Norwegian voice overs: what you need to know

Norwegian is a North Germanic language with around 5.3 million speakers, primarily in Norway where it’s the official language of the country. It’s also one of the official languages of the Nordic Council.

While the number of Norwegian speakers is humble, it’s a rather popular language in Europe and North America. Norwegian communities in Iceland, Finland, Sweden, and the United States (primarily in Minnesota and Wisconsin) keep the language alive outside of Norway.

Language History

Norwegian, just like other North Germanic languages, descended from Old Norse — the language of Vikings. Old Norse spread throughout Scandinavia and Northern Europe around the 8th century, together with the Viking settlers.

However, Norwegian as a distinct language emerged around the 1300s. Because of Norway’s union with Denmark, Danish was more prominent than Norwegian. Modern Norwegian as it’s spoken today dates back only to 1917 — when the union between Denmark and Norway was dissolved.

Close Relations

Because of their shared Old Norse roots, Norwegian is very closely related to Swedish and Danish. Actually, all three languages are mutually intelligible. If all three languages are comprehensible to the speakers, maybe they’re just dialects of one language?

Well, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are considered to be independent languages. While Norwegians can fully understand Swedes and Danes, the languages share some differences in pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.

The core of Norwegian vocabulary is inherited from Old Norse. Additionally, just like Dutch and Swedish, Norwegian extensively uses compounding to create new words from already existing ones.

However, the Norwegian language contains quite a few foreign loanwords. Norwegian extensively borrowed from German and French, and more recently — from English.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Norwegian is categorized into five dialect groups: West and South, North, East, Midland, and Trøndelag. However, what’s also striking is that Norwegian has two official standard varieties: Bokmål (‘book language’) and Nynorsk (‘New Norwegian’). Surprisingly, both of these standards greatly differ from one another.

Bokmål is considered to be the written Norwegian language standard in education, politics, and broadcasting. The majority of Norwegians use this written variant. Nynorsk, on the other hand, is used less extensively — it’s preferred in Western and Central regions.

When it comes to Norwegian voice overs, it’s always important to keep in mind its similarity to Swedish and Danish. While all three languages are extremely similar, their differences make them unique. Keep in mind the most common differences in interrogative questions and different alphabet letters (å, æ, ø in Norwegian, and å, ä, ö in Swedish).

When speaking Norwegian, note that it’s a tonal language — pitch can change the meanings of words. So make sure you’re also paying attention to the tone of the spoken language!

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