Old Norwegian ( Norwegian : gammelnorsk and gam(m)alnorsk ), also called Norwegian Norse , is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian .
30-445: Its distinction from Old West Norse is mostly a matter of convention, but it is also the period when the language begun to develop its immense diversity. Old Norwegian is typically divided into the following dialect areas: No sources appear to exist from which the dialectal variation of the rest of Norway might be discerned. There do, however, seem to be reasons to believe the region of Oppland constituted its own dialect area, though it
60-427: A height based system of vowel harmony : Following stressed high vowels ( /i/ , /iː/ , /y/ , /yː/ , /u/ , /uː/ ) and diphthongs ( /ei/ , /ey/ , /au/ ), the unstressed vowels /i/ and /u/ appear as i , u , while they are represented as e , o following long non-high vowels ( /eː/ , /øː/ , /oː/ , /æː/ , /aː/ ). The situation following stressed short non-high vowels ( /e/ , /æ/ , /ø/ , /a/ , /o/ , /ɔ/ )
90-579: A lack of its graphical representation. Old Norwegian had alternative dual and plural first person pronouns, mit, mér, to the Common Norse vit, vér. Norn is an extinct language derived from the North Germanic language family that died out in the late 19th or early 20th century. It was primarily spoken in the Northern Isles , or Orkney (Orkneyjar) and Shetland (Hjaltland), and Caithness on
120-513: A main len . Up to 1660 the four principal len were headquartered at the major fortresses Bohus Fortress , Akershus Fortress , Bergenhus Fortress and the fortified city of Trondheim . The sub-regions corresponded to the church districts for the Lutheran church in Norway. These four principal len were in the 1530s divided into approximately 30 smaller regions. From that point forward through
150-493: Is upp which means 'upper'. The last element is lǫnd which is the plural form of 'land'. In 1757, the inner parts of the great Akershus amt were separated and given the name Oplandenes Amt . This was divided in 1781 into Christians Amt (named after the king Christian VII ) and Hedemarkens Amt . The name/form was changed to Kristians Amt in 1877 after an official spelling reform that changed ch to k (see also Kristiania , Kristiansand and Kristiansund ). In 1919,
180-634: Is a mountain on the border between the municipalities of Sel and Dovre in Oppland. The county was conventionally divided into traditional districts. These are the Gudbrandsdalen , Valdres , Toten , Hadeland and Land . Oppland included the towns Lillehammer , Gjøvik , Otta , and Fagernes , and Norway's two highest mountains, Glittertind and Galdhøpiggen , Valdres and the Gudbrand Valley being popular attractions. The Gudbrand Valley surrounds
210-601: Is administered by the Governor of Svalbard , and Jan Mayen is administered by the County Governor of Nordland (but not part of Nordland). Every county has two main organisations, both with underlying organisations. From the consolidation to a single kingdom, Norway was divided into a number of geographic regions that each had its own legislative assembly or Thing , such as Gulating ( Western Norway ) and Frostating ( Trøndelag ). The second-order subdivision of these regions
240-426: Is generally considered the last native speaker of the language, dying in 1850, though many claims describe the language, probably in verses and songs, spoken in the islands of Foula and Unst as late as the 20th century. The Black Death struck Norway in 1349, killing over 60% of the population. This significantly affected the development of Norwegian down the line. The language in Norway after 1350 up to about 1550
270-462: Is generally referred to as Middle Norwegian. The language went through several changes: morphological paradigms were simplified, including the loss of grammatical cases and the levelling of personal inflection on verbs. A vowel reduction also took place, in some dialects, including in parts of Norway, reducing many final unstressed vowels in a word to a common "e". The phonemic inventory also underwent changes. The dental fricatives represented by
300-521: Is much debated and was apparently different in the individual dialects. The u -umlaut of short /a/ (written ǫ in normalized Old Norse) is not as consistently graphically distinguished from non-umlauted /a/ as in Old Icelandic, especially in writings from the Eastern dialect areas. It is still a matter of academic debate whether this is to be interpreted phonologically as a lack of umlaut or merely as
330-517: Is now Vestfold county: In 1760 Norway had the following stiftamt and amt : From 1919 each amt was renamed a fylke (plural fylke(r) ) (county) and the amtmann was now titled fylkesmann (county governor). The county numbers are from the official numbering system ISO 3166-2:NO , which originally was set up to follow the coastline from the Swedish border in the southeast to the Russian border in
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#1732849030226360-530: Is similar to the same root as "folk". It is similar in the minority languages in Norway: Northern Sami : fylka , Southern Sami : fylhke , Lule Sami : fylkka , Kven : fylkki . Prior to 1918, the counties were known as amt (singular) or amter (plural). Below is a list of the Norwegian counties, with their current administrative centres. The counties are administered both by appointees of
390-734: Is unclear whether this would fall within the Western or Eastern dialect group, as well as that Greenlandic Old Norse had begun to develop its own linguistic variety. One of the most important early differences between Old Norwegian and Old Icelandic is that h in the consonant combinations hl- , hn- and hr- was lost in Old Norwegian around the 11th century, while being preserved in Old Icelandic. Thus, one has e.g. Old Icelandic hlíð ' slope ', hníga ' curtsey ' and hringr 'ring' and Old Norwegian líð , níga and ringr , respectively . Many Old Norwegian dialects feature
420-881: The Eidsivating , located in Oplandene with the seat at Eidsvoll : Counties under the Gulating , located in Vestlandet with the seat at Gulen : Counties under the Frostating , located in Trøndelag with the seat at Frosta : Counties not attached to a thing : Finnmark (including northern Troms ), the Faroe Islands , the Orkney Islands , Shetland (the Shetland Islands ),
450-578: The Hebrides , the Isle of Man , Iceland and Greenland were Norwegian skattland ("taxed countries"), and did not belong to any known counties or assembly areas. From the end of the 12th century, Norway was divided into several syssel . The head of the syssel was the syslemann , who represented the king locally. The following shows a reconstruction of the different syssel in Norway c. 1300, including sub- syssel where these seem established. From 1308,
