One thing that many “invandere” immigrants have said about Norweigian is that it lacks specific words to express concepts. These people are used to other languages that are “richer” in vocabulary. Vocabulary that has a multitude of words that express different nuances for the same concept.

I have heard it said, both by Norwegians and non-norwegians, that Norwegian is a poor language. It is a fact that Norwegian has fewer words in use compared to other languages, but since it reflects the Norwegian culture – it should not be considered to be poor.

The 20th century is seen as a century of nation building here. One of the most important aspects of that movement was increased education for all. I can see more and more non-norwegian words introduced into daily conversation – probably due to the need to express more nuanced ideas into the Norwegian vocabulary.