Stuff I Did Not Know: Norwegian

Norway has two official languages: "Bokmål"  ("book language) and "Nynorsk"("new Norwegian").    There are at least two other written forms without official status: "Riksmål" ("national lanaguage") and Høgnorsk ("high Norwegian"). There are many local spoken dialects. There is no official elite standard speech, though "standard østnorsk" ("standard east Norse") is the form usually taught to foreigners.  Mainland Norway covers about 148746 square miles, about the size of Montana.  It has a population of 4.8 million, about the same as Alabama.