More about Norway Norway is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe with about 13 inhabitants per square kilometre. About 70% of the inhabitants live in the cities Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Stavanger in the coastal regions. In rural regions inside the country, the population is concentrated in the valleys. In the 20th century, the populations increased from about 2 million to about 5,4 million due to a high birth rate and immigration. Immigrants do mainly come from Poland, Sweden, Pakistan, Somalia, Iran and Germany. The Sámi people, an ethnic minority group living in the North have their own parliament in Karasjok. The Norwegian language is a North Germanic language. The written language is divided into two varieties: About 80% of the local people wright “Bokmål” (literally: book language) which was influenced by the Danish language. “Nynorsk” (New Norwegian) is the other official language that is written by about 10- 15% of the local people. Nynorsk was formed by Ivar Aasen from the dialects in the western part of the country and is nowadays used on the west coast, the fjord regions and in Telemark. Norwegian pupils learn both languages at school. In the Sámi regions, the Sámi language is a compulsory subject. In Norway, the people speak many different dialects. About 80% of the population speak a dialect that is different from the standard Norwegian “Bokmål”. I did not manage to find out exactly how many dialects there are in Norway. The Norwegian people say there are as many dialects as places where people live. As it happens, they speak another dialect in places, which are 20 km away from each other. Here are some expressions for “I”: eg,je, jeg, i, eig, e, ægg, æ, æig, æg, egg, me, jæ. By the way, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish people understand each other very well.