swedish/norwegian language

To say they are mutually intelligible languages is true to an extent, but not to all people. It only really is to those who are used to listening to the languages etc. Most people in the south-east of Norway are good at understanding Swedish, mainly because they grew up with Swedish television in the 1970s and upwards. But in the north where they didn't get Swedish television this has also resulted in a harder time to understand Swedish. They get it, but they might not get as much as many others. So it is pretty realistic that they would have problems understanding him in the north, while in other regions of Norway his Swedish was never really a problem. That said, Swedes who live/work in Norway for years often turn to a sort of "svorsk" (Svensk-Norsk/Swedish-Norwegian) language where they make themselves even more understandable.

Another thing: Swedes often have a much harder time understanding Norwegian than Norwegians have understanding Swedish, this is much because Swedish culture (like television, music and so on) was more dominating and influentual on Norway than the other way around. For example they never used to get Norwegian television in Sweden. Norway always used to be the little brother of Scandinavia and this has resulted in its citizens being more knowledgeable about their "bigger brothers" than the other way around. This hopefully has started to change now that Norway is rolling around in wealth from their oil industry and has really taken on the part as the most successful and dominating of the 3 Scandinavian countries.

Personally I have no problems understanding Swedish, with Danish however it is a little tougher, because when Danes speak it almost sounds like they have a potato stuck in their throat. I know for a fact that Norwegians have a FAR easier time understanding Danish than Swedes do though, as Danish and Norwegian is more related (especially visible in written form). Also, Norway was in a union with Denmark and then with Sweden. Sweden and Denmark however never had this historic tie so as a result Norway's bond with Sweden and Denmark has always been better than it has between Denmark-Sweden (don't get me wrong, they're still close but Norwegians feel they can relate even closer to their fellow Scandinavian countries than perhaps the other two does).

A late and maybe useless reply, but I want to comment on the interrogation scene with the girl's boyfriend. I reckon it's pretty obvious that the boyfriend understands Jonas completely, but that he wants to give the impression towards the officers that he's not to be *beep* with. Therefore Engstrøm, being a Swedish detective in Norway in a "why the hell is HE here?!" kinda way, is an easy target. He's now made his mark.

This also explains the fact that no other Norwegian has problems with Jonas' Swedish tongue during the rest of the film. Renaldo has already given you plenty of info about this fact already :)

There's been a lot of back and forth and this and that about this, the bottom line is, norwegians, Danes and Swedes mostly understand each other like for instance an American and an Irish person would. Some words might be different, but when push comes to shove, we understand each other just fine.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Norwegian_Bokmal_and_ Standard_Danish:

"Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) can read each other's languages without great difficulty. This holds especially true of Danish and Norwegian. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. Danish speakers generally do not understand Norwegian as well as the extremely similar written norms would lead one to expect. Some Norwegians also have problems understanding Danish, but according to a recent scientific investigation Norwegians are better at understanding both Danish and Swedish than Danes and Swedes are at understanding Norwegian. Nonetheless, Danish is widely reported to be the most incomprehensible language of the three."
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"The difference in pronunciation between Norwegian and Danish is much more striking than the difference between Norwegian and Swedish. Although written Norwegian is very similar to Danish, spoken Norwegian more closely resembles Swedish.
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It is often humorously claimed that Danes have an easier time understanding drunk Norwegians than sober ones, as the former often use a more slurred manner of speech that resembles Danish."

Not that it matters much, but historically, swedish and danish are more closely related than norwegian is with either of the other two. This is ofcourse no longer as obvious, since the most common type of norwegian (bokmål), is actually best described as written danish spoken with norwegian pronounciation (due to the fact that norway belonged to denmark for so long). There's another standard for written norwegian called "Nynorsk" (the result of an attempt to restore a more genuine language), which shows more noticable connections to icelandic and faroese (forming the western wing of the nordic languages). To make it a bit more complicated though, in some aspects Nynorsk also take on prominently swedish traits. When it comes down to it, the scandinavian languages are perhaps best described as continuum of dialects, rather than separate languages.

When I lived in Austria I knew a few Norwegians and was suprised that I knew what a few norwegians spoke, but a girl that lived in another region had such bizarre dialect I had absolutely no clue. The Norwegians said however they understood every word I spoke, so they spoke english and i replayed in swedish... hehe

At one point, this thread got into the controversy of the linguistic imperialism of USA-English. However, I'd also take note of the fact that the Norwegian film's original title is "Insomnia," instead of "Søvnløshet." Talk about "linguistic imperialism"! :)

Im Arme der Götter wuchs ich groß.--Friedrich Hölderlin