Introduction to Nynorsk/Nynorsk and the other Nordic languages

The differences between Nynorsk and the other Scandinavian languages are fairly systematic. This page will go through several of these differences.

Before we start, remember (or learn now) that Nynorsk is both

a) a West Scandinavian language

b) a Continental Scandinavian language

The relationship between the Nordic (Scandinavian) languages may be summarised as follows:

The North Germanic languages

	western	eastern	mainland	insular
Nynorsk	x		x
Faroese	x			x
Icelandic	x			x
Bokmål	?	?	x
Danish		x	x
Swedish		x	x

Diphthongs

Part of what defines the West Scandinavian languages, is that they keep the diphthongs from Old Norse. Nynorsk has fewer diphthongs than both Icelandic and Faroese, however. Below are a few examples.

diphthongs

Old Norse	Nynorsk	Faroese	Icelandic	Bokmål	Danish	Swedish	translation
draumr	draum	dreymur	draumur	drøm	drøm	dröm	dream
rauðr	raud	reyður	rauður	rød	rød	röd	red
brauð	brød	breyð	brauð	brød	brød	bröd	bread
heyra	høyra	hoyra	heyra	høre	høre	höra	hear
einn	ein	ein	einn	en	en	en	a (indefinite article), one (numeral)

In traditional Nynorsk, brød was spelled braud. brød is one of few instances were an Old Norse -au has not been kept in Nynorsk, like the vast majority of them are.

The infinitive ending

In the Nordic standard languages, there are two different infinitive endings: -a and -e (but in dialects, additional endings exist). Nynorsk has, as written in earlier chapters, both of these infinitive endings (plus a system that switches between the two). Thus Nynorsk can be written with the same infinitive ending as any of the other Nordic languages. The differences can be summarised with the verb kasta, which means 'to throw' and still has the same root in all the Nordic languages:

infinitive ending

Old Norse	Nynorsk	Faroese	Icelandic	Bokmål	Danish	Swedish	translation
kasta	kasta or kaste	kasta	kasta	kaste	kaste	kasta	throw