North Germanic language

This article is part of the Scandinavia series

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North Germanic languages is any of several Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the islands west of Scandinavia.

There are two main branches, Insular (West-) North Germanic and Continental (East-) North Germanic or Scandinavian. The former is the "older" (i.e. more conservative) version, spoken by Vikings speaking Old Norse to Iceland (Icelandic), Greenland, Vinland, the Faroe Islands (Faroese), the Shetlands, Orkneys, northwest Scotland, eastern England, Isle of Man and coastal Ireland. It is comparatively similar to English and Frisian, with which they share the highest concentration of Non-Indo-European roots of Germanic languages, also common to the Celtic languages. The latter, Continental Scandinavian, is more influenced most notably by German language and the other Germanic languages with a high concentration of structured form akin to the Italic languages.

Many dialects in Norway retain the West-North Germanic features, and Nynorsk, one of the two official written languages of the country, was based partially on such dialects. Additionally, the dialect of Jämtland in Sweden is classified as West-Scandinavian.

In contrast, new features developed in Danish, Danish-influenced areas of Norway (due to the long Danish rule), and in Sweden (with Finland) to form the Continental varieties. In particular standard Norwegian (Bokmål), the first written standard language in Norway, and now the dominating official language, is considered Continental.

As a result, Danish and Norwegian may in reality be somewhat more similar to each other than either is to Swedish. Due to the long political union between Norway and Denmark, the Norwegian Bokmål shares much of the Danish vocabulary. In addition, due to Danish pronunciation, Swedes usually find it easier to understand Norwegian than Danish. But even if a Swede finds it difficult to understand a Dane, it is not necessarily the other way around. One witticism about Norwegian that expresses the basic similarities and differences between the languages is that "Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish." The relationships between the three languages might be summarized by the following diagram:

The North Germanic languages are often cited as proof of Max Weinreich's aphorism "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." The differences in dialects within the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are often greater than the differences across the borders, but the political independence of these countries leads continental Scandinavian to be classified into Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish in the popular mind. The creation of Nynorsk out of Insular dialects after Norway became independent of Denmark in 1814 was an attempt to make the linguistic divisions match the political ones.

Family tree

All North Germanic languages are thought to be descended from Old Norse. Note that divisions between subfamilies of North Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and the most separated ones not.

• West (Insular) Scandinavian
  • Icelandic (in Iceland)
  • Faeroese (in the Faroes, which belong to Denmark)
  • Norn (extinct after the Shetlands and Orkneys were ceded to Scotland)
  • Nynorsk¹ (in Norway)
  • Jamska (in Jämtland, in Sweden)
  • Traveller Norwegian (used by Fanter in Norway)
• East (Continental) Scandinavian
  • Bokmål¹ (in Norway)
  • Danish
    • Island-Danish (on Zealand and the other islands)
    • East Danish², (on Bornholm)
    • Jutish, or West Danish, (in Jutland)
  • Swedish (see map at: Lands of Sweden)
    • Sveamål (in Svealand except Bergslagen)
    • Bergslagsmål/Dalecarlian (in Dalarna, Värmland and parts of Västmanland, in Sweden)
    • Norrländska mål (in Norrland)
    • Götamål (in Västergötland, Östergötland, Dalsland and Småland)
    • East-Swedish
      • Finland-Swedish³ (in some coastal areas of Finland)
      • Gutnish³ (in Gotland, in Sweden)
    • Scanian, formerly East Danish², (southernmost part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, see: Terra Scania)
  • Traveller Danish (used by Romany in Denmark)
  • Tavringer Romani (used by Romany in Sweden and Norway)

1. Beside the two official written norms of Norwegian, there exists two established unofficial norms: Riksmål similar to, but more conservative (closer to Danish) than, Bokmål, used in different extent by a large number of people, especially in the cities and upper classes, and High-Norwegian (Høgnorsk) rather similar to Nynorsk, used by a very little minority, mostly for political reasons.
2. The classification of the Bornholm-dialect together with Scanian is based on phonology and undisputed. They could maybe more correctly be called South Scandinavian dialects, but that term is not used. It must be noted that Swedish influence on Scanian has been considerable since the conquest in 1658.
3. The classification within Swedish is rather antiquated and arbitrary, and here mainly used to single out the most important of the clearly distinguisable varieties. New scientific work is in progress.