# Common Scandinavian



## Hulalessar

I live in Spain and know a few Scandinavians who live here. Quite often Swedes will talk to Danes, Danes to Norwegians and so on. They all seem to get along fine understanding each other (although one Swede told me he always speaks in English when he goes to Copenhagen). I sometimes ask what language they are speaking. Sometimes they laugh and say "Scandinavian!" and other times that each is speaking in their own language. Sometimes they say that they speak their own language, but modify it a bit.

Information is rather conflicting. Now I know that a designation of a way of speaking is as much political as anything and it is sometimes said that there is only "Scandinavian", but I am interested to know what the relationship is between the languages of Sweden, Norway and Denmark.

If you look at a language tree you see that Swedish is classed with Danish as "East Scandinavian" whilst Norwegian is classed as "West Scandinavian". However, mention is often made of "classical Dano-Norwegian" - apparently the language that Ibsen wrote in. Further, when you read about Norwegian the terms Nynorsk, Bokmål, Riksmål and Landsmål come up.

I have heard Norwegian described as "Danish spoken in Swedish" - suggesting that it has similar sounds to Swedish (and to me the two do indeed sound the same) but there must be some significant differences if one is classed as Western and the other as Eastern Scandinavian.

Is there any significant diglossia in any parts of any Scandinavian country so that a spoken form in one country resembles the written form in another?

It is all very confusing. Can anyone enlighten me?


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## Tjahzi

Hello Hulalessar! 

You seem to have summed it all up pretty well. The continental Scandinavian languages, that is, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, are indeed similar enough to the degree that speakers of these languages can communicate with each otehr withing having to speak any other language than their own. 

I think the information that might confuse you is the classification of Norwegian as a "West Scandinavian" language. This is a etymological and classical distinction and is indeed correct based on those premises. However, having been separated from its West Scandinavian siblings, Icelandic and Faroese, Norwegian has, for obvious reasons, become quite influenced by Swedish and Danish, and what has influenced Danish and Swedish has influenced Norwegian as well. With this in mind, one might as well group the Scandinavian languages in a "continental group", consisting of Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, and an "insular group", consisting of Icelandic and Faroese. What makes this distinction more accurate is that Norwegian has, as mentioned, been influenced in a way similar to that of Swedish and Danish, unlike Icelandic and Faroese, which are much preserved. So in short, no, the difference between the "East Scandinavian" languages Swedish and Danish and the "West Scandinavian" language Norwegian is not that big actually.

Your information about oral and written understanding among the languages is also correct. The written languages of Norwegian and Danish are very similar (the Norwegian is based on Danish) which the actuall sounds of Norwegian is more similar to the sounds of Swedish rather than Danish. This is also the reason why the form of communication with lowest degree of understaning among these languages is spoken Danish to Swedes (and as a native Swede, I can confirm this). In fact, Norwegians understand the three languages better than both Swedes and Danes, despite the latter ones, officially, belonging to the same subdivsion! The (english) wkipedia article on "Scandinavian languages" presents some more information regarding this issue. 

You might also want to check out this thread on mutual Scandinavian intelligibility.  http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=256094


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## Sepia

Hulalessar said:


> I live in Spain and know a few Scandinavians who live here. Quite often Swedes will talk to Danes, Danes to Norwegians and so on. They all seem to get along fine understanding each other (although one Swede told me he always speaks in English when he goes to Copenhagen). I sometimes ask what language they are speaking. Sometimes they laugh and say "Scandinavian!" and other times that each is speaking in their own language. Sometimes they say that they speak their own language, but modify it a bit.
> ...



Yes that is not too unusual and sometimes it really makes communication/conversation flow more freely. 

There was, however, an almost official attempt of creating a Scandinavian language going on around 1980. I don't know how long they actually tried - or maybe they have not given up yet.

The idea was to construct an artificial mix of all three languages to make it clearly comprehensible to all three groups. This was to be used mainly in printed information directed towards all three nations. It was used extensively in the brochures from the Danish Tourist Board/Dansk Turistråd (which is a dept. of "Handelsministeriet"). In my opinion it looked more like a light mix of Norwegian and Danish rather than an interscandinavian mix. I cannot believe that the Swedes found that easier to understand than real Danish or Norwegian.


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## Tjahzi

Interesting information Sepia! I never heard anything about that project. How did you find out about it, do you know any more about it, do you still have an "Onterscandinavian" text sample?

I did some googling, and although failing to find out anything about any "Interscandinavian langauge" project, I found a very interesting link to a page thoroughly explaining the understanding and relation between the Scandinavian languages.

http://ancilla.unice.fr/~brunet/pub/ulla.html


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## Sepia

Tjahzi said:


> Interesting information Sepia! I never heard anything about that project. How did you find out about it, do you know any more about it, do you still have an "Onterscandinavian" text sample?
> 
> I did some googling, and although failing to find out anything about any "Interscandinavian langauge" project, I found a very interesting link to a page thoroughly explaining the understanding and relation between the Scandinavian languages.
> 
> http://ancilla.unice.fr/~brunet/pub/ulla.html




I never really took it too seriously, but if you send a request about information on Denmark in Danish from the tourist board you may have luck that some of the old "Scancinavian" texts are still in circulation. Or write a letter to some of the top brass and ask them. I only became aware of it because I used to work with the Danish Tourist Board for a short while.


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## Pteppic

Regarding Norwegian being a western-Scandinavian language, that's only partially true. For more than 400 years we were a part of Denmark, and Danish was the official writing standard, which of course led to extensive Danish influence on official Norwegian language, and the urban elite all spoke Danish with a Norwegian twist. Out in the rural areas, though, the influence was much more moderate. Today, Swedes and Danes usually have no problem understanding Norwegians from the Oslo area, but with people who speak a different (Western Scandinavian) dialect, they have more difficulties. 

And now the riksmål/bokmål/nynorsk/landsmål thing. Norway has two official writing standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk. The former is based on the Danish spoken, as I said above, by the educated classes in the 19th century (basically Danish with Eastern Norwegian pronunciation and a few minor local differences). The latter was developed in the 1840s and -50s by Ivar Aasen, who wanted a written standard based on dialects, where the original Norwegian language was better preserved. It was given status of official writing standard in 1889. Until 1929, Nynorsk was known as Landsmål, though the name is still in used today. For a long time the goal of the authorities was to merge the two standards, and several language reforms were introduced to this end. After a the reform of 1938, though, the more conservative adherents to both writing standards had had enough, and simply refused to comply with the reform. Today, "Riksmål" usually refers to pre-1938 Bokmål standard (with some marginal differences), while pre-1938 Nynorsk is called Høgnorsk.


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## Hulalessar

Tjahzi said:


> Interesting information Sepia! I never heard anything about that project. How did you find out about it, do you know any more about it, do you still have an "Onterscandinavian" text sample?
> 
> I did some googling, and although failing to find out anything about any "Interscandinavian langauge" project, I found a very interesting link to a page thoroughly explaining the understanding and relation between the Scandinavian languages.


 
A very interesting paper.


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## sdr083

Pteppic said:


> Today, Swedes and Danes usually have no problem understanding Norwegians from the Oslo area, but with people who speak a different (Western Scandinavian) dialect, they have more difficulties.


 
You might find it interesting that all the Swedes I have spoken to tell me they generally find it easier to understand Western Norwegian dialects.  I found it strange at first, but then thought it could have something to do with the fact that Eastern Norwegian dialects have been more influenced by Danish.  Just a theory.  Lived with two Finland-Swedes over the last year and the only words I used that they didn't understand, the other Norwegian speaker also had trouble with  (I'm from Indre Sogn). It surprises me that test results show that Norwegians only understand 88% of what is said in Swedish.  In a year I only had to ask for an explanation twice...  Personally I'd much rather be spoken to in pure Swedish or Danish than some interscandinavian mixture.  
As for written Interscandinavian, how about the Danish-Norwegian or Danish-Swedish-Norwegian used on the back of the shampoo bottles and food products sold in all three contries?


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## Pteppic

sdr083 said:


> You might find it interesting that all the Swedes I have spoken to tell me they generally find it easier to understand Western Norwegian dialects. I found it strange at first, but then thought it could have something to do with the fact that Eastern Norwegian dialects have been more influenced by Danish. Just a theory. Lived with two Finland-Swedes over the last year and the only words I used that they didn't understand, the other Norwegian speaker also had trouble with  (I'm from Indre Sogn). It surprises me that test results show that Norwegians only understand 88% of what is said in Swedish. In a year I only had to ask for an explanation twice... Personally I'd much rather be spoken to in pure Swedish or Danish than some interscandinavian mixture.
> As for written Interscandinavian, how about the Danish-Norwegian or Danish-Swedish-Norwegian used on the back of the shampoo bottles and food products sold in all three contries?


Well, I've had the opposite experiences - Swedes who were grateful I was from Oslo, having had to talk to some people from Rogaland earlier that day, and not understanding a word. That being said, I have often noticed that a lot of forms used in conservative Nynorsk (and Høgnorsk) are very similar to Swedish ones (ei visa, flere visor, alle visone a.s.o.).

I have to admit I don't really see the point of inter-Scandinavian.


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## Tjahzi

Haha, I must say, your Norwegian-ness makes you biased on the Interscandinavian issue. 

Trust me, I for one would definatly prefer it if the Danes could at least fix their pronounciation.


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## Pteppic

Tjahzi said:


> Haha, I must say, your Norwegian-ness makes you biased on the Interscandinavian issue.
> 
> Trust me, I for one would definatly prefer it if the Danes could at least fix their pronounciation.


That's a possibility, I suppose 

Danish pronunciation is indeed a chapter unto itself. But as long as they speak slowly and don't count, it's not too difficult to understand them. Of course, should we really need an inter-scandinavian language, there's no need to make one up - we could just use Norwegian, since it's sort of the middle language, anyway


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## Sepia

Tjahzi said:


> Haha, I must say, your Norwegian-ness makes you biased on the Interscandinavian issue.
> 
> Trust me, I for one would definatly prefer it if the Danes could at least fix their pronounciation.



I know what you mean - monotonous, snapping off endings etc. Sometimes I wish they'd adapt the written language to how people really speak. I don't mean bullshit reforms like writing mayonnaise with a "j" and an "æ" - "majonæse" - because I never ever heard anyone pronounce that with an "e" at the end. 

I mean really radical reforms. Nobody pronounces "jeg" the way it is written. And the pronoun "de/De" - why do they still have an "e"? My issue is not making it easier for the Swedes to understand - I just wonder what would happen. Would such a reform make the Danish language drift further away from the others, or what would happen? Or would the opposite happen?


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## duckie

What would the point be in making the written language more like the spoken? That's what they do in Norway.. is that a big win for the Norwegians somehow? I can see it may be somewhat advantageous to people who have a hard time with spelling, but how does it change anything in terms of making it easier to understand spoken Danish?

Besides, I like that the written language shows a historical continuity, I find that it's often easier to trace the words to their original language than in Norwegian, because the spelling hasn't changed as much.

If you wish to change how Danish is pronounced the logical place to do that is exactly there, rather than to change how it's written!


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> What would the point be in making the written language more like the spoken? That's what they do in Norway.. is that a big win for the Norwegians somehow? I can see it may be somewhat advantageous to people who have a hard time with spelling, but how does it change anything in terms of making it easier to understand spoken Danish?
> 
> Besides, I like that the written language shows a historical continuity, I find that it's often easier to trace the words to their original language than in Norwegian, because the spelling hasn't changed as much.
> 
> If you wish to change how Danish is pronounced the logical place to do that is exactly there, rather than to change how it's written!



I don't want to change the pronounciation. I'd like to adjust the spelling to the pronounciation, like it has been done several times before in various languages, including Danish. The most drastic changes that took place what Danish is concerned, were the ones in 1955 or so. What I'd wish would happen, is that people in general would learn to spell their own language better. Just take a look into any Danish forum that does not happen to be populated by language experts, you'll know what I mean.

However, that is not the point here. My point was an imaginary experiment: What would happen if ...? Would the three related language groups and its speakers come closer together, or would they drift further apart?


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## Tjahzi

They would definatly drift further apart. As a Swede, I can't understand spoken Danish because the phonology is too different. The reason I do fine with written Danish is that I can read it and derive the Swedish meanings of most words. If the spelling was changed, I would lose that option too. I reckon the same would go for Norwegians because their phonology is much closer to that of Swedish than that of Danish.


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## duckie

Tjahzi is probably right.. as it is now, I think it's very easy to read across the three languages, other than the Danish numbers few words seem to cause any significant problems.

Weren't the changes you speak of made in 1948? The aa became å, and 'kunne, skulle, ville' were no longer spelt 'kunde, skulde, vilde', and much more drastic, nouns were no longer capitalized (which has nothing to do with spelling though).

I like the way Danish is spelt, it's similar to English in that imported words only very slowly have their spelling altered.. from an aesthetic viewpoint I enjoy Danish spelling more than Norwegian. I wonder if Danes really have a significantly harder time with their spelling than other Scandinavians?


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## Hulalessar

Some interesting points about written language. Knowing Spanish I can understand some written Portuguese, but if Portuguese were written as it sounded the comprehension would drop dramatically. Etymological spellings do have their advantages!