480-481: The beginning of the 17th century the number of subsidiary len was reduced, while the composition of the principal len became more stable. From 1660 Norway had nine principal len comprising 17 subsidiary len : Len written as län continues to be used as the administrative equivalent of county in Sweden to this day. Each len was governed by a lenman . With the royal decree of 19 February 1662, each len
510-485: The counties and to merge them with other counties to form larger ones, reducing the number of counties from 19 to 11, which was implemented on 1 January 2020. This sparked popular opposition, with some calling for the reform to be reversed. The Storting voted to partly undo the reform on 14 June 2022, with Norway to have 15 counties from 1 January 2024. Three of the newly merged counties, namely Vestfold og Telemark , Viken and Troms og Finnmark , were dissolved and
540-463: The first-level administrative divisions of Norway . The counties are further subdivided into 357 municipalities ( Norwegian : kommune ). The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen are outside the county divisions and they are ruled directly from the national level. The capital city of Oslo is both a county and a municipality. In 2017, the Solberg government decided to abolish some of
570-567: The letters þ and ð disappeared from the Norwegian language, either merging with their equivalent stop consonants , represented by t and d , respectively, or being lost altogether. Oppland Oppland [ˈɔ̂plɑn] is a former county in Norway which existed from 1781 until its dissolution on 1 January 2020. The old Oppland county bordered the counties of Trøndelag , Møre og Romsdal , Sogn og Fjordane , Buskerud , Akershus , Oslo and Hedmark . The county administration
600-407: The name Kristians Amt was changed (back) to Opland fylke , and the spelling Oppland was approved in 1950. The coat of arms was granted in 1989, and it showed two Pulsatilla vernalis . [REDACTED] Oppland County (Christians Amt) had a total of 26 municipalities: Counties of Norway There are 15 counties in Norway . The 15 counties are administrative regions that are
630-428: The national government and by their own elected bodies. The county numbers are from the official numbering system ISO 3166-2:NO , which originally was set up to follow the coastline from the Swedish border in the southeast to the Russian border in the northeast, but with the numbering has changed with county mergers. The island territories of Svalbard and Jan Mayen lie outside of the county system of Norway. Svalbard
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#1732849030226660-400: The northeast, but the numbering has changed with county mergers. The number 13, 16 and 17 were dropped, and the number 50 was added to account for changes over the years. The lack of a county number 13 is due to the city of Bergen no longer being its own county, and is unrelated to fear of the number 13 . In 2018, Sør-Trøndelag was merged with Nord-Trøndelag into
690-526: The northern tip of Scotland . Little remains of Norn other than a few literary works in Orkney Norn and Shetland Norn, while Caithness Norn is expected to have died out in the 15th century, replaced by Scots. Sources from the 17th and 18th century report that Norn, often misidentified as Danish , Norse or Norwegian , was in a rapid decline, although prevailing in Shetland more than Orkney. Walter Sutherland
720-492: The old counties existing before the reform re-established with a few minor changes as some municipalities merged across former county borders and some switched counties during the 2020 local government reform ( Kommunereformen i Norge [ no ] ). The counties in Norway are called fylke (singular) and fylker (plural). This name comes from the Old Norse word fylki which means "district" or "county", but it
750-459: The river Gudbrandsdalslågen , and includes the area extending from Jotunheimen down to Bagn at Begna River . It is a well known place for skiing and winter sports. The main population centres in this area were Beitostølen and Fagernes . Eight of the ten highest mountains in Norway are located in the western part of Oppland. In Norse times the inner parts of Norway were called Upplǫnd which means 'the upper countries'. The first element
780-499: The term len (plural len ) in Norway signified an administrative region roughly equivalent to today's counties. The historic len was an important administrative entity during the period of Dano-Norwegian unification after their amalgamation as one state, which lasted for the period 1536 –1814. At the beginning of the 16th century the political divisions were variable, but consistently included four main len and approximately 30 smaller sub-regions with varying connections to
810-438: Was commonly known as " Opplandene ". In 1781, the government split the area into two: Hedemarkens amt and Kristians amt (later renamed Hedmark and Oppland. In 2017, the government approved the merger of the two counties. There were several names debated, but the government settled on Innlandet . Oppland extended from the lakes Mjøsa and Randsfjorden to the mountains Dovrefjell , Jotunheimen and Rondane . Gråhøe
840-495: Was designated an amt (plural amt ) and the lenmann was titled amtmann , from German Amt (office), reflecting the bias of the Danish court of that period. After 1671 Norway was divided into four principal amt or stiftsamt and there were nine subordinate amt : From 1730 Norway had the following amt : At this time there were also two counties ( Norwegian : grevskap ) controlled by actual counts , together forming what
870-551: Was into fylker , such as Egdafylke and Hordafylke . In 1914, the historical term fylke was brought into use again to replace the term amt introduced during the union with Denmark . Current day counties (fylker) often, but not necessarily, correspond to the historical areas. Counties ( folkland ) under the Borgarting , located in Viken with the seat at Sarpsborg : Counties (first three fylke , last two bilandskap ) under
900-403: Was located in the town of Lillehammer . On 1 January 2020, the neighboring counties of Oppland and Hedmark were merged to form the new Innlandet county. Both Oppland and Hedmark were the only landlocked counties of Norway , and the new Innlandet county is the only landlocked county in Norway. The two counties had historically been one county that was divided in 1781. Historically, the region
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