# Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Dutch: mutual intelligibility



## alexandro

hallo, i would like to know wich of these germanic language is better to learn to understand or to learn faster the others.

example if i learn danish can i ll learn faster norwegian and then swedish?? or what is better to learn first?


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## GoranBcn

I asked the same question in another site similar to this one and I've got this answer. This person is from Norway



> _*Norwegian, swedish and danish*
> _ _ 90% of the words in swedish is also in the norwegian. we don`t always understand each other, and norwegians understand the two other languages better.
> 
> Fig. A. an understanding of spoken language
> 
> Norwegians understand 88% of the spoken swedish language
> understand 73% of the spoken danish language
> 
> Swedes understand 48% of the spoken norwegian language
> understand 23% of the spoken danish language
> 
> Danes understand 69% of the spoken norwegian language
> understand 43% of the spoken swedish language
> 
> Fig. B. An understanding of the written language
> 
> Norwegians understand 89% of the written swedish language
> understand 93% of the written danish language
> 
> Swedes understand 86% of the written norwegian language
> understand 69% of the written danish language
> 
> Danes understand 89% of the written norwegian language
> undestand 69? of the written swedish language.
> 
> We in Norway undestand the danish written language best. the norwegian bokmål has developed from the danish language and we have seen the language from 100-150 years ago. all of the big writers in Norway used the danish language. _


Another person told me this:

*"Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish" 

Norwegian + phonology - vocabulary = swedish

Norwegian - phonology + vocabulary = danish
 
*I guess this helps a bit.


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## vuelta

I would not recommend you to try to learn Swedish. It´s really hard to learn if you´re not raised with it. I´m from Sweden myself, and everyday I find out more stupid things with our language. The grammar is with thousands of exceptions, so there´s no idea to learn the "rules".
I like my language, but it´s hard for foreigners to learn.

Interesting that statistic about the Scandinavian languages...


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## jazyk

I would recommend Swedish, because the spelling is much more faithful to the pronunciation (and the opposite is also true, obviously).  Danish is somewhat like English in this regard. And I also like the two Swedish tones. 

I cannot say anything about Norwegian, unfortunately, only that I don't have a problem with it when it's written, especially Bokmål, which indeed looks very much like Danish.


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## Sepia

Yes, they differ about as much from each other as Castellano does from Valenciano. Pronounciation-wise and acoustically I also think that Swedish will be the easier one. They have a very distinct pronounciation. What seem a bit funny to you is the intonation. Danish on the other hand is more monotonous.


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## jimreilly

I would recommend Norwegian (Bokmål) first, Swedish second. If you learn Bokmål you will be able to understand most written Danish, and, then if you listen to Danes enough (enough=a lot!) you might even be able to catch on to some spoken Danish. 

I had studied Norwegian a bit before the first time I ever sang in Danish, and, foolish me, it was in front of an audience that had real Danes in it. One elderly gentleman came up to me afterwards and commented "Ah, you sang Danish with a Norwegian accent, you had clear sounds!". That's the trouble with that "gentle, muffled language" (a famous compliment of that language): it seems to have few clear sounds!

Over the last ten years I have gotten used to singing in Danish and, although I do not do it well or very accurately, it is a noble struggle because of the many wonderful songs in that language which have enriched my repertoire and my life. Hardly anyone sings them (or even knows them) except Danish singers. But I'm still glad I started with Norwegan.

Also, if you learn Norwegian and even come across a bit of Nynorsk (the "other" main dialect) you will have a little more luck with at least written Icelandic should you want to go to Iceland, a trip I would definitely recommend--a most fascinating country and culture.

Dutch I cannot speak about.....or speak in, or even sing in.


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## robbie_SWE

I would recommend that you start with Swedish (I promise that I'm not bias  ). Here are my reasons: 

1. Swedish is the biggest/most spoken language of all of the Scandinavian languages (spoken by over 9 million people in Sweden and appr. 1 million in Finland). 

2. I've been to Norway and Denmark and Swedish has helped me countless times (Norwegian is easier to learn if you know Swedish, Danish is much harder but if you speak Swedish in my dialect _[“Skånska”] _it’s much easier!). 

3. Last but not least, Swedish grammar isn't that hard as people think that it is. The verbs are very easy to learn, because they only have one form in the present (and all other forms too by the way  ). But pronunciation is hard!!! That will take you a while to learn, you may even have to live here  . 

So, that's my opinion. Hoppas ingen från Norge eller Danmark tar illa upp!!! 

GOOD LUCK WITH WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE!!! 

 robbie


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## Sepia

robbie_SWE said:
			
		

> ...
> 
> ...Danish is much harder but if you speak Swedish in my dialect _[“Skånska”] _it’s much easier!).
> 
> ....
> 
> 
> GOOD LUCK WITH WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE!!!
> 
> robbie


 
You are probably right if you are talking about the Eastern regions of Denmark - because there they are used to hearing that dialect. But I don't think you would find many people in Jutland that would understand more than about 10%. (Many Swedes have trouble too). However, I aggree that it probably makes easier for you to understand Danish. 

This is not meant to downgrade _“Skånska” - _I actually like that dialect. I have lived for several years in Copenhagen and even worked for a while in the town that even leading Swedish newspapers have elected "Sweden's most boring town". So you probably know which one I mean.


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## optimistique

I have tried to learn Norwegian a bit, and en passant a bit of Swedish/Danish, but I can tell you that there is hardly any mutual intelligibility between these three languages and Dutch. Of course you see resemblances and especially in written Norwegian you can understand quite a lot, but the spoken languages sound so immensely different that I can assure you that learning Dutch will not help you really much learning these others. 
The only language for which Dutch will really be of much use, would be German, which is very similar to Dutch.


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## alexandro

sehr interessant...ich denke dass ich werde Swedisch lernen!! weil mehr Leute in Skandinavien (besonders in Finnland) Swedisch sprechen!!

but in norway and danmark do they know swedish??


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## Andreas_Jensen

First of all, what you should not start with is not Danish, even if it would satisfy my petty nationalist soul a great deal ;-). Danish pronunciation and spelling is extremely difficult for foreigners to learn, I guess especially for Italian and Spanish speakers who are used to much more transparency between written and spoken language (my Spanish girlfirend is currently trying to undertake the feat and she is NOT happy about it ) .

To me, swedish pronunciation is just as insane, if not more, although the spelling is easier.

Norwegian bokmål on the other hand is easy to spell (as mentioned it's pretty much like Danish, just spelled as it's spoken!) and the sounds come closer to 'latin' pronunciation. I guess the intonation could be a bit diffucult, though.

The grammar is pretty simple in all of the three.

If your objective is to master all the three languages I would pick norwegian bokmål first, since this is almost an 'intermediate' between Danish and Swedish, and easier to learn (I would assume). Then you can proceed to whichever you want.

If you want to just know one and improvise when you meet speakers of the other two (as we do here in Scandinavia, even if we often know English better  ) I would probably recommend Swedish, since this is the bigger one. But since Denmark is the nicest country, maybe you should choose Danish  

The intelligibility between scandinavian languages and Dutch is, as mentioned, pretty non-existent.

Og til slut en lille hilsen til alle mine skandinaviske brødre!  

Andreas, Copenhagen


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## jimreilly

I am really pleased to find my opinions about learning bokmål first seconded by a real Dane. His Spanish girlfirend has my EVERY sympathy. As far as his "Denmark is the nicest country", I have too many friends in Norway to agree with this without being unkind to people who have been so kind to me.


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## Brian P

When Norwegians, Danes and Swedes converse with each other do they normally do so in English, a language that I assume most educated people of these nationalities speak?


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## Andreas_Jensen

When scandinavians meet we almost always start off in our respective languages. This can seem a bit pointless though, since most of us (young people) understand English better than other scandinavian languages, but for me it just seems stupid to speak english to a swede or a norwegian. If it's completely necessary, we could switch to English. I guess that, if I went to fx Stockholm (far from Denmark), not many people would understand me, and I would have to use English.

In my student residence (dorm, kollegium) we have a couple of swedes and I know a norwegian living here. As far as I know they have all been speaking their own languages all the time they've been in Denmark, and this works just fine. In the beginning of course with some difficulty, but after some time (a month?) we get used to hearing eachother and they're no problems. After a longer time most swedes and norwegians here begin speaking a 'Danish-friendly' version of their languages (with some hard words changed, less slang, and maybe a modified pronunciation), and two of our swedes actually speak a pretty flawless Danish.


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## Outsider

Alexandro, I hope you have realised by now that Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are closely related languages (somewhat like Italian and Spanish, or even like Spanish and Portuguese, from what I understand), but Dutch is a different matter. While all four languages are related, Dutch is much closer to German, or even English, than to the Scandinavian languages.

One advantage of learning Swedish is that you can use it in parts of Finnland, too. On the other hand, Dutch is closely related to Afrikaans, which is spoken in South Africa. And some forms of Nowegian are very, very similar to Danish...

Not an easy choice!


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## alexandro

Ja...dutch is really similar to german, i can understand few dutch reading!! 

I have realised that swedish is most spoken in skandinavian countries, with norwegian i can understand more danish and swedish but it is not the more spoken, danish maybe at least of the three...


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## Setwale_Charm

vuelta said:
			
		

> I would not recommend you to try to learn Swedish. It´s really hard to learn if you´re not raised with it. I´m from Sweden myself, and everyday I find out more stupid things with our language. The grammar is with thousands of exceptions, so there´s no idea to learn the "rules".
> I like my language, but it´s hard for foreigners to learn.
> 
> Interesting that statistic about the Scandinavian languages...


 
 Oh please... I learnt Swedish as a foreign language, that was my first Scandinavian language and I am still alive , believe it or not. I even did my studies in it. An d quite frankly, I am upset when I hear somebody being so critical of their own language. The pronunciation is difficult at times but not deadly, the Danish pron is far worse. (Icelandic not counted - that`s the worst of all!!) I think Norwegian would be the easiest, it combines the best features and is relatively fit for your poor articulation organs. Plus, you will understand Danish and Swedish better than if you know one of these and try to cope with other Scandinavian languages.

 For myself, I sometimes am baffled and speak Swedish in terms of vocabulary, but with Danish grammar and Norwegian pronunciation - i am therefore every Scandinavian`s worst nightmare!!   I never managed to pick up the Danish pronuciation but then I haven`t worked so hard on it and Danes understand me anyway. I also know Icelandic but practically never speak it.


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## panjabigator

So generalizing, Norwegian appears to be the safest bet.


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## Lemminkäinen

panjabigator said:


> So generalizing, Norwegian appears to be the safest bet.



It of course depends on what you're planning to use it for (i.e. if you're moving to Sweden, Swedish will be the best choice  ), but learning Norwegian bokmål and the Eastern dialect, you'll have a good opportunity to also understand spoken Swedish (but perhaps not _skånska_  ) and written Danish. So I don't think it's the worst choice you could take (biased? me?  ).

Oh, and about Danish being incomprehensible, this clip can perhaps illustrate (performence by three of the best known comedians over here)


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## Anatoli

vuelta said:


> I would not recommend you to try to learn Swedish. It´s really hard to learn if you´re not raised with it. I´m from Sweden myself, and everyday I find out more stupid things with our language. The grammar is with thousands of exceptions, so there´s no idea to learn the "rules".
> I like my language, but it´s hard for foreigners to learn.
> 
> Interesting that statistic about the Scandinavian languages...



When I was about 20 I had to learn Swedish fast (I had a reason then). I am Russian and I knew English and German. I was able to understand movies in a few weeks and I found Swedish and Norwegian extremely easy after German and English. I haven't used Swedish and Norwegian since but I think you are too hard on your language


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## Christhiane

Well, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are all part of a dialect continuum (a network of diaclets where neighbouring variants can be understood well, but those farther apart doesn't necciseraly have to understand each other). 

However, I'd also say Norwegian bokmål. Norwegian lies between Danish and Swedish, and it is my experience that foreigners who try to learn a variant of Scandinavian, usually sound the most Eastern Norwegian. I'd also recomend using an uvular 'r,' as you avoid some hard-to-pronounce retroflex sounds you'd have to use if you had a tap 'r'. 

But as far as written languages go, I'd say that any is just as good.


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## jonquiliser

It's a somewhat old thread, but another viewpoint: whatever you choose perhaps depends most on your intentions - you go live somewhere, you'll need that local language most... . But it is probably fair to say that Norwgian bokmål is a reasonable choice that will allow you to learn/understand Danish and Swedish as well. I'd say the languages are pretty intelligible amongst them, but not necessarily immediately. For one's ears to get used to the Danish pronounciation and distinguish what they say, it may well take some time. In personal dialogue, with efforts to be as understandable as possible, in my experience you can understand each other. But listening to others talk, I'd get very little. Norwegian on the other hand I tend to understand quite well. 

I believe I've heard both Danes and Norwegians say they can understand the Swedish spoken in Finland better than Sweden-Swedish varieties. Perhaps because many Swedish dialects in Finland have much in common with Danish and especially with Norwegian (nynorsk). On the other hand, the intonation of Swedish in Finland is often quite "flat" (which it's not in Swedish), and sounds are generally more "articulated" (ok, not a good explanation, I know).

As for Dutch, or German, or English; if you speak any of these, you'll definitely find it easier to learn Scandinavian languages than if you're only acquainted with, say, Romance languages. But the intelligibility isn't very high. You may recognise many words, and some structures, between all these, but not get the meaning, and you definitely can't carry out a conversation in, say, Dutch and Norwegian if you don't know both languages. But learning them is way easier if one knows some other Germanic language.  

Anyway:



robbie_SWE said:


> 1. Swedish is the biggest/most spoken language of all of the Scandinavian languages (spoken by over 9 million people in Swedenand appr. 1 million in Finland).



This is perhaps a bit exaggerated . Native Swedish speakers in Finland are not even a third of that. But most Finnish-speaking Finns have some level of Swedish knowledge, as it for long has been obligatory in education (this has changed a little recently).


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## Nander

jonquiliser said:


> On the other hand, the intonation of Swedish in Finland is often quite "flat" (which it's not in Swedish), and sounds are generally more "articulated" (ok, not a good explanation, I know).



Yeah, that's right. Take the sentence: "Jag tog stegen uppför stegen på stegen" (yeah, it's a bit forced but you _could_ say that  ). In Finland you would pronounce "stegen" the same in all three places, while in Sweden we have three different pronunciations.  Also, your "A":s sound a lot different than ours.

