Torunn Reksten

Lovely to be here.

You wouldn't have heard this, but in the introduction, I suggested that Norway is known in many circles as the poster child for plain language.

Shortly, I'm going to ask you to explore that proposition with me.

But before we do that, I want to take you back to some basics about the Norwegian language, what it is, how many there are, how they get taught to whom.

and when, and how that language diversity might inform the approaches that regulators have ultimately had to take to regulating language in Norway.

Poster child, no less.

That's an exciting concept.

I haven't heard of that before.

But we have in Norway two written varieties of the Norwegian language.

And children need to learn both in school, but you choose the main language from year one.

Then students, they learn also English in school.

And students in the Sami area, the Sapmi, they would very often learn Sami language.

Or we also have other national minority languages like Kven, which is a variant of the Finnish language.

So there are different approaches to that, depending on where you live, of course.

But for the Norwegian language, one of the language variety is much larger than the other one.

But the duality really affects our society in both good ways and in more challenging ways, I would say.

The two language varieties have been regulated in language acts for a very long time because they are equal by law.

But I think from January 1st, 2022, we got a new language act, which reflects the entire language policy and our language diversity.

So we have sections for Sami languages and for national minority languages as well in that act.

I'm not sure I'm answering your question because you pushed the on button and I can talk about this for hours.

You've given me a lot, so I want to break it down a little bit.

You mentioned the two languages that children learn before they get a bit older and start learning English.

What are those two languages?

Well, usually in kindergarten and in school, you will choose one language variety.

And it's very often a geographical choice.