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## Wilma_Sweden

duckie said:


> I like the way Danish is spelt, it's similar to English in that imported words only very slowly have their spelling altered.. from an aesthetic viewpoint I enjoy Danish spelling more than Norwegian. I wonder if Danes really have a significantly harder time with their spelling than other Scandinavians?


I couldn't agree more about the spelling, phonetic spelling doesn't help at all. I don't think Danes have a harder time than anyone else. If you start reading Swedish online communities or blogs, you will see that a devastating number of Swedes can't spell to save their lives either... The same sad story is of course true of any English-language online communities - those who *can* spell are either professional writers, teachers etc, or non-native speakers...   

Spanish is the most consistent language I know in terms of phonetic spelling, and I *definitely *love it! I'm wondering whether the Spanish-speaking world is equally plagued by spelling errors?

/Wilma


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> Tjahzi is probably right.. as it is now, I think it's very easy to read across the three languages, other than the Danish numbers few words seem to cause any significant problems.
> 
> Weren't the changes you speak of made in 1948? The aa became å, and 'kunne, skulle, ville' were no longer spelt 'kunde, skulde, vilde', and much more drastic, nouns were no longer capitalized (which has nothing to do with spelling though).
> 
> I like the way Danish is spelt, it's similar to English in that imported words only very slowly have their spelling altered.. from an aesthetic viewpoint I enjoy Danish spelling more than Norwegian. I wonder if Danes really have a significantly harder time with their spelling than other Scandinavians?



Then it was '48 - those are the changes I mean. 

What spelling is concerned, I have the impression that many Danes have just as bad problems spelling their own language as the Anglophones have. I don't know if the Swedes have similar problems - didn't seem quite as bad, I thought.


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## Hulalessar

Wilma_Sweden said:


> Spanish is the most consistent language I know in terms of phonetic spelling, and I *definitely *love it! I'm wondering whether the Spanish-speaking world is equally plagued by spelling errors?


 
With Spanish, when you know the rules, you can certainly pronounce every word you see, but you cannot necessarily spell every word you hear.

There seems to be a universal rule that if a word can be misspelled it will be misspelled. In Spanish there is much confusion between _b_ and _v_; words beginning _je-_ and _ji-_ and often written _ge-_ and _gi_-; _h_ being silent is often omitted and sometimes put in where it does not belong; _y_ can replace _ll _and vice versa; in areas of _seseo c/s_ before _i_ and _z/s_ before _a_,_o _or u can be a problem; a final _s_ is often missing here in Andalucía; sometimes _l_ and _r_ are confused.


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## duckie

Italian is extremely phonetically consistent too (don't know anything about Spanish).. but I don't know if Italians have an easier time spelling as a result. Theoretically they should have I suppose, but it seems that other factors tend to come into play regarding spelling (excluding ridiculously difficult words that are hard to memorize of course)..

Sepia, but as you can see, those changes in 1948 did not change spelling at all (save for three words). Danish spelling has slowly evolved as far as I know. It certainly has in the past century. It is almost as free in that respect as English, there is no institute that lays out hard rules on how new words are supposed to be spelt, rather they are formed through general use, and then the most commonly used forms are usually picked as being the 'proper' spelling. Therefore, the 'correct' spelling of some words slowly changes when there is enough pressure inside the applied language itself to do so. In some countries there are language institutes that actively work to shape the language, the most drastic example is probably Iceland where all new words are being forced into an Icelandic style. France has a similar program (not really sure how it works in Norway, could someone expand here?).


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> Italian is extremely phonetically consistent too (don't know anything about Spanish).. but I don't know if Italians have an easier time spelling as a result. Theoretically they should have I suppose, but it seems that other factors tend to come into play regarding spelling (excluding ridiculously difficult words that are hard to memorize of course)..
> 
> Sepia, but as you can see, those changes in 1948 did not change spelling at all (save for three words). ...



Like I said - what I had in mind was something radical and not hing like what has been seen before.  And once again I'd like to point out:

An imaginary experiment - what would happen if ...? Would it bring the 3 central Scandinavian languages further apart or vice versa. I do not want to discuss whether it would be "good" or "bad", or easier, or not. That would not be within the topic of this thread anyway. Just, would the effects of such a reform make us drift more apart? Obviously - it has been mentioned several times by the Swedes participating in this and other similar threads - the main problem that they have with Danish is "sloppy" pronounciation, while they are able to read the language pretty well. So obviously there is a discrepancy between the way we are spelling Danish and the way we speak. There definitely is, no doubt about that. But whether the tag "sloppy" is justified or not, that is the way it is. So if the written language was actually adjusted to phonetically describe what is really being pronounced, the tag "sloppy" would definitely not be justified, because that would actually be the language - period! 

But that, of course, would have some ramifications.


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## duckie

I think the pronounciation is sloppy. Compared to British English, German, and Italian even the more well-pronounced Danish tends to be sloppy. It's easy to notice this when you encounter people in Denmark who really have beautifully articulated pronounciation, or you could listen to the pronounciation in Danish television and films from 50+ years ago (although it often sounds stiff, the pronounciation is much clearer simply because they are trying harder).

Of course, even with better pronounciation Danish itself is (typically) not melodic like Swedish and Norwegian. And I reckon that if one expects a certain melodic rhythm that isn't there it becomes more difficult to tune into the sound and flow of the language.


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## Tjahzi

Sepia has a point I'd say. Just as one can decide to label Danish as "sloppy", one can decide to explain this "loose pronounciation" with their "superior listening skills". My comment regarding Danish pronouncition on last page was just meant as a strereotype joke. 

However, I believe that the inconsistencies between spoken and written Danish might prevent Swedes from understanding spoken Danish. For example, I don't know when the "stöd" is coming, and in which words, so when it does, I'm totally unprepered and usually don't grasp it at all. Simply because it is not expressed in written language (or at least not in a way that I can reckognize it). 

On the other hand, altering Danish spelling and/or orthography would most likely decrease Swedes' ability to understand written Danish more than it would help them understand the spoken language.


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> I think the pronounciation is sloppy. Compared to British English, German, and Italian even the more well-pronounced Danish tends to be sloppy. It's easy to notice this when you encounter people in Denmark who really have beautifully articulated pronounciation, or you could listen to the pronounciation in Danish television and films from 50+ years ago (although it often sounds stiff, ...



This, of course sounds stiff because it was almost a "foreign language" they had to master to be allowed to appear on television. Ever known anyone personally who natively spoke like that? For those, who don't know what we are talking about: It is the Danish equivalent to "BBC-English". A mixture of something totally artificial and a dialect that was spoken in the Center of Copenhagen. The part, where the banks and insurance companies have their offices now and where they closed down the church in the late 80es because there were only 9 persons left actually living in that parish! I personally have known one person who genuinely spoke like that - that is the old lady with the big hat in the painting an the end wall of a tavern by the name of "Skindbuksen" (Lille Kongensgade, Copenhagen). Maybe it is still there. The way she spoke sounded beautiful. But when the number of students aiming to become Danish teachers, directly out of university, attempt to imitate that dialect it sounds cheap. 

Come on, you can't base the standard of a language one a dialect that is dead and gone.


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## duckie

Sepia said:


> Come on, you can't base the standard of a language one a dialect that is dead and gone.



Actually the dialect in question is irrelevant, I simply used the example of old tv/radio to show that well pronounced Danish is easier to understand. Clearly pronounced language also tends to sound more beautiful to my ears, but that is of course subjective.

Yes, I know several people who pronounce Danish very clearly, not to mention all the people who simply pronounce it more clearly than average. I always enjoy this, both because I think it makes the language more beautiful and because it's easier to understand.

So yes, I really think that Danes have a horrible tendency to be sloppy about pronouncing their native language (I'm no exception, though I try not to).


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## duckie

Tjahzi said:


> Sepia has a point I'd say. Just as one can decide to label Danish as "sloppy", one can decide to explain this "loose pronounciation" with their "superior listening skills". My comment regarding Danish pronouncition on last page was just meant as a strereotype joke.



I think it's fair enough to use the term 'sloppy' because the mouth simply does less work (in the same sense that rural dialects tend to evolve), which means there is less distinction between each sound, which in turn means a degradation of the spoken language.

I'm not a big fan of the Danish language so I have few qualms criticizing things I dislike about it


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## Tjahzi

I see your point too, duckie. However, I find it hard to believe that any language would put in more of an effort than what is required when speaking? If Danes can communicate clearly using less phonems, that's just a good thing, ehh?

Personally, I do share your view, Danes do appear a bit "sloppy" to me. Why leave out the sounds we bother pronouncing? Nonetheless, my logic, presented above, makes it hard for me to be fully against this.


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## duckie

I think Danes generally communicate _less_ clearly than they would if they were more careful in their pronounciation though. It's _possible_ to understand what someone says when they're mumbling, but it's a lot easier if they speak out clearly! How one uses language is very much a cultural thing, it's a matter of appreciation I guess.


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## Hulalessar

I am aghast - if not b-ghast - at all this talk about sloppy talk. There is no such thing as sloppy or lazy ways of speaking. Every generation talks about the sloppy speech habits of (particularly) the young. It was ever thus.

Anyway, all you Scandinavians speak beautiful English - why don't you just use that when you move about Scandinavia!

I have been told I speak BBC English and (slightly disconcertingly) that my voicemail messages sound like a 1930's public information film.


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## duckie

Hulalessar said:


> I am aghast - if not b-ghast - at all this talk about sloppy talk. There is no such thing as sloppy or lazy ways of speaking. Every generation talks about the sloppy speech habits of (particularly) the young. It was ever thus.
> 
> Anyway, all you Scandinavians speak beautiful English - why don't you just use that when you move about Scandinavia!
> 
> I have been told I speak BBC English and (slightly disconcertingly) that my voicemail messages sound like a 1930's public information film.



Lol! Well, having Danish as my native language, everytime I've encountered other languages in studying contexts the implicit theme about pronounciation has been 'one can't be as sloppy as in Danish'! Of course there are sloppy ways of speaking; when people mumble so you don't understand a word they're saying they're being sloppy (or incapable in some cases).

I am personally happy speaking English with other Scandinavians, but there is often a perception that we should be able to communicate fine inter-Scandinavian style, it's often frowned upon to use English instead. It probably has something to do with the wish to preserve culture and language, not having to rely on an 'outside' language.. As soon as someone is from outside Scandinavia everyone speaks English without a second thought, so it's a peculiar phenomenon.


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## Sepia

Hulalessar said:


> I am aghast - if not b-ghast - at all this talk about sloppy talk. There is no such thing as sloppy or lazy ways of speaking. Every generation talks about the sloppy speech habits of (particularly) the young. It was ever thus.
> 
> Anyway, all you Scandinavians speak beautiful English - why don't you just use that when you move about Scandinavia!
> 
> I have been told I speak BBC English and (slightly disconcertingly) that my voicemail messages sound like a 1930's public information film.


 
Nice what you are saying about Scandinavian English, but the sloppyness mentioned was about Danish pronounciation, ok. 

The stereotypical joke mentioned above was of course exactly that: a stereotypical joke. But most stereotypes at least reflect a part of the truth. I regularly deal with a lot of other Germans who did not, like me, learn Danish in their early childhood. And understanding spoken Danish is really their greatest problem. Many of them learned from a German guy - a marvelous translator of literature by the way - who learned Danish in the North of Jutland. When they meet people from, say Aarhus, fine, no problem. People from Copenhagen who generally speak faster and cut off al lot of endings of words - serious problems. I only use the word "sloppy" about this because the joker up thread used it (in another thread). But what they are doing is similar to what happened to the French language and made it what it is today - or what New Yorkers are doing to the English language. The way people used to talk on television is a product of nothing less than linguistic fascism: To be allowed to appear on Danish television one had to pass the socalled microphone test, even if you were only a guest star singing songs to jazz music!!! Only this way of speaking was allowed. Certain phonems were obligatory - especially those that you'd normally not hear in the boroughs Vesterbro or Noerrebro. Whatever the purpose of this was, it practically excluded working class people, if they did not learn to speak this way. That is why it sounds stiff and not genuine. 

It is related to the dialict around Kongens Nytorv, but hardly anyone speaks that way. The Queen herself (but not her sons) is close to speaking that way. 

Question to the non-Danish Scandinavians: 

Do you understand the Danish Queen well, when she is speaking Danish?


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## duckie

The queen speaks somewhat 'affected'.. but she does articulate.


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## Hulalessar

duckie said:


> The queen speaks somewhat 'affected'.. but she does articulate.


 
The same as our queen!


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## Hulalessar

When broadcasting first started it was in the hands of the wrong people!

BBC _radio_ announcers had to wear evening dress.

Lord Reith, the first director general of the BBC, famously said, "The British public knows what it wants and is not going to get it."


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## Hulalessar

I meant to mention that there was a study made where many different varieties of English were played to non-English speaking Russians. They were quite unable to tell which were the "high" and which the "low" varieties and did not find any one variety more pleasing than another. It would be interesting to know what they would make of different Scandinavian varieties. It is noteworthy that the English are unable to tell the social class of anyone from Ireland from the way they speak and find all varieties of Irish English equally euphonous.