So, you're a Finlandswede (God, that  sounds really wrong, but finlandssvensk), Jonquiliser? Didn't think I would meet someone here, there doesn't even seem to be that many Swedes here I'm born in Sweden, but I've spent a lot of time in Finland (both my parents are from Finland), and my Swedish is somewhat coloured by Finlandswedish. Which  my friends love to point out to me...  

Sorry for going OT, but to the original poster I can say that you can't really go wrong with Swedish or Norwegian. I would suggest you stay away from Danish until you've learnt one of the other, though.


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## jonquiliser

Yup, I'm Finno-Swedish (also don't know how to say it, I know there's some standard word for it but..). There are a few Swedes aroundon the forums, but perhaps they have to be lured out? hehe. 

I do have to admit a difficulty of imagining the pronounciation of "Jag tog stegen uppför stegen på stegen" with three different pronounciations of "stegen"!!  Mind you, I've worked on my rikssvenska accent  with the help of my Swedish cousins, but I don't get the difference here..! 

Perhaps foreigners should be advised to learn the Swedish of Finland, to avoid any hassle 

(Oh and Nander - welcome to the forum!!)


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## Nander

jonquiliser said:


> Yup, I'm Finno-Swedish (also don't know how to say it, I know there's some standard word for it but..). There are a few Swedes aroundon the forums, but perhaps they have to be lured out? hehe.
> 
> I do have to admit a difficulty of imagining the pronounciation of "Jag tog stegen uppför stegen på stegen" with three different pronounciations of "stegen"!!  Mind you, I've worked on my rikssvenska accent  with the help of my Swedish cousins, but I don't get the difference here..!
> (Oh and Nander - welcome to the forum!!)



Rikssvenskar would say something along these lines (a bit exaggerated, but just so you can get my point  )

Stegen (as in the steps) would sound something like steg-än
Stegen (as in the ladder steps) would sound something like steg-en, going up at en
Stegen (as in the ladder) would just be stegen, totally flat.

Try saying that and you will notice how you sound just like a rikssvensk


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## jimreilly

As a Minnesotan whose knowledge of these languages and cultures is clouded by the fact that my acquantance is mostly through immigrant communities here, I find this thread quite interesting, especially the Finnish/Swedish references.

Because there also a small Icelandic community here, I'd like to add one more slant, however, which the orginal poster perhaps did not consider. If one thows Icelandic (and even Faroese) into the mix, I think that tips the odds further in favor of learning Norwegian, espcially if one learns Nynorsk or some other Norwegian dialect still a little closer to Icelandic. Icelandic is far enough away from all the other Nordic languages not to have mutual intelligibility, but one will be a little closer to it in Norwegian than in Swedish.

And Iceland is quite an amazing place, well worth visiting.....many Icelanders even seem to be quite happy to live there!


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## Spectre scolaire

Being a fan of the “mutual intelligibility discussions” on this forum I’d like to bring to the fore some remarks. They come in two parts.

This is *Part I*:

I think one should discuss _*either*_ mutual intelligibility between Germanic languages in general (like there is one between Slavic languages) _*or*_ – and that is a much better idea, and indeed the one carried out in this thread! – to concentrate on _Scandinavian languages_. In that case, _Dutch_ has nothing to do in this discussion. 

For the sake of further thematic clarity we should perhaps indulge in a quick glance at the actual subject of the present discussion.

The Germanic group of languages, according to linguistic conventions, is split into a *Northern* and a *Southern* group.


The *Southern group* comprises Anglo-Frisian and German/Dutch.​The *Northern group* is also split into two sub-branches: *West Nordic* and *East Nordic*.​In the *East Nordic group* of *Northern Germanic languages* we find

Danish, Norwegian and Swedish (in alphabetical order ).​The linguistic classification is somehow blurred by the fact that “Norwegian” is not an unambiguous term as it includes both Bokmål and Nynorsk, the latter belonging historically to the *West-Nordic* group (together with Icelandic and Faroese).

About mutual intelligibility in Scandinavia, questions like the following may crop up as relevant:

***Do Norwegians have a better understanding of Danish and Swedish because of their historical position as “underdogs” of both Danes and Swedes? 


434 years under Danish sovereignty in addtition to 91 years under Swedish may have inflicted some degree of “linguistic submission”... Eventually, they achieved full independence in 1905 being catapulted by a national romantic movement through which _Nynorsk_ was born. And yet they ended up with the absurd situation of _two_ national languages, one without a clear-cut dialect basis nor a clear-cut prestigious (administrative) centre, i.e. _Nynorsk_ (formerly called _Landsmål_), and the other, _Bokmål_ (formerly called _Riksmål_), a kind of “creolized Danish”, an imported written standard with a Danish literary tradition, but prone to survive in Norway because it was the language of the elite and that of the administrative centre. A delicate national dilemma to say the least!​***Do _centre_ and _periphery_ play a role in mutual intelligibility?

Norway was never a centre – except after they found oil in the North Sea. My point is: _periphery_ would tend to understand the _centre_ whereas generally the opposite does not obtain. Because of a high degree of linguistic anarchy due to lack of prescriptivism and two mutually intelligible Norwegian languages, Norway continued to remain in the periphery. I am not saying that prescriptivism is a _linguistic_ desideratum, but it has proved worldwide to be a _language policy_ desideratum. Favouring one standard is important for a small nation. However, such a policy could not be implemented in Norway because Nynorsk is considered, in wide circles, to be _the_ national language as much as Irish is in Ireland. The irony is that both Nynorsk and Irish are artificial constructs kept alive inside the framework of a national romantic agenda.​***Does compulsory teaching in school of both national languages, Bokmål and Nynorsk, favour comprehension of other Scandinavian languages (and dialects)?

The corollary _laissez-faire_ (if not “laissez-parler”) policy in national radio stations and television channels of all Norwegian dialects under the pretense that any dialect implicitly favours the cause of Nynorsk, may have a positive side effect: Every citizen in Norway – contrary to any other country in the world – is used to hearing every single day a wide range of dialects and not exclusively some elevated national norm. The British socio-linguist Peter Trudgill is full of praise of this unique situation, but would he ever recommend it for a country like China?... Norway can afford such a policy – most other countries can’t. It is possible that the Norwegian “linguistic schizophrenia” – an expression coined by the late Norwegian-American linguist Einar Haugen – is damaging national language endeavors, but favouring the comprehension of other Scandinavian idioms.​***Are Swedes and Danes - as a result of “Scandinavian versions of the French _jacobinisme républicain_” favouring one prestigious dialect to the detriment of all others – disadvantaged in understanding other Scandinavian “dialects” than the one inculcated in school?

For the sake of argument, this point is somehow exaggerated. It is a fact, however, that Danish language policy has shown a complete lack of clemency towards _other_[sic] Danish dialects than the one spoken in the capital (where I once upon a time was a student for a couple of years).​End of *Part I*.​


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## Spectre scolaire

This is *Part II*:

***Did _modernity_ – because of its early advent in “European” Denmark and in French influenced Bonapartic Sweden – cause a kind of “superiority complex” among the affected, a mentality which would later hamper the willingness to understand Scandinavian linguistic periphery, _in casu_ [written] Nynorsk and [spoken] dialects?

Norway was always a geographical _cul-de-sac_. A comparison with an area like today’s Turkey may be instructive. During all recorded history there is a _va et vient_ of numerous civilizations in Anatolia. Norway is more like a backyard, not unlike Ireland; it has been the home of one single civilization – excluding the Sami population (mainly) in the North. If a person happened to arrive by boat – shipwreck, f.ex. - from somewhere in Europe, he’d either _stay_ or he’d _go back_. As a matter of geography, a through fare was never on the agenda. If the chosen settlement became too crowded, you would have the “options” of either starving or emigrating to Iceland (or Normandy...), or later to America. Denmark and Sweden were never geographical diverticula to get trapped in (with the exception of extremely poor serfs in the Swedish countryside – but they were already there, and they would either starve or escape to America (if they could). Because of their quasi feudal immobility, these people only counted for the posterity in terms of producing a number of local dialects.​​***Do some special linguistic features among Scandinavian languages cause intelligibility disruption in oral communication?

The Danish _stød_, a linguistic feature which is still unaccounted for in comparative linguistics, provides a definite impediment to understanding – unless you get conscientiously used to it. Neither Swedes nor Norwegians seem to be prepared for such a thing. What appears not to be taught in school – and this is somehow surprising! - is that there is a relatively strict correspondance between the Danish _stød_ and the Norwegian and Swedish _tonemes_. There are exceptions galore, especially linked to Danish monosyllables, but the fact remains that Scandinavian mutual intelligibility would gain some terrain if children were actively taught how these correspondences actually operate. To learn Norwegian or Swedish tonemes on the basis of the Danish _stød_ would work in principle, and vice versa, to learn Danish _stød_ from a native Norwegian or Swedish standpoint (with the notable exception of those dialects, especially in Norway, which do not possess tonemes) is equally a matter of sorting out actively one’s own linguistic habits and get some additional _ad hoc_ information about monosyllables. For non-Scandinavians, however, _stød_ and _tonemes_ are equally difficult to distribute correctly as neither of them is marked orthographically. (Anyway, the present discussion is not focused on foreigners learning Scandinavian languages but rather on how impeccably the Scandinavians intercommunicate).​​*Note I*: _Scandinavia_ is both a geographical and a linguistic term. _Scandinavian languages_ are not only Germanic languages spoken in Norway and Sweden, but also in Denmark which is not a part of the _Scandinavian peninsula_, but rather a small geographical excrescence of the North-European continent. From an historical linguistic point of view, there is a _continuum_ between German and Danish. Certain Danish dialects of Central Southern Jutland – not to mention a peripheral dialect like the one in Thyborøn (NW Jutland) – are incomprehensible to Danes from Copenhagen. Danish is also spoken in a limited area of Schleswig-Holstein (Germany). The existence of this (historical) _continuum_ should not interfere, however, in a discussion of mutual intelligibility between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. As for Swedish in Finland, it has already received some attention. Notable features due to a Finnish substratum include non-aspirated p/t/k.

*Note II*: As far as Icelandic is concerned, it belongs to the strange coinage of “Nordic languages” – in which even Finnish is included! This concept has nothing more to do with linguistics than “Nordic ski” – except when talking about _West and East Nordic languages_ of Northern Germanic languages. There is a _Nordic Council_, a cultural-political catalyst of internal cooperation, which also works on mutual intelligibility in the, eh, _Nordic countries_.

*Note III*: For obvious reasons, Gothic may remain where it is – as an extinct language of an Eastern group of the *Northern Germanic* languages.

I’d suggest that Dutch be skipped from this thread thus concentrating on Danish, Norwegian and Swedish – which, in fact, is already implemented in practice.

*Danish/Swedish/Norwegian/Dutch: mutual intelligibility.*​​


			
				jimreilly said:
			
		

> If one thows Icelandic (and even Faroese) into the mix, I think that tips the odds further in favor of learning Norwegian, espcially if one learns Nynorsk or some other Norwegian dialect still a little closer to Icelandic. Icelandic is far enough away from all the other Nordic languages not to have mutual intelligibility, but one will be a little closer to it in Norwegian than in Swedish.


It is, however, a curious fact that _Danish_ has traditionally been the first Scandinavian language to be learned by the Icelanders. (The island formerly belonged to Denmark!) There are many Icelanders living in Denmark where they communicate with Danes in a strange idiom which has some phonetic ressemblance to Norwegian and definitely less to the phonetically awkward-to-learn Danish. They would tend to skip the infamous _stød_ – who woudn’t! - exaggerate the Danish loose fricative pronunciation of intervocalic /d/ making it blend with Icelandic /ð/, and pre-aspirate (before p/t/k) as they please – equally an Icelandic substratum. 

But Icelandic is not a Scandinavian language...
 Dutch/Icelandic ​


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## Outsider

Spectre scolaire said:


> The corollary _laissez-faire_ (if not “laissez-parler”) policy in national radio stations and television channels of all Norwegian dialects under the pretense that any dialect implicitly favours the cause of Nynorsk, may have a positive side effect: Every citizen in Norway – contrary to any other country in the world – is used to hearing every single day a wide range of dialects and not exclusively some elevated national norm. The British socio-linguist Peter Trudgill is full of praise of this unique situation, but would he ever recommend it for a country like China?​


More importantly, would he ever recommend it for the U.K.?


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## Arrius

I am an Englishman with a very good knowledge of German and an inaccurate but functional knowledge of both Dutch and Afrikaans. It took me a few weeks with an ancient secondhand Hugo's "Norwegian in Three Months without a Teacher" to learn to read it fairly well, in fact with greater ease than I read Latin which I studied up to Advanced Level G.C.E. several decades ago. It is the easiest written language I have ever come across. Reading a text in Norwegian is like looking at German in a distorting mirror at a funfare - no disrespect to Norwegian intended, which I find to be a fine language. One gets used to recognising the shared Germanic roots of the words that are often very different in Scandinavian from the German but still, with a bit of effort, vaguely familiar. When the resemblance dawns on you and you realise what a new word means, it feels like meeting an old friend in disguise.
And if a particular word does not have a close or distant cousin in German, then it may have in Dutch (although this idea was denied above) or in English itself which was once under considerable Viking influence. 
I can also work Danish out and to a lesser extent Swedish but only the written language. With practice, I think I could soon get used to spoken Norwegian but I would despair of oral Danish. However, although there are many Scandinavians down here on the Costa del Sol, they all speak excellent English anyway.


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## Noline

Ho before you skip Dutch let me say that when I hear Norwegian (I'm Dutch) it sounds a bit like German/English/Dutch mixed, I can even understand some of it.

Ok, skip Dutch.

Cheers
NoLine


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## Vejrudsigt

Arrius said:


> And if a particular word does not have a close or distant cousin in German, then it may have in Dutch (although this idea was denied above) or in English itself which was once under considerable Viking influence.



Very true.

The orthographic connections between Dutch and the Scandinavian languages are commonly overlooked. In the following examples, notice how the Dutch -> Danish/Norwegian/Swedish progression is more readily discernible than the German -> Danish/Norwegian/Swedish counterpart:

German *Zeit* -> Dutch *tijd* -> Danish/Norwegian/Swedish *tid*

German *heissen* -> Dutch *heten* -> Norwegian *hete* -> Danish *hedde* -> Swedish *heta*

German *krank* -> Dutch *ziek* -> Norwegian *syk* -> Danish *syg* -> Swedish *sjuk*


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## Arrius

A most revealing list, *Vejrudsigt*.

