there are two Norwegian languages? Why, and which one is the main one?
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There’s only one Norwegian language, it just has two writing systems. To use a rather clunky analogy, think of Serbo-Croatian: it is a single spoken language, but can be written in either the Latin or Cyrillic alphabets. The two varieties of written Norwegian are similar except that they are written in the same alphabet, but with different spelling standards.
From the 16th to the 19th century Norway and Denmark were a single country, and during this time virtually all writing was done in Danish instead of Norwegian. People continued to speak Norwegian and the language continued to evolve, as all languages do, and of course at this time in history most people were illiterate anyway. By the time Norway became independent and its people wanted to write in their own language again, a new writing system had to be created. Ultimately the Norwegians couldn’t agree on one so the government declared two to be officially equal: Bokmål, which is more reflective of Danish spelling; and Nynorsk, which is closer to how Norwegian is spoken. For many years a long-term goal was to merge the two into a single writing standard called Samnorsk, but this has been abandoned. Today, all Norwegians are educated in both writing standards but Bokmål is much more common as the “primary” written language, and tends to be favored by large cities in the east and north while Nynorsk is more popular in the west.
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