Danish and Norwegian Bokmål (the most common standard form of written Norwegian) are very similar languages, but differences between them do exist. The languages are mutually intelligible, with the primary differences being in pronunciation and in the sound system as a whole.
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Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) can read each others' languages without great difficulty. This holds especially true of Danish and Norwegian.[1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
In the Kingdom of Denmark–Norway (1536–1814), the official language was Danish. The urban Norwegian upper class spoke Dano-Norwegian, 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 Bokmål. Later attempts to bring it closer to and eventually merge it with the other Norwegian written standard, Nynorsk, constructed on the basis of Norwegian dialects, have failed due to widespread resistance. Instead, the most recent reforms of Bokmål (2005) have included certain Danish-like constructions that had previously been banned.[4]
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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 differences in pronunciation; while there are significant phonetic and phonological differences, they are rarely expressed in writing. The few exceptions are noted below.
| Danish | Jeg ved, | hvordan manden, | (som) du snakker om, | ser ud. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norwegian | Jeg ve(i)t | hvordan mannen | (som) du snakker om, | ser ut. |
| English | I know | what (lit. how) the man | (that) you're talking about | looks like. |
Note, however, Norwegian John, som hadde sett mannen, visste hvordan han så ut (John, who had seen the man, knew what he looked like), where the dependent clause is parenthetic.
The difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. 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 approximants corresponding to Norwegian and historical plosives in some positions in the word (especially the pronunciation of the letters d and g), as well as the realisation of r as a uvular or even pharyngeal approximant in Danish as opposed to the Norwegian alveolar trills or uvular trills/fricatives.
It is often jokingly claimed[7] 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 Oslo is taken as the norm. In practice, most Norwegians will speak a local dialect in most contexts; furthermore, Bokmål 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:
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 [eː] (sene [seːnə], late [plural]) and short [ɛ] (sende [sɛnːə], to send), while the grapheme i corresponds to long [iː] (sine [siːnə], his/her/its/their own) and short [ɪ] (sinne [sɪnːə], anger). In Danish, the tendency of differentiation has led to a qualitative overlapping: also here, e can stand for long [eː] (sene [seːnə], late [plural]) and for short [ɛ] (sende [sɛnə], to send), but i, besides signifying long [iː] (sine [siːnə], his/her/its/their own), has come to correspond to short [e] ([nogen]sinde [senə], ever) and, to complicate things further, a short [i] pronunciation is maintained in some cases (sidste [sistə], last). Most Danish vowels have also many segmentally conditioned allophones, 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 IPA transcription is used, the sounds may still be somewhat different in the two languages.
| Grapheme | Quantity | Norwegian | Danish | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| /V/ | /rV/ | /Vr/ | |||
| a | long | [ɑː] | [æː] | [ʁɑː] | [ɑː] |
| short | [ɑ] | [a > æ], [ɑ]1) | [ʁɑ] | [ɑː] | |
| e | long | [eː] | [eː] | [ʁæː(ɪ̯)] | [eːɐ, ɛːɐ] |
| short | [ɛ] 2) | [ɛ] | [ʁa > ʁɑ], [ʁa > ʁaɪ̯] 2)3) | [aɐ] | |
| unstressed | [ə] | [ə] | [ɐ] | [ɐ] | |
| i | long | [iː] | [iː] | [ʁiː] | [iːɐ] |
| short | [ɪ] | [e], [i] | [ʁæ], [ʁi] | [iɐ] | |
| o | long | [uː] 4) | [oː] | [ʁoː] | [oːɐ] |
| short | [ɔ] 5) | [ʌ], [ɔ] 6) | [ʁʌ] | [ɒː], [o] | |
| u | long | [ʉː] | [uː] | [ʁuː > ʁoː] | [uːɐ] |
| short | [ʉ] | [ɔ] 7), [u] | [ʁɔ] 7), [ʁu > ʁo] | [uɐ] | |
| y | long | [yː] | [yː] | [ʁyː] | [yːɐ] |
| short | [y] | [ø] 7), [y] | [ʁœ] 7), [ʁy] | [yɐ], [ɶɐ] 8) | |
| æ | long | [æː] 9) | [ɛː] | [ʁæː(ɪ̯)] | [ɛːɐ] |
| short | [æ] | [ɛ] | [ʁa > ɑ], [ʁa > ʁaɪ̯] 3) | [aɐ] | |
| ø | long | [øː] | [øː] | [ʁœː] | [øːɐ] |
| short | [œ] | [ø] | [ʁœ], [ʁɶ] 10) | [ɶɐ] | |
| å | long | [oː] | [ɔː] | [ʁɔː] | [ɒː] |
| short | [ɔ] | [ʌ] | [ʁʌ] | [ɒː] | |
Interestingly, while the more open realisations of /ɛ/ and /ɛː/ before /r/ are allophonic in Danish, they have acquired phonemic status as /æ/ and /æː/ in Norwegian, and the Norwegian letter æ has come to be used almost only to signify them. The phonologisation of /æ/ was mostly a collateral effect of the merger of some other sounds: Danish æ /ɛː/ vs. e /eː/ and sj /sj/ vs. rs /ɐ̯s/ have come to be pronounced in the same way in Norwegian (respectively /eː/ and /ʂ/), thus rendering the occurrences of /æ/ unpredictable.
