Svartiden var kort, ikke sant?

It is a compound noun, which is very common in Norwegian.

• svar = answer / reply / response
• tid = time
• svartid = response time
• svartiden = the response time

Norwegian usually writes compounds as one word, so svartiden is correct, not svar tiden.

Because Norwegian often adds definiteness to the end of the noun instead of using a separate word.

• svartid = response time
• svartiden = the response time

So the ending -en is doing the job that the does in English.

Var is the past tense of å være = to be.

• er = is
• var = was

So Svartiden var kort means the response time was short, not is short. It refers to a past situation or a completed event.

Here kort means short.

So Svartiden var kort means that the response time was short. In this context, kort is an adjective describing svartiden.

Because it is being used after the verb var, as a predicative adjective.

In this sentence, svartiden is singular, so kort is the normal form. Norwegian adjectives do change in some situations, but here kort is exactly what you would expect.

Also, this particular adjective already ends in -t, so there is no extra visible change to notice here.

Ikke sant? is a very common Norwegian tag used to ask for agreement or confirmation.

It often corresponds to English expressions like:

• right?
• isn’t that so?
• isn’t it?

So the whole sentence is roughly like saying:

The response time was short, right?

Yes, functionally it often works that way, but it is less tied to the exact grammar of the main sentence than English tags are.

In English, you usually match the verb and subject:

• It was short, wasn’t it?

In Norwegian, ikke sant? can be used much more generally as an all-purpose confirmation tag. That makes it very useful for learners.

Yes, normally a comma is used before ikke sant when it is added as a tag at the end of a sentence.

So:

• Svartiden var kort, ikke sant?

This comma helps show that ikke sant is a separate comment asking for confirmation.

Yes.

Without it, the sentence becomes a plain statement:

• Svartiden var kort. = The response time was short.

With ikke sant?, the speaker is checking that the listener agrees:

• Svartiden var kort, ikke sant? = The response time was short, right?

So ikke sant changes the tone, not the basic core meaning.

Possibly, depending on variety and style.

The last part of the compound is tid, and in Bokmål many nouns of this type can sometimes take either:

• -en definite ending
• -a definite ending

So some speakers may use svartida, especially in more colloquial or dialect-influenced language.

However, svartiden is completely normal and very common, especially in standard written Bokmål.

Because this is a normal declarative main clause in Norwegian:

• Svartiden = subject
• var = finite verb
• kort = adjective/complement

This is the standard pattern for a simple statement.

If you turned it into a yes/no question, the word order would change:

• Var svartiden kort? = Was the response time short?

Yes. Norwegian very often builds new meanings by combining nouns into compounds.

A learner will see this all the time, especially in technical, administrative, and everyday vocabulary.

So svartid is a good example of a very typical Norwegian pattern: noun + noun = one compound noun.

That is something worth getting used to early.