Most of the people in Norway speak Norwegian, a North Germanic language closely related to Danish and Swedish. There are two official variants of the language, ''Bokmål'' (also called ''Riksmål'') strongly influenced by Danish; and a more rural version, ''Nynorsk'', based Ivar Aasen's work to develop a standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål'') based on local dialects. | Most of the people in Norway speak Norwegian, a North Germanic language closely related to Danish and Swedish. There are two official variants of the language, ''Bokmål'' (also called ''Riksmål'') strongly influenced by Danish; and a more rural version, ''Nynorsk'', based Ivar Aasen's work to develop a standard Norwegian language (''Landsmål'') based on local dialects. |