Norwegian dialects

[1] The dialects are generally mutually intelligible, but differ significantly with regard to accent, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary.

The linguist Einar Haugen documented the particulars of the Oppdal dialect, and the writer Inge Krokann used it as a literary device.

On the other hand, newly industrialized communities near sources of hydroelectric power have developed dialects consistent with the region but in many ways unique.

Studies in such places as Høyanger, Odda, Tyssedal, Rjukan, Notodden, Sauda, and others show that koineization has effected the formation of new dialects in these areas.

Similarly, in the early 20th century a dialect closely approximating standard Bokmål arose in and around railway stations.

Until the 20th century, upward social mobility in a city like Oslo could in some cases require conforming speech to standard Riksmål.

These criteria generally provide the analytical means for identifying most dialects, though most Norwegians rely on experience to tell them apart.

The "long-syllable" (langstava) verbs lost their (unstressed) endings or had them converted to -e. The original Germanic contextual difference between the dative and accusative cases, standardized in modern German and Icelandic, has degenerated in spoken Danish and Swedish, a tendency which spread to Bokmål too.

For instance, a question can be formed without the traditional "asking-words" (how, where, what, who..) For example, the sentence Hvor mye er klokken?

In Midtre[clarification needed] you can find the following: The Old Norse diphthongs /au/, /ei/, and /øy/ have experienced monophthongization in certain dialects of modern Norwegian.

This shift originated in Old East Norse, which is reflected in the fact that Swedish and Danish overwhelmingly exhibit this change.

Monophthongization in Norway ends on the coast west of Trondheim and extends southeast in a triangle into central Sweden.

However, for the last 200 years the uvular approximant [ʁ] has been gaining ground in Western and Southern Norwegian dialects, with Kristiansand, Stavanger, and Bergen as centers.

The uvular R has also been adopted in aspiring patricians in and around Oslo, to the point that it was for some time fashionable to "import" governesses from the Kristiansand area.

In areas north of an isogloss running between Oslo and Bergen, palatalization occurs for the n (IPA [nʲ]), l ([lʲ]), t ([tʲ]) and d ([dʲ]) sounds in varying degrees.

Voiceless stops (/p, t, k/) have become voiced ([b, d, ɡ]) intervocalically after long vowels (/ˈfløːdə/, /ˈkɑːɡə/ vs. /ˈfløːtə/, /ˈkɑːkə/) on the extreme southern coast of Norway, including Kristiansand, Mandal and Stavanger.

Although used less frequently, a subtle shift takes place in conjugating a masculine noun from indefinitive to definitive, e.g., from bekk to bekkjen ([becːen], [becçen], [beçːen] or [be:t͡ʃen]).