GERMANIC LANGUAGES

NORWEGIAN
DANISH
SWEDISH
Proiect realizat de: Miron Ctlina, Popa Adelina, Rusu Miruna & Ursachi Maria

O The North Germanic languages make up one of

the three branches of the Germanic languages, a

sub-family of the Indo-European languages,
along with the West Germanic languages and
the extinct East Germanic languages. The
language group is sometimes referred to as the
"Nordic languages", a direct translation of the
most common term used among Danish,
Swedish and Norwegian scholars and
laypeople.

LANGUAGES HISTORY
After the Proto-Norse and Old Norse periods, the North

Germanic languages developed into an East Scandinavian

branch, consisting of Danish and Swedish; and, secondly,
a West Scandinavian branch, consisting of Norwegian,
Faroese and Icelandic and, thirdly, an Old Gutnish branch.
Norwegian settlers brought Old West Norse to Iceland and
the Faroe Islands around 800. Of the modern
Scandinavian languages, written Icelandic is closest to this
ancient language
The North Germanic languages are national languages
in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.

O In historical linguistics, the North Germanic

family tree is divided into two main branches,

West Scandinavian languages (Norwegian,
Faroese and Icelandic) and East Scandinavian
languages (Danish and Swedish), along with
various dialects and varieties. The two branches
are derived from the western and eastern dialect
groups of Old Norse respectively. The
continental Scandinavian languages (Swedish,
Norwegian and Danish) were heavily
influenced by Middle Low German during the
period of Hanseatic expansion.

O All North Germanic languages are descended

from Old Norse. Divisions between

subfamilies of North Germanic are rarely
precisely defined: Most form continuous
clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually
intelligible and the most separated ones not.

Mutual intelligibility
O The mutual intelligibility between the Continental

Scandinavian languages is asymmetrical. Various

studies have shown Norwegian speakers to be the
best in Scandinavia at understanding other
languages within the language group. According
to a study undertaken during 20022005 and
funded by the Nordic Cultural Fund, Swedish
speakers in Stockholm and Danish speakers in
Copenhagen have the greatest difficulty in
understanding other Nordic languages.

Norwegian language

North Germanic languages

Norwegian(norsk) is aNorth Germanic languagespoken
mainly inNorway, where it is the official language.

Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of

more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants.

Icelandic
Scandinavi
an
languages

North
Germa
nic
langua
ges

Faroese

Standard forms
written Norwegian -> two official forms -> Bokml (literally "book tongue")
-> Nynorsk (literally new Norwegian)
-> two unofficial forms ->Riksml ("national language"), is today to a
large extent the same language as Bokml though somewhat closer to the Danish language.
->Hgnorsk ("High Norwegian") - a
more purist form of Nynorsk

No standard of spoken Norwegian is officially sanctioned, and

most Norwegians speak their own dialects in all circumstances

The origin of Norwegian language

It began as the Proto-Indo-European language about 3500 years ago on
the PonticCaspian steppe north of the Black Sea.
Proto-Norse is thought to have evolved as a northern dialect of ProtoGermanic during the first centuries AD.
Around 1030, Christianity came to Scandinavia, bringing with it the Latin
script and the most of the new words began to enter the language from the
church.

Norwegian language itself appeared at the beginning of XXI century,

when the Roman alphabet began to enjoy popularity in the region.

Written language
Nynorsk and Bokml have a great variety of optional forms.
O
The Bokml that uses the forms that are close to Riksml
is called moderate or conservative, depending on one's viewpoint,
while the Bokml that uses the forms that are close to Nynorsk is
called radical.
O
Nynorsk has forms that are close to the original Landsml
and forms that are close to Bokml.

EXAMPLES

Nouns

Morphology

Norwegian nouns - >are inflected or declined in definiteness (indefinite/definite)

and number (singular/plural).
In some dialects, definite nouns - > are furthermore declined in case
(nominative/dative).
Norwegian has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

! except the Bergen dialect, which has only two genders: common and neuter.
Riksml and conservative Bokml traditionally have two genders like Danish,
but Nynorsk and many Norwegian regional dialects have three genders.

The declension of regular nouns depends on

gender.
Some dialects and variants of Nynorsk furthermore
have different declension of weak and strong
feminines and neuters.

Nouns
As of June 5, 2005, all
feminine nouns could once
again be written as masculine
nouns in Bokml, giving the
option of writing the language
with only two genders
common and neuter.

