Norway has two official written standards for one spoken language, and no single correct way of saying it out loud. That sounds like a curiosity. It is actually the clearest example of a question every language asks quietly, and that most translation tools answer for you without ever telling you they did.
Both are official. Both are taught. Pupils pick one as their main written form and learn the other alongside it. Nobody in Norway finds this strange, and almost nobody outside it knows.
It grew out of the written language Norway inherited from its long union with Denmark, reformed step by step into something Norwegian. It is what most newspapers, most books and most churches use, and it is what MulingStream carries.
Assembled in the nineteenth century by Ivar Aasen, who travelled the country collecting how people actually spoke and built a written standard from the countryside rather than from the capital. It is strongest in the west, and it is somebody's church language.
And then there is how people actually talk. Norwegians speak their own dialect in public life, on national broadcast and from the pulpit. There is no single spoken standard anybody is expected to switch into.
Norwegian is one of the languages that can do all three things. Most of the 183 cannot.
Written as Bokmål, in every direction. That is a deliberate choice and the honest limit of it is further down this page.
For centuries Norway wrote Danish. When the written language began to be made Norwegian it was reformed rather than replaced, so Bokmål still carries the shape of where it came from. You can watch it happen in a single sentence.
Omskærelsen er ikke den ydre på kroppen, men hjertets omskærelse ved Ånden.
Romans chapter two. The word is not about the body at all, which is exactly where a word matcher goes wrong: it lands on the surgical procedure and stays there.
Omskjærelsen er ikke det ytre på kroppen, men hjertets omskjærelse ved Ånden.
Skj where Danish has sk. Det where Danish has den. Small, consistent, and the reason a Norwegian reads Danish comfortably and still knows instantly that it is not Norwegian.
Real output from the live translation path, unedited, Danish source. The closeness is real and it is also the trap: close is not the same as right, and a congregation notices the difference long before it notices the meaning.
Both chosen because the ordinary Norwegian word and the church Norwegian word are not the same word, which is the exact place a word matcher gives you something accurate and wrong.
Av nåde er dere frelst ved tro, og det kommer ikke fra dere selv, det er Guds gave.
Danish source: Af nåde er I frelst ved tro, og det skyldes ikke jer selv, det er Guds gave.
Word for word would give you Mercy and rescued. Both are real Norwegian words, both are defensible, and neither is what a church means. Ephesians chapter two, arriving with nåde and frelst intact.
Kjødets gjerninger er tydelige nok, sier han, og de står i motsetning til Åndens frukt.
Danish source: Kødets gerninger er tydelige nok, siger han, og de står i modsætning til Åndens frugt.
Word for word would give you Meat. The everyday Norwegian word is kjøtt and it means what is on the plate. The church form is kjød, and it is the one that came out. Galatians chapter five.
Unedited output from the same path that runs a live room. How translation from meaning works
Norwegian Bible editions are published in Bokmål and in Nynorsk, and a congregation that reads one does not experience the other as a neutral alternative. It is somebody else's version of their own language.
This is why the Nynorsk question is a pastoral one and not a settings one. A Nynorsk congregation reading Bokmål captions understands every word and is quietly being told that theirs is the second option.
Names, place names and the words your own community uses are the ones no translation should be allowed to guess at, in either standard. Those go in Keywords, and they survive intact into every language in the room.
Said plainly, because you will find this out anyway and it is better that you find it out here.
Norwegian is carried as Bokmål. Every Norwegian reads Bokmål without difficulty, so nothing breaks. But if your congregation writes Nynorsk, the captions will not be in your written form, and we are not going to pretend that is the same thing.
Nobody should change how they speak, and most of the time it is fine. The words most likely to be guessed at are the ones particular to your valley, your coast or your congregation. Those are exactly the words Keywords exists for.
Norwegian can be heard rather than read, and what it sounds like is a written standard read aloud, not a person from any particular place. Norwegians notice that. It is clear and it is not local.
Each one is a reason a guest, or a neighbour, gets on better or worse than everybody expects.
In many countries you switch to a standard form for public speaking. In Norway you do not. People read the news, preach and give evidence in the dialect they grew up with, and nobody considers it careless.
Norwegian is often said to be the easiest of the three Scandinavian languages for the other two to follow: written like Danish, spoken closer to Swedish. Norwegians end up doing the understanding for everybody.
Bokmål and Nynorsk were not an accident of drift. They were competing answers to one question, argued over in schools, parliament and print for generations. Language here is a thing people have chosen.
Six more with pages of their own. Three of them are host languages like Norwegian, written for the church rather than the guest.
All 183 languages · How churches use this · Service, Sunday and Week passes
Not today. Norwegian is carried as Bokmål. Every Norwegian reads Bokmål without difficulty, so nothing stops working, but for a Nynorsk congregation it is not your own written form and we would rather tell you here than let you discover it on a Sunday.
Usually not, and nobody should change how they speak for a piece of software. The words most likely to be guessed at are the ones particular to your part of the country. Put those in Keywords before the service and they stop being a question.
Written Norwegian is close to written Danish, and spoken Norwegian is close to spoken Swedish, so most Nordic guests get by. Getting by is not the same as following. A fast preacher plus a strong dialect is exactly where getting by stops, and your guest will not tell you that it did.
Yes, in Bokmål, including the sign-up and the screen your guests join on. A volunteer setting up a room never has to do it in English.
Nothing to install, no card, and your guests need nothing but the phone already in their pocket.