German _krank _for _sick _is obviously unconnected, but there is* Sucht* in modern German meaning _sickness, disease, epidemic_ and gelb*süchtig *meaning _jaundiced_ ("yellow -sick"). 
In English too, we have* tide* as in "five pounds will_ tide_ me over" i.e. that will last for sufficient _time_, and *tidings* meaning news, cognate of German _Zeitung_ (newspaper), deriving from _Zeit (time) _for obvious reasons.

Even "he *heyte *Absoloun" turns up in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" with the meaning of "he _was called_ Absolon", though this does not appear to have survived anywhere in modern English, any more than its Middle English synonym _yclept_. But _to_ _call_ which has survived, is itself connected with the synonymous Danish _kalde._


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## jonquiliser

It might be interesting to consider "dialects" as well, they are often revealing of old connections between languages. I believe some dialects of Swedish (or simply older forms) talk about "krank" as "a little sick" (i.e., not disease, but a slight feeling of being ill).


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## Arrius

jonquiliser said:


> It might be interesting to consider "dialects" as well, they are often revealing of old connections between languages. I believe some dialects of Swedish (or simply older forms) talk about "krank" as "a little sick" (i.e., not disease, but a slight feeling of being ill).


 
Even in English there is "*cranky*" which is a little sick in the head.


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## kirsitn

Noline said:


> Ho before you skip Dutch let me say that when I hear Norwegian (I'm Dutch) it sounds a bit like German/English/Dutch mixed, I can even understand some of it.



And when I hear Dutch, it sounds like a mixture of German and English with some really weird sounds in between... :-D 

As for "krank", it exists in Norwegian too. According to my dictionary it comes from lower German (is that the correct English term for Niederdeutsch?) via Norse "krankr".


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## Arrius

*lower German (is that the correct English term for Niederdeutsch?) via Norse "krankr".* *(kirsitn)*
I think that Niederdeutsch = Plattdeutsch= Pla(tt)dütsch= Low German (not Lower). Please correct me anybody that thinks otherwise.


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## floridasnowbird

Arrius said:


> A most revealing list, *Vejrudsigt*.
> Zitat:
> German _krank _for _sick _is obviously unconnected, but there is* Sucht* in modern German meaning _sickness, disease, epidemic_ and gelb*süchtig *meaning _jaundiced_ ("yellow -sick").
> 
> Another example: _dahin*siechen *_(to be seriously ill for a longer period of time)


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## María Madrid

Sepia said:


> Yes, they differ about as much from each other as Castellano does from Valenciano. Pronounciation-wise and acoustically I also think that Swedish will be the easier one. They have a very distinct pronounciation. What seem a bit funny to you is the intonation. Danish on the other hand is more monotonous.


Being a native Spanish speaker with Swedish family background I beg to disagree. Castillian and Valencian language are a lot more similar than Swedish and Norwegian. 

On the other hand I was really surprised to read all those funny percentages quoted by GoranBcn.



> _Norwegians understand 88% of the spoken swedish language understand 73% of the spoken danish language_
> 
> _Swedes understand 48% of the spoken norwegian language_
> _understand 23% of the spoken danish language_


 
ALL Norwegians understand exactly 88% of Swedish? ALL Swedes understand exactly 48% of Norwegian?

Wow! I wonder who (and especially how) made those extremely accurate calculations, considering that understanding is not measurable as weight, it depends on the subject (weather is not the same as engineering) and varies for each individual. Very very surprising approach! Saludos,


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## Lugubert

Christhiane said:


> Well, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are all part of a dialect continuum ...
> However, I'd also say Norwegian bokmål. Norwegian lies between Danish and Swedish, and it is my experience that foreigners who try to learn a variant of Scandinavian, usually sound the most Eastern Norwegian. I'd also recomend using an uvular 'r,' as you avoid some hard-to-pronounce retroflex sounds you'd have to use if you had a tap 'r'.


Brilliant advice on the uvular 'r'! People immigrating to Sweden should start in the South. Not only is there the uvular [R], like in Paris, and parts of Germany, in some Dutch speakers and like the Arabic ghayn and, I think, modern Hebrew 'r', their handling of the tones (the 'stegen' example - but my practically Standard Swedish uses only two different pronunciations, not three) is easier to learn.

As has been pointed out numerous times in the thread, it is quite possible to regard DA, NO, SV as dialects of a common Scandinavian language. In fact, the difference between southern Swedish 'skånska' and Copenhagen Danish is less than between skånska and most varieties of northern Swedish.

On Dutch, a young Swede interested in languages, knowing English and German and working in the Netherlands, can go from scratch to very good working knowledge of Dutch in less than two months.


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## mtc2300

Goddag,

I'm new on this forum, and found it via Google and this thread.



kirsitn said:


> And when I hear Dutch, it sounds like a mixture of German and English with some really weird sounds in between... :-D
> 
> As for "krank", it exists in Norwegian too. According to my dictionary it comes from lower German (is that the correct English term for Niederdeutsch?) via Norse "krankr".


 
When I hear Dutch, as a native Dane, I pickup half a sentence in English, German or Danish. That way I can always piece together what is said or written in Dutch.

And for choosing Scandinavian language to learn, go for Norwegian. Danish is very hard to learn because one thing is how a word is written. Another thing how it's pronounced.

An example:

Coffee:

Spelled: Kaffe
Pronounced: Kaff'


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## hanne

Hi mtc,
Welcome to the forums. May I suggest you check the date of a post before replying to it? 
This one was written more than one and a half years ago...

(and I'm ot now, sorry about that, feel free to delete)


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## mtc2300

hanne said:


> Hi mtc,
> Welcome to the forums. May I suggest you check the date of a post before replying to it?
> This one was written more than one and a half years ago...
> 
> (and I'm ot now, sorry about that, feel free to delete)


 
Thanks for the welcome.

Yes. I found out, that this is a very old thread indeed, but we had a serious debate regarding the issue last night, so I replied and didn't check the date. I'm sorry.


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## infirmier_qc

I myself am very much interested in learning Danish. Though its pronunciation is highly unfaithful to its spelling, I find it to be very soft-sounding, while keeping with its germanic efficiency. I am Canadian and a native French-speaker; I am bilingual, meaning fully proficient in English and French - both of which are also, like Danish, languages that have a pronunciation that is very unfaithful to its spelling. I am only an amateur, but I have to say, Danish seems to be the closest language to English, both in phonology, grammar and to some extent vocabulary. I know that English is considered to be West-Germanic and genetically more closely related to Plattdeutsch, Dutch and Frisian, but the more I learn Danish, the more I find strong commonality with the English language. Anybody out there agrees?


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## timtfj

Which one do you have most opportunity to use? Which do you most want to read? I started Norwegian partly because I already knew some Norwegians on Twitter.

 However, I had a lot of trouble finding any good tutor books in English, or a good up to date Norwegian--English dictionary, so I've had to use a grammar reference, Bokmålsordboka (the Language Council's official Bokmål dictionary for Norwegians), and one or two other resources to help me along. I'm happy learning that way. But if I wanted to follow a tutor book, I think I'd begin with Swedish for availability reasons.

The situation might be different for Norwegian--Italian materials. For some reason it seems to be assumed that English people only want to learn Swedish, not Norwegian. I can't think of any good reason for that, unless maybe it's because Sweden is in the EU and it's therefore easier to go and work there than Norway.

So I think you should investigate the available learning materials as well as investigating the languages. The obstacle might not be the language itself, but the available materials.

 As for intelligibility, all I can really say is that after a year of learning Bokmål, I can read quite a bit of Danish, rather less Swedish, and next to no Dutch. (And most of the Dutch that I can read comes from knowing German, not from the Bokmål.)

Another point with Norwegian is that it seems to be next to impossible to find any material about Nynorsk that's not in Norwegian. The books all say "foreigners mostly learn Bokmål", but to be honest, that's all we're really given the chance to learn.


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## Sepia

Swedish usually has a more distinct pronounciation than Danish. Pronounciation is the tricky Part of Danish. Once you know one other Germanic language well, it is the only major problem. I`d suggest Swedish. The grammar is very close to Danish or English grammar. On some points simpler, on some it is not. Besides, it is spoken by a lot more people.


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## timtfj

infirmier_qc said:


> the more I learn Danish, the more I find strong commonality with the English language. Anybody out there agrees?


I can only answer from the point of view of learning Bokmål (the version of written Norwegian that's derived from Danish, as opposed to Nynorsk which tries to represent the dialects). But when I first started learning, I was startled how similar to English the word order is. Because so many words are related to German ones, I kept wanting to put things in German word order then realising they should be inthe same order as in English.


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## bicontinental

infirmier_qc said:


> I myself am very much interested in learning Danish. ................... I find it to be very soft-sounding, .................. Danish seems to be the closest language to English, both in phonology, grammar and to some extent vocabulary. ...........I find strong commonality with the English language. Anybody out there agrees?



  Hi infirmier,
  ‘_Soft-sounding_’ is usually not a modifier appended to the _Danish_ language, whose gurgling sounds are more frequently likened to those of a throat disease or some speech impediment!  But I suppose it’s all very subjective. Personally, I don’t find there’s much phonetic overlap between English and Danish, but I do agree that there are some similarities in syntax/grammar and vocabulary. In general, none of the three Scandinavian languages are particularly useful outside of Scandinavia, as I’m sure you know, so I wouldn’t let that be a factor in choosing one Scandinavian language over another. 

  Good luck with your continued studies!
  Bic.


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## Eskil

Brian P said:


> When Norwegians, Danes and Swedes converse with each other do they normally do so in English, a language that I assume most educated people of these nationalities speak?



No they do not start in English, but with their respective language. But it depends a little on where in Scandinavia you meet. In Oslo for instance, you will hear Swedish spoken everywhere because of the great number of Swedish workers here. This means that Norwegians are very used to hearing - and understandig - Swedish. More Swedes would understand Norwegian today, compared to 20 years ago. Dansih is more difficult, but I will at least still start with Norwegian when I am in Denmark.


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## timtfj

Eskil said:


> No they do not start in English, but with their respective language. But it depends a little on where in Scandinavia you meet. In Oslo for instance, you will hear Swedish spoken everywhere because of the great number of Swedish workers here. This means that Norwegians are very used to hearing - and understandig - Swedish. More Swedes would understand Norwegian today, compared to 20 years ago. Dansih is more difficult, but I will at least still start with Norwegian when I am in Denmark.


This also matches what I see on Twitter if a conversation is taking place that's assumed not to be of interest to the English-speakers. It's quite common to see one person tweeting in Norwegian and the other replying in Danish (indeed I've occasionally been the one tweeting in Norwegian). And in fact there are a few threads on here where the same thing happens.


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## frugihoyi

I can tell you that I learned Danish first and then Norwegian and it was very easy to learn Norwegian. If I had learned Norwegian first, I know I would have had a hard time with Danish. The pronunciation is quite different, but written it's almost the same.


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## Tjoaben

If you want to learn the scandinavian languages, it's probably best starting with Norwegian. However, if you have a specific ''thing'' for one of the three languages, it's best to choose that one I suppose. Dutch (my language) is not a scandinavian language but has a lot of similarities with, let's say, Danish. I've been to all three countries and I find it pretty easy reading Danish and Norwegian. I've noticed reading in Swedish is actually a little bit more difficult for a Dutch person. Things are different when it's spoken. Spoken Norwegian is ''kind off'' understandable for a Dutch (especially when they speak slowly), on the second place Swedish (because they speak more ''crisp&clear'') and Danish is definitely the most difficult because they talk with their mouth shut (perhaps the same way as we Dutchies). I am btw from the north (Groningen) of the Netherlands. We talk with a ''regional language'' called Grönnegs and during my stay in Denmark I read quite some words which are the same as in Grönnegs...so, I suppose a Dutch from the west/south, with no knowledge of Grönnegs, has more problems reading ''scandinavian''.


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## Encolpius

I was reading a text here and it says at the end : Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish are asymmetrically intelligible. Speakers of Norwegian can understand Danish better than vice versa. The reason for this is uncertain.
Do you have any idea why the reason is uncertain? tahnks.


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## JohanIII

Encolpius, it's from the reference [4].
For TL;DR  jump to page 15 (p.459), and read on, to answer that particular question.

The whole thing is good reading for this thread!


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## infirmier_qc

To me it is far from uncertain that this is due to political and  historical reasons. The Danish language was forced on the Norwegian political/educational systems for centuries. The Danish language spelling form used in Norway, though very similar to the spelling used in Denmark, is in fact pronounced quite differently (pronounced almost in a Swedish manner). The Norwegian people, in those days at least, made the effort of understanding the Danes and their language and pronounciation, while the opposite, I assume, would not be true. 

It would be similar to my own language/dialect of Quebec French, though for different reasons. A Quebec French speaker understands any European French speaker without difficulty or special studying, while the opposite is usually not true. Quebec French has not been historically and politically dominant, while France has been, or at least was dominant.


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## NorwegianNYC

infirmier_qc said:


> To me it is far from uncertain that this is due to political and  historical reasons. The Danish language was forced on the Norwegian political/educational systems for centuries. The Danish language spelling form used in Norway, though very similar to the spelling used in Denmark, is in fact pronounced quite differently (pronounced almost in a Swedish manner). The Norwegian people, in those days at least, made the effort of understanding the Danes and their language and pronounciation, while the opposite, I assume, would not be true.


This is not entirely true. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian was one language 800 years ago, and even 3-400 years ago, they were much more similar than they are today. The Danish language was not forced on Norwegians. There was no written standard of Norwegian at the time, and the Danish standard was probably close enough for the purpose. Written Danish at the time did not reflect how people actually spoke. It was the jargon of the upper crust in Copenhagen, and perhaps Norwegians found some of it a little odd, but so did the people of Jutland and Schleswig. Even as late as 200 years agao, when the Dano-Norwegian union was split up, the languages were far closer than they are today. It was not until after 1814 that Danish and Norwegian became estranged.