Adjectives
Norwegian adjectives have
two inflectional paradigms.

the weak inflection is used when

the argument is definite
the strong inflection is used when
the argument is indefinite.

In both paradigms the adjective is declined in comparison

(positive/comparative/superlative). Strong, positive adjectives are declined
in gender and number in agreement with their argument.
In Norwegian, a definite noun has a suffixed article.
when a definitive noun is preceded by an adjective (or a numeral), an
additional definite article is placed in front of the adjective, thus
producing double definiteness.

In English
the suffix -er marking the comparative,
The suffix -est marking the superlative
positive
a small boy

comparative
the boy is smaller
than the girl

superlative
that boy is
the smallest

Verbs
Norwegian verbs can be classified as either weak or strong.
Weak Verbs(regular verbs) endings are added to the root of the
verb to form the past tense.

Infinitive

Strong Verbs(irregular verbs) - It

involves a vowel change in the root,
often no ending at all.

verb ends in an "e" or a stressed

vowel

can only be used following the infinitive marker "" (to) or following the
modal auxiliary verbs or helping verbs (kan/can, skal/will, m/must,
vil/want)
Jeg skal spise n.

I will eat now.

Present Tense of Norwegian verb is done by adding "r" to the end of the
infinitive form.

Past Tense
a. Weak Verbs (or regular verbs)
Group 1 - et ending
Group
3 - de ending
Group 2 - te ending
Group
4 - dde ending

b. Strong Verbs (or

irregular verbs)
There are a little less than
100 common verbs that are
conjugated in other ways.

Group English Infinitive

Past
1 speak snakke snakker

Present English Infinitive

Present Past
snakket to take ta
tok

tar

PASSIVE VOICE
The passive voice is formed two different ways in Norwegian.
The first : an auxiliary verb,
bli (become or remain) + the past
participle of the verb.
Infinitive
singular plural
1st person

jeg blir vi blir

snakket snakket

dere blir
du
blir
sing.
pl.
snakket
2nd person
snakket
Infinitive
snakke to speak
han/hun
de blir
3rd person blir
snakket
snakket
Active voice
John sells the car.
John selger bilen.

The other way : adding -s to the end of

the verb. used after the modal helping
verbs such as "skal, kan, m, br".
Infinitive
singular plural
1st
person

jeg vi snakkes
snakkes

2nd
person

du snakkes

3rd
person

han/hun
snakkes

dere snakkes
de snakkes

Passive voice
The car is sold by John
Bilen selges av John

Pronouns
Norwegian personal pronouns are declined according to case: .
nominative / accusative
Some of the dialects that have preserved the dative in nouns, also have
a dative case instead of the accusative case in personal pronouns,
while others have accusative in pronouns and dative in nouns.
In the most comprehensive Norwegian grammar the categorization of
personal pronouns by person, gender, and number is not regarded as
inflection.
The so-called possessive, demonstrative and relative pronouns are no
longer considered pronouns.

Determiners
The closed
class of
Norwegian determiners are declined
in gender and number in agreement
with their argument.
Not all determiners are inflected.

Topical of the Norwegian language is the same as in

English
subject + verb + object
Hun kjper hest.

She buys a horse.

Danish language

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
sssss

DIALECTS
Danish can be divided into three main dialect areas:

West Danish (Jutlandic),

Insular Danish
East Danish - is considered to be intermediary between

Danish and Swedish.

MORPHOL
OGY
Articles

O Theindefinite article,en, et, is prepositive as in all

European languages that have an indefinite article,

and the origin of the word is the same as in the other
Germanic languages, namely the numeraln, t"one .
There is no indefinite article in the plural.
O Thedefinite article,-en, -et, -(e)ne, is postpositive
as in the otherScandinavian languagessave the
WestJutlandicdialect of Danish, which has the
prepositive(inflexible). Danish only uses the
postpositive article when the noun does not carry
an attributive adjective or a genitive, while
otherwise a prepositiveden, det, deis used instead.

NOUNS

There are 2 gramatical genders in Danish: common and neuter.

NOUNS WITH IREGULAR PLURALS

Tense, Aspect,
Mood
O Verbs can be divided into two main classes,
O strong/irregular verbs and
O regular/weak verbs. The regular verbs are also

divided into two classes, those that take the past

suffix -te and those that take the suffix -ede.