Another question.

Do the people of Bergen have a distinct way of speaking? I have heard one or two Norwegians say the dialect is strange.


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## timesofmist

Ah, the danish way of pronouncing. It has been pretty painful experience for me thus far. Don't get me wrong, i really like they way danish is spoken. I prefer it to, for example, swedish, which has some weird characteristics to it, like the so called ''singing tone''._... up and down.. up and down.._ Some say it's beautiful, true, it is, but at the same time i find the more _neutral_ and flowing way of pronouncing more appealing. As is the case with norwegian. 
Anyway, where i'm getting at, is that it's really hard to learn how to *listen* danish at first. I have studied the language about a year (agreed, not much), and well, i'd say that it's a lot more easier for me to understand spoken norwegian which i have never studied before! Listening to spoken danish needs some really good ''hearing-capabilities''. I haven't developed these so far. : (

I'd have to agree that modern danish is somewhat like french, where a certain part of the words just goes missing in the pronounciation-process. Not always, but frequently.
As a native speaker of estonian, it's pretty harsh at the beggining, because, you see.. finnish, estonian and f.e swedish are rather _dry_ languages - with some exceptions, usually you speak what you read and the pronounciation is clearer. But danish.. yeah.. i have some hard times ahead. : ) 

Have a good morning btw.


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## Tjahzi

Great post timesofmist!

I really agree with your point of view. I can form the Danish sounds (even without a heated potato in my mouth! ), the problem is that I can't decode them very well nor can I tell from a written text when they appear. Danish is indeed similar to French in that sense. 

It's also ironic, but very logical, that you find spoken Norwegian easier to understand. Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish/Estonian have rather similar orthographies, and more important I believe, we all stress every syllable fairly much (resulting in them being easy to distinguish). I believe this might be related to the fact that our languages (Finnish and Estonian in particular) tend to have words with multiple syllables, of which all are of great importance. I'm of course refering to inflections and conjugations here. English, for example, has been going towards a state where the words are becoming more numerous as well as shorter, hence dropping a syllable here or there is not that much of a problem (which would explain all the mute letters in English). If you dropp a letter or two at the end of a word in Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish/Estonian, it can drastically alter the meaning.

Anyhow, good day to you all!


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## duckie

timesofmist, if you're not in Denmark but wish to listen to Danish you can try dr.dk - lots of programs and live radio to listen to for free


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## timesofmist

Thanks duckie!


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## duckie

I just tried watching some tv shows there and the quality at the highest setting is pretty good, it's just a bummer they haven't included a captioning option (which is normally available on the regular broadcast)..


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## Prometo

_ I can form the Danish sounds (even without a heated potato in my mouth! )

_Funny you should say that.  I've have heard the same comment (that Danish sounds like you have a hot potato in your mouth) from many Swedish speakers... 

As far as a Common Scandinavian language is concerned, it is clear that it would be essentially an ADDITIONAL, constructed tongue, based on the standard  languages of the region. And of course I am all for that.

However you pronounce Danish or spell Norwegian or whatever would be immaterial - Scandinavian would have its own sounds and orthography, again based on its target languages of genesis.

Someone said that this project embodies a respect for Nordic patriotism and regional pride, as well it should.  To have to resort to English is a disgrace; you would agree if you REALLY UNDERSTOOD the globally hegemonic English-speaking linguistic ethos...


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## duckie

A disgrace?

Gee. I just like to communicate. I think it's a shame if language issues holds back communication. I don't understand a word they say on Bornholm. Is that a disgrace too?


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## Tjahzi

Prometo said:


> _ I can form the Danish sounds (even without a heated potato in my mouth! )_
> 
> Funny you should say that. I've have heard the same comment (that Danish sounds like you have a hot potato in your mouth) from many Swedish speakers...


 
Actually, I didn't pick that example randomly.


----------



## Pteppic

Hulalessar said:


> Another question.
> 
> Do the people of Bergen have a distinct way of speaking? I have heard one or two Norwegians say the dialect is strange.


Well, the Bergen dialect is fairly recogniseable, but so are the dialects of Rogaland, Sørlandet, Sogn og Fjordane, Sunnmøre, Romsdal, Nordmøre/Trøndelag and Nordnorge (It'd probably take me a bit longer to distinguish between Nordland, Troms and Finnmark, to be honest). And the same goes for Østfold/Vestfold and Toten. The vally dialects tend to sound more alike to me, because I rarely meet people from there (who speak their local dialects, at least). I can usually tell they're from the central part of Southern Norway, I just can't pinpoint the exact vally.

I don't find the Bergen dialect particularly strange - some of the dialects from historically more isolated places in Trøndelag, Sogn or Setesdalen (to name a few) are virtually incomprehensible.

Oh and the hot potato thing - it's not just the Swedes who think that.


----------



## Sepia

Prometo said:


> _ I can form the Danish sounds (even without a heated potato in my mouth! )
> 
> _Funny you should say that.  I've have heard the same comment (that Danish sounds like you have a hot potato in your mouth) from many Swedish speakers...
> 
> ...




Those who say so obviously never understood the joke with the hot potato - or they hav no idea whatsoever what the language sounds like.



duckie said:


> The queen speaks somewhat 'affected'.. but she does articulate.



But she is one of the few people left who actually grew up in this area while that dialect still was alive, and who still lives there. (However I'd still like to know if any of the Swedes here can understand her well.) Even though she articulates distinctly, I could point out several words that are pronounced in a way that has little to do with the written language.

People speaking that dialect are, just like the most of the people who pronounced the Y in "cykel" as an "i", almost extinct. I could only mention one of my aquaintance - he is far over 90 years old. This is simply not Danish the way anybody really speaks any more.


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## Prometo

_I don't understand a word they say on Bornholm. Is that a disgrace too?

_: ) Let's not match apples with oranges.  I'm not familiar with the islanders but I can be fairly certain that they don't look down on practically the whole rest of the world and the languages thereof.

It wouldn't be a disgrace to use their bornholmsk dialect for international communication because in their low status they would feel humbly honored rather than smug, and appreciated rather than arrogantly feeling they deserve the distinction...


----------



## duckie

Well you talked about 'Nordic patriotism' as if I somehow _ought_ to be able to understand other Scandinavians perfectly. I find that attitude silly, although it is very prevalent here. I don't feel a greater need to learn spoken Swedish than other languages that I would like to learn. So when I'm talking to Swedes (or Norwegians) and we don't understand each other I don't see anything 'disgraceful' whatsoever about simply picking a language that we're both fairly proficient at. It could be German or Japanese or whatever. It just happens to be that English is the de-facto standard so most everyone here speak it reasonably well, and that is a _very good thing_ in my opinion.

When Scandinavians speak English with one another they do so simply to communicate, it has nothing to do with arrogance. From your perspective perhaps it's arrogant that English speaking countries 'expect' English to be the de-facto language, but from my perspective it's simply wonderful to _have_ an international language! Communication is what really matters.


----------



## Prometo

_When Scandinavians speak English with one another they do so simply to communicate, it has nothing to do with arrogance. From your perspective perhaps it's arrogant that English speaking countries 'expect' English to be the de-facto language, but from my perspective it's simply wonderful to have an international language! Communication is what really matters._

With this you have shown more about your own Nordic nature of general charm, grace and guilelessness than the objective truth of the cultural barbarism, gall and rapaciousness that characterizes monolingual Anglophones.  To you, it's about communication.  To them it's about domination.

Of course it's simply wonderful to have an international language, and Scandinavian would be an excellent step in that direction.  First, it would largely replace English as the koine of the region (along with its nefarious linguistic expansionism).  Also it would do a number on the global arrogance of the superpower and its lackeys.  A small gesture in imperial terms, to be sure, but someone has to start somewhere.  After all, the so-far, apparent "failure" of Scandinavian as a lingua franca can be attributed to the onslaught of English in northern Europe and elsewhere.

Not only by communication alone does man live, but by dignity and self-respect as well.

_Well you talked about 'Nordic patriotism' as if I somehow ought to be able to understand other Scandinavians perfectly. I find that attitude silly, although it is very prevalent here._

Sorry, that is not what I meant, but that the cultures of the several peoples, nations and communities of this part of Europe and the islands north of it must be preserved.  If a common Scandinavian can accomplish that then there is nothing silly about the venture.  The danger with SOME foreign languages is that they are here to obliterate the indigenous; while Scandinavian would be respectful of local tradition, lifestyle, world view, etc., global English, for one, would not be.  For example, how many areas are celebrating Halloween this year that were not doing so five years ago?

_I don't feel a greater need to learn spoken Swedish than other languages that I would like to learn. So when I'm talking to Swedes (or Norwegians) and we don't understand each other I don't see anything 'disgraceful' whatsoever about simply picking a language that we're both fairly proficient at. It could be German or Japanese or whatever. It just happens to be that English is the de-facto standard so most everyone here speak it reasonably well, and that is a very good thing in my opinion._

I respect your opinion, of course, and here you sound like a quite reasonable fellow or lady.  But I'm not forgetting the national intimacy of Denmark with England.  Why, even your flags look kind of similar, don't they? The English are descendants of the Dane and Shakespeare had an inordinate interest in Danish rot.  You follow England in turning up your nose at the Euro.  And everybody knows Denmark is trying hard to emulate the UK as a bigot's paradise.  My opinion is that here we should all move to a de-facto Scandinavian standard instead.


----------



## duckie

Erh.. I will leave your last paragraph alone, I think you are quite mistaken though.

As for English being a threat to Scandinavian (language) culture, I think that is not a threat from without, but rather from within. Not in he general spoken language, but more in the international mindedness of specialized educations, where English increasingly replaces Danish because it's simply the most practical language when cooperating with the rest of the world in a number of fields.

I don't see this conspiracy that you apparently do; in an increasingly interwoven world there needs to be a common way to communicate, and English is a good language choice for this purpose. Latin has had that role in the past, as has French to some degree. I much prefer it be English for its simplicity as it ensures a higher level of communication, but essentially it doesn't matter which language is used.


----------



## Hulalessar

Since this is the Scandinavian forum it is not the right place to discuss the global hegemony of the English language. I think, though, that it is important to realise that there are different tiers of language hegemony. I know little about the language varieties of Sweden, but I suspect that "standard" Swedish (i.e. the language I would learn in a book) to some extent lords it over the other varieties. In its turn, Swedish is very much a regional language confined to a pretty well-defined area of Northern Europe. No Swede expects to be able to approach someone in the street outside Scandinavia and ask for directions in Swedish and be understood.

I certainly do not think that Scandinavians should be coerced into forming and using any sort of manufactured pan-Scandinavian - it would only add another layer of language hegemony that I suspect most Scandinavians do not want, being quite content to muddle along as they do.

Humans may be divided according to race (a very slippery concept); nationality (political allegiance); religion (spiritual allegiance); culture (doing the same things as your parents); and language. Depending on who you are and where you live all or some of these may be closely associated. I think we should all try so far as we can to keep language issues separate and, whilst the language we speak is an important part of who we are, not make too big a thing about language since there are plenty of other matters to worry about.


----------



## Sepia

Prometo said:


> _When Scandinavians speak English with one another they do so simply to communicate, it has nothing to do with arrogance. From your perspective perhaps it's arrogant that English speaking countries 'expect' English to be the de-facto language, but from my perspective it's simply wonderful to have an international language! Communication is what really matters._
> 
> With this you have shown more about your own Nordic nature of general charm, grace and guilelessness than the objective truth of the cultural barbarism, gall and rapaciousness that characterizes monolingual Anglophones.  To you, it's about communication.  To them it's about domination.
> 
> Of course it's simply wonderful to have an international language, and Scandinavian would be an excellent step in that direction.  First, it would largely replace English as the koine of the region (along with its nefarious linguistic expansionism).  Also it would do a number on the global arrogance of the superpower and its lackeys.  A small gesture in imperial terms, to be sure, but someone has to start somewhere.  After all, the so-far, apparent "failure" of Scandinavian as a lingua franca can be attributed to the onslaught of English in northern Europe and elsewhere.
> 
> Not only by communication alone does man live, but by dignity and self-respect as well.
> 
> _Well you talked about 'Nordic patriotism' as if I somehow ought to be able to understand other Scandinavians perfectly. I find that attitude silly, although it is very prevalent here._
> 
> Sorry, that is not what I meant, but that the cultures of the several peoples, nations and communities of this part of Europe and the islands north of it must be preserved.  If a common Scandinavian can accomplish that then there is nothing silly about the venture.  The danger with SOME foreign languages is that they are here to obliterate the indigenous; while Scandinavian would be respectful of local tradition, lifestyle, world view, etc., global English, for one, would not be.  For example, how many areas are celebrating Halloween this year that were not doing so five years ago?
> 
> _I don't feel a greater need to learn spoken Swedish than other languages that I would like to learn. So when I'm talking to Swedes (or Norwegians) and we don't understand each other I don't see anything 'disgraceful' whatsoever about simply picking a language that we're both fairly proficient at. It could be German or Japanese or whatever. It just happens to be that English is the de-facto standard so most everyone here speak it reasonably well, and that is a very good thing in my opinion._
> 
> I respect your opinion, of course, and here you sound like a quite reasonable fellow or lady.  But I'm not forgetting the national intimacy of Denmark with England.  Why, even your flags look kind of similar, don't they? The English are descendants of the Dane and Shakespeare had an inordinate interest in Danish rot.  You follow England in turning up your nose at the Euro.  And everybody knows Denmark is trying hard to emulate the UK as a bigot's paradise.  My opinion is that here we should all move to a de-facto Scandinavian standard instead.



