Norwegian dialects in the context of "Bokmål language"

Norwegian (endonym: norsk [ˈnɔʂːk] , norsk språk [ˈnɔʂːk sproːk]) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway, where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties; some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are not mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Age.

Today there are two official forms of written Norwegian, Bokmål (Riksmål) and Nynorsk (Landsmål), each with its own variants. Bokmål developed from the Dano-Norwegian language that replaced Middle Norwegian as the elite language after the union of Denmark–Norway in the 16th and 17th centuries and then evolved in Norway, while Nynorsk was developed based upon a collective of spoken Norwegian dialects. Norwegian is one of the two official languages in Norway, along with Sámi, a group of Finno-Ugric languages spoken by less than one percent of the population. Norwegian is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries who speak Norwegian have the opportunity to use it when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs.

Icelandic (/aɪsˈlændɪk/ eyess-LAN-dik; endonym: íslenska, pronounced [ˈi(ː)stlɛnska] , íslensk tunga [ˈi(ː)stlɛnsk ˈtʰuŋka]) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about roughly 390,000 people, the vast majority of whom live in Iceland, where it is the national language. Since it is a West Scandinavian language, it is most closely related to Faroese, western Norwegian dialects, and the extinct language Norn. It is not mutually intelligible with the continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) and is more distinct from the most widely spoken Germanic languages, English and German. The written forms of Icelandic and Faroese are very similar, but their spoken forms are not mutually intelligible.

The language is more conservative than most other Germanic languages. While most of them have greatly reduced levels of inflection (particularly noun declension), Icelandic retains a four-case synthetic grammar (comparable to German, though considerably more conservative and synthetic) and is distinguished by a wide assortment of irregular declensions. Icelandic vocabulary is also deeply conservative, with the country's language regulator maintaining an active policy of coining terms based on older Icelandic words rather than directly taking in loanwords from other languages.

Bokmål (Urban East Norwegian: [ˈbûːkmoːɫ] ; UK: /ˈbuːk.mɔːl/, US: /ˈbʊk.-, ˈboʊk.-/; lit. 'book-tongue') is one of the official written standards for the Norwegian language, alongside Nynorsk. Bokmål is by far the most used written form of Norwegian today, as it is adopted by 85% to 90% of the population in Norway. There is no countrywide standard or agreement on the pronunciation of Bokmål and the spoken dialects vary greatly.

Bokmål is regulated by the governmental Language Council of Norway. A related, more conservative orthographic standard, commonly known as Riksmål, is regulated by the non-governmental Norwegian Academy for Language and Literature. The written standard is a Norwegianised variety of the Danish language.

Trøndersk (Urban East Norwegian: [ˈtrœ̀ndəʂk]), also known as trøndermål (Urban East Norwegian: [ˈtrœ̀ndərmoːɫ]) or trøndsk (Urban East Norwegian: [ˈtrœndsk]), is a Norwegian dialect, or rather a group of several sub-dialects. As is the case with all Norwegian dialects, it has no standardised orthography, and its users write either Bokmål or Nynorsk.

It is spoken in Trøndelag county, the Nordmøre district in Møre og Romsdal county, and in Bindal Municipality in Nordland county in Norway as well as in Frostviken in northern Jämtland in Sweden, which was colonized in the 18th century by settlers from Nord-Trøndelag and transferred to Sweden as late as 1751. The dialect is, among other things, perhaps mostly characterized by the use of apocope, palatalization and the use of voiced retroflex flaps (thick L). Historically it also applied to contiguous regions of Jämtland and Härjedalen.

Vestlandsk or Vestlandske dialekter (lit. 'West Norwegian') is a collective term for the dialects that are spoken on the coast of western Norway in the area ranging from Romsdal in the north to Agder in the south. These dialects can furthermore be split into north-western dialects (Nordvestlandske dialekter), south-western dialects (Sørvestlandske dialekter, and southern dialects (Sørlandske dialekter).

• Nordvestlandske dialekter (lit. 'North-Western dialects') have e-infinitive, and extends from the middle of Sogn og Fjordane to Romsdal. Of these, one can mention:
  • Jølstramål – centering on the old Jølster Municipality
  • Sunnmørsdialekt – collective term for dialects in Sunnmøre
  • Romsdalsdialekt – dialect of Romsdal
• Sørvestlandske dialekter (lit. 'South-western dialects') have a-infinitive, and extends from the inner Sogn og Fjordane, through Hordaland and Rogaland and western part of Agder. Of these, one can mention:
  • Bergensk, Haugesundsk, Stavangersk – these are city dialects (bymål). They have strong simplification, which is characteristic for all urban dialects (bydialekter), but originate from the dialects of the area with which they have much in common.
  • Jærsk – dialect in Jæren
  • Strilamål – dialect of Strilelandet, an area around Bergen
  • Sunnhordlandsdialekt – dialect of Sunnhordland
• Sørlandske dialekter (lit. 'Southern dialects') have /p, t, k/-voicing, guttural R and a-endings, and is spoken in the eastern part of Agder and part of Telemark.