The Languages spoken in Norway

The official language of Norway is Norwegian, a North Germanic language that is closely related to and generally mutually intelligible with Swedish and Danish. Around 95% of the population speak Norwegian as their native tongue.

The Norwegian language has two official written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk, which have equal official status and are used in education, religious institutions, media and public administration. There is no officially sanctioned standard of spoken Norwegian, but there is a de facto spoken standard of Bokmål known as Standard Østnorsk, spoken mainly by the urban upper and middle class in East Norway. This is the form generally taught to foreign students.

Several Sami languages are also spoken and written throughout the country and the state recognizes these languages as official. The Kven minority speak Kven, a variety of Finnish. The Germanic Norwegian language and the Finno-Ugric Sami and Kven languages are entirely unrelated.

The main foreign languages taught in Norway are English, German and French.