Wonderful speach. If you were running for something you might have a chance with certain patriots. 

What the flags are concerned I'll only say this: Crusader Nations. 

And what the cultural bonds between Scandinavia - especially Denmark, and England I believe strongly that John Cleese and all his Monty Python colleagues have more to with things than Shakespeare has. I really think that laughing at the same things and the fact that most Scandinavians speak English are more important factors than anything, if we try to analyze the emotional bonds.


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## pcongre

Hulalessar said:


> Some interesting points about written language. Knowing Spanish I can understand some written Portuguese, but if Portuguese were written as it sounded the comprehension would drop dramatically. Etymological spellings do have their advantages!



It's funny that you say that, because I'm a more or less fluent speaker of Swedish, and when I went to Norway and noticed I understood practically everything people said (as opposed to when I went to Denmark - I could only understand signs and subtitles there) the first thing I thought is "Norwegian must be like Galician in that they sound as if a Swede/Spaniard was trying to speak Danish/Portuguese without bothering to change their accent much"
(I know this is a BIG simplification though)


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## Hulalessar

In his book _Andalus_ Jason Webster says that Portuguese sounds like Spanish spoken by a drunken Russian!


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## Sepia

pcongre said:


> It's funny that you say that, because I'm a more or less fluent speaker of Swedish, and when I went to Norway and noticed I understood practically everything people said (as opposed to when I went to Denmark - I could only understand signs and subtitles there) the first thing I thought is "Norwegian must be like Galician in that they sound as if a Swede/Spaniard was trying to speak Danish/Portuguese without bothering to change their accent much"
> (I know this is a BIG simplification though)



Many Danes say so too. 

I am surpriced by the analogy with Portuguese/Galician - I hardly understand anything when they speak Portuguese. I thought Galician differed a lot more from Portuguese, because I can understand it pretty well, at least when they talk about subjects familiar to me.


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## Lingvisten

I, as a dane, don't find norwegian and swedish more difficult to understand than many of the danish dialects. When i hear a "thybo" speaking with another in "thybomål", it is just as hard to understand, that for me to understand Icelandic. I think the key to better understanding among the scandinavians is a more wider representation of dialects and other scandinavian languages in national television. Danish television doesn't use speakers with dialect, maybe because they think people wouldn't understand. I think people will understand if they heard the different dialects more often. In my oppinion, the reason why norwegians understand the other scandinavian languages the best, is because they are more used to hearing dialects in the media.


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## Prometo

Hulalessar said:


> _Since this is the Scandinavian forum it is not the right place to discuss the global hegemony of the English language._



Sorry, but the post was right on target.  Are we discussing "Common Scandinavian"?  Yes.  Is that a lingua franca? Of course.  Is globally hegemonic English a sort of lingua franca? Absolutely.



> _No Swede expects to be able to approach someone in the street outside Scandinavia and ask for directions in Swedish and be understood._


That was precisely my point.  English speakers would have such expectations.



> _I certainly do not think that Scandinavians should be coerced into forming and using any sort of manufactured pan-Scandinavian - it would only add another layer of language hegemony that I suspect most Scandinavians do not want, being quite content to muddle along as they do._


Sorry again, but it's precisely this kind of complacency that I decry.  The need for a common language that is neutral geopolitically and socioeconomically co-opts coercion.  Besides, I strongly disagree that Scandinavians want to just "muddle along" in any area of human activity.



> _I think we should all try so far as we can to keep language issues separate and, whilst the language we speak is an important part of who we are, not make too big a thing about language since there are plenty of other matters to worry about._


Sorry one more time, but isn't this forum all about language?  You may be perfectly willing to acquiesce to English language encroachment; I myself believe that this is an issue too big for us not to worry about.


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## pcongre

Sepia said:


> I am surpriced by the analogy with Portuguese/Galician - I hardly understand anything when they speak Portuguese. I thought Galician differed a lot more from Portuguese, because I can understand it pretty well, at least when they talk about subjects familiar to me.



[slightly OT]
Well, in the end all Latin dialects are more or less just that, different ways of pronouncing Latin (another big simplification on my behalf). 
But surprisingly, there are some of those dialects that have a quite similar pronunciation nowadays in spite of not forming a geographical continuum.
For example, the sounds in Spanish are quite similar to those in Italian, whereas Portuguese sounds have more in common with the Catalan or Occitan ones than those in eg Spanish or French.
But Galician is a special case in as much as it was a dialect of Portuguese in the middle ages (some say it still is) and so constitutes some sort of transition language/dialect, quite easy to understand for both Spanish and Portuguese-speaking people.
[/slightly OT]

So yep, same/similar way of spelling makes it easier to understand related languages, but if they're also pronounced in a similar way then it's even easier of course.


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## Wilma_Sweden

pcongre said:


> So yep, same/similar way of spelling makes it easier to understand related languages, but if they're also pronounced in a similar way then it's even easier of course.


Quite! Since Danish pronunciation deviates so much from Swedish or Norwegian, we have a hard time following it, with or without that hot potato. (BTW, to me, Dutch sounds like German spoken with a mouthful of hot potatoes...)

I don't find Queen Margarethe very hard to understand, the only member of the Royal Family I have trouble with is Prince Henrik.

I agree that resorting to English when speaking to Scandinavians is a bit of a failure, but only for three seconds, then that little inter-Scandianavian chauvinism gets tossed on the Altar of Efficient Communication... 

Most media companies have a history of filtering out any odd dialects and accents (try watching a Bergman movie from the 50s)! Swedish national TV, even today, do their best to filter off some dialects. The top brass are invariably based in Stockholm, to the detriment of any regional variety... 

/Wilma


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## duckie

Nobody understands prince Henrik! 

I wouldn't mind more dialects on tv, but I'd definitely want the option of having it subtitled or they may as well be speaking Finnish for all I know!


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> Nobody understands prince Henrik!
> 
> I wouldn't mind more dialects on tv, but I'd definitely want the option of having it subtitled or they may as well be speaking Finnish for all I know!



At least he speaks Danish! Not all Danish royals in history did. Not even the kings. (Frederik I, to start with - Spent most of his time in Schleswig and did not speak any Danish).

I understand Henrik all right.


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## pcongre

Wilma_Sweden said:


> (BTW, to me, Dutch sounds like German spoken with a mouthful of hot potatoes...)


I confess, Dutch also sounds to me a little like Germans trying to sound kind of Eng-Danish 

BTW, isn't it easier for Scanians to understand Danish than for the rest of Swedes? Some people from Skåne have told me that, but I don't see why that should be the case...
I know the two languages/dialects were much more closely related once upon a time, but in my ears modern Scanian dialects tend to sound more 'Swedish' than 'Danish' nowadays, so my guess is that if Scanians understand Danish better it has to be because they have more contact with it than the rest of Sweden, ie they're closer simply?
(...could it also have to do with the fact that it is cheaper to go to Denmark to buy alcohol than to visit the local monopoly-shop?)
Or do you reckon it to be as tough to understand Danish for someone from say Hässleholm than for someone from Kalix? (or Jönköping, Gävle, etc...)


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## Lingvisten

Skånsk is an old eastern danish dialect, wich has been under 350 years of Swedish influence. Bornholmsk is almost the same dialect, but with a lot more standard danish influence. they all (together with the dialects in Blekinge and Halland) made up the eastern danish dialect area. historically it should be easier for people from Skåne to understand Danish. I find it rather strange that most Danes see the swedish, as spoken in northern Finland and Sweden, to be easier. I don't know if it works the other way around.


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## Lugubert

Lingvisten said:


> historically it should be easier for people from Skåne to understand Danish.


It still is. But the mutual Scandiavian understanding is very much an individual problem (or no problem). My father was born and raised in Skåne; I have lots of relatives there. I have practically no problems in understanding Danes, and they normally understand me (but sometimes, I have had to switch to something that I hope resembles Danish). On the other hand, an aunt of mine, who lived in the Stockholm area for her first ca. 40 years, had major problems after relocating to the Malmö region. (I suppose she would have had at least as much problems in Kalix.)

Some "nationalists" maintain that skånska is a discriminated minority language, and have applied to the EU for support.

When skånska first was heard on the radio, there were lots of protests, like when a woman first read news.


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## LuthienMoss

I just wanted to add, I speak Swedish but do not understand any Norwegian or Danish (spoken) for anything in the world O_O It's easier for me to understand written Danish than spoken Norwegian.


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## El Patillas

LuthienMoss said:


> I just wanted to add, I speak Swedish but do not understand any Norwegian or Danish (spoken) for anything in the world O_O It's easier for me to understand written Danish than spoken Norwegian.


 
What? You dont understand norwegian? I think thats pretty interesting. I´ve never been in Norway and I dont know any norweigans, but when I listen to norweigan, I understand almost everything. Its like a dialect. Where you from LuthienMoss? I´m from Malmö and for me norweigan is like "värmländska" or something.

But sometimes I have BIG problems understanding spoken danish even thou I'm a skåning.


----------



## Sepia

El Patillas said:


> What? You dont understand norwegian? I think thats pretty interesting. I´ve never been in Norway and I dont know any norweigans, but when I listen to norweigan, I understand almost everything. Its like a dialect. Where you from LuthienMoss? I´m from Malmö and for me norweigan is like "värmländska" or something.
> 
> But sometimes I have BIG problems understanding spoken danish even thou I'm a skåning.




Probablz depends on which part of Norway somebody is from. I've been told there is a dialect of Norwegian which is often confused with Danish - at least you'd have problems with that one.

Anybody happen to know which dialect that is?


For my part, I have sometimes even less problems with skånska than some Swedes from further north. Not that I see much similarity with Danish there - but I spent a lot of time there. I think nobody understands skånska without special training - neither Swedes nor Danes.


----------



## Lugubert

El Patillas said:


> I´m from Malmö and for me norweigan is like "värmländska" or something.


Exactly! If you travel westwards from Karlstad and don't look at the place names or notice the border control, but only listen to people, it is impossible to find a spot where värmländska is replaced by Norwegian.


----------



## Sepia

Lugubert said:


> Exactly! If you travel westwards from Karlstad and don't look at the place names or notice the border control, but only listen to people, it is impossible to find a spot where värmländska is replaced by Norwegian.



Phonetically I can believe that - but lots of words must be different, right?


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## Pteppic

Sepia said:


> Probablz depends on which part of Norway somebody is from. I've been told there is a dialect of Norwegian which is often confused with Danish - at least you'd have problems with that one.
> 
> Anybody happen to know which dialect that is?


Well, I might hazard a guess at dialects from Sørlandet (they all sound more or less the same to me, but the natives can probably differentiate between the local varieties with ease). It's the closest part to Denmark, at least , and they use the Danish r and say "båd" and "pibe" instead of "båt" and "pipe".

Click the link for a map (Sørlandet is the darker area)

http://www.helenorge.no/data/b/0/63/97/9_2716_0.gif


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## Lingvisten

I saw a Norwegian garden program today on TV. A lady who owned a big garden on Borøya near Oslo, was talking Norwegian like she was a Dane trying to fake a Norwegian accent. sometimes I couldn't even tell wether she was speaking Danish or Norwegian. She didn't sound like they usualy do in Oslo, maybe she moved there from Sørlandet, maybe this island just have a dialect amazingly close to Danish.


----------



## Pteppic

I haven't seen the mentioned garden show, but Borøya lies outside of Sandvika (a suburb of Oslo), which is in the middle of the area where people speak the most danified Norwegian, at least grammatically. Sørlandsk is closer phonetically. But since I haven't seen the show and thus not heard the woman's speech, I can't really tell if she was speaking the regular Bærum dialect or had "immigrated" from Sørlandet (or her family - I once knew a guy born and raised in Oslo who use the "Danish" R because both his parents were from Sørlandet). 

Incidentally, in former times, nannies from Sørlandet were popular with the upper classes (who are indeed likely to own big gardens outside Sandvika), because they found the "r" of Sørlandsk to be more pleasing. 

The final irony is that there is (at least) one more island by the name of Borøya, located in Sørlandet.


----------



## LuthienMoss

El Patillas said:


> What? You dont understand norwegian? I think thats pretty interesting. I´ve never been in Norway and I dont know any norweigans, but when I listen to norweigan, I understand almost everything. Its like a dialect. Where you from LuthienMoss? I´m from Malmö and for me norweigan is like "värmländska" or something.
> 
> But sometimes I have BIG problems understanding spoken danish even thou I'm a skåning.


I'm from the big city, and I have a tough time understanding what they say. I've been to Norway and I've lived in Värmland actually O_O

Yeah, danish can be impossible to understand! And I thought that you skåningar understood it better ^^

Does anyone have a listening sample to some norwegian/danish/swedish online? It'd be interesting to compare.


