Old vs New Counting: enogtjue vs tjueén | Norwegian Grammar

Above twenty, Norwegian has two living ways to say the same number, and a learner needs to handle both. The new system says the ten first, then the unit — tjueén, "twenty-one" — and has been official since a 1951 reform. The old system says the unit first, joined by og ("and"), then the ten — enogtyve, "one-and-twenty," exactly like German einundzwanzig or the archaic English "four-and-twenty blackbirds." The reform changed the schoolbooks but never fully changed everyday speech, so you will hear both, often from the same person within a single conversation. This page is about understanding — and choosing — between them.

The two systems side by side

The only thing that changes is the order of the parts and the little joining og. The digits are identical.

Number	New (tens first)	Old (units first)
21	tjueén	enogtyve
22	tjueto	toogtyve
35	trettifem	femogtredve
48	førtiåtte	åtteogførti
76	syttiseks	seksogsytti
99	nittini	niognitti

Read the old forms as unit + og + ten: enogtyve is en-og-tyve, "one-and-twenty." Notice two spelling points. The old system uses og in the middle of the word (femogtredve), and it often uses the older tens spellings tyve (20) and tredve (30) instead of the modern tjue and tretti. Above thirty, the modern tens spellings are usually kept even in the old order (åtteogførti, seksogsytti), but tyve and tredve are the classic old-system shapes you must recognise.

Hun er enogtyve år — eller tjueén, som vi sier nå.

She's twenty-one — or 'tjueén', as we say now (old form, then new).

Bestefar teller alltid femogtredve, ikke trettifem.

Grandpa always counts 'femogtredve', never 'trettifem' (35, old vs new).

Why there are two: the 1951 reform

In 1951 the Norwegian parliament passed a resolution changing the official spoken order of numbers from units-first to tens-first. The stated motive was thoroughly practical: in an age of telephones, telegrams and ledgers, it was awkward to write down a number you heard in the reverse order from how it was written. Hearing "one-and-twenty" forced the listener to hold the unit, wait for the ten, then write 21 back-to-front. Tjueén — ten then unit — matches the written digits left to right.

The reform took hold completely in writing, schools, broadcasting and official speech. But the old "one-and-twenty" pattern was centuries deep and shared with Danish and German, and it simply never died in casual talk. The result, more than seventy years later, is a stable bilingual situation inside one language: every Norwegian understands both, and most use both — new for arithmetic and formal contexts, old for certain habitual situations.

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The 1951 reform made tjueén official so spoken numbers match written digits left to right. It succeeded in writing but never erased the old enogtyve from speech — so both are correct and both are everywhere.

Where you will actually hear the old system

This is the part textbooks skip and the part that matters for your ears. The old units-first order clusters in predictable places:

Phone numbers. Norwegians read phone numbers in two-digit pairs, and very often in the old order. A number like 21 45 68 may come out enogtyve – femogførti – åtteogseksti. If you are taking down a number and expecting tjueén, the reversed order will throw you unless you are ready for it.

Prices and money. At a market or counter you may hear femogtredve kroner (35 kroner) as readily as trettifem.

Ages, especially of older people. Set phrases like i femognittiårsalderen ("in his/her mid-nineties," literally "in the five-and-ninety-year age") keep the old order frozen in.

Older and rural speakers. For many speakers born before the war, and in many dialects, the old system is simply the natural one. They are not being archaic; it is their everyday count.

Telefonnummeret er enogtyve – femogførti – åtteogseksti.

The phone number is 21 45 68 (read old-style, in pairs).

Det blir femogtredve kroner, takk.

That'll be thirty-five kroner, please (old-style price).

Onkelen min er vel i femognittiårsalderen nå.

My uncle must be in his mid-nineties by now (frozen old-style age).

What this means for you as a learner

The practical takeaway is asymmetric. For producing numbers, stick with the new system — tjueén, trettifem, syttiseks — and you will always be correct, modern, and clear. There is no situation where the new order is wrong.

For understanding, you do not have that luxury. Because the old system survives exactly in the high-stakes, fast-spoken situations — phone numbers, prices — you cannot opt out of parsing it. You must be able to flip a heard number in either direction: when you hear enogtyve you reassemble it as 21, and when you hear tjueén you take it straight. Train the reversal until it is automatic: whenever a number arrives with og in the middle, the unit came first — read the last part as the ten.

Vent — sa du toogfemti eller femtito? Begge betyr 52.

Wait — did you say 'toogfemti' or 'femtito'? Both mean 52.

Jeg sier alltid tjueén, men farmor sier enogtyve. Samme tall.

I always say 'tjueén', but Grandma says 'enogtyve'. Same number.

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Asymmetric strategy: produce the new order (tjueén) — it is never wrong — but train yourself to parse the old order too, because phone numbers and prices still come at you units-first.

A note on the spellings tyve and tredve

You will see tyve (20) and tredve (30) most often inside old-counting compounds (enogtyve, femogtredve), but they also turn up as bare older spellings of tjue and tretti in pre-reform texts, hymns, and the occasional fixed phrase. In modern standard Bokmål the bare round tens are tjue and tretti; treat tyve and tredve as recognisably old — fine to understand, not what you write today.

I den gamle salmeboka står det 'tredve sølvpenger'.

In the old hymnbook it says 'thirty pieces of silver' (archaic 'tredve').

Common Mistakes

Being thrown by enogtyve and guessing it means 81 or 12. It is one-and-twenty = 21. The unit comes first, the ten last.

❌ 'enogtyve' = 12

Incorrect — 'en-og-tyve' is one-and-twenty = 21, not 12.

✅ 'enogtyve' = 21

Twenty-one (unit + og + ten).

Not recognising the medial og as the old system. The og in the middle of a number word signals units-first order.

❌ 'seksogsytti' = 6 og 70 (two numbers)

Incorrect — it's one number: six-and-seventy = 76.

✅ 'seksogsytti' = 76

Seventy-six.

Mixing the two orders in one word. Pick one system per number — never tjueogén or enogtjueén.

❌ tjueogén

Incorrect — either new 'tjueén' or old 'enogtyve', not a blend.

✅ tjueén / enogtyve

Twenty-one — new form or old form.

Assuming a native who says enogtyve made a mistake. Both systems are fully correct standard Norwegian.

❌ thinking 'enogtyve' is wrong/dialectal slang

Incorrect — the old order is standard and understood everywhere.

✅ 'enogtyve' is correct, just the older system

A perfectly standard way to say 21.

Key Takeaways

Two living systems above 20: new tens-first (tjueén) and old units-first (enogtyve, with medial og).
The 1951 reform made the new order official; it won in writing but not in everyday speech.
The old order thrives in phone numbers, prices, ages, and older/rural speech — you cannot avoid hearing it.
Produce the new order (always correct); parse the old order too — flip any number with medial og.
Tyve (20) and tredve (30) are the older spellings behind the old compounds; recognise them, write tjue and tretti.

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