Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish can all claim some type of kinship with Old Norse, the language spoken by the fierce Vikings who once lived in what is now known as Scandinavia.
These North Germanic languages, which include Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish, share a mutual intelligibility. That means a speaker of one can generally (although not always) understand what a speaker of another “language” is saying. While Icelandic is also related to these tongues, it is no longer mutually intelligible to Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish speakers.
Norwegian translators can often work in Danish and Swedish. The opposite is sometimes true as well, although Norwegians tend to understand Danish and Swedish better than most Danes and Swedes understand Norwegian.
Translators and interpreters of Norse languages who train in several different Scandinavian countries can generally master the differences between these dialects (or separate languages, if you like) with relative ease. English is also widely spoken in Scandinavia and often mixed in with the local language. Finding a linguist to provide a Norwegian translation, or a Swedish to English translator who really knows his or her stuff, shouldn’t be too hard at all.
In Norway, from an official standpoint, two types of written Norwegian exist. While working with a Norwegian translator, you might encounter Nynorsk (New Norwegian), or Bokmål, which is the “book tongue.” Bokmål is the most widespread, official form of written Norwegian in use, although New Norwegian is the official written language for more than 10% of the population.
Just to confuse matters even more, you might run across unofficial forms of Norwegian not regulated by the Language Council of Norway, including Riksmål, Høgnorsk, and a few other regional dialects. For safety, trust in your Norwegian translator once you’ve established his or her credentials through a reputable translation agency. Let your translator sort out these perplexing differences for you.