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## pcongre

LuthienMoss said:


> Does anyone have a listening sample to some norwegian/danish/swedish online? It'd be interesting to compare.



http://www.omniglot.com/writing/danish.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/norwegian.htm
http://www.omniglot.com/writing/swedish.htm

all of them under 'sample text', at the end of the page


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## Andreas_Jensen

Lingvisten said:


> I saw a Norwegian garden program today on TV. A lady who owned a big garden on Borøya near Oslo, was talking Norwegian like she was a Dane trying to fake a Norwegian accent. sometimes I couldn't even tell wether she was speaking Danish or Norwegian. She didn't sound like they usualy do in Oslo, maybe she moved there from Sørlandet, maybe this island just have a dialect amazingly close to Danish.


 
I don't have anything real to add to this discussion, except that I actually think that I've seen the same program! And I was completely baffled!!! But I think it often happens for me with norwegians that sometimes I understand everything they say and sometimes absolutely nothing. It also has something to do with how much effort they make. For example I can easily watch the news in norwegian understanding everything but having a conversation at normal "speed" tends to be more difficult.


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## Lingvisten

Just the same for me. News, documentaries and such is easy to understand in both Swedish and Norwegian. Programs with especially debates are alot harder to understand.


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## NorwegianNYC

Mange lingvister mener at norsk, svensk og dansk er for like til å kunne regnes som egne språk. Selv er jeg norsk, jeg underviser i norsk i USA, og er involvert i norske ting, men også jeg er enig i den karakteristikken. Norsk, svensk og dansk regnes som forskjellige språk kun fordi dette er snakk om tre uavhengige land. Det er mye mindre forskjeller mellom norsk, svensk og dansk enn det er internt i språk som tysk, tyrkisk, arabisk, for ikke å snakke om kinesisk. Språkforskere regner med at norsk og svensk var så godt som identisk fram til ca 1700, og ennå i dag er forståelsen mellom østnorsk og svensk på over 75%. Dansk er den delen av "skandinavisk" som er mest forskjellig fra de to andre, og begynte også å skille seg fra svensk-norsk allerede før 1500.

Hvis du hadde delt Skandinavia på tvers i stedet for på langt, ville du ikke hatt større dialektforskjeller internt i hvert land enn det du har i dag. Tenk deg at et land eksisterte fra kysten av Midt-Norge og til kysten av Midt-Sverige, eller at Danmark fortsatte tvers gjennom Sør-Sverige (Skåne), eller at Vämland og Bohus slo seg sammen med Østlandet i Norge. I hvert av disse landene ville dialektene vært mer like enn de er i de respektive land i dag.

Norsk og dansk har et stort felles ordforråd, mens norsk og svensk har det samme lydsystemet. Dansker sier av og til at "norsk er dansk snakket av en svenske", og det er mye rett i den påstanden. Et godt eksempel på dette er dattera mi (8). Hun har vokst opp i New York City, og snakker norsk. Hun har ikke blitt eksponert for svensk og dansk på den måten barn i Norge blir, men hun forstår allikevel svensk når noen snakker det. Ikke alt, selvfølgelig, men nok til å kunne kommunisere.

Samtidig, jeg hadde en gang med meg en bekjent fra Edinburgh til en venn i Knoxville, Tennessee, og de hadde mye større problemer med å forstå hverandre enn jeg har med svensker!


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## utmarker

Jag får väl säga att det är glädjande att du förstår svenska så pass Max-Y. Det vore önskvärt om vi skandinaver kunde närma oss varandra språkligt än mer. Din användning av undertexter på originalspråk föredrar jag också själv om bara grundkunskapen är tillräcklig.

Tyvärr måste jag medge att min förståelse av talad danska inte motsvarar din av svenska, ett antagligen inte helt obekant faktum med de flesta svenskar. Detta är naturligtvis också avhängigt av dialekt och grad av slangspråksinnehåll.
MED text förstår jag nog minst i alla fall 95% och kanske mer, inte så imponerande för detta forums medlemmar kanske men jag har endast nyligen börjat intressera mig för mina skandinaviska grannspråk på allvar.

Lite förundrad blir jag av du förstår 0% av viss talad norska, jag förstår inte ens så lite av isländska, men det var kanhända en retorisk överdrift.

Tilläggas kan att jag har en ganska bra förståelse av talad bokmål och hyfsad av nynorsk. När jag hör på välartikulerad bokmål så är inte undertext till så mycket hjälp eftersom problemen då mer rör enstaka obekanta ord vi inte har i svenskan.

<post moved from Nordmenn som ser "Män som hatar" ...>


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Mange lingvister mener at norsk, svensk og dansk er for like til å kunne regnes som egne språk. Selv er jeg norsk, jeg underviser i norsk i USA, og er involvert i norske ting, men også jeg er enig i den karakteristikken. Norsk, svensk og dansk regnes som forskjellige språk kun fordi dette er snakk om tre uavhengige land. ...



I think that is an important point. In Italy they often talk about dialects and actually mean other Italian languages that differ from each other even more than Danish from Swedish. Recently a British linguist was on a Danish TV show and claimed that it is only a political matter that English isn't considered a Danish dialect. After all that language came from my part of the world and stayed even after Scandinavians lost their political influence on the British Isles.


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## Max-Y

utmarker said:


> Lite förundrad blir jag av du förstår 0% av viss talad norska, jag förstår inte ens så lite av isländska, men det var kanhända en retorisk överdrift.



Det var måske også lidt af en overdrivelse, så lad os sige 15%, men det føles som 0% 

Jeg ville have det helt fint med at klassificere dansk, svensk og norsk som 3 dialektale grupperinger indenfor sproget skandinavisk. 
Hvis der blev fokuseret langt mere på nabosprogsundervisning i skolen, og måske hvis vi fik en "ægte" pan-skandinavisk TV-kanal, tror jeg vi ville få en meget rigere kultur. Tænk på hvor om man pludselig havde let adgang til en kulturkreds med (5 (da) + 5 (no) + 9 (se) ) 19 millioner mennesker.
Man har vel lov at drømme . 

Jeg er enig i at årsagen til at der i dag ikke tales om skandinavisk som ét sprog, sikkert primært er politisk. Det er f.eks. ganske forståeligt at man som norsktalende evt. skulle ønske at fremhæve det unikt norske, for at distancere sig lidt fra tidligere tiders danske dominans i Norge.


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## bicontinental

Max-Y said:


> Det var måske også lidt af en overdrivelse, så lad os sige 15%, men det føles som 0%
> .



That's very impressive!! With most dialects I am really up the creek (without a paddle)


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## solregn

Max-Y said:


> Hvis der blev fokuseret langt mere på nabosprogsundervisning i skolen, og måske hvis vi fik en "ægte" pan-skandinavisk TV-kanal, tror jeg vi ville få en meget rigere kultur. Tænk på hvor om man pludselig havde let adgang til en kulturkreds med (5 (da) + 5 (no) + 9 (se) ) 19 millioner mennesker.
> Man har vel lov at drømme .



Just att satsa mer på interskandinavisk förståelse i skolan och exempelvis starta upp en pan-skandinavisk TV-kanal tycker jag vore en fantastisk idé för att förbättra kommunikationen och kulturutbytet mellan de skandinaviska länderna - förutsatt att någon tittar på den förstås! (Skavlan kan ju vara med som dragplåster... ) Det fanns ett nordiskt barnprogram som hette "Myggan" i mitten av 90-talet, med en norsk, en dansk, en svensk och en finsk programledare - det var verkligen kanon! Någon som minns?

Jag skäms själv för att jag inte förstår norska - och framför allt danska - bättre; det känns som att det inte skulle behövas så mycket ändå för att avsevärt förbättra förståelsen! Så nära, men ändå så långt borta...


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## sdr083

solregn said:


> Just att satsa mer på interskandinavisk förståelse i skolan och exempelvis starta upp en pan-skandinavisk TV-kanal tycker jag vore en fantastisk idé för att förbättra kommunikationen och kulturutbytet mellan de skandinaviska länderna - förutsatt att någon tittar på den förstås! (Skavlan kan ju vara med som dragplåster... ) Det fanns ett nordiskt barnprogram som hette "Myggan" i mitten av 90-talet, med en norsk, en dansk, en svensk och en finsk programledare - det var verkligen kanon! Någon som minns?



Eg hugsar Myggen! 

I agree that being exposed to the other languages, for example on TV, is important (and enough) to learn to understand them. I also think it's logical that the more linguistic variation people are used to, the more they understand. But the language debate in Norway is not usually about exposing children to _more _language (like Swedish and Danish), but _less_ (by not requiring that they are taught botn Nynorsk and Bokmål anymore).
I can't remember ever not understanding Swedish, so it surprises me that so many people seem to find it difficult to understand other Scandinavian languages (or varieties that are considered to be dialects of their own language ...). However, I did grow up with Pippi and Emil in Swedish on children's television, so I suppose that's part of the reason I have no trouble understanding the language. Sadly, television for children in Norway is now increasingly dubbed (I suspect it's a Disney Channel effect). I don't understand why, because the response I've seen from parents, discussing the phenomenon on the internet or in the newspapers, has been uniformly negative, particularly when it comes to the Astrid Lindgren classics they themselves grew up with. Personally, I couldn't agree more. I realize it's partly nostalgia, but I find the thought of Tjorven speaking Norwegian horrid!


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## Encolpius

Hello, I was trying to find some basic words to distinguish the Norwegian bokmål form the Danish and it was really hard, what I'd found was hva-hvad, gjøre-gøre and kom inn-kom ind, then I have found this interesting article and have counted up only 45 different words, I think there are more different words between UK and US English.  Is the vocabulary really so equal? Are there no other different words, expressions between Bokmål and Danish??? It would be great to make a list of different words just like there are similar lists in other language groups in Wordreference....


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## duckie

They are very similar when written, although I wouldn't agree that it's moreso than UK vs US English. The wiki article seems to do a good job comparing the two and it states a fair number of grammatical differences as well as a general overview of spelling differences (basically Bokmål is spelt the way it's pronounced while Danish rarely is). I'm not sure where you get the number of 45 different words from, just in the little Brandes clip I counted roughly 20 differences, although they're mostly just slight variations. The languages are close enough that they are mutually intelligible (written) for someone who only knows one of them, but they are still different enough that you won't need to read more than one sentence to know if it's one or the other.


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## willem81

Hello All.
It should be also perhaps mentioned that, according to the wikipedia, Danish language has been in the past and still is being used as lingua franca between Icelanders, Greenlanders and Faroesers. Therefore it already is a common nordic language, in certain sense. An interesting thing is that this works, and natives in Greenland did accept this language. 
But of course it is doubtful that Danish will become such for the whole of Scandinavia.


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## NorwegianNYC

Well - Greenland and the Faeroe Islands have less than 100,000 Danish second-language speakers between them, and the number of speakers with proficiency in English as a second language is about the same, so I would be careful proclaiming Danish a 'lingua franca'. On the other hand, Swedo-Norwegian - which for all intents and purposes is the same language - is spoken by around 15 million.


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## willem81

I see. That wikipedia article says that the using of Danish for international communication between those northern countries had in its time successfully prevented the spreading of English in those areas. But now it seems that that was just delaying the inevitable.


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## NorwegianNYC

I am not disregarding the role of Danish in these communities, but I believe a local would rather converse with a (e.g.) Swede in English than in Danish.


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## willem81

Yes, that is more than likely. By the way, there is a norwegian  professor - Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the  University of Oslo. According to his research, English is a scandinavian  language. 
It is very interesting, but of course it's all merely theoretical speculations, since the gap between English and Scandinavian languages is very large nowadays.


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## Tjahzi

I could agree with the portrayal of English as being a Germanic language, adopted into the Romance family.


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## willem81

Tjahzi said:


> I could agree with the portrayal of English as being a Germanic language, adopted into the Romance family.



I understand what you mean. English indeed shares a lot of vocabulary with French, that is why it's easy to read french texts, since one sees many words similar to english ones in it. However, if we take a look at the very basic and significant words of English, we see that they are of the scandinavian origin. I mean the words like: they, them, are, to call, to die, to smile, to like, etc.
And also the syntax structure is more scandinavian-like than german- or french-like.


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## Kadabrium

^Romance: "All men are created equal."
Scandinavian: "All men are shaped alike."


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## willem81

Kadabrium said:


> ^Romance: "All men are created equal."
> Scandinavian: "All men are shaped alike."



I would say that the first one is a latinized scandinavian, and the second one - a pure scandinavian.


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## duckie

Nice observation.. Alle mænd* er skabt lige, that works. (*perhaps mennesker would be more accurate)


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## NorwegianNYC

A common misconception is that the English vocabulary is largely Romance. If we look at the entire, unabridged body of English words recorded and listed (about 600,000) - yes, the majority is of Latin origin. However, the vast majority of these are technical terms, specialized jargon and terms derived from other words, and is hardly ever used! This is important, because a more compound friendly language than English can hypothetically construct a much bigger number of words.

An average person knows (according to studies) 15,000-17,000 words, and use 700-1100 of them on a regular basis. If we look at the frequency charts of the 100 most common words used in English, the 200, 500 and 1000 most common words, the majority are words of Germanic, not Romance origin.


