb)
gre(ie), kjemme
?rti, ti?r
ti?r, ?rti
aften, (poet.:) kvaeld
kveld, aften
svaer, vanskelig
kendsgerning, faktum
faktum, kjennsgjerning
fast, quick(ly)
fort (adv), rask (adj), hurtig
floor (storey)
sal, etage
t?ve, n?le
jente, pike
bra, god(t)
rask, sund, frisk
brint, hydrogen
hydrogen, vannstoff (archaic)
..., isn't it?/didn't he? etc.
..., ikke/vel? ikke sandt?, ikke ogs??
..., ikke sant?
jaloux, skinsyg
sjalu, misunnelig
sidste ?r, i fjor
like (vb. enjoy)
kunne lide
lunsj (alt. l?nsj or lunch), formiddagsmat
bart, overskjegg
ilt, oxygen
oksygen, surstoff
rubbish (nonsense)
sludder, vr?vl, v?s, nonsens
sludder, vr?vl, nonsens, tull, t?ys, v?s
satisfied/pleased
tilfreds, forn?jet
forn?yd, tilfreds
sau, smale (archaic/dialectal), f?r (archaic/dialectal, used in expressions/ fixed phrases )
short (person)
lille, lav
somme tider, (colloquial:) nogle gange, af og til, indimellem,
iblant, av og til, innimellom
spring(time)
for?r, (poet.:) v?r
v?r, for?r (archaic)
still (yet)
stadigvaek, fremdeles (archaic)
fremdeles, fortsatt
there, thither (about direction)
dit, dithen
grim, (ethically:) styg
stygg, grim (archaic)
saedvanlig, vanlig (archaic)
vanlig, sedvanlig
[earth]worm
[meite]makk, [mete]mark, orm (Ambiguous, could mean both worm and snake, cf. .)
forkert, gal(t)
gal(t), feil
While most words have the same meaning, there are also a number of . These are often
that have diverged in meaning. The vulgar nature of some of these differences forms the basis of a number of television sketches by Norwegian comedians.
Danish meaning
Norwegian meaning
cry (both words cognates with English "grin")
mess, problem
penis (vulgar)
sexual intercourse/bun
bun (however, can be used for sexual intercourse in some areas)
healthy/fast
fast (adj.) or litter (garbage)
difficult/obese
to button/unbutton
skilled, clever
kind, nice
strange, weird
. (Norwegian)
(PDF). (Norwegian)
. (Danish)
. Archived from
on . (Norwegian)
(site in Norwegian)
From a 19th-century neologism by
. (Norwegian)
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