The Danish diphthongs [aɪ̯] and [ʌɪ̯] (spelled as ej and øj) correspond to the Norwegian diphthongs (in Oslo pronunciation) [æɪ̯] and [œɥ̯] (spelled as ei and øy). 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 semivowels [ɪ̯] and [ʊ̯] after a vowel: thus, dag is pronounced [d̥æ(ɪ̯)] in Danish, but [dɑːɡ] in Norwegian; lov (law) is pronounced [lʌʊ̯] in Danish, but [loːv] in Norwegian. Similarly, [aɪ̯] and [ʌɪ̯] are often spelled as eg and øg in Danish (eg may be pronounced [æɪ̯] in Norwegian, too, e.g. in regne, "to rain").
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 uvu-pharyngeal approximant in Danish, corresponding to an alveolar trill in (East) Norwegian (skrige [sɡ̊ʁii], "shriek" vs skrike [skriːkə]). Furthermore, Danish has replaced the voiced/voiceless opposition in /p, t, k/) vs /b, d, ɡ/) with an aspirated/nonaspirated one ([pʰ, tˢ, kʰ] vs [b̥, d̥, ɡ̊]), and the contrast between the two is neutralized syllable-finally and before schwa (in practice, in the core of native words, this means it is lost everywhere except word-initially). Thus, begge (both) and bække (brooks) are pronounced alike as [b̥ɛɡ̊ə]. 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).
| Grapheme | Danish | Norwegian | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In stressed onset | Elsewhere (single) | Elsewhere (double) | In stressed onset | Elsewhere | ||
| b | [b̥] | [b̥, ʊ̯] | [b̥] | [b] | [b] | |
| d | [d̥] | [ð̪] | [ð̪] | [d] | [d] | |
| g | [ɡ̊] | [-, ɪ̯, ʊ̯] | [ɡ̊] | [ɡ] | [ɡ] | |
| k | [kʰ] | [ɡ̊] | [ɡ̊] | [kʰ] | [k] | |
| p | [pʰ] | [b̥] | [b̥] | [pʰ] | [p] | |
| r | [ʁ] | [ɐ̯, -] | [r] | [r] | ||
| t | [tˢ] | [d̥] | [d̥] | [tʰ] | [t] | |
| v | [ʋ] | [ʊ̯] | [ʊ̯] | [ʋ] | [ʋ] | |
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:
Some notable sound correspondences are:
In Norwegian, each stressed syllable must contain, phonetically, either a long vowel or a long (geminate) consonant (e.g. male [mɑːlə], "to paint" vs malle [mɑlːə], "catfish") . In Danish, there are no phonologically long consonants, so the opposition is between long and short vowels ([mæːlə] vs [malə]. Both languages have a prosodic 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 tonal accents, accent 1 and 2, which characterise a whole word with primary stress; in Danish, it is between the presence and the absence of the stød (a kind of laryngealisation), which characterises a syllable (though usually a syllable that bears at least secondary stress). Example: Danish løber "runner" [ˈløːb̥ɐ] vs løber "runs" [ˈløːˀb̥ɐ], Norwegian løper2 [lø̂ːpər] vs løper1 [lø̀ːpər]. Note Danish landsmand [ˈlanˀsmanˀ] "compatriot" (one word, two støds) as opposed to Norwegian landsmann [lɑ̀nsmɑnː] (one word, one accent).
Note: The pronunciation of the tone accents varies widely between Norwegian dialects; the IPA 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 not transcribed here, because it belongs to the prosody of the phrase rather than the word.
Danish has two grammatical genders - common (indefinite article en and definite article -en) and neuter (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 - masculine (morphologically identical to Danish common, with indefinite article en and definite article -en), feminine (indefinite article ei and definite article -a) and neuter (morphologically identical to its Danish counterpart, with indefinite article et and definite article -et, pronounced /ə/). 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 usual in monosyllables; and zero-ending is most usual in neuter monosyllables). In Norwegian, the system is rather regularized, as the -e ending has all but disappeared, and -er is dominant in common gender monosyllables, 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 words, and has introduced an alternative ending -a for neuter words. 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 demonstrative pronoun is used: Danish Jeg elsker den mand vs Norwegian Jeg elsker den mannen (I love that man).