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## Sepia

willem81 said:


> Hello All.
> It should be also perhaps mentioned that, according to the wikipedia, Danish language has been in the past and still is being used as lingua franca between Icelanders, Greenlanders and Faroesers. Therefore it already is a common nordic language, in certain sense. An interesting thing is that this works, and natives in Greenland did accept this language.
> But of course it is doubtful that Danish will become such for the whole of Scandinavia.




Do you honestly believe anybody asked them if they would like it? Your Siberian Inuit also accepted the Russian language, didn't they?


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## Dan2

NorwegianNYC said:


> A *common misconception* is that the English *vocabulary *is *largely Romance*....
> An *average person* knows (*according *to *studies*) ... and *uses *700-1100 of them on a *regular basis*. If we look at *frequency charts* ... the *majority *are words of *Germanic*, not *Romance origin*.


*Several very important observations; **very interesting statistical information presented, particularly regarding frequency totals**.*

*Agreed*: It's *essential *of *course *to* place facts *in *context *in *order *to *avoid completely exaggerating* the *influence* of *certain Romance languages. P**eople (presidents*/*prime ministers *to *ordinary ** laborers; **prosperous suburbanites *to *ghetto residents**; i.e., members *of all* classes *of *society)  generally use native, Germanic vocabulary essentially exclusively (possible major exception**: incomprehensible academic documents). *In *ordinary sentences, normal verbal statements, exclamations, etc., **Latin-based vocabulary *is in *large part absent**.

*So I* genuinely appreciate *your *comments, remarks *I *sincerely consider **very valuable.

Regards,
Dan (enthusiastic United States-based Forum member, Nordic-language student)
*


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## willem81

Sepia said:


> Do you honestly believe anybody asked them if they would like it? Your Siberian Inuit also accepted the Russian language, didn't they?



I realize quite well how it happened. The natives had no choice in both cases - the native Siberians learning Russian and the Greenlanders learning Danish. The interesting thing is that Danish language, which is currently believed to be the most difficult Scandinavian language to study, successfully functioned in the past and still does (at least to certain extent) - as the language of international communication in those Northern areas.


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## Sepia

willem81 said:


> I realize quite well how it happened. The natives had no choice in both cases - the native Siberians learning Russian and the Greenlanders learning Danish. The interesting thing is that Danish language, which is currently believed to be the most difficult Scandinavian language to study, successfully functioned in the past and still does (at least to certain extent) - as the language of international communication in those Northern areas.



Well, there was not really anything that could change it. Kids learn Danish in school. It is an official language. They are under the protection of the state of Denmark - at least what Greenland and the Faeroe Islands are concerned, each of them still have a representative in the Danish parliament, and their almost autonomous state does not date that far back. So they still really do not have much of a choice other than learning Danish as their first alternative language.

I'd almost say in the Danish and German parts of Schleswig we have more of a choice than they have, since we have the option of going to schools in Germany with Danish as the primary language and in Denmark the other way around.


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## Sepia

Tjahzi said:


> I could agree with the portrayal of English as being a Germanic language, adopted into the Romance family.



The basic structure of the language is closer to the Scandinavian languages than anything. Adopting words from romance languages doesn't make it a romance languge. 
One doesn't consider Maltese neither a Germanic nor a Romance language either - although about 2/3 of the vocabulary is adopted from English and Italian.


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## Alxmrphi

Sepia said:


> The basic structure of the language is closer to the Scandinavian languages than anything. Adopting words from romance languages doesn't make it a romance languge.
> One doesn't consider Maltese neither a Germanic nor a Romance language either - although about 2/3 of the vocabulary is adopted from English and Italian.


But the analogy of being adopted still fits. I don't necessarily agree with it, but Tjahzi's statement is perfectly sound. If you adopt a child, everything around that child can be of another nature and you can even bring him/her up as speaking another language, but the same structural DNA and wired-in biological features are still present from the_ real _parents. The fact that the basic structure might be closer to Scandinavian or not in no way puts forward an argument against that such an analogy is perfectly fitting. Again, I don't personally look at it exactly the same way Tjazhi does, I think I'd be more inclined to agree with you, but the argument about the structural formations that hold English together in the form of syntax and grammar doesn't devalue his analogy, IMHO.


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## Tjahzi

Wow, thanks, Alex, for being the first to understand my not overly serious analogy.


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## Tjahzi

Just to further clarify. My comment was in reference to the claim that English would be a Scandinavian language, which I found to be a bit sensationalistic and silly, like all other attempts to reclassify known languages into new groups. It's well known that English has evolved from and is classified as a West Germanic languages, a group which was mutually intelligible with North Germanic some millennium ago but not so much lately, contains a greater influx of words of Latin origin than any other (major) language and that its closest living relatives in terms of grammar are Frisian and Afrikaans (both West Germanic).

What else is there to say?


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## willem81

To Tjahzi.

I understand so that you support the traditional linguistic point of view. Regretfully I can not post here links yet, there is an article about it in the Internet where the prof. Faarlund shows the examples of syntax and grammatical similarities between English and Scandinavian, such as the words order in a sentence: 
in western Germanic: Ich habe das Bier getrunken
English (like in Scandinavian): I have drunk the beer;

and also the so-called splitted infinitive, like: 
"to never again be free",
which also exists in Scandinavians languages only, but not in western Germanic.


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## Alxmrphi

willem81 said:


> To Tjahzi.
> 
> I understand so that you support the traditional linguistic point of view. Regretfully I can not post here links yet, there is an article about it in the Internet where the prof. Faarlund shows the examples of syntax and grammatical similarities between English and Scandinavian, such as the words order in a sentence:
> in western Germanic: Ich habe das Bier getrunken
> English (like in Scandinavian): I have drunk the beer;
> 
> and also the so-called splitted infinitive, like:
> "to never again be free",
> which also exists in Scandinavians languages only, but not in western Germanic.



You have to be careful with this argument though. Faarlund's proposal has been pretty much universally rejected. When the whole of academia turns against you, that's usually a sign of something. Now, there are some linguists with proposals that have been 'laughed out of the classroom' so-to-speak, who I actually find intriguing so I also recognise the similar situation here, except in this case I take the majority view. It's just to be noticed. It's a sensationalist, grandiose claim that doesn't add any new evidence to what we have already known for decades. I've seen people use the adjective "_Faarlund-esque_" in some places to describe theories that are sensationalist, generally lacking evidence and are mainly just for headline-grabbing purposes. Check out the Language Log debunk as a first stop on the tour to the hundreds of rejections of the proposal. What I'm trying to say is, this study is packaged and parceled like something serious in academia, but it's pretty much universally rejected by other linguistics, both those working specifically on Nordic Languages/Old English, and also many others who just know how claims should be supported and found a woefully lacking explanation to the new claims. In fact, it's not even a well thought out claim. All he points to are differences and says we should come to the conclusion that this _has to_ be the case. Basically, trying to cite Faarland's study in serious academia is like trying to cite The Simpsons in a sociology class.


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## Tjahzi

My point was not such much that I disagree about there being obvious similarities between English and the (continental) Scandinavian languages but rather that equally strong connections can be made between many languages and that just pointing at some of these to make a specific case seems like cherry picking to me. For instance, while Scandinavian and English do indeed share the traits of allowing split infinitives as well as "regular" word in subclauses and with past participles/supine, Scandinavian and Dutch/German share the traits of employing V2 word order and having grammatical genders, and English and Dutch/German share the traits of using independent, prepositioned articles and a lack of distinction between the supine and past participles. 

...and above all that is the bulk of evidence on which the classification of German, Dutch and English as a West Germanic language is based on.


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## willem81

To Alxmrphi 

OK. I did not really know that prof. Faarlund has such a reputation amidst the professional linguists. I as a non-linguist was much impressed by those articles about his research.

To Tjahzi

It is true that English is related to both groups - Western and Northern Germanic, therefore taking it away from one group and putting into the other, which is what prof.Faarlund tries to do, needs some more evidence than those similarities he mentions. Or perhaps, English itself forms some new language group - say, "the North-Western Germanic group"?
By the way, what does also interest me, is there something like phrasal verbs in Scandinavian languages? I think, phrasal verbs are something which characterizes the English language.


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## Tjahzi

Yes, it's true that English is related to both North and (other) West Germanic languages, in the same way that I'm related both to my sister and my cousin. And yes, any classification should be based on all of the material available, rather than certain elements of it. My suggestion to label English a Romance language based on borrow vocabulary was a comparison to Faarlund's attempt to label it Scandinavian based on subjectively selected traits.

A phrasal verb, in its essence, is a verb that contains a particle (an adverb, essentially) or preposition, a feature which is shared among all IE-languages. The only difference between English _go out_, Latin _exeo_ and Russian _выходть_ is the order and manner in which the elements are connected. If anything, one could suggest that these verbs are more flexible and variable in all of the Germanic languages compared to Slavic and Romance.

So, to answer your question. Yes, there are lots and lots of phrasal verbs to be found in the Scandinavian languages (too).


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## NorwegianNYC

This debate is missing a very important point. Of course, genetically speaking, English is an Anglo-Frisian language of the West Germanic family. No one, not even Faarlund is debating that. However, English was subject to a massive onslaught from Norse, that not only contributed generously to the English vocabulary, but inflicted grammatical and structural changes not seen in other West Germanic languages. Old English essentially died out - except as a language for chroniclers - and was replaced by a hybrid language with a great number of Norse traits.

This debate often goes askew because of the misconception of a claim that English is a Scandinavian language in origin. It is not. The claim is that it is an Anglo-Frisian language that came under such heavy attack from Norse that it can be said to be BOTH a West and a North Germanic language.


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## NorwegianNYC

The same way Norse "died out" (I believe I said "essentially") during the Plague. There was no one point where there was a last speaker and his/her offspring spoke something else. The language had changed a long time before it ceased being used as a written medium, but as a written medium, it went to its grave with the clerks that still mastered it during the Plague. Classical Latin was used long after the Vulgar Latin variants had established themselves, and Old English was no longer spoken (and had not been so for a while) when it finally ceased from the written records.

There is no date, no sudden paradigm shift and no tragic "death" of a language - Old English evolved into newer forms, and these were heavily influenced by Norse. It does not make it a Norse language, but that is not the point.


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## Sepia

... which takes us to another point I was thinking of all along: What do we mean by "Scandinavian"? I mean, Danes, in general consider themselves and their country "Scandinavian". Germans often even want to include Finland! Many of them, who actually should know better, seem to confuse "Nordic" and "Scandinavian". Or do we mean that which the Romans thought were a large Island and which they named "Scania"? In that case it would only include Sweden and Norway. 

However, if we stick to the Danish version it ought to include not only Demark in its present shape, but all areas where Danish is traditionally spoken by a considerable part of the population, and where the Danish language have a history that dates several Centuries further back than High German. So, if that is our interpretation of "Scandinavia" and "Scandinavian" it does in fact include Anglia and the famous Viking city, Haithabu. That would justify counting the Anglian language to the Scandinavian languages. And as far as I am informed, there was a good deal of influence from Jutish language(s). 

That would make English a Scandinavian language. If you prefer different definition of "Scandinavian" it is probably not a Scandinavian language


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## NorwegianNYC

Scandinavia proper consists of Denmark, Sweden and Norway - i.e. the Danish islands, the Jutland peninsula, and the Scandinavian peninsula. Finland is not a part of Scandinavia, nor are the Finns a Scandinavian people or speak a Scandinavian language. Iceland and the Faeroe Islands are nor Scandinavian countries, but they are Scandinavian peoples and speak Scandinavian languages. This is due to medieval colonization from Scandinavia proper.

The Roman term was Scania, and there were four Scanian islands. These are generally belived to be Funen/Fyn, Lolland, Zealand/Sjælland and Scania/Skåne. The latter is not an island, but the Roman reports were based on people (Germanic tribes) living south of the Baltic Sea, and they regarded Scania as such. In other words - Scandinavia was originally a term used about today's Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden. The inclusion of the rest of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is by default. The names Scandinavia and Scania share an etymology. It is believed it is derived from Proto-Germanic _Skaðin-awjō_, perhaps meaning "dangerous water", in reference to the reefs and sandbanks off the southern coast of Scania.

Britain was never considered Scandinavia, and English is not a Scandinavian language per se, but a Germanic language influenced by Scandinavian. English is closer to Frisian and Dutch than to Scandinavian, but the Scanidinavian impact on English cannot be discounted, and is substantial until this day.

Scandinavian again, is not the same at Nordic. The Nordic countries are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. Estonia and Greenland are sometimes included.