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## infirmier_qc

Thank you for clearing this up. It is amazing that a common language underwent such a rapid split, passing from the dialectal to separate languages. A Swedish co-worker of mine told me that altough a Swede will technically understand the sounds and the words spoken by a Norwegian, what they understand often sounds "silly" (her words, not mine) to Swedish ears. She gave me as example : n - kringkaste, s - utsända, d - udsende. She said also that though the Danish words look more similar to the Swedish form, they usually are incomprehesible, the Danish phonology being more ''outlandish''. To a Norwegian, is Swedish or Danish easier to understand?


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## AutumnOwl

infirmier_qc said:


> A Swedish co-worker of mine told me that altough a Swede will technically understand the sounds and the words spoken by a Norwegian, what they understand often sounds "silly" (her words, not mine) to Swedish ears. She gave me as example : n - kringkaste, s - utsända, d - udsende. She said also that though the Danish words look more similar to the Swedish form, they usually are incomprehesible, the Danish phonology being more ''outlandish''.


I would think that there are Norwegians and Danes who think the same about the Swedish language, that it sounds "silly" and are "outlandish". Is your co-worker from Stockholm or the east coast of Sweden? In that case she's probably haven't had that much contact with people from Norway and Denmark, as I who have lived on the west coast of Sweden have had more contact with both Danish and Norwegian languages have no problems understanding them. The closer the contact between the countries are, the easier it is to understand each others. The same can be said for some Swedish dialects, I know that the first summer I worked on the island of Gotland I had difficulties understanding some people who spoke the local dialect, even if it was a variant of Swedish, it sounded more Danish than Swedish to my ears.


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## Cerb

infirmier_qc said:


> Thank you for clearing this up. It is amazing that a common language underwent such a rapid split, passing from the dialectal to separate languages. A Swedish co-worker of mine told me that altough a Swede will technically understand the sounds and the words spoken by a Norwegian, what they understand often sounds "silly" (her words, not mine) to Swedish ears. She gave me as example : n - kringkaste, s - utsända, d - udsende. She said also that though the Danish words look more similar to the Swedish form, they usually are incomprehesible, the Danish phonology being more ''outlandish''. To a Norwegian, is Swedish or Danish easier to understand?


Danish tends to be easier to read while Swedish is easier to understand than Danish when spoken. Labels written on products sold in the Scandinavian countries will typically have Danish and Norwegian lumped together. 

Swedish appears to have more words unique to Swedish, but most Norwegians will know at least enough to get by. This does not seem to be the case nearly as often for Swedes in regard to Norwegian (or Danish). Personally I believe the TV adaptions of Astrid Lindgren's works in particular (Pippi Longstocking etc.) have had a huge impact here.


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## NorwegianNYC

infirmier_qc said:


> It is amazing that a common language underwent such a rapid split, passing from the dialectal to separate languages


There was no such thing as a common Norwegian language. It was a dialect continuum. No one spoke Norwegian _per se_ - only some idiosyncratic version of it. Even today, if you start at the German border and walk up through Denmark, into Southern Sweden (Scania) and up the west coast of Sweden into Norway, you will be hard pressed to tell where the one "language" ends and the next begins. In preliterate society, this was even more fluent, and it was not until Danes, Swedes and Norwegians made a conscious effort to create "national" languages, and educate the masses, that the three languages emerges. This process did not really start until the early 19th Century.

However, this is not unique in any way. In 1850, only 15% of people living in France actually spoke French. The rest spoke Occitan, Picard, Normand, Gallo, Lorrain, Breton, German, Basque, Catalan and Provencal. It was only when the school system in France was developed that people started identifying their language as "French".



> To a Norwegian, is Swedish or Danish easier to understand?


Written - Danish. Spoken - Swedish. The fact that Danish is hard to understand for other Scandinavians, is a fairly recent phenomenon (1850s and onward). During the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, we have evidence that the Danish and Norwegian sailors in the navy had no problem communicating with each other, and as late as in 1905, when the Danish prince Carl became king of Norway (as Haakon VII), he spoke a form of 'high Danish' (probably slightly old style) that was fully intelligible for Norwegians.
Danish has actually moved further away from the two other Scandinavian languages through its altered pronunciation than Swedish/Norwegian has moved from Danish.


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## Sabaton

In Sweden, I grew up with a couple of danes but they spoke danish at home only. As a teenager, when I first visited Köpenhamn (Copenhagen) I could see signs of "Tilbud" in the stores when I traveled around by bus. I couldnt believe it. Now, tillbud is an old swedish word for accident (olycka). At first I thought something bad at happened, but it would be impossible to have so many accidents at the same time as I was traveling around by bus. I then asked what it meant and they told me it means "Sale", or Rea in swedish. 

And I think this story is the key: learning the key words in each other languages will get you far, the rest will just come natuarally after a short period of time. Like myself, I worked for a danish company and it took a week or two before I was able to pick up the pronunciation of the danish language aswell as the special numeral system pronunciation. Using slang is a big no no of course.

Every swede understand norwegian (bokmål) from birth. Some dialects can be hard though, even for norwegians. I truly wished we had a common scandinavian TV-channel in our respective state owned television. That would truly help to promote the scandinavian languages further and keep it on top.


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## Sabaton

Oh, and I just love when norwegians crawl on the floor through the supermarkets here in Sweden looking for the low prices. But they are more then welcomed to Sweden to save some money on their expensive groceries back home. In return, young swedes are going to Norway for work.


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## Stoggler

NorwegianNYC said:


> Written - Danish. Spoken - Swedish. The fact that Danish is hard to understand for other Scandinavians, is a fairly recent phenomenon (1850s and onward). During the Battle of Copenhagen in 1807, we have evidence that the Danish and Norwegian sailors in the navy had no problem communicating with each other, and as late as in 1905, when the Danish prince Carl became king of Norway (as Haakon VII), he spoke a form of 'high Danish' (probably slightly old style) that was fully intelligible for Norwegians.
> Danish has actually moved further away from the two other Scandinavian languages through its altered pronunciation than Swedish/Norwegian has moved from Danish.



This is interesting that spoken Danish has changed significantly in the last century or so.  Language change is not a constant and there is historic evidence from a number of languages that there can be periods of rapid change.

With regard to spoken Danish, may I ask if it's changed much in the last 50-70 years?  When Danes watch old films do they notice much of a difference in their language?

The reason for asking is that I recently watched Day of Wrath/Vredens Dag from 1943.  I'm fairly familiar with the sound of modern Danish having lapped up Borgen, Forbrydelsen and Broen/Bron here in the UK along with some Dogme 95 films.  To me, the language in Vredens Dag seemed easier (for me) to catch what was being said than modern Danish.  Whether this is because of the painfully slow pace of the film was also represented in the way the dialogue is delivered I do not know, but it did seem as though 1940s Danish differed to 21st century Danish (to my less-than-educated ears at least).


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## Cerb

While I'm not a native speaker, I believe there is a point to be made here about the time Vredens dag was filmed in. I had a look at some scenes and as I suspected the performances are, literally speaking, a lot more theatrical than we're used to in movies nowadays. Actors trained to perform in plays tend to overplay on film as they don't take into account that the viewer is up close rather than spectating from a distance. This is very common in older movies (and in bad soap operas.. ).

While there might be a lot more to your question, I think this might play a big part in why the spoken Danish in Vredens dag is easier to understand than the one in Borgen, Forbrydelsen and so on.


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## Sepia

To the two previous posters I can say, yes, Danish language has changed a lot the past 50-70 years. The change that has taken place may not so much be the one you recognize by comparing film made in the 40es and modern day television drama. What HAS changed a lot is that very distinct dialects have almost disappeared. You will hardly find anyone under the age of 30 still speaking a dialect that they wouldn't understand all over the country. However, if you find one I'd expect he would have grown up somewhere in the southernmost part of Jutland. 

But you are not likely to get to hear any distinct dialects except those out of upper class Copenhagen, when you watch movies made in the 40es. On top of that, usually spoken by actors trained to play theatre without PA equipment, let alone headset microphones. 
As if this was not bad enough: Danish Radio had a socalled microphone test that all people who were to talk or perform in any way on air, had to pass. To pass it they were required to stick to certain pronounciations that ruled out any out of Copenhagen dialect or working class sociolect. So basically, if you spoke the way about 70-80% of the Copenhagen population did, you were not were not allowed on Danish radio. Pretty odd for a country that usually had Socialdemocrat governments, I should say.


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## JohanIII

Swedish radio had the same type of tests.
Part of it was that you should be distinct in your pronunciation, so that the radiola speakers even of mediocre quality could reproduce an intelligible sound. I miss that today (I missed it sorely when driving forklift - noisy environment).

And for Swedish films of the 40's (_pilsnerfilmer_), speech could very much be described as the Danish ones above.
Clearer; crisper. Though sometimes with a very distinct Stockholm-dialect (i.e. not the standard Swedish of the times). And we had the bigger-than-life Edvard Persson with the Scanian dialect (he was very popular in Denmark too).


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## NorwegianNYC

The Norwegian Broadcasting had a similar feature. So did Norsk Film. Norway was on the verge of getting a "standard pronunciation" when the 60s brought in the 'speak dialect' movement, and as of 2013, spoken Norwegian is less standardized than ever.

However - I would be most interested to hear from Danes who can give us some pointers as to what really happened in Danish pronunciation from around 1850 to 1950


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## bicontinental

The perception of which Danish dialect was the most beautiful (…or the least, as the case may be) is obviously entirely subjective. 


  What is more objective is the fact that many of the Danish dialects were essentially incomprehensible to outsiders back in the day where TV and radio-speaker tests were required. Fifty-sixty years ago, the Danish dialects were much more than a slight variation in intonation and represented a regional language, frequently with its own syntax, grammar and vocabulary. Rigsdansk, the standard form of Danish, which was influenced by dialects spoken primarily north of Copenhagen, used to be the dialect heard on Danish radio and TV, because it was clear and easily comprehensible to anyone in the country, to our fellow Scandinavians and learners of Danish. Rigsdansk used accepted standard grammar rules taught in all Danish schools, used pronunciation rules that among other things emphasized a clear distinction between the vowels e-a-æ, and i-y which resulted in crisp and clean sounds. The “gargle sound effects” so typical of present day Danish (Rigsdansk?) are produced when vowels are opened, (e.g. the country ‘Pakistan’ is pronounced _Pa*r*kistan_ and… sadly, often misspelled that way). The front and near front vowels are being pronounced as mid-back/back vowels (græs (grass) as gras, kræft (cancer) as kraft, en ret (a dish) as rat etc.) Languages evolve, and we can discuss ad nauseam whether this evolution represents an improvement or a deterioration of the Danish language. What seems quite clear from this thread and numerous articles on this topic is that Danish is becoming increasing more difficult for outsiders to understand and learn.


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## NorwegianNYC

Thanks, Bic - that was indeed very helpful.

Do you happen to know what triggered this process in Danish, and when it happened?. Personally, I do not think a languages gets either worse or better with changes - it simply evolves. However, it is obvious that in Danish this process is fairly 'modern' and took place over a reasonably short period of time. If not, spelling have caught up at least to some degree! Interestingly, during the days of the twin realms, you never hear about Norwegians complaining about Danish being "difficult to understand". Danish spelling would simply not be as consistently used in Norway (until 1840) if Danish pronunciation at the time was not fairly close to its spelling. In other words - Danish must have evolved significantly in terms of pronunciation in the period from 1830 until the advent of present-day Danish around 1950.

What caused this, and was there a period in Danish language history that was particularly "inventive" in terms of pronunciation?


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## bicontinental

NorwegianNYC said:


> Do you happen to know what triggered this process in Danish, and when it happened?.....What caused this, and was there a period in Danish language history that was particularly "inventive" in terms of pronunciation?



  These are great questions which I couldn’t answer off the top of my head. I did a little research and I think this reference from the University of Copenhagen might interest you: http://dialekt.ku.dk/sproghistorie/#nationalisme

For those who don’t read Danish, let me highlight some of the important points from the reference:

*Early 1700’s*: a strong German influence; German was spoken at the royal courts, in theaters, in the Danish army, and in churches. During the late 1700’s the Danish language regained popularity, initially mainly in writing which culminated in the school reform of 1775, which determined that students should learn to speak and write a correct Danish. At the time there was no standard Danish and most Danes spoke a dialect.


*1800-1900*: The era of Nationalism. The Danish language flourished under the increased focus on the importance of a mother tongue: what defined and united a people was the language. Dialects were no longer perceived as “deformed” or awkward variants of the Danish language. The late 1800’s were characterized by an urbanization trend, and as people began to move to the bigger cities, various neighborhoods were established for different socioeconomic groups in the Copenhagen area, each with its own dialect. The text above refers to ‘low’ and ‘high’ Copenhagen dialects spoken by the ‘working class’ and the ‘upper class’. The ‘high’ dialect was much closer to the written language and the written language was in turn modeled on this dialect. Specific examples from the high sociolect included the introduction of the _soft d_ in words like _en gade_ (a street), _at made_ (to feed). This replaced the j sound (gaje, maje) and is still used in present day Danish. This ‘high’ Copenhagen dialect was made the standard or correct form of Danish, and was as such not considered a dialect per se. The late 1800’s marked the beginning of a slow but gradual disappearance of the various dialects. The rural dialects were now considered wrong and useless, a hindrance for students who had to learn to write and speak a correct Danish, _rigsdansk_.


*The post war era 1950*-: This is the time period I was referring to in my post above. I can personally only comment on changes from the late 60’s. The article mentions the influence of the English language during this period, but that doesn’t explain the drastic change in the Danish pronunciation, which I think characterizes this time period. And as you point out, there’s a huge discrepancy between written and spoken Danish, and the gap seems to be widening. A new edition of the Danish Orthographical Dictionary, Retskrivningsordbogen, came out in Nov. of 2012. Usually, though, changes are centered on the Danish vocabulary, i.e. addition of new words/deletion of old, and changes in spelling are fairly inconspicuous [in my opinion].  Regarding the changes in spoken modern Danish, it sounds to my ear as if the ‘new standard Danish’ [my choice of words] is heavily influenced by the working class dialect of the Copenhagen area, and I have wondered if it might be a result of the political changes that have been taking place in Denmark with the Social Democratic Party growing in size and influencing almost all aspects of development in Denmark between 1924-82. Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democrats_(Denmark)  It’s conceivable that the Danes, wanting to dissociate from the upper class on all levels, more or less deliberately sought to avoid a language/dialect that might indicate a connection with this group? 


