Bouvet Island Languages

Bouvet Island is a Norwegian dependency found in the Atlantic Ocean. The island is uninhabited save for scientists who visit to set up research stations. The island has no permanent inhabitants and therefore no official language. Considering the island is a dependency of Norway, Norwegian and English are the languages used in the running of the island’s affairs. The island is not part of Norway, but Norway governs it.

Bouvet Island is among the most remote island in the world. The island covers a total area of 19 square miles, and it was named after Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier who first sighted the island on January 1, 1739. It is difficult to get the number of speakers of a particular language on the island as the island is not inhabited and the people occupying the island are temporary residents. Scientists from different parts of the world set up scientific research stations in the island for a short time. The estimated population of the island as of 2006 was zero.

The Norwegian language is related to the Swedish and Danish languages and any individual speaking one of the languages can understand any of the other two. Some of the useful phrases in Norwegian language include “Ja” which means yes, “nei” which means no, “vaer sa snil” means please, “Tusen Takk” means thank you, “vaer sa god” means you are welcome, while “unnskyld” means excuse me.

There are no minority languages on the island as the island does not have any inhabitants. The minority languages in Norway include Romani, Swedish, Finnish, and Russian. There are also several foreign languages used, and these include English, French, German, Swedish, Finnish and Russian. English is spoken by around 80% of the general population in Norway.