(Free image from Pixabay; no copyright.)

Ever thought about all the letters we don’t say out loud – like the h in ’hour’? Even though Norwegian is spelt in a more straightforward way than English, it also has its share of stumme bokstaver (silent letters, literally ”mute letters”).

Hvem, hva, hvor og hvorfor? (Who, what, where and why?) The H of the question words is not pronounced at all… In fact, it’s silent both in front of V and J. Hvem vil hjem? [vem vil yem] (Who wants to go home?) Hopefully, this doesn’t make you scream hjelp! [yelp] (help!) 🙂

A Norwegian speciality is the hushing of the final T in the ending -et (the) and the word det (it, that): Det hvite huset bak epletreet [deh veeteh hooseh bak epletreh-eh] (The white house behind the apple tree.) This ”definite T” is important to keep some words apart in spelling: De er hjemme. (They’re home.) vs. Det er hjemmet. (That’s the home.) – NB! In other cases, the final T stays: Marit kastet en tomat. (Marit threw a tomato.)

In common (Bokmål) Norwegian, D is usually silent in the combination ND: land [lann] (land), stranda [stranna] (the beach)… But: bonde [bonde] (farmer). D is always silent in the combination RD: jord [yor] (earth), ord [or] (words). Final D is also often silent, especially in common everyday words: Han er alltid glad. [han er allti gla] (he’s always happy).

G is silent in front of J: gjerne [yerne] (with pleasure), gjemsel [yemsel] (hide and seek). Words ending in -lig or -ig always lose the G part: veldig hemmelig [veldee hemmelee] (very secret). And og (and) is frequently pronounced without the G – which makes Norwegian schoolchildren wonder whether they should write husk å kjøpe smør (remember to buy butter – correct) or *husk og kjøpe smør* (remember and buy butter – wrong…)

There are probably other silent letters in Norwegian that I have overlooked, but here at least you have an intro to get past the worst hurdles when reading Norwegian aloud…