  This got to be much longer than I had anticipated…

  Bic.


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## bicontinental

NorwegianNYC said:


> Personally, I do not think a languages gets either worse or better with changes - it simply evolves.



  As an afterthought…I mostly agree with this, although I can’t help but consider it a loss when words with specific vowel sounds allowing for their recognition out of context,  lose their specificity due to the formation of ’hybrid vowels’ (e.g. the blending of e/a/æ and i/y which I mentioned above). In my mind, it’s a linguistic parallel to the disappearance of a specific species of animals. That’s all part of evolution and a changing world, new species evolve as do languages, but some of us may feel that we lost something in that process.

  Bic.


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## NorwegianNYC

Very interesting!


> Regarding the changes in spoken modern Danish, it sounds to my ear as if the ‘new standard Danish’ [my choice of words] is heavily influenced by the working class dialect of the Copenhagen area, and I have wondered if it might be a result of the political changes that have been taking place in Denmark [...] It’s conceivable that the Danes, wanting to dissociate from the upper class on all levels, more or less deliberately sought to avoid a language/dialect that might indicate a connection with this group?


This sounds plausible. It has happened elsewhere as well. In Norwegian, the 'received pronunciation' lost most of its prestige in the early 1960s, but at the same time, Norwegian did not have a dominant dialect (for the lack of major cities), such as 





> ‘high’ Copenhagen dialect was made the standard or correct form of Danish


. The attempts to furnish Norwegian with a 'received pronunciation' by simply have people speak the language the way it was written failed. For a long time, the Bergen dialect was considered prestigious, and also Southern variants, but since the population center was increasingly moving eastwards (to Oslo), Eastern dialects now exercise greater influence.

Danish Prince Carl became King Haakon VII of Norway in 1905. He was then 33 years old, and he spoke Danish throughout his life. Here is a sound clip of Haakon VII addressing the nation from London during WWII: http://www.kongehuset.no/c27062/tale/vis.html?tid=27734&strukt_tid=27062. The language is obviously Danish, but most Norwegian is will not have a problem understanding what he says.

I find you assessment interesting. Modern-day spoken Danish may simply be the result of a reaction, and the need to 





> dissociate from the upper class on all levels, more or less deliberately [..] to avoid a language/dialect that might indicate a connection with this group


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## bicontinental

NorwegianNYC said:


> Danish Prince Carl became King Haakon VII of Norway in 1905. He was then 33 years old, and he spoke Danish throughout his life. Here is a sound clip of Haakon VII addressing the nation from London during WWII: http://www.kongehuset.no/c27062/tale/vis.html?tid=27734&strukt_tid=27062. The language is obviously Danish, but most Norwegian is will not have a problem understanding what he says.



Agreed, definitely Danish but clearly influenced by Norwegian (intonation in particular). Plus... he speaks slowly and enunciates clearly!
Bic.


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## NorwegianNYC

Would you consider the underlying Danish of the King to be _rigsdansk/high Copenhagen_? Would you consider this fairly representative for an educated Dane around 1900?


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## bicontinental

NorwegianNYC said:


> Would you consider the underlying Danish of the King to be _rigsdansk/high Copenhagen_? Would you consider this fairly representative for an educated Dane around 1900?




  I think it's probably fairly representative of rigsdansk in the early 1900’s (although it's clearly influenced by Norwegian...something which may be more obvious to the Danish than to the Norwegian ear ). 
Bic.


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## CapeGrysbok

I know I'm posting on this toppic while it's not been opened since a long time, but I wanted to give a little remark on what is said about the irrelevancy of Dutch in this toppic. As a native Dutch speaker (with a, in my opinion, quite good level of practice in English and knowing enough German to make a normal conversation), I'm now learning Danish. I started 1 month ago, and I can say I can now understand without much difficulties an article on DR's website. 


I  hardly have any difficulties using Danish basic grammar, because the construction of a sentence follows, as far as I am now in my learning process, exact the same rules as Dutch does. My English-language course spent a whole page explaining word order, which I read and skipped after writing beneath it "=Nederlands". Until now, this tactique has been very succesfull, me having made no syntax mistakes about that. 


Also, the article structure in Danish (en ø, øen, øer, øerne) seems at the first look quite strange, but is very similar to the Dutch _de facto_ two genders "de" and "het". 

On the point of mutual intelligibility, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages are indeed not mutually understandable, even if written text is easily readable after some little exercice.

Sincerely, Cape Grysbok


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Thanks, Bic - that was indeed very helpful.
> 
> Do you happen to know what triggered this process in Danish, and when it happened?. ..



One very important factor was the school system. Simply the fact that people in general went to school and learned to read and write. It is very obvious that there are two die-hard dialects in Denmark. One is the dialect spoken in the South of Jutland. The part that belonged to Germany till 1920 and thus was not involved in any language or school reforms in the late 19th to early 20th century. 

The other one is the dialect or group of dialects spoken by the vast majority of people in Copenhagen, mainly the central to western parts of the city. (The Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt is a good example). They really do not speak considerably different from the way they spoke 50 years ago. The difference simply is that their version of the language, and not that of an upper-class minority in the North of Copenhagen, has evolved to become the accepted standard.


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## NorwegianNYC

Sepia - so the North-Copenhagen (upper class) dialect is the basis of written Danish, but the West/central Copenhagen dialect is the basis of 'standard' spoken Danish today? If so, this is much along the lines of what Bicontinental says about a reaction to the high-brow Danish speech.


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Sepia - so the North-Copenhagen (upper class) dialect is the basis of written Danish, but the West/central Copenhagen dialect is the basis of 'standard' spoken Danish today? If so, this is much along the lines of what Bicontinental says about a reaction to the high-brow Danish speech.




Really, written Danish today is and probably never was any closer to NorthCopenhagen upper class than it was to Valby/Roedovre/Vestegn Danish is - at least not the past 50 to 60 years. 

If you pronounce "meget" in Old-School Radio-Danish it sounds like you would spell is like ther was a soft d in it. And if you pronounce it in Old-School Vesterbro it sounds more like "majed". Neither of the two pronounciations would be obvious, judging from the spelling. Now, I am not saying anything is more correct than the other. What is of utmost importance is that people understand each other and they usually do with both of these pronounciations. But what is also important ist the political part of it. What would be the general "smell" of it if only people with an upper-class accent or sociolect were allowed to anchor news in the electronic media? Well, that is the way it actually was. That you hear news-anchors speak with a Jutland accent in national Danish television is something relatively new. I am not sure you ever heard that 10 years ago. 

I don't really know if it would be right to say that West to Central-Copenhagen Danish were "standard". But it is probably a demographic fact that there are so many people living there that they are probably the largest group of Danes with the most similarities in the way they speak. To me that would be a logical way of determining a standard. That is also the way I would speak Danish when I am not deliberately speaking the Southern dialect (like when I want to make sure somebody from Copenhagen is not eavesdropping.)


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## Chilvence

I am slightly nostalgic about the fact that this thread is still active, being that it introduced me to the hilarious Danish speech sketch some time ago (thankyou for that)

Speaking from an English perspective, I find it very hard not to want to consider the Scandinavian languages as one unit, with many facets, rather than three languages with similarities. With a basic understanding of German, I find I can read articles in all three with some effort, even though I have not made serious effort to study any of them (I just met a Swedish girl on my travels, so I learned a word or two  )

I bet a few hundred years ago, English probably had more dialects than Chinese has today, and yet now from America to Australia and through South Africa, through all the countries where it remains or has been adopted as an unofficial second language, with all its accents and dialects and different cultures, the language is still just called 'English', and there is no major difficulty in communication that cannot be bridged with simple patience. 

This is because sayings and idioms from one end of English speaking world flow very freely to the other end (perhaps with the exception of from Britain to America, but I won't digress...); it would be easy for someone from 100 years ago to remark that people in England use a very 'Americanised' English, but I don't view this in any negative light whatsoever myself.

So it seems to me that given the history in Scandinavian countries is probably very similar to medieval England with its separate kingdoms and dialects etc, and yet arrived at a very different result language wise, is there some concious effort in keeping the different languages.. well... different?


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## Dan2

Chilvence said:


> Scandinavian languages ... With a basic understanding of German, I find I can read articles in all three with some effort,


Hi Chilvence - Welcome to WRF!

What you say above seems misleading to me.  Let me say how I see it, and then invite other opinions, with the goal of calibrating your statement.

I don't think even a _native _competence in German, much less a "basic understanding", gets one very far in understanding articles written in the Scandinavian languages.  (Over in the German forum, we see a constant flow of questions from members with a basic understanding of German having trouble understanding articles written in _German_!)

As one _studies _Scandinavian, one begins to recognize more and more cognates to English and German words, so a knowledge of either of these languages (even better, both) is a great help to making progress in a Scandinavian language.  But recent direct borrowings from English or German aside, so many common Scandinavian words either have no English and/or German cognates, or the cognates appear in such "distorted" form, that - in my opinion - Scandinavian text has very low comprehensibility for a German- (or English-) only speaker. Some examples:

From an article on a basic topic in the Norwegian Wikipedia:
Hannen benevnes gjerne som okse eller kvegokse. En ukastrert hann kalles  tyr når den er mer enn to år gammel, stut om den er kastrert og yngre  enn to år, og okse om den er kastrert og mer enn to år. Hunnen kalles  kolle om hun mangler horn (er kollet), kvige til første kalving, og ku  når dyret har kalvet. Avkommet kalles kalv til de er omkring ett år  gamle.

The following is from a lead article on the website (dr.dk) of the Danish nation broadcast service:
Sådan skrev Venstres regionsrådsmedlem Timo Jensen i går på det  sociale  medie Twitter, efter det onsdag kom frem, at sangerinden Anne  Linnets  kæreste er gravid.
         Og den udtalelse har udløst vrede og forargelse hos en række  andre  brugere på Twitter, der læser Timo Jensens holdning sådan, at han  har  noget imod homoseksuelle.

And this is from a Swedish picture book for children:
Om aporna själva får arrangera sitt kalas, blir det festligt värre.  Upptågen avlöser varandra och det är svårt att veta vilka som har roligast - aporna själva eller de som tittar på.

If, even "with effort", you can understand these passages, I think you are making use of something quite distinct from a "basic knowledge of German".


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## LilianaB

Yes, I absolutely agree with you Dan. I cannot imagine that someone just knowing some German, of perhaps even a person very fluent in German, can understand Scandinavian languages. (I wouldn't personally call them a language -- there are too many differences between them to be considered one language, in my opinion). Some twenty, thirty years ago, they were not considered one language by most language departments. Anyhow, I am also surprised by the claims that they are 100--80% intelligible in the written form, or even in the spoken form. Even the writing system of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, especially, differ a lot. If I can think which Danish letters are corresponding to which (sort of) in Swedish, I can read basic Norwegian and Danish. As to understanding spoke languages -- I don't know -- i think I can understand Dutch without ever learning it to the same extent as I can understand spoken Danish (Norwegian is slightly easier) based on my very fluent Swedish, and understanding most Swedish dialects, including Gutnish -- to a high extent. The same way most Slavic languages could be considered as one, but they are not.


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## Chilvence

I am sorry, I probably overstated what I meant a bit. All I mean is, having learned a few words of Swedish and Norsk, I can use my knowledge of English and German to sort of 'triangulate' the meaning of an article - and I really DO mean written articles only . This is just my logic, if a word isn't cognate with English, maybe its similar to German instead, if it isn't either, I use a dictionary. Sometimes words that look completely alien make perfect sense when you read them in context, like aporna above. Invariably this leaves 3 or 4 words a sentence I don't know, and I most certainly was not trying to imply that everything was clear as day, just that so far I am surprised how close they are considering the huge valleys that separate other languages.

Perhaps what I should have said was, that they are a lot more similar to each other, from my perspective, than English is to German. Does that make more sense? There is also the possibility that these languages simply 'feel' closer to English for me, so I don't find myself struggling to get the grammar half as much as I do with German. When I started with German, It was like having my head turned upside down, and I don't imagine I will ever be able learn every grammatical feature of it in my lifetime, but the Scandinavian languages feel surprisingly 'homely'. Therefore, it does not really feel a stretch to study all three at once, and in doing that, the differences between them seem much less intimidating. It really doesn't 'feel' like the weight of studying three languages, so even if they are not quite mutually intelligible, surely that counts for something, right  ? I think this is much closer to the point I was trying to make, even if it took longer to arrive here...

ps, as far as the differences with the writing are, I can read the Greek alphabet, Arabic script, Cyrillic, Devanagari, all the strange variations of the Latin alphabet, Han Gul, working on Chinese.... I think all that exercise made the difference between Danish and Swedish etc almost invisible . If I might add something, it is probably my experience with Chinese that is leading my opinion on this: I worried for a long time whether to learn Traditional or Simplified glyphs, when it turns out that studying the traditional glyphs makes it trivially easy to learn the simplified ones as well. Yet without any knowledge of Chinese, the idea that there might be not one but TWO sets of up to 50,000 glyphs to learn is a very bad prospect, but one that is also entirely unrepresentative of the practical reality...


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## NorwegianNYC

Hi Chilvence,

I agree with you (I happen to be in that camp of linguists) - I call the language "Scandinavian". Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are simply convenient political subdivisions. If we look at Jemtish (Jämtland, Sw), it is closer to Trøndersk (Trøndelag, No) than to most other Swedish dialects. Scanian is closer to East Danish (in fact, it used to be called East Danish) than Swedish; the dialects of Värmland and Båhus (Sw) and Østfold (No) are more closely related to each other than to Swedish from the Eastern seaboard or Norwegian from the Western seaboard; and Northern/Western Jutlandic is in many respects closer to Southern Norwegian than to Zealand Danish. One might argue that because of the political borders, mass media and greater internal migration, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are emerging as languages (or sub-languages), but historically this has not been the case.

If you put a Native English speaker from Queensland, Australia; Kampala, Uganda; Perth, Scotland, and Birmingham, Alabama (all places where English is the no 1 spoken language) together, they all speak "English", although their respective variants of English is as - if not more - divergent than Swedish, Norwegian and Danish.

A couple of years ago, I had two Koreans among my students. They were both professionals and reasonably good English speakers, living in New York City. Both were married to Norwegians, and one day planned on moving to Norway. When asked if it was difficult to learn Norwegian, they said that once they had learned English, it was not so hard, because it was basically the same thing - just different pronunciation.