There are significant differences between the numeral systems of the two languages.
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:
Danish has adopted many German (particularly from Low German variants spoken by the Hanseatic League) words and grammatical structures, while Bokmål has rejected some of these imports. An example is the naming of countries; 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 Latin endings; 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, Australia, Italy and Spain are known as Australien, Italien and Spanien in Danish, but as Australia, Italia and Spania in Bokmål, although the earlier forms can be heard in speakers of more conservative forms (for instance Queen Sonja of Norway). Greece is Grækenland in Danish, but mostly referred to as Hellas (the Greek form of the name) in Norwegian, even though the Danish-like Grekenland is also remembered and 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 Netherlands as Nederland, as in Dutch, 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).
| English | Danish | Norwegian |
|---|---|---|
| afraid | bange, (arch., dial.:) ræd | redd, but also bange (archaic, mostly used in standard expressions like "bange anelser") |
| afterwards | bagefter | etterpå, efterpå (conservative), deretter/derefter |
| angry | vred | sint, vred (archaic) |
| autumn | efterår, (poet.:) høst | høst, etterår/efterår (archaic) |
| be correct, hold true | passe, stemme | stemme |
| boy | dreng, (colloquial:) gut | gutt, dreng (archaic or used in a more narrow sense) |
| breakfast | morgenmad | frokost |
| breathe | ånde | puste, ånde |
| cinema | biograf | kino |
| to comb (verb) | rede | gre(ie), kjemme |
| decade | årti, tiår | tiår, årti |
| easy | nem, let | lett |
| evening | aften, (poet.:) kvæld | kveld, aften |
| difficult | svær, vanskelig | vanskelig |
| fact | kendsgerning, faktum | faktum, kjennsgjerning |
| fast, quick(ly) | hurtig | fort (adv), rask (adj), hurtig |
| floor (storey) | sal, etage | etasje |
| frog | frø | frosk |
| fun | sjov | moro, gøy, artig |
| hesitate | tøve, nøle | nøle |
| girl | pige | jente, pike |
| good | god(t) | bra, god(t) |
| healthy | rask, sund, frisk | frisk |
| hydrogen | brint,[9] hydrogen | hydrogen, vannstoff (archaic) |
| ..., isn't it?/didn't he? etc. | ..., ikke/vel? ikke sandt?, ikke også? | ..., ikke sant? |
| jealous | jaloux, skinsyg | sjalu, misunnelig |
| last year | sidste år, i fjor | i fjor |
| like (vb. enjoy) | kunne lide | like |
| lunch | frokost | lunsj (alt. lønsj), formiddagsmat |
| moustache | overskæg | bart, overskjegg |
| oxygen | ilt,[9] oxygen | oksygen, surstoff |
| potato | kartoffel | potet |
| rubbish (nonsense) | sludder, vrøvl, vås, nonsens | sludder, vrøvl, nonsens, tull, tøys, vås |
| satisfied/pleased | tilfreds, fornøjet | fornøyd, tilfreds |
| sheep | får | sau, smale (archaic/dialectal), får (archaic/dialectal, used in expressions/ fixed phrases ) |
| short (person) | lille, lav | kort, lav |
| sometimes | somme tider, (colloquial:) nogle gange, af og til, indimellem, | iblant, av og til, innimellom |
| spring(time) | forår, (poet.:) vår | vår, forår (archaic) |
| still (yet) | stadigvæk, fremdeles (archaic) | fremdeles, fortsatt, stadig vekk |
| team | hold | lag |
| there, thither (about direction) | derhen | dit, dithen |
| toad | tudse | padde |
| ugly | grim, (ethically:) styg | stygg, grim (archaic) |
| usual | sædvanlig, vanlig (archaic) | vanlig, sedvanlig |
| [earth]worm | orm | [meite]makk, [mete]mark, orm (Ambiguous, could mean both worm and snake, cf. wyrm.) |
| wrong | forkert, gal(t) | gal(t), feil |
While most words have the same meaning, there are also a number of false friends. These are often cognates 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.[10]
| Word | Danish meaning | Norwegian meaning |
|---|---|---|
| grine | laugh | cry (both words cognates with English "grin") |
| kuk | mess, problem | penis (vulgar) |
| bolle | sexual intercourse/bun | bun (however, can be used for sexual intercourse in some areas) |
| rask | healthy | fast or garbage |
| svær | difficult/obese | large |
| kneppe | to fuck | to button/unbutton |
| flink | nice | skilled, clever |
| rar | kind, nice | strange, weird |