Bokmål vs Nynorsk

Norwegian has two official written standards, and they have equal legal status: Bokmål ("book language") and Nynorsk ("New Norwegian"). This guide teaches Bokmål, the variety used by roughly 85–90% of writers — but you will meet Nynorsk constantly: on packaging, in some newspapers, in west-coast public documents, and as a compulsory subject in every Norwegian school. This page explains where the two come from, what makes Nynorsk look different, and how to read it. The good news up front: if you know Bokmål, you can already read Nynorsk at about 80% comprehension. You just need to learn its hallmark spellings.

Two written norms, one spoken reality

Before anything else, fix this in place: Bokmål and Nynorsk are both written standards. Neither is a way of speaking. Norwegians do not "speak Bokmål" or "speak Nynorsk" — they speak their regional dialect and choose a norm to write in. A person from Bergen might speak a western dialect, write Nynorsk in school, and write Bokmål at work. The two norms are spelling-and-grammar systems on paper, not accents in the air.

Where each one comes from

The two norms have completely different origins, which is why they look different:

• Bokmål grew out of the written Danish used in Norway during the centuries of union with Denmark, gradually "Norwegianised" over the 1800s and 1900s. It is urban and eastern in flavour and is the majority norm — the language of most newspapers, most books, and Oslo.
• Nynorsk was constructed in the 1850s by the linguist Ivar Aasen, who travelled the country recording rural dialects — especially the more conservative western ones — and synthesised them into a single written standard that owed nothing to Danish. It was meant to be a genuinely Norwegian written language built from the people's own speech.

This origin story matters for the learner: Bokmål and Danish look similar on the page, so a Bokmål reader can often read Danish — while Nynorsk, built from western dialects, will look more "Norwegian" and a little unfamiliar at first. Both are fully modern; Nynorsk is not archaic, rural, or old-fashioned, and is not Old Norse — it is a living co-official standard with its own newspapers, novels, and government documents. (The full history is on its own page.)

What Nynorsk looks like: the hallmarks

You do not need to write Nynorsk to learn Norwegian, but you should be able to recognise it instantly. A handful of high-frequency words give it away. Here are the ones to memorise:

The clearest signals are the kv- question words. Where Bokmål writes hv- (hva, hvor, hvem), Nynorsk writes kv- or k- (kva, kvar, kven, korleis). The moment you see kva or ikkje, you are reading Nynorsk.

More diphthongs

Nynorsk keeps diphthongs that Bokmål often smooths into a single vowel. Where Bokmål has a plain e or ø, Nynorsk frequently has ei, au or øy:

Obligatory feminine forms

Bokmål lets you choose whether to mark many feminine nouns (boka or boken, both allowed). Nynorsk makes the feminine obligatory and visible — a definite feminine ends in -a, and some traditional forms even keep an old -i ending:

-ar / -ane plurals

Many Nynorsk masculine nouns take -ar in the indefinite plural and -ane in the definite plural, where Bokmål uses -er / -ene:

Where you will meet Nynorsk

• Schools. Every Norwegian pupil studies both norms; one is their main written language and the other is their sidemål ("secondary language"). So every educated Norwegian can read both.
• Western Norway. Many west-coast municipalities use Nynorsk as their administrative language, so official letters, road signs and forms there are in Nynorsk.
• Media. Some newspapers (and parts of the national broadcaster NRK) publish in Nynorsk, and a fixed minimum share of public broadcasting must be in Nynorsk by law.
• Product packaging and public bodies. Bilingual labels and state documents routinely appear in both.

You are not expected to write Nynorsk as a learner — but you will read it often enough that recognising the hallmarks above is a real, practical skill.

Learner pitfalls

Mistaking Nynorsk for a dialect. Nynorsk is a written standard, not a way of speaking. No one "speaks Nynorsk"; people speak dialect and may write Nynorsk.

Thinking Nynorsk is archaic or Old Norse. It is a fully modern, co-official standard created in the 1850s — younger than the modern form of Bokmål in some respects, not older. It is not Old Norse and not "old-fashioned."

Panicking when the spelling shifts. When jeg becomes eg and hva becomes kva, you have not stumbled into a different language — just the other written norm. Map the hallmarks back to Bokmål and you keep ~80% comprehension.

Forgetting that this guide teaches Bokmål. When you produce Norwegian, write Bokmål consistently; do not mix in eg or ikkje. Reading Nynorsk is a recognition skill; writing it is a separate norm you are not learning here.

Key Takeaways

• Norway has two equal written standards: Bokmål (Danish-derived, ~85–90%, urban/eastern, taught in this guide) and Nynorsk (Aasen's dialect-based norm, ~10–15%, strong in the west).
• Both are written norms; people speak dialect. No one speaks Bokmål or Nynorsk.
• Recognise Nynorsk by eg (jeg), ikkje (ikke), kv- question words (kva, kvar, kven, korleis), more diphthongs (heiter, stein), obligatory feminines (boka, sola), and -ar/-ane plurals (båtar, båtane).
• Nynorsk is modern and co-official, not archaic or Old Norse — and a Bokmål reader can read it at roughly 80% comprehension just by knowing these hallmarks.