Old Norwegian

Old Norwegian (Norwegian: gammelnorsk and gam(m)alnorsk), also called Norwegian Norse, is an early form of the Norwegian language that was spoken between the 11th and 14th century; it is a transitional stage between Old West Norse and Middle Norwegian.

Its distinction from Old West Norse is mostly a matter of convention, but it is also the period when the language begun to develop its immense diversity. Old Norwegian is typically divided into the following dialect areas:

• Western Norway:
  • Trøndelag
  • Northwest Norway (Romsdal, Sunnmøre, Nordfjord and the coast of Sogn)
  • Southwest Norway:
    • Outer Southwest (Rogaland and Hordaland)
    • Inner Southwest (Agder, western Telemark, Setesdal, continental Sogn, Hordaland and Rogaland, including Iceland and the Faroe Islands)
• Eastern Norway:
  • Southeast Norway
  • East Norway Proper

No sources appear to exist from which the dialectal variation of the rest of Norway might be discerned. There do, however, seem to be reasons to believe the region of Oppland constituted its own dialect area, though it is unclear whether this would fall within the Western or Eastern dialect group, as well as that Greenlandic Old Norse had begun to develop its own linguistic variety.