VERBS
Danish verbs are morphologically simple, marking very
few grammatical categories. They do not mark person
or number of subject.
In Modern Danish the verb has nine distinct forms:
Infinitive
Verbal noun
Present participle
Past participle
Present tense
Past tense
Imperative

O The infinitive always ends in a vowel, usually -e , infinitive

forms are preceded by the article at .

O The present tense takes the suffix -r, except for a few strong
verbs that have irregular non-past forms.
O The present participle ends in -ende (e.g. lbende "running"),
and the past participle ends in -et (e.g. lbet "run"), -t (e.g. kbt
"bought"). Additional composite tenses are constructed with
auxiliary verbs (e.g. at vre "to be" and at have "to have") and
participial forms:
OHun er get "She has left"
O Hun har get "She has walked"
O Hun var get "She had left"
O Hun blev siddende She remained seated (lit. "she stayed
sitting")

O The passive form takes the suffix -s:

Avisen lses hver dag ("the

newspaper is read every day").
Another passive construction uses the
auxiliary verb at blive "to
become": Avisen bliver lst hver dag.
O The imperative mood is formed

from the infinitive by removing the

final vowel:
lb! ("run!)

Adjectives

O There are three forms of the adjective in Danish:

O Basic form or common, used with singular nouns of common

gender .
For exemple billig bog, "a cheap book"; en stor dreng, "a big boy
O t-form or neuter, used with singular words of the neuter gender
("t-words") and as an adverb.
For exemple et billigt tppe, "a cheap carpet"; et stort hus, "a big
house" han bor billigt, "he has a low rent (lit. lives cheaply)"
O e-form or plural / definite, used in the plural and with a definite
article, a pronoun or a genitive.
For exemple den billige bog, "the cheap book"; hans store hus, "his
big house"
billige bger, "cheap books"; store huse, "big houses"

Three degrees of comparison

OThe Danish adjectives and adverbs are inflected according to

the three degrees of comparison.

O The pozitive
O The comparative has the ending -ere (sometimes -re)
O The superlative has the ending -st (sometimes -est): e.g.
hurtig, hurtigere, hurtigst, "quick, -er, -est"; frk, frkkere,
frkkest, "impertinent/audacious/kinky, -er, -est"; lang,
lngere, lngst , "long, -er, -est".
O The choice between -st and -est is determined by the syllable
structure (to avoid uncomfortable consonant clusters),
whereas the variant -re is used only in a few frequent
comparatives.

O In many cases, especially in longer words and

words of a Latin or Greek origin, the comparative

and superlative are formed with the adverbs mere
and mest instead: e.g. intelligent, mere intelligent,
mest intelligent.
O The comparative is inflexible, and it is not used

with the definite article (in which case Danish uses

the superlative instead). The conjunction of
comparison is end, "than".
O The superlative is inflected like the positive (the t-

form being identical to the n-form); lngst,

lngste.

SYNTAX
ODanish basic constituent order in simple sentences with both a subject and an object

is Subject-Verb-Object.
OThe verb must always be the second constituent of the sentence. There is no rule
that subjects must occur in the preverbal slot, but since subject and topic often
coincide, they often do. Therefore, whenever any sentence material that is not the
subject occurs in the preverbal position the subject is demoted to postverbal position
and the sentence order becomes VSO.
OPeter (S) s (V) Jytte (O)
O"Peter saw Jytte"

but
OI gr s (V) Peter (S) Jytte (O)
O"Yesterday, Peter saw Jytte"

Swedish
Language

SWEDIS
H

is descended from Old Norse.

Compared to its progenitor, Swedish grammar is much
less characterized by inflection. Modern Swedish has
two genders and no longer conjugates verbs based on
person or number. Its nouns have lost the morphological
distinction between nominative and accusative cases that
denoted grammatical subject and object in Old Norse in
favor of marking by word order. Swedish uses some
inflection with nouns, adjectives, and verbs. It is
generally a subjectverbobject (SVO) language with
V2 word order.

MORPHOLOGY
1. NOUNS
O Nouns have two grammatical genders: common (utrum) and

neuter (neutrum), which determine their definite forms as

well as the form of any adjectives used to describe them.
Around three quarters of all Swedish nouns are common
gender. Living beings are often common nouns, like in en
katt "cat", en hst "horse", en fluga "fly", etc.