To me that was a lesson in linguistic relativism. In Norwegian, which does not have a standard spoken form (nor an authoritative dialect), people speak their own dialect, and can always tell where someone is from based on how they speak  - and yet understand them almost perfectly. In a Scandinavian perspective, most people are able to understand each other, or at least able to tell there the other person is from. If you zoom further out, and look at the Germanic languages as one, inter-intelligibility is minimal, but it is still possible to identify certain words and structures, and perhaps even extract meaning from it (or as you say "triangulate"). An English speaker who also speaks German, will probably be able to pick up a lot of Scandinavian. Afterall, 35+% of the everyday Danish and Norwegian vocabulary is of Low German/German/Dutch origin, and of the 150 more commonly used words in English, only 13 are Romance, and the rest of the same "stock" as German and Scandinavian.

The Koreans had a point!


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## Chilvence

Well, that is very interesting, and fits with the picture that is growing in my head. I can definitely understand why there is no 'prestige dialect' - in English there is so called received pronunciation, but hell would freeze over before it became standard anywhere but on BBC news . There is however maybe a much closer relationship between the written standards, I am not exactly sure how this comes about, but I can say that I write to a completely different standard to the way I speak. I have had people from every English speaking country in the world tell me they can't understand a word I am saying....

It's just occurred to me, I have even been asked by Germans whether it is hard for me to understand American English, so I guess this state of affairs isn't just unique to the Scandinavian world.

Just one more question, in your opinion, which Scandinavian country is the most prolific TV/Film producer? I wouldn't be surprised if that plays a strong role in the language landscape.


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## CapeGrysbok

In my eyes, as a Belgian: Denmark, by far. Series like Forbrydelsen and Borgen were the ones that moved me to learn Danish instead of another Scandinavian language. I know this isn't a good reason te choose a language, but that's the way it goes. 

About the "Is there one Scandinavian language" debate: the defenition of language has always been something very difficult. When does something become a language, and when does it stay a dialect? I think the Scandinavian languages could now at this time very easily be constructed towards one common language, but I think national proud is the main obstacle to pass. In terms of mutual intellegibility, if you take my understanding of a Danish news bulletin at the moment as the standard 100%, I can understand a Norwegian one for 80% and a Swedish one for like 70%. But maybe you need to know I'm only at page 60 of my language course, so I have a VERY mediocre knowledge of Danish on it's own. 

Greetings,
CapeGrysbok


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## Chilvence

Well, you could really say that it is actually a good reason to pick a language in my opinion. You can't really study it without a good resource, and TV, Film, Radio Music etc are all vibrant resources. I actually think books have severe disadvantages...

I think the problem of calling the Scandinavian languages/dialects different languages is much more of a problem of definition than anything. The word 'language' implies a much greater difference between them than actually exists. Learning eg English would give you next to no help understanding German, so it is useful to classify them separately, whereas the similarities between Scandinavian languages are pleasantly surprising. I think this is the reason that the question probably will keep surfacing all over the world, because it seems to downplay an extremely nice advantage; I am continuously surprising myself how much of the conversations in this forum I can follow, even if it makes my head hurt a bit 

I would not go as far as to say there should be some artificial median language like I have seen suggested elsewhere, but I do think it would send a subtle but powerful message if they were officially re branded as 'Dialects'


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## CapeGrysbok

Chilvence said:


> I would not go as far as to say there should be some artificial median language like I have seen suggested elsewhere, but I do think it would send a subtle but powerful message if they were officially re branded as 'Dialects'



Which would be extremely painfull for all the native speakers of the Scandi languages. In their opinion, it would feel the same as supprimating English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans and German as languages and all call them Western Germanic. I underline: THEIR opinion. In a linguistic point of view, this is of course pure non sence.

If on a day it would be needed to create a common language, I think the better way is by creating a (artificial) standard language, and imposing it on the population as the new standard language. This is the way it worked with most of the European languages, but it is a little bit outdated in terms of ethics and modern morale.


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## vestfoldlilja

As a Scandinavian I do consider Danish, Swedish and Norwegian to be dialects of the same language. The only reason I refer to them as different languages is because of state lines. I have no trouble with people saying I speak or am Scandinavian rather than Norwegian. I don’t think many people (outside of the Nordic countries) truly know the difference between the Scandinavian countries, peoples or languages in any case, nor how they differ from the other Nordic countries. We are understood more or less as one group overall.


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## NorwegianNYC

CapeGrysbok said:


> [...] the same as supprimating English, Frisian, Dutch, Afrikaans and German as languages and all call them Western Germanic.


I see your point. However, the Scandinavian languages are more closely related than e.g. English and German - even English and Frisian. In fact, they are not unlike Dutch and Africaans. Danish became distinctively different from No and Sw around 1450, but No and Sw tagged along for another 250 years before they became noticeably different. To call Sw, No and Da "dialects" is not untrue and unfair. A similar picture emerges with Low German and Dutch (not Frisian).


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## Chilvence

What I was trying to chip away at was the fact that, although politically they are different languages, the word 'language', in the Anglo mentality also automatically implies a massive irreconcilable difference between the way two different people speak, like the difference between French and Japanese. A dialect is like the difference between two different cheeses, which can still be very different, whereas a language is like the difference between cheese and marshmallows.

As a label, 'dialect' might not be the perfect alternative, but to me it sounds more useful. I am not suggesting some committee barge in and level the differences with a wrecking ball, but to me before I investigated, I wouldn't have even really thought Danish and Swedish were closely related, and neither would anyone else who didn't have an interest in languages. I don't even really find it painful to imagine Germanic languages as different dialects - I remember being quite amused by a German Language expert who joked that they see English as a 'bad dialect of German' . They are of course mutually unintelligible, but they are still so close that you can learn to get the gist of the other very quickly if you have the time and need to (I have many, many drunken nights in Germany that attest to that...)

Which sort of lazily leads full circle back to my original point - old English dialects eventually converged together centuries ago, along with Norse and even some Norman French and bits of Latin and Greek; I seriously doubt this was the result of some top down 'standardisation' committee, the idea of which makes my toes curl up, but rather the result of spontaneous pragmatism, and pop culture influence (dost thou know of that erstwhile celeb who did go by the name Shakespeare?), and possibly a much more relaxed attitude to making historical language obsolete (one can see evidence of this today on shows like Jersey Shore and the Only Way is Essex...). And I am genuinely curious to imagine whether this is the result of being hemmed in neatly together on one island, where in contrast the Scandinavian world is separated by rather large (and rather pretty) geographical barriers...


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## NorwegianNYC

Chilvence said:


> What I was trying to chip away at was the fact that, although politically they are different languages, the word 'language', in the Anglo mentality also automatically implies a massive irreconcilable difference between the way two different people speak, like the difference between French and Japanese. A dialect is like the difference between two different cheeses, which can still be very different, whereas a language is like the difference between cheese and marshmallows.


Which is where we run into problems. The definition of "separate language" varies considerably in the academic community. In the one end of the scale you have those who believe that all (or most) parts of a dialect continuum is the same language; in the other hand those who consider a significant amount of dialects as languages. Most people are of course somewhere towards the middle. There are set criteria for what is a language and what is not, but the standards are difficult to apply, and give a lot of room for interpretation.


> As a label, 'dialect' might not be the perfect alternative, but to me it sounds more useful. I am not suggesting some committee barge in and level the differences with a wrecking ball, but to me before I investigated, I wouldn't have even really thought Danish and Swedish were closely related, and neither would anyone else who didn't have an interest in languages. I don't even really find it painful to imagine Germanic languages as different dialects - I remember being quite amused by a German Language expert who joked that they see English as a 'bad dialect of German' . They are of course mutually unintelligible, but they are still so close that you can learn to get the gist of the other very quickly if you have the time and need to (I have many, many drunken nights in Germany that attest to that...)


There is no universally accepted criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect. As an historical linguist, I am inclined to see Norwegian/Swedish/Danish as modern dialects of Norse. However, I am cautious using the word "dialect", since dialects are normally thought of to have no standard or codified form, and are rarely or never used in formal writing (outside reported speech). Sw/Da/No will in this case fall into the category "languages", although they are still "dialects" of Norse. Personally I tend to use "language variants" in these cases (such as Dutch and Afrikaans), dialect groups within a variant, and dialect as the lowest distinction.
I am not saying this is _correct_ in any way - it is a personal preference.


> Which sort of lazily leads full circle back to my original point - old English dialects eventually converged together centuries ago, along with Norse and even some Norman French and bits of Latin and Greek; I seriously doubt this was the result of some top down 'standardisation' committee, the idea of which makes my toes curl up, but rather the result of spontaneous pragmatism, and pop culture influence (dost thou know of that erstwhile celeb who did go by the name Shakespeare?), and possibly a much more relaxed attitude to making historical language obsolete (one can see evidence of this today on shows like Jersey Shore and the Only Way is Essex...). And I am genuinely curious to imagine whether this is the result of being hemmed in neatly together on one island, where in contrast the Scandinavian world is separated by rather large (and rather pretty) geographical barriers...


There are, of course, many problems intertwined in the language vs dialect model. A German speaker from Oldenburg is definitely closer to a Dutch speaker from Groningen, than to a German speaker from Salzburg. However, the two German speakers would write their language the same way. A British English and an American English speaker would spell a good church of words differently, but is widely considered to be the same language. Many linguists (and I am inclined to agree it is at least a distinct variant) consider Scots a separate language, but closer to English than Frisian (compare here: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Swadesh_lists_for_Germanic_languages).


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## Chilvence

I think that given that you are a Norwegian historical linguist, that your personal preference carries a certain weight on the subject 

I do wish more cred was given to languages in the British school system, I find all this connectedness genuinely fascinating, although I ended up being 25 before taking the personal initiative to dive in.... The more I think about it, the more I think having a monolingual society is about as shocking as having an illiterate one. Although on the other hand, the system can make language teaching seem like a form of modern torture sometimes, as opposed to the pleasant experience it can and should be....


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## xeter

Norwiegian ...i think


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## infirmier_qc

I guess it is very hard to know the line from which we start calling a dialect ''language''. For instance, I am a native Quebec French speaker and as far as I was told by Swedish and Danish friends, thier languages are no more different than Quebec French is from the standard European language, which I admit may be perceived diffently by different people, yet no one would consider them separate languages.


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## Dan2

infirmier_qc said:


> I am a native Quebec French speaker and as far as I was told by Swedish and Danish friends, thier languages are no more different than Quebec French is from the standard European language,


I think that with respect to _spoken _language and particular dialects of French this may be a reasonable statement.  But I don't think it's correct for the written languages.  Any differences in the French you would see in comparing the language in a newspaper from Montreal with that in one from Paris would be miniscule compared to the language differences between a Swedish and a Danish newspaper. (Even Danish and Norwegian, much closer to each other in written form than either is to Swedish, have written norms that differ significantly more than those of Quebec and France do.)


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## infirmier_qc

It is true that, as we're taught in elementary school "there is only one French language, though it exists in several local flavours", thus there are no "national norm" to spell words differently, say in France, Quebec, Belgium or Switzerland. But I submit that this is possibly due to the fact that people of all those different places want to adhere to a central norm. Scandinavian languages and their peoples probably have a different take on nationalist/linguistic issues. I hear that there an institution (in Danmark if I'm not mistaken) that is working on a common scandinavian linguistic norm for all 3 countries. I for one like the sound of Danish the way it is. I would find it a pity if a supranational scandinavian norm were to crush the lignuistic "national norms" of those countries.


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## NorwegianNYC

Scandinavian is an oddity. The three variants Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are political rather than linguistic constructs. There is no need to have four written norms (Norwegian has two) in a dialect continuum with less diversity than in German or in English, and if we could turn back time 2-300 years, it is doubtful that Scandinavians knew they were speaking different languages.

As of today, the ship has long since sailed for a common Scandinavian norm. Over the past 200 years, N, D and S have been driven apart by conscious politicization to make them more different than they really are. I said it was an oddity, but it is not unique. Look at the way Serbo-croatian is consciously being split into two "different" languages; Serbian and Croatian.


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## infirmier_qc

Well said, I agree.


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## infirmier_qc

I agree Анатолий. If Swedish grammatically is anything like Danish (they certainly sound different), it should be really easy to learn. I fell in love with the language after I listened to a song by the Danish pop star Medina. I started learning Danish about a year ago - on my own - and  I can already follow Danish TV shows without subtitles. I find that Scandinavian languages have an efficient and elegant simplicity.


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## Sepia

infirmier_qc said:


> ... I hear that there an institution (in Danmark if I'm not mistaken) that is working on a common scandinavian linguistic norm for all 3 countries. I for one like the sound of Danish the way it is. I would find it a pity if a supranational scandinavian norm were to crush the lignuistic "national norms" of those countries.



Yes, that might be true. While I worked for the Danish Tourist Board a few decades ago, we actually had material printed in "Scandinavian". However, that is also the last I have heard or seen of them that actually reached out to Joe Public. They seem to me to be as successfull as those who kept telling us that the language of the future would be Esperanto. For comparison: In the meantime there are more people in China who can speak English fairly well than there are inhabitants in the USA.
I wouldn't expect to hear more of this "Scandinavian" language, if I were you.


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## Stoggler

Out of pure curiosity, how does one "construct" a "Scandinavian" language?  What's their methodology?  How do they decide what words or grammatical structures to use (at least the few that differ from language to language)?  What about orthography?  Do they use ö or ø, hv- or v-?  

I suppose they are minor details really - a Swede confronted with a passage written with ø rather than ö would still be able to understand it I guess.


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## NorwegianNYC

The chances of ever encountering a Scandinavian norm, is slim to none, but it is an interesting question.

I presume it would have <ø> and <æ> rather than <ö> and <ä>. Both Norw and Dan at one point switched to these more easily recognizable characters. When it comes to hv- vs. v-, my gut feeling tells me it would have been the simple (Swedish) v-. Neither Norw nor Dan pronounce the -h- more than English pronounces the -h-e in what. In terms of grammar, Norwegian feminine form would have to go, and Swedish would perhaps have to give up some of its intricacies in passive voice.


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## Dan2

Stoggler said:


> Out of pure curiosity, how does one "construct"  a "Scandinavian" language? ...  How do they  decide what words or grammatical structures to use ...?  What about orthography?