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Scandinavia proper consists of Denmark, Sweden and Norway - i.e. the Danish islands, the Jutland peninsula, and the Scandinavian peninsula. Finland is not a part of Scandinavia, nor are the Finns a Scandinavian people or speak a Scandinavian language. Iceland and the Faeroe Islands are nor Scandinavian countries, but they are Scandinavian peoples and speak Scandinavian languages. This is due to medieval colonization from Scandinavia proper.
> 
> The Roman term was Scania, and there were four Scanian islands. These are generally belived to be Funen/Fyn, Lolland, Zealand/Sjælland and Scania/Skåne. The latter is not an island, but the Roman reports were based on people (Germanic tribes) living south of the Baltic Sea, and they regarded Scania as such. In other words - Scandinavia was originally a term used about today's Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden. The inclusion of the rest of Sweden, Denmark and Norway is by default. The names Scandinavia and Scania share an etymology. It is believed it is derived from Proto-Germanic _Skaðin-awjō_, perhaps meaning "dangerous water", in reference to the reefs and sandbanks off the southern coast of Scania.
> 
> Britain was never considered Scandinavia, and English is not a Scandinavian language per se, but a Germanic language influenced by Scandinavian. English is closer to Frisian and Dutch than to Scandinavian, but the Scanidinavian impact on English cannot be discounted, and is substantial until this day.
> 
> Scandinavian again, is not the same at Nordic. The Nordic countries are Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. Estonia and Greenland are sometimes included.



Actually you have just demostrated how "risky" it is to say "this is so and so and can't be any different". As an example, I have never heard Estonia mentioned as one of the Nordic countries. I know "Nordic" as a political entity consisting of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark - the first countries in Europe to let their citizens move around and settle in any of the member states, without needing any permits or even a passport. Of course Greenland and the Faroe Islands were included, since they were part of Denmark. (I am not too sure of their status today.) 

And one must admit that it might be disputable whether Jutland - at least geographically could be considered part of Scandinavia - but if we count total countries, it would in fact be justified to include what used to be Denmark at least till the middle of the 19th century. And if you do that, Anglia is part of it.

But I suppose it is clear, that there are several ways of seeing this - and how one defines Scandinavia (not only your definition, of mine) should be determined, before one can say "English is a Scandinavian language" or "English is NOT a Scandinavian language".


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## Dan2

NorwegianNYC said:


> Scandinavia proper consists of Denmark, Sweden and Norway ...
> Iceland and the Faeroe Islands are no_t_ Scandinavian countries, but they are Scandinavian peoples and speak Scandinavian languages.
> ...
> Scandinavian  again, is not the same at Nordic. The Nordic countries are Sweden,  Norway, Denmark, Finland, Iceland and the Faeroe Islands. Estonia and  Greenland are sometimes included.


Yes. And that raises the issue of whether this forum is properly named.


NorwegianNYC said:


> This debate is missing a very important point. Of course, genetically speaking, English is an Anglo-Frisian language of the West Germanic family. No one, not even Faarlund is debating that. However, English was subject to a massive onslaught from Norse, that not only contributed generously to the English vocabulary, but inflicted grammatical and structural changes not seen in other West Germanic languages.


This is a very important point.  Many (most?) languages have "messy" histories.  Attempting to organize them into well-defined trees (as we can do with (human) siblings, first cousins, second cousins, etc.) will inevitably leave apparent inconsistencies.  No classification will be entirely satisfactory.  People will often be able to say, "But in these respects language X is closer to "cousin" language Z than to "sister" language Y.

So modern English is a Germanic language strongly influenced by a Romance language, and in turn a _West _Germanic language strongly influenced by _North _Germanic language.  (In the first case, _so _strongly influenced that the language can look more Romance than Germanic, and in the second case so strongly influenced that even some _pronouns _are North Germanic.)

With respect to the Romance influence on English: I don't have strong disagreements with anything anyone has said here, but I do think there's a tendency to underestimate the strength of that influence.  Consider the following points:

1. While it's true that English function words (articles, prepositions) and the most common verbs tend to be Germanic, by no means is the Romance vocabulary limited to specialized contexts.  Many of the _most _common words (again, function words aside) are Romance, and many of these have no true Germanic equivalents:
_place, money, large, space, very, language, center, easy, difficult, story, move, paper, turn, student, doctor, real, state, people, person, present, group, possible, family, country,  nation, sound (ljud), close, class, level, simple, usual, single, poor_ and many more.

2. It's possible to construct entire, natural-sounding sentences from Romance vocabulary exclusively (unintentionally, this very sentence almost accomplished that).  Examples:
_Researchers consider family dinners very important.
Group insurance covers necessary doctor visits (including required hospital charges).
Polite people generally discuss personal money matters privately.
Hello! Really nice blue dress!_

3. If you asked English speakers who haven't studied the history of their language whether the (a) or (b) sentence below sound more "natural", or more "English", or less "foreign", they wouldn't know what you were talking about:
a) _Polite people generally discuss personal money matters privately._ (Pure Romance)_
b) Thoughful folks talk about their wealth only with their nearest kin._ (Pure Germanic)

a) _Hello! Really nice blue dress!_  (Pure Romance)
b) _Good morning! Pretty red skirt! _ (Pure Germanic)

(I won't even attempt to provide Germanic-English equivalents to my other sentences above.)


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## NorwegianNYC

I think it is important to look at several different terms here.
Scandinavia proper, as a political/cultural term, consists of three modern-day countries.
Scandinavia as a geographical term is the Scandinavian peninsula
Scandinavian languages is a term covering 5 (sometimes 6) languages, or sooner variants of a common Scandinavian. English has elements from Scandinavian, but has far more elements from West Germanic.
Scandinavia as a historic term, has varied a great deal, but was originally Eastern Denmark and Southern Sweden

So - we can look at this in many different ways.

Is Estonia a Nordic country? Well, if you ask Estonians, they will tell you they are. They are geographically a Baltic country, but are not culturally or linguistically related to the Balts. Culturally they are closer to the Finns.


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## Ben Jamin

Sepia said:


> ... As an example, I have never heard Estonia mentioned as one of the Nordic countries. I know "Nordic" as a political entity consisting of Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark - the first countries in Europe to let their citizens move around and settle in any of the member states, without needing any permits or even a passport. Of course Greenland and the Faroe Islands were included, since they were part of Denmark. (I am not too sure of their status today.)


The international arrangement that mention here as the origin of the term "Nordic" is much younger than the first use of the word, which must have originated in the end of the XIX century among the cultural elite of those countries who felt a cultural relationship between the mentioned countries. Two of them were at that time parts of the Russian empire, but nonetheless regarded themselves as culturally Nordic, even though Estonia was annexed by Russia almost a hundred years earlier than Finland.

There is however another use of "Nordic" which equates it with the (racially) Nordic, Germanic people, popular mostly in racist circles, and discarded by most people after the fall of Nazism.


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## willem81

I think, there must not be any confusion about the term "Nordic" here, since this forum is a subforum of Germanic languages. Therefore, what we deal with is the Germanic languages, which are in the same time "Nordic". And that is what I referred to as "Scandinavian", which might also be a not quite precise term. The precise term is Northern Germanic languages.


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## NorwegianNYC

Scandinavian languages and North Germanic languages is the same thing (synonymous terms). Nordic is a geographical/political/partly cultural term. There are 5 (sometimes 6) Scandinavian (or North Germanic) languages, and 8 Nordic "countries" (not all independent. Estonia (and to a lesser extent Latvia and Lithuania) is sometimes included, but is not a part of the Nordic Council.


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## Sepia

Has anybody counted how many definitions of "Scandinavian" and "Nordic" we have so far - all of them correct ...


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## Sellmark

As a swede, I would simply say that danish is how a seriously drunk swede talks, while norwegian is swedish spoken while riding a rollercouster.


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## willem81

It seems that speakers of each Scandinavian language find it funny how the other two languages sound. Perhaps I have a somewhat similar feeling when I hear Ukrainian or Czech and so on. Danes also seem to find it funny how Norwegian speech sounds, at least according to what can be found in youtube - there are some episodes from the danish humorous show "Live fra Bremen" dedicated to that.


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## Ben Jamin

willem81 said:


> It seems that speakers of each Scandinavian language find it funny how the other two languages sound. Perhaps I have a somewhat similar feeling when I hear Ukrainian or Czech and so on. Danes also seem to find it funny how Norwegian speech sounds, at least according to what can be found in youtube - there are some episodes from the danish humorous show "Live fra Bremen" dedicated to that.


Go to Youtube and search for "harald eia kamelåså". You will see how Norwegians perceive the Danes (a little bit exaggerated).


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## willem81

I believe I have already seen that clip about "kamelåså", depicting three Danes being unable to understand one another while all the three were speaking Danish. So Danes and Norwegians use to mutually parody each other in such clips and shows.


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## duckie

Norwegians, Swedes and Danes didn't use to have much trouble understanding one another. The neighbour languages used to be taught in school with plenty of literature from the other countries, and in parts neighbouring the border of the other country it was common to listen to tv/radio broadcasts from there. But these days they're considered pretty much like foreign languages and it's not uncommon that Scandinavians will speak English with one another instead which is kind of amusing when you think about it


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## NorwegianNYC

I believe we have to remind ourselves that Scandinavian is sooner a dialect continuum than 3 separate languages. Although it is debatable whether Danish, due to its diverging pronunciation, is a different language, or at least language variant, than Swedo-Norwegian.
Then again - Danish is also a cluster of a great number of regional variants. The South Swedish/East Danish language of Scania is closer to Danish of Zealand and Funen, than Danish of Zealand is to Danish of West Jutland. That being said, Eastern Scanian is closer to the speech of Östergötaland/Småland, than to Danish, but closer to Danish than to Stockholmska.

The Jemtish is closer to Trøndsk, than both of them are to other varieties of "Swedish" and "Norwegian". The language of Båhuslän is virtually the same as in Østfold and parts of Vestfold. And if one were to start in Karlstad, Sweden and walk north-west towards Hamar, Norway, there would not be one place where the language abruptly changed, but a gradual process.

Western Swedish (Gothenburg) and South-Eastern Norwegian has a mutual intelligibility factor of 80%. Eastern Swedish and Eastern Norwegian are still around 70%. As a matter of fact, people in Gothenburg and Stockholm are more likely understand someone from Oslo than someone from Malmø.


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## Alxmrphi

There was a story on the Icelandic news two nights ago that featured a story about how Danes and Swedes on either side of the Øresund can't really understand each other anymore. There were interviews with Danes trying to speak Swedish and just getting mixed up and Danes trying to speak Swedish having difficulties and generally mentioning all the typical stereotypes and there were stories of people trying to speak in their native language, then with the other's accent, maybe a bad attempt at the other language and then finally just in English if communication wasn't possible. I think the statistics they mentioned were something like 92% of Swedes reported difficulty with Danish but for the Danes it was more around the 45-55% mark. Not sure if it was connected to a new report or anything. Will watch again and see if there is any newly published info to refer to.


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## Ben Jamin

NorwegianNYC said:


> I believe we have to remind ourselves that Scandinavian is sooner a dialect continuum than 3 separate languages. Although it is debatable whether Danish, due to its diverging pronunciation, is a different language, or at least language variant, than Swedo-Norwegian.
> Then again - Danish is also a cluster of a great number of regional variants. The South Swedish/East Danish language of Scania is closer to Danish of Zealand and Funen, than Danish of Zealand is to Danish of West Jutland. That being said, Eastern Scanian is closer to the speech of Östergötaland/Småland, than to Danish, but closer to Danish than to Stockholmska.
> 
> The Jemtish is closer to Trøndsk, than both of them are to other varieties of "Swedish" and "Norwegian". The language of Båhuslän is virtually the same as in Østfold and parts of Vestfold. And if one were to start in Karlstad, Sweden and walk north-west towards Hamar, Norway, there would not be one place where the language abruptly changed, but a gradual process.
> 
> Western Swedish (Gothenburg) and South-Eastern Norwegian has a mutual intelligibility factor of 80%. Eastern Swedish and Eastern Norwegian are still around 70%. As a matter of fact, people in Gothenburg and Stockholm are more likely understand someone from Oslo than someone from Malmø.



But I heard it from Swedes that practically everybody in Sweden can speak Stockholm dialect and use it as a lingua franca if necessary. I met also a Swedish lady that spoke something that sounded to me like Scanian. I said to her "I'm surprised that I understand your Scanian dialect so well", and she smiled and replied "Because I speak actually Standard Swedish (Stockholmska), only with a Scanian accent".


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## NorwegianNYC

They do not speak Stockholm dialect, but Rikssvenska - which is similar, but slightly different. In Sweden, speaking a dialect has been a stigmatizing factor - encouraged by public policy - so people are less willing to admit it. That someone is speaking Rikssvenska "with a Scanian accent" as their natural language, is a statement I take with a pinch of salt. How does her language differ from Scanian? Choice of words? Intonation? Endings and verb/noun forms? And how does it differ from Rikssvenska? Prosodoy and intonation? Phonology? Pronunciation patterns?

Using Swedish and Norwegian as an example (I know Scanian is different), the internal variations of Swedish, when pronounced with a local zest and idiosyncrasies, is really no different than Norwegian vs. Swedish. The differences between the many variants of "Swedish and "Norwegian" is basically a question of prosody and local/regional quirks when it comes to grammar and vocabulary.

There are greater internal variations in e.g. German and English than in Swedo-Norwegian. Most linguists consider it to be one language, although many have now moved toward recognizing Danish as a separate entity - mostly do to the diverging Danish pronunciation, and that Danish is far more adaptive to foreign grammatical features. It is a similar story to Polish, Kashubian, Czech and Slovak - four variants made languages due to political factors rather than linguistic, as they for a considerable amount of time sorted under four different masters.

