NorwegianDanish

NorwegianDanish, often referred to in scholarly contexts as Dano-Norwegian, denotes the historical language situation in Norway during the period of the Denmark–Norway union (roughly from the late medieval era until 1814). It describes a written standard that combined Danish orthography with Norwegian spoken varieties, resulting in a form of Norwegian heavily influenced by Danish in spelling and administrative usage.

Historically, Danish was the language of government, law, church, and higher literature in Norway during the union. Norwegian vernaculars continued to be spoken by the population, but they were rarely used in formal domains. Over centuries, Norwegian speakers adopted Danish spellings and literary norms, giving rise to a distinctive phase in which the written language cabined closely to Danish while the spoken language remained Norwegian in many regional varieties.

Linguistically, Dano-Norwegian featured Danish orthography, with Norwegian phonology and vocabulary present in everyday speech. The blend varied regionally and over time, producing a continuum rather than a single fixed standard. In literature and administration, it functioned as the dominant written normative model, shaping what would later evolve into modern Norwegian written standards.

In contemporary terms, the concept is largely historical. The modern Norwegian language landscape includes Bokmål, which descends directly from Dano-Norwegian orthography and grammar, and Nynorsk, which is based on Norwegian rural dialects. Danish remains a separate language, but its historical influence is evident in Bokmål’s spelling and certain vocabulary. The term NorwegianDanish is mainly used to describe the historical intersection of Danish and Norwegian linguistic traditions.