HVA

Hva is the Norwegian interrogative pronoun meaning "what." It is used to ask questions about identity, nature, or specification, and it also appears in indirect questions within sentences. Common examples include Hva skjer? (What’s happening?), Hva er dette? (What is this?), and Jeg vet ikke hva han sa. (I don’t know what he said.) In addition to direct questions, hva appears in fixed phrases such as Hva med deg? (What about you?) and in constructions like Hva slags bil liker du? (What kind of car do you like?).

Etymology and cognates: Hva derives from the Germanic family of languages, with cognates in neighboring languages. It is related to Icelandic hvað, Danish hvad, and Swedish vad, all of which share the same semantic root meaning “what.” The form reflects historical sound changes within the Scandinavian branch, and similar words exist across the North Germanic languages.

Variants and regional use: In Bokmål Norwegian, the form is Hva, while in many dialects and in Nynorsk, the equivalent is kva. This reflects broader Norwegian variation between written standards and spoken language. Regardless of variant, hva/kva functions as the primary fronted interrogative pronoun for questions and is widely used across registers from everyday speech to written texts.

See also: Norwegian grammar, question words, Norwegian language variants.