Politiet hjelper de overlevende.

Because politiet is the definite form of politi. In Norwegian, definiteness is often built into the noun itself instead of using a separate word like the.

So:

• politi = police / police force
• politiet = the police

The ending -et is the usual definite ending for many neuter nouns.

Grammatically, politiet is treated as a singular collective noun, even though it refers to a group of police officers.

That is different from English, where the police usually takes a plural verb: The police are helping.

In Norwegian, the noun itself is singular in form. Also, present-tense verbs do not change for singular vs. plural, so hjelper stays the same either way.

Hjelper is the present tense of å hjelpe (to help).

Norwegian does not normally use a separate progressive form like English is helping / are helping. The simple present often covers both ideas:

• Politiet hjelper = The police help / The police are helping

The exact meaning depends on context.

Here, de does not mean they. It is part of a noun phrase meaning the survivors.

So de overlevende means literally:

• de = the
• overlevende = surviving / those who survived

Together: the survivors

Dem is the object pronoun them, so it would not be correct here.

A useful comparison:

• de overlevende = the survivors
• dem = them

Overlevende comes from the verb å overleve, meaning to survive.

It is a present participle, and literally means surviving. In this sentence, it functions like a noun, so de overlevende means the surviving ones, which is naturally translated as the survivors.

This kind of form is very common in Norwegian.

Because Norwegian can use adjectives and participles as nouns when the meaning is clear.

So de overlevende does not need an extra noun like people or persons. It already means something like:

• the surviving people
• the ones who survived

This is similar to English expressions like:

• the rich
• the poor
• the injured

This sentence has the normal main-clause order:

Subject + verb + object

• Politiet = subject
• hjelper = verb
• de overlevende = object

So the structure is very straightforward.

More generally, Norwegian is a V2 language, which means the finite verb usually comes in the second position in a main clause. In this sentence, that happens naturally because the subject comes first.

Yes, but the meaning changes.

• Politiet hjelper de overlevende = The police are helping the survivors
  → a specific group of survivors

• Politiet hjelper overlevende = The police help survivors / surviving people
  → more general, less specific

So de makes the phrase definite: the survivors, not just survivors in general.

In most modern Norwegian pronunciation, hj is pronounced simply like j, which sounds like English y.

So hjelper begins roughly like yel-.

A rough English approximation is:

• hjelper ≈ YEL-per

So the h is not really pronounced as a separate h sound here.