Like e.g. Polish and Czech, Norwegian and Swedish suffer from different orthographies, rather than other linguistic factors.


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## JohanIII

NorwegianNYC said:


> That someone is speaking Rikssvenska "with a Scanian accent" as their natural language, is a statement I take with a pinch of salt.


Ben Jamin didn't say that was her natural language. She adapted (as she heard he was a foreigner? as she was in Stockholm?). And my guess is she said "Stockholmska", whatever she then spake. _Stockholmska_ can be used as a slightly derogatory name for _rikssvenska_.


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## NorwegianNYC

Johan - you are correct. I hereby modify my statement!


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## duckie

I'm not sure how it is in Sweden, but in Denmark few people speak their local dialect in its completeness, so to speak. There are some pretty crazy (i.e. unintelligible for the uninitiated) dialects to be sure (with their own grammar and everything), but people tend to speak light versions of them so that they're mixed in more with 'standard Danish' and the hardcore speakers are dying out. So in general I wouldn't really say that people from the different regions speak a language that's further apart than East Danish is from Scanian. It's not wrong to make that claim, it's just that most people have softened their dialects and pulled them in closer to the mainstream. So for the majority it's no longer true.


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## NorwegianNYC

Duckie - the same line of reasoning is valid everywhere. It is not that people do not speak their local dialect "in its completeness", it is because dialects are constantly changing. Due to media, internal migration and modern-day communications, there are few truly isolated Scandinavian dialects left, so e.g. Thybomål in Denmark is nowadays influenced by other dialects to a point it has never been before. It does, however, not mean people are actively trying to speak something else. It is a natural process. In the old days, people in Thy only spoke with people in Thys, but now they speak with everybody, and pick up all sorts of words and forms. Like Scandinavian itself did a long time ago. Norwegian and Danish is almost 40% Low German/Dutch (Swedish slightly less), but it does not make it German. The people in Thy will still use their local grammatical and phonological quirks, but at the same time pick up features from elsewhere.


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## duckie

Yes, I realize language is being homogenized like this in most places, I was merely pointing out that although it's true that there's a large span between the dialect few people speak them in that way anymore, which makes the typical Danish speaker from just about anywhere in the country more intelligible to any other Danish speaker compared to someone from Scania these days.


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## Tjahzi

NorwegianNYC said:


> I believe we have to remind ourselves that Scandinavian is sooner a dialect continuum than 3 separate languages. Although it is debatable whether Danish, due to its diverging pronunciation, is a different language, or at least language variant, than Swedo-Norwegian.
> Then again - Danish is also a cluster of a great number of regional variants. The South Swedish/East Danish language of Scania is closer to Danish of Zealand and Funen, than Danish of Zealand is to Danish of West Jutland. That being said, Eastern Scanian is closer to the speech of Östergötaland/Småland, than to Danish, but closer to Danish than to Stockholmska.
> 
> The Jemtish is closer to Trøndsk, than both of them are to other varieties of "Swedish" and "Norwegian". The language of Båhuslän is virtually the same as in Østfold and parts of Vestfold. And if one were to start in Karlstad, Sweden and walk north-west towards Hamar, Norway, there would not be one place where the language abruptly changed, but a gradual process.
> 
> Western Swedish (Gothenburg) and South-Eastern Norwegian has a mutual intelligibility factor of 80%. Eastern Swedish and Eastern Norwegian are still around 70%. As a matter of fact, people in Gothenburg and Stockholm are more likely understand someone from Oslo than someone from Malmø.





NorwegianNYC said:


> They do not speak Stockholm dialect, but  Rikssvenska - which is similar, but slightly different. In Sweden,  speaking a dialect has been a stigmatizing factor - encouraged by public  policy - so people are less willing to admit it. That someone is  speaking Rikssvenska "with a Scanian accent" as their natural language,  is a statement I take with a pinch of salt. How does her language differ  from Scanian? Choice of words? Intonation? Endings and verb/noun forms?  And how does it differ from Rikssvenska? Prosodoy and intonation?  Phonology? Pronunciation patterns?
> 
> Using Swedish and Norwegian as an example (I know Scanian is different),  the internal variations of Swedish, when pronounced with a local zest  and idiosyncrasies, is really no different than Norwegian vs. Swedish.  The differences between the many variants of "Swedish and "Norwegian" is  basically a question of prosody and local/regional quirks when it comes  to grammar and vocabulary.
> 
> There are greater internal variations in e.g. German and English than in  Swedo-Norwegian. Most linguists consider it to be one language,  although many have now moved toward recognizing Danish as a separate  entity - mostly do to the diverging Danish pronunciation, and that  Danish is far more adaptive to foreign grammatical features. It is a  similar story to Polish, Kashubian, Czech and Slovak - four variants  made languages due to political factors rather than linguistic, as they  for a considerable amount of time sorted under four different masters.
> 
> Like e.g. Polish and Czech, Norwegian and Swedish suffer from different  orthographies, rather than other linguistic factors.





NorwegianNYC said:


> Duckie - the same line of reasoning is valid everywhere. It is not that people do not speak  their local dialect "in its completeness", it is because dialects are  constantly changing. Due to media, internal migration and modern-day  communications, there are few truly isolated Scandinavian dialects left,  so e.g. Thybomål in Denmark is nowadays influenced by other dialects to  a point it has never been before. It does, however, not mean people are  actively trying to speak something else. It is a natural process. In  the old days, people in Thy only spoke with people in Thys, but now they  speak with everybody, and pick up all sorts of words and forms. Like  Scandinavian itself did a long time ago. Norwegian and Danish is almost  40% Low German/Dutch (Swedish slightly less), but it does not make it  German. The people in Thy will still use their local grammatical and  phonological quirks, but at the same time pick up features from  elsewhere.


More or less all of the above is highly debatable.


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## NorwegianNYC

Hello Tjahzi - long time! Debatable? Well, you and I have debated this at length in the past... Again, so much of this (and I believe we agreed on that last time) boils down to definitions.


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## Sepia

duckie said:


> Norwegians, Swedes and Danes didn't use to have much trouble understanding one another. The neighbour languages used to be taught in school with plenty of literature from the other countries, and in parts neighbouring the border of the other country it was common to listen to tv/radio broadcasts from there. But these days they're considered pretty much like foreign languages and it's not uncommon that Scandinavians will speak English with one another instead which is kind of amusing when you think about it



If you substitute "Danes" with "people living in North Sealand, Greater Copenhagen and Koege Bugt, it is true what you are saying.

Most people from Jutland I know are lost when somebody speaks to them in Swedish.


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## Tjahzi

Hehe, hello again. 

Yes, indeed we have debated this before, and while we didn't exactly reach a consensus, I hope you agree with me when I say that what it boils down to is our diverging views of contemporary Swedish dialects. You perceive the situation to be similar to that found in Norwegian, with various dialectal branches being traceable back to a common ancestor, while I believe Swedish dialects are more accurately described as variants of Standard Swedish, mainly differing in prosody.

As such, all of what you have stated above, as well as my objections against it, is based on this difference of ours.

(Feel free to disagree.)


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## NorwegianNYC

Tjahzi said:


> As such, all of what you have stated above, as well as my objections against it, is based on this difference of ours.
> 
> (Feel free to disagree.)


 Indeed! I agree that we disagree, and that is my favorite form of disagreement! Thanks for posting the link to the previous debate. I could not find it.


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## Ben Jamin

JohanIII said:


> Ben Jamin didn't say that was her natural language. She adapted (as she heard he was a foreigner? as she was in Stockholm?). And my guess is she said "Stockholmska", whatever she then spake. _Stockholmska_ can be used as a slightly derogatory name for _rikssvenska_.



She actually said "jag pratar stockholmska", not "rikssvenska". Was it her natural language? I guess she was diglossial (am i making a new English word here?), speaking Scanian with her fellow Scanians, and the lingua franca with a local accent with other Swedes and Scandinavians, to make herself more easily understood.


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## NorwegianNYC

Ben - that makes sense! I remember you once wrote that Polish people do not really speak dialect anymore, (and you added) except for when they speak to people from they own parts. To me it sounds like a similar phenomenon.


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## Ben Jamin

NorwegianNYC said:


> Like e.g. Polish and Czech, Norwegian and Swedish suffer from different orthographies, rather than other linguistic factors.



Actually Czech and Polish differ much more than you imagine. The greatest differences are in vocabulary, that grew aparat after the two countries lost most of their common border due to German colonization of Silesia in Middle Ages. A Czech and a Pole may speak about simple matters and understand each other with difficulty, but all more advanced conversation is impaired as the vocabulary is so different. It is even more different than between Norwegian and German. The syntactic words are often very different too. In practice it is difficult to obtain more than 40% mutual understanding. It's less than between Italian and Spanish, especially that in those two langauges the more learned vocabulary tends to be more alike.


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## duckie

Sepia said:


> If you substitute "Danes" with "people living in North Sealand, Greater Copenhagen and Koege Bugt, it is true what you are saying.
> 
> Most people from Jutland I know are lost when somebody speaks to them in Swedish.



But schools in Jutland taught Norwegian and Swedish texts too, no? Though large parts of Scandinavia lacked the interbroadcast of radio and tv from the neighbours there was a different emphasis on Scandinavian culture and language than there is today. These days the emphasis is on learning English in first or second grade.


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## NorwegianNYC

Ben - I am aware they are different languages, and more distinct than e.g. Norwegian and Swedish. It was for the sake of the example. Also - according to some colleagues of mine - Czech speakers normally understand more Polish than vice versa, and here is a quote from one of them (she is Czech): "I consider Czech and Polish distinct languages. But not very distinct, and with Silesian as a dialect continuum bridging them"


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## willem81

To instance a modern example. I was reading an interview of King Diamond from March 2012, so here is a small excerpt from it which is somewhat related to the topic:

*Q: I’m curious, how often do you speak to Anders Allhage?*

 K.D. – Several times a week! We are on Skype constantly, meeting, things  for the show, decisions for what we should buy, working with actors, to  find the right outfits, we talk a lot. It never stops!

*Q: In English or Scandinavian?*

 K.D.– He speaks Swedish and I speak Danish.


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## Ben Jamin

NorwegianNYC said:


> ... "I consider Czech and Polish distinct languages. But not very distinct, and with Silesian as a dialect continuum bridging them"


Well, it is a one individual's opinion, and an individual's understanding of a related language varies enormously. The same you can see in the mutual understanding of the Scandinavian languages. Some people do it very well, others are completely lost. Only systematic statistic research, based on tests, not opinions, can bring some reliable stuff to base on.
The same applies to mutual understanding of dialects in one language*. People usually overestimate interdialectal understanding in their own country. It would be very interested to find any research results of tests like letting a group of people listen to a lecture on a complicated matter given in their own dialect, and in another one.


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## mclinkport

I have to get some translations for a number of EU languages for some cosmetic products. Space is limited, so I would like to have as few translations as possible.
Am I right in thinking that if I use Danish then the instructions will be understood widely across Norway and Sweden as well?
Or would Norwegian be a better choice? Or Swedish?


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## willem81

mclinkport said:


> I have to get some translations for a number of EU languages for some cosmetic products. Space is limited, so I would like to have as few translations as possible.
> Am I right in thinking that if I use Danish then the instructions will be understood widely across Norway and Sweden as well?
> Or would Norwegian be a better choice? Or Swedish?



Norwegian bokmål (Norsk bokmål) is believed to be understandable enough for Swedes and Danes as well, maybe it'll work in most cases.


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## AutumnOwl

Usually the text on cosmetic products in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) in one entry and only those words/expressions that differ substantially are translated separately (an example from a skin lotion bottle: _absorberas lätt och gör huden mjuk/blød _- are easily absorbed and makes the skin soft). Norwegian is probably the best choice as the basic language and translate only the words that differ in Swedish and Danish.


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## Stoggler

The shaving gel canister I have at the moment has a Danish/Norwegian version and a separate Swedish version.


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## mexerica feliz

AutumnOwl said:


> Usually the text on cosmetic products in the Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) in one entry and only those words/expressions that differ substantially are translated separately (an example from a skin lotion bottle: _absorberas lätt och gör huden mjuk/blød _- are easily absorbed and makes the skin soft). Norwegian is probably the best choice as the basic language and translate only the words that differ in Swedish and Danish.



But Norwegian is not 1 language, but two different written languages, both of which have at least 3 different subnorms.
Which Norwegian are you referring too? For example, you can say sick as either _sjuk _(the Swedish way) or _syk _(the Danish way) in Norwegian...
And both _sjuk _are _syk _are valid Bokmaal.


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## Ben Jamin

mexerica feliz said:


> But Norwegian is not 1 language, but two different written languages, both of which have at least 3 different subnorms.
> Which Norwegian are you referring too? For example, you can say sick as either _sjuk _(the Swedish way) or _syk _(the Danish way) in Norwegian...
> And both _sjuk _are _syk _are valid Bokmaal.


But the "Bokmål" norm(s) is the one most used (even if figures vary, depending on who you ask), and understood easily by everybody, so the choice is easy.


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## mclinkport

Thank you for your help.
I will use a basic translation and add extra word where necessary.


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