O There are traces of the former four-case system for nouns

evidenced in that pronouns still have subject, object (based

on the old accusative and dative form) and genitive forms.
Nouns make no distinction between subject and object
forms, and the genitive is formed by adding -s to the end of
a word. This s genitive functions more like a clitic than a
proper case and is nearly identical to the possessive suffix
used in English. Note, however, that in Swedish this
genitive -s is appended directly to the word and is not
preceded by an apostrophe.

PLURAL FORMS
Nouns form the plural in a variety of ways. It is customary to classify
Swedish nouns into five declensions based on their plural indefinite endings: -or,
-ar, -er, -n, and unchanging nouns.
Nouns of the first declension are all of the common gender, these nouns end in -or.

for example: en flicka (a girl), flickor (girls)

Nouns of the second declension are also of the common gender, they all have the
plural ending -ar.

for example: en arm (an arm), armar (arms); en hund (a dog), hundar (dogs)
The third declension includes both common and neuter nouns,with the plural
form: -er.

for example: en park (a park), parker (parks), en sko (a shoe), skor (shoes)
All nouns in the fourth declension are of the neuter gender and end in a vowel in
the singular. n.

for example: ett bi (a bee), bin (bees); ett pple (an apple), pplen (apples)
Fifth declension nouns have no plural ending and they can be of common or
neuter gender.

for example: ett barn (a child), barn (children); ett djur (an animal), djur
(animals)

ARTICLES AND DEFINITE FORMS

O The indefinite article, which is only used in the

singular, is "en" for common nouns, and "ett" for

neuter nouns, e.g. en flaska (a bottle), ett brev (a
letter).
O The definite article in the singular is generally the
suffixes "-en" or "-n" for common nouns (e.g. flaskan
"the bottle"), and "-et" or "-t" for neuter nouns (e.g.
brevet "the letter") and in the plural is "-na", "-a" or
"-en", depending on declension group, for example
flaskorna (the bottles), breven (the letters).

Examples from the first

and the fourth declension

2. ADJECTIVES
Swedish adjectives are declined according to gender, number, and
definiteness of the noun.
O Strong inflection. In singular indefinite, the form used with nouns of
the common gender is the undeclined form, but with nouns of the
neuter gender a suffix -t is added. In plural indefinite an -a suffix is
added irrespective of gender. This constitutes the strong adjective
inflection, characteristic of Germanic languages:

O Weak inflection. In definite form, there is instead a weak

adjective inflection, originating from a Proto-Germanic nominal

derivation of the adjectives. The adjectives now invariably take
on an -a suffix irrespective of case and number, which was not
always the case, cf. Proto-Germanic adjectives:

3. VERBS
Verbs do not inflect for person or number in modern
standard Swedish. There are 6 spoken active-voice forms
for each verb: infinitive, imperative, present, preterite/past
supine, past participle. Subjunctive forms are considered
archaic.

Verbs may also take the passive voice. The passive voice
for any verb tense is formed by appending -s to the tense.
For verbs ending in -r, the -r is first removed before the -s
is added. Verbs ending in -er often lose the -e- as well, other
than in very formal style: strker ("strengthens") becomes
strks or strkes ("is strengthened")

O Swedish verbs are divided in four

groups:

O Examples of tenses with English

translation

SYNTAX
O Being a Germanic language, Swedish syntax shows

similarities to both English and German. Like English,

Swedish has a subjectverbobject basic word order,
but like German, utilizes verb-second word order in
main clauses, for instance after adverbs, adverbial
phrases and dependent clauses. Adjectives generally
precede the noun they determine, though the reverse is
not infrequent in poetry.

 The North Germanic languages share many lexical, grammatical,

phonological, and morphological similarities, to a more
significant extent than the West Germanic languages do.
English

It was a humid, grey summer day at the

end of June.

Swedish

Det var en fuktig, gr sommardag i slutet av

juni.

Danish

Det var en fugtig, gr sommerdag i

slutningen af juni.

Norwegia Det var en fuktig, gr sommerdag i slutten av

n
juni.
(Bokml)

Bibliography
https://
sites.google.com/site/translatefree/norwegian-lessons-2/intronorwegi
an/norwegian-sentence-format
http://www.frathwiki.com/Norwegian#Passive_Voice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_language
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_lan
guage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_gra
mmar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_lang
uage