One might ask similar questions about creating a unified "English", and I think the answer is compromise: you agree to say "period" (instead of "full-stop") and I'll agree to say "lift" (instead of "elevator").  You agree to write "-or" in words like "colour" and I'll agree to write "-yse" in words like "analyze".  Of course, I don't _want _to modify my language to make it sound/look more British (and it appears the Scandinavians have analogous feelings, and of course much more radical changes would have to be made than in the Amer/Brit case), but that's the approach one wishing to unify the dialects would take, I assume.


NorwegianNYC said:


> When it comes to hv- vs. v- ... Neither Norw nor Dan pronounce the -h- more than English pronounces the -h- in what.


Not in NYC, NorwegianNYC , but a pronunciation of "wh-" words with what sounds like [hw-] (varies dialectically) is heard in a significant percentage of Americans and in some British-Isles dialects, and is shown in most dictionaries. Aren't there also relevant dialectal Norwegian pronunciations, reflected in the Nynorsk decision to use "kv-" for words cognate to Bokmål "hv-"?


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## LilianaB

Well, I personally think that it would be more like trying to impose universal rules on a few Slavic languages, rather than on different varieties of English, which would be basically impossible. Scandinavian languages are not as close as just different varieties of English.


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## NorwegianNYC

Dan2 said:


> Not in NYC, NorwegianNYC , but a pronunciation of "wh-" words with what sounds like [hw-] (varies dialectically) is heard in a significant percentage of Americans and in some British-Isles dialects, and is shown in most dictionaries. Aren't there also relevant dialectal Norwegian pronunciations, reflected in the Nynorsk decision to use "kv-" for words cognate to Bokmål "hv-"?


Dan - long time!
Yes - you are of course entirely correct. During my coursework at Cambridge, my professor made a point out of warning me against those (qv.) "ghastly Americanisms", and that "what" was indeed pronounced "hhh-what". That aside - no Scandinavians actually pronounce the <h> in hv-words. In a number of Norwegian, and a few Swedish dialects, the <h> is rendered <k> - not surprising, since it was originally rendered neither <h> nor <k>, but [x]. The now vanished <h> is simply a softening of [x], and <k> is a hardening of the same.

That being said - if one were to create a common Scandinavian norm, you will fall short of arguments for keeping the <h> - which is why the Swedes got rid of it. Another case may be made for the pan-Scandinavian habit of dropping <g> in -eg and -ig constructs. English in that respect abolished the <g> altogether, and was left with -y


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## Dan2

LilianaB said:


> Scandinavian languages are not as close as just different varieties of English.


Oh I agree; that's why I said that "much more radical changes would have to be made" if you tried to unify the Scandinavian languages, compared to unifying American and British English.  I was just making the analogy, which I think is obvious, that it would have to be a matter of each party "giving" something in return for something else.


LilianaB said:


> I personally think that it would be more like trying to impose universal rules on a *few *Slavic languages


I've emphasized "few" - I agree that there are subgroups within the larger Slavic family in which the degree of difference is similar to the Scandinavian situation.  Overall of course, as you know better than I, there's more diversity in the Slavic languages than in Scandinavian.


NorwegianNYC said:


> That being said - if one were to create a common Scandinavian norm, you  will fall short of arguments for keeping the <h>


I understand.  It just seems a shame to get rid of this I-E reflex, cognate to English "wh-" and Romance "qu-", etc.  "Time marches on", I guess...


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## LilianaB

Yes, but probably not within the languages of the former Yugoslavia, yet people would probably still be reluctant to do it. I think no-one just wants to give up certain things they are used, even such as a graphic representation of a single sound.


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## NorwegianNYC

LilianaB said:


> Scandinavian languages are not as close as just different varieties of English.


Liliana - I disagree. If you put a native speaker from Queensland, Australia; Nairobi, Kenya; Leith, Scotland and Birmingham, Alabama in the same room, the respective variants of English would probably be more different than Norw, Swe and Dan. What separates the Scandinavian languages is a political will to differentiate between them, not a natural division. As we have discussed in the past, there are dialects in Sweden and Denmark, and in Norway and Sweden, more akin to each other than to Danish/Swedish/Norwegian. To use a Slavic analogy - they are more different than a Serb and a Croatian, but less so than a Russian and a Ukrainian.


> I think no-one just  wants to give up certain things they are used, even such as a graphic  representation of a single sound.


No, not today. That ship has long since sailed. However, Stoggler's question was hypothetical, and if one were to construct a common Scandinavian standard, I think Ø and Æ would be used, that Feminine would disappear, double-definite would become standard, and than the h- in hv-words would be shed. I believe that is a fairly educated guess based on the current developments in these countries.


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## LilianaB

I don't know -- I am not sure. I somehow understand all varieties of English easily, but I have sometimes, or more I used to have, serious problems understanding Norwegian or Danish, when spoken, especially. I think the difference between Scandinavian languages is really more like the difference between some Southern Slavic languages, or even Western Slavic, like Polish, Czech and SlovaK, than between different varieties of English.


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## NorwegianNYC

You must pardon my lack of fluency in Polish, Czech and Slovak, but I believe Dan/Swe/Norw has a slightly higher degree of mutual intelligibility than Pol/Cze/Slovak. However, the comparison is valid, because the Scandinavian forms are moving apart, so it is only a matter of time. Swedish and Norwegian is generally understood more than 75%, and that is actually higher than most Brits from the south rank the mutual intelligibility with the Northern and Scots dialects (60-70%). And, famously, the iPhone service Siri has an easier time understanding non-Native English speakers, than native speakers from Texas/Deep South, Scotland and India.

Admittedly, Danish is different. Both Norwegians and Swedes (except the Scanian dialects of Southern Sweden, which historically are Danish dialects) understand only about 50% (or less) of spoken Danish. The reason is not that Swe/Norw has changed, but that Danish pronunciation has changed radically over the past 100-120 years.


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## LilianaB

I am not sure. All I know is that I know Swedish very well, I even have my linguistic education partially in Swedish, and I used to have problems understanding spoken Norwegian, and Danish, especially. I have never had any problems with Swedish dialects. It was always considered a separate language, in the past. Many native speakers, especially older, would joke that they did not understand a word of Danish. What else can I say. (sometimes even of Skanska).


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## Sepia

LilianaB said:


> I am not sure. All I know is that I know Swedish very well, I even have my linguistic education partially in Swedish, and I used to have problems understanding spoken Norwegian, and Danish, especially. I have never had any problems with Swedish dialects. It was always considered a separate language, in the past. Many native speakers, especially older, would joke that they did not understand a word of Danish. What else can I say. (sometimes even of Skanska).



I am sure we could find some where you would have bad trouble understanding. Search the Internet for the documentary "Svenska dialektmysterier". Parts of it may be on Youtube. It is not on the SR website any more.


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## LilianaB

No not really. Some people might of course, but I really like most of the dialects, and I studied them. I just think it is a misconception that all Scandinavian languages in the spoken form, or even in the written form to a considerable degree, are mutually intelligible. I think some Norwegian dialects, are even hard to understand for the people who speak a more standard Norwegian, like the boksmal or Nynorsk. I think the phonetic diversity of Scandinavian languages, and their phonetic complexity makes up for the quite simple grammar and not as large vocabulary, compared to English. In my opinion they are phonetically much harder than many other languages, not personally for me, but this is something I have heard from many people who were trying to learn them.


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## Ben Jamin

LilianaB said:


> I just think it is a misconception that *all Scandinavian languages in the spoken form, or even in the written form to a considerable degree, are mutually intelligible*.


It is not a misconception, quite opposite the statement is quite true, but it is important to remember that:
- You must be precise by what you mean by Scandinavian languages: the Peninsular languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) or also the Insular langauges (Icelandic and Faroese). If you mean both Peninsular and Insular then the statement marked bold is definitely not true. 

- If you mean the Peninsular languages, then it is important to stress the clause "*to a considerable degree*", the statement is then true. In fact most Norwegians understand Swedish i very high degree (usually 70%-95% of the text, depending on the topic). Everyday communication is absolutely no problem. The Swedes understand Norwegian usually in a moderate degree (about 50%), but with some training they easily achieve 80-90%. A Swede needs three months to understand 95% of Norwegian if immersed into the language. Norwegians understand Danish in a more variable degree, depending on the indivdual, but the range mayvary from about 40% to about 80% for spoken language. The diference is mostly phonetic, so a written text is usually understood in 95%. Danes understand Norwegian poorly, and Swedish even more poorly, and most of them don't hear the difference between these two langauges. Swedes understand very little of spoken Danish, but I presume they understand much more of the written text (I'd assume at least 50%).
One must also take into consideration the dialect the indvidual speaks. The dialects closer to the "standard" form of the language are more easily understood than more peripheral or special dialects. The age is also important: older people have a much better understanding than the young ones.


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## LilianaB

I am not sure what you mean but Peninsular -- of course I meant Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Icelandic and Faroese are even more remote. I could have been slightly influenced by many Swedish people in my judgement who have always claimed that they did not understand Danish and Norwegian well. Regardless, they are not as close as some people claim. Many words are false friends. The rhythm is different -- basically the pronunciation is much different -- I don't know much about the Norwegian dialects right across the border.


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## AutumnOwl

LilianaB said:


> I am not sure what you mean but Peninsular -- of course I meant Danish, Swedish and Norwegian. Icelandic and Faroese are even more remote. I could have been slightly influenced by many Swedish people in my judgement who have always claimed that they did not understand Danish and Norwegian well. Regardless, they are not as close as some people claim. Many words are false friends. The rhythm is different -- basically the pronunciation is much different -- I don't know much about the Norwegian dialects right across the border.


As for Swedes saying that they don't understand spoken Danish or Norwegian well, I think it's more that they don't *want* to understand, many don't even make an effort to try to understand as they expect that the Danes and the Norwegians instead should try to speak Swedish. When it comes to reading a text in either language, it's not that difficult to understand, there are enough similarities between Swedish and Norwegian/Danish to be able to understand most of the text, even if you can't translate it into Swedish word for word. Yes, there are false friends, but not that many, it's the same between Swedish and English, and I don't see Swedes complain about that. As for the rhythm being different, it's the same between Swedish spoken in Sweden and Swedish spoken in Finland, and also depending on from what part of Sweden a person is from, there are more differences in rhythm between a Swede from Scania in the south and a Swede from the north of Sweden than between a Norwegian from Halden and a Swede fron the north of Bohuslän.


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## LilianaB

Yes, I agree with many of the points, or some at least -- I just don't think Scandinavian languages should be called a Scandinavian, because it creates the wrong impression, just like calling Polish and Slovak the Western Slavic, or something to that effect. They are separate languages, after all. They were never called this way by any serious linguistic department some twenty years ago. I have not checked what the universities call them now. Yes, I agree that you can understand most of the text written in any of the three languages -- but can you really enjoy it, if you have to guess most of the things and constantly think which letter represents what? Sometimes just a few false friends may create a disaster in translation. It is like reading a language in another script. Like reading Lithuanian in the Polish writing system.


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## vestfoldlilja

This might not be of help, but I think the situation is that it goes beyond differences and similarities in languages. It has much to do with shared identity tied to common history, mythology and a sense of being the same group, even when we very clearly define ourselves by nationalities. There is a strong Scandinavian identify that has branches that tie in with the understanding that Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are dialectal variations of the same language.  It is something that unifies us as Scandinavians. 

And as AutumnOwn said, with effort we do understand each other, written and spoken. It’s all about perspective and yes the other languages can sound very foreign, but when you have tuned your brain to a different setting it goes easier. We can indeed talk so that we are not remotely understood, but that is true, if to a lesser degree, within each Scandinavian language as well. If the language barrier were greater I think that would show in how we relate to each other, both officially and commoner to commoner. 

The thing, for me, about reading a text in either Danish or Swedish is that even if there is a word I cannot translate I understand it out of context much more readily than I do in English. I have a greater innate understanding of the languages. I think it’s a point to make that a foreigner learning one of the Scandinavian languages does not have that innate understanding and will perhaps have a harder time recognizing _nöjd_ and _fornøyd_ as the same word. Scandinavians will have an easier time recognizing words as we can more easily discern the separate words in compound words and recognize other words as lesser used synonyms, or words used back in the day. 

Some false friends do have the same root or have a link in meaning – like _rar_ in Swedish and Norwegian. Others of course do not, but many false friends are learned growing up, certainly if one has much contact with the other Scandinavian languages. 

People from different countries will most likely not keep to their own language even; not if they know each other well and are used to two or three languages being spoken at the same time. They will change out words, either because one language has a better word for something or just because a word is funny to say. This again goes to identity. Changing words and playing with false friends and different pronunciation across the languages is part of strengthen the shared identity.   

All in all I think Scandinavians would communicate more smoothly by just slowing our speech and speaking more clearly.


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## NorwegianNYC

AutumnOwl said:


> As for Swedes saying that they don't understand spoken Danish or Norwegian well, I think it's more that they don't *want* to understand, many don't even make an effort to try to understand as they expect that the Danes and the Norwegians instead should try to speak Swedish. When it comes to reading a text in either language, it's not that difficult to understand, there are enough similarities between Swedish and Norwegian/Danish to be able to understand most of the text, even if you can't translate it into Swedish word for word. Yes, there are false friends, but not that many, it's the same between Swedish and English, and I don't see Swedes complain about that. As for the rhythm being different, it's the same between Swedish spoken in Sweden and Swedish spoken in Finland, and also depending on from what part of Sweden a person is from, there are more differences in rhythm between a Swede from Scania in the south and a Swede from the north of Sweden than between a Norwegian from Halden and a Swede fron the north of Bohuslän.


 You make good point. If you look at Jemtish, it is closer to Trøndsk than to Götamål; Scanian is at least as close to Danish as it is to Sveamål, and Dalsland/Värmland is absolutely closer to South-Eastern Norwegian than to most other Swedish dialects. Like the former Yugoslavia, Scandinavia is a dialect continuum, where the extremes may have little mutual intelligibility, but the majority enjoys a common understanding well within the scope of the variants of English


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## AutumnOwl

LilianaB said:


> Yes, I agree that you can understand most of the text written in any of the three languages -- but can you really enjoy it, if you have to guess most of the things and constantly think which letter represents what? Sometimes just a few false friends may create a disaster in translation.


It depends entirely on the text, if it's a technical/scientific article in a subject I don't know much about in Swedish, then I can't make much of it in Danish or Norwegian, but nor would I understand much if the article was in English if I don't have access to that vocabulary in English without the help of a dictionary. And as vestfoldlilja mentions, it's usually possible to recognize the similarities in words in the Scandinavian languages, so reading a newspaper article or a fiction book doesn't give me any major problems, there are a word here and there I don't understand the meaning of, but it's the same when I read an English book, I can't say that I know or understand every word, but it's still possible to understand the context of what I'm reading. It's one thing if I worked as a translator and had to make a correct translation of what I was reading, then I would have to have a dictionary and look up a lot of words to be certain that I got the true meaning of the text, but when reading for pleasure there is no need for that, it's possible to understand the context without knowing the exact Swedish word for every Danish or Norwegian word.

I find it much easier to read a Danish or a Norwegian text in a magazine, and understand what I read better, than I understand a text in Finnish, which is after all my mother tongue and a language I used daily until five years ago.


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## LilianaB

Hi, Autumnawl. I may really be a perfectionist, but I could not enjoy any book in this form. For me each word is very important, each structure and even the way the text looks. I agree that you can more or less understand what the book is about. I once read Per Gynt in this form and I got really upset. ( I only had it in Norwegian -- I still have it, I think) On the other hand, Chaucer is hard to read, too.


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## NorwegianNYC

LilianaB said:


> Hi, Autumnawl. I may really be a perfectionist, but I could not enjoy any book in this form. For me each word is very important, each structure and even the way the text looks. I agree that you can more or less understand what the book is about. I once read Per Gynt in this form and I got really upset. ( I only had it in Norwegian -- I still have it, I think) On the other hand, Chaucer is hard to read, too.


Liliana - Most Norwegians struggle with Peer Gynt also, in its corny 19th Century verse and rhyme


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## AutumnOwl

LilianaB said:


> Hi, Autumnawl. I may really be a perfectionist, but I could not enjoy any book in this form. For me each word is very important, each structure and even the way the text looks. I agree that you can more or less understand what the book is about.


And if it was as important for me to understand everything I read, I wouldn't be able to read any book in English either as there always are some words and structures I don't understand, and I've been reading mostly English books for almost 40 years and enjoyed them very much.


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## LilianaB

I could probably understand 80% of Ukrainian, or Slovak, but I still would not read the books in the original. What I am saying is, that it is basically not one language -- this is all.


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## AutumnOwl

LilianaB said:


> I could probably understand 80% of Ukrainian, or Slovak, but I still would not read the books in the original. What I am saying is, that it is basically not one language -- this is all.


Depending on the text, but for a newspaper text I would say that my understanding of a Danish or Norwegian text is higher than 80%.


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## LilianaB

Sure, that might be true. I still do not see any basis for the three languages to be treated as one language, because the differences are too significant. I have this cookbook from the end of the 18th century, and I cannot say that i understand a lot in it, especially that most of the ingredients have changed, the food portions and the writing system has changed around 1920. (in old Swedish).


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## AutumnOwl

I don't mean that the three Scandinavian languages should be treated as one language, they are clearly three different languages, but the differences between them are not so great that it's not possible to understand the other languages. I've seen some texts in the Occitan language and I would say that the differences between the different dialects seems to be as varied as between the Scandinavian languages. I don't know if people who speak Occitan think that it's difficult to understand the other Occitan dialects or Catalan, which is the language closest related to Occitan, but in the case of Occitan the different dialects are treated as one language, regardless of their differences. The difference with the Scandinavian languages are that all three have their own standardized written language and that written language differs from the spoken dialects in each country. There are often many similarities between the different spoken dialects in border areas, but depending on what country you go to school in, you will learn a different written language.


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## esornod

My son and his family live in the middle of Sweden so I visit regularly.  Sweden, Norway and Denmark and to a lesser extent Finland get the same TV shows and understand them.  My son and his wife often go to Norway to shop for some items cheaper there and they speak Swedish.   I should say that their Alvdalen accent is quite close to Norwegian and they live only a few Km. from the border.  Danish is hard for them to understand but they copy well.  I have learned some very basic Swedish but find it hard to practice because they insist on practising their English.
The alphabets do differ.  I am confident in saying that to a large extent the three languages are mutually intelligible.


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## NorwegianNYC

My Advanced Norwegian class is exploring these similarities, and came across a Norwegian tv-show called "Arkeologene". The interesting thing about this show is that it consists of two hosts speaking Western Norwegian dialects (Voss and Stavanger) traveling to archaeological digs all over Scandinavia, talking to professionals speaking various Norwegian, Swedish and Danish dialects, and the whole thing is subtitled in standard Norwegian. After a while, one cannot help being struck a notion of how similar sounding e.g. Southern and South-Western Norwegian is to various Danish accents, and how similar sounding certain Mid and Eastern Norwegian dialects are to various forms of Swedish. Especially since one has an added benefit of having it subtitled in Norwegian. You will find it on www.nrk.no, and it is an interesting lesson in Scandinavian as a "common" language


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## Havfruen

NorwegianNYC said:


> My Advanced Norwegian class is exploring these similarities, and came across a Norwegian tv-show called "Arkeologene". The interesting thing about this show is that it consists of two hosts speaking Western Norwegian dialects (Voss and Stavanger) traveling to archaeological digs all over Scandinavia, talking to professionals speaking various Norwegian, Swedish and Danish dialects, and the whole thing is subtitled in standard Norwegian. After a while, one cannot help being struck a notion of how similar sounding e.g. Southern and South-Western Norwegian is to various Danish accents, and how similar sounding certain Mid and Eastern Norwegian dialects are to various forms of Swedish. Especially since one has an added benefit of having it subtitled in Norwegian. You will find it on www.nrk.no, and it is an interesting lesson in Scandinavian as a "common" language



Thanks for the recommendation, I will enjoy this program! Which host is from Voss and which from Stavanger? The one with glasses swallows his words more, I think. The subtitles on www.nrk.no TV programs in general are a great aid to me, as I can read Norwegian far better than I can understand the spoken language. Are there other www.nrk.no TV programs you use with your students?

Here's the direct link http://tv.nrk.no/serie/arkeologene Also if anyone does not understand Norwegian well, the entire transcript is available if you click on "Teksting" which you can put into Google translate or similar as required.


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## Ben Jamin

Havfruen said:


> Thanks for the recommendation, I will enjoy this program! Which host is from Voss and which from Stavanger? The one with glasses swallows his words more, I think. The subtitles on www.nrk.no TV programs in general are a great aid to me, as I can read Norwegian far better than I can understand the spoken language. Are there other www.nrk.no TV programs you use with your students?
> 
> Here's the direct link http://tv.nrk.no/serie/arkeologene Also if anyone does not understand Norwegian well, the entire transcript is available if you click on "Teksting" which you can put into Google translate or similar as required.


At the same NRK site you can see the TV talk show with a Norwegian host (Fredrik Skavlan) interviewing guests speaking Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. The guests then talk often to each other, and the conversation goes on in all three langauges apparently smoothly and without misunderstandings. The program is emitted on Friday nights and can be retrieved online some days afterwards.


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## Havfruen

Ben Jamin said:


> At the same NRK site you can see the TV talk show with a Norwegian host (Fredrik Skavlan) interviewing guests speaking Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. The guests then talk often to each other, and the conversation goes on in all three langauges apparently smoothly and without misunderstandings. The program is emitted on Friday nights and can be retrieved online some days afterwards.



Tusen takk for det! I do appreciate your Norwegian tax dollars at work providing high quality programming to me, kind of a charity service to educate some poor ignorant Americans and help our brain development. On the topic of this thread, is Skavlan's program also shown in Sweden and Denmark?


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## NorwegianNYC

Havfruen said:


> Which host is from Voss and which from Stavanger? The one with glasses swallows his words more, I think.


A correct observation. The one with glasses (Frode Iversen) is from Stavanger.


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## bicontinental

What a beautiful and educational documentary. Thanks so much for the link. It seems to me that every participant in this program is making an effort to speak slowly and clearly...(even the Danes!). Do your students have problems understanding the Danish speakers, NYC?
Bic.


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## NorwegianNYC

Well - they struggle with certain variants of Danish. More specifically what someone described as street-Copenhagen or working class Copenhagen dialect, which is that half-pronounced variety that has become so prevalent in Danish. However, when spoken at a moderate pace (and with more than two-and-a-half syllable pronounced per sentence...), and preferable on a topic (not just chit chat), they have no problems.


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## Ben Jamin

Havfruen said:


> Tusen takk for det! I do appreciate your Norwegian tax dollars at work providing high quality programming to me, kind of a charity service to educate some poor ignorant Americans and help our brain development. On the topic of this thread, is Skavlan's program also shown in Sweden and Denmark?



It is shown in Sweden. I don't know if it is shown in Denmark, may be not. Sweden and Norway form today a much closer knit cultural area, than Norway and Denmark, and the Swedish - Danish ties are even looser.


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## Sepia

bicontinental said:


> What a beautiful and educational documentary. Thanks so much for the link. It seems to me that every participant in this program is making an effort to speak slowly and clearly...(even the Danes!). ...
> Bic.



Well of course - how else would you make a show with guests speaking different languages work out well? I'd expect the same from a Norwegian speaking Norwegian in a Danish television show. Or from somone from Georgia, USA, talking on British or Australian television.


----------



## NorwegianNYC

Sepia said:


> Well of course - how else would you make a show with guests speaking different languages work out well? I'd expect the same from a Norwegian speaking Norwegian in a Danish television show. Or from somone from Georgia, USA, talking on British or Australian television.


 I suspect this is done on purpose. They do not have to use Swedish and Danish professionals, but they are trying to bridge Scandinavia, and probably instruct their guest to use clear pronunciation. However, the whole idea is that as long as Scandinavian is spoken non-colloquially and at a moderate pace with proper pronunciation, it is usually not a problem for Scandinavians to understand it.


----------



## Ben Jamin

Sepia said:


> Well of course - how else would you make a show with guests speaking different languages work out well? I'd expect the same from a Norwegian speaking Norwegian in a Danish television show. Or from somone from Georgia, USA, talking on British or Australian television.



Maybe on television, but I attended lectures where the lecturer spoke a dialect of the English language that was almost incomprehensible.


----------



## Sepia

Ben Jamin said:


> It is shown in Sweden. I don't know if it is shown in Denmark, may be not. Sweden and Norway form today a much closer knit cultural area, than Norway and Denmark, and the Swedish - Danish ties are even looser.



I don't quite agree on that point. It probably depends on the region. Take a closer look at what is going on down south. Greater Copenhagen and Malmö + Suburbs are becoming sort of a mega-city. Everything is mixing a lot more than ever before.


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## NorwegianNYC

Then again, Sepia - Copenhagen and Scania have always been the "same region" - culturally, linguistically and historically


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## Ben Jamin

NorwegianNYC said:


> Then again, Sepia - Copenhagen and Scania have always been the "same region" - culturally, linguistically and historically


Maybe locally, yes, but ask a Stockholmer what is going on in Copenhagen.


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## AutumnOwl

Ben Jamin said:


> Maybe locally, yes, but ask a Stockholmer what is going on in Copenhagen.


Nor do the Stockholmer know much about what's happening in Malmö or Göteborg.


----------



## NorwegianNYC

Ben Jamin said:


> Maybe locally, yes, but ask a Stockholmer what is going on in Copenhagen.


Hi Ben - yes, that is what I mean. Copenhagen and Scania is a region with stronger cultural, historical and linguistic ties than e.g. Scania and Stockholm, or Copenhagen and Jutland


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## esornod

I think the saying goes that a language is a dialect with an army behind it.  My feeling is that the Scandinavian countries are trying to define their own separate languages and even use the artifice of unusual characters.  What interests me is just how many English words are from the Old Norse.  My son lives near Alvdalen which has a local dialect called amongst other names _Älvdalsmål._  The Alvdalen intonation is very similar to that just 14 km. across the border and the locals often cannot discern any difference.  In fact Alvdalen was once part of Norway.
I wanted to sing O Store Gud at my son's wedding in Sarna but no one could agree on the correct pronunciation.  I found a lecturer in modern Swedish literature who advised me that the dialect is that spoken right at the bottom of Sweden and is nearly identical with Danish.  I eventually sang using the sing-song local Alvdalen pronunciation which sounds like Norwegian.
Sadly back in Australia I have lost much of the Swedish I had acquired because even in Sweden no one wanted to talk in Swedish, preferring to practice their English on me.  Sigh!


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## Sepia

NorwegianNYC said:


> Hi Ben - yes, that is what I mean. Copenhagen and Scania is a region with stronger cultural, historical and linguistic ties than e.g. Scania and Stockholm, or Copenhagen and Jutland





True. And in the other end of the country it is the same problem. I remember once that a member of the Danish government got pissed off because two mayors, one from a city in Soenderjylland/Nordschleswig and the Mayor of Flensburg, began cooperatiing in various matters. The national politician thought it was their job only to cooperate with anyone across the borders. However, they had never taken any steps to doing so in municipal matters. 

And the two mayors had never even given it a thought involving their respective nationl governments. And they didn't start there, that's for sure!


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## alexoi

I guess the best choice is to learn the language they speak where you're going to relocate.

However, linguistically speaking, Danish would have been the best choice since it's somewhere in between the others IF (and this is a BIG one) it hadn't been for the very hard to pick up accent that the danes have. For that reason I'd go for swedish which is the larger one, preferably not Swedish with southern accent which can resemble the Danish.

It's funny how swedes can read a danish newspaper without a single lesson in danish, but may fail utterly when trying to understand spoken danish. It takes months (!) to get used to.


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## herrkommers

Could you talk more about this danishes singers? or what songs do you sing from them ??

Thank you


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## MindBoggle

My two cents:

A Dane, a Swede, and a Norwegian can have a normal conversation where each speaks his own language. I've done this myself many times, and it's no problem at all. Include a Dutchman, however, and this is no longer possible. We can read a Dutch text, though, without much trouble, so if we had the conversation in writing, it would be possible even with the inclusion of a Dutchman.

(I'm assuming, of course, that all 3 (or 4) are at least average language users. If one participant doesn't master his own language (as some people don't), he will probably have some trouble (I have seen this happen on occasion). But then again - for such people - even if the conversation is conducted in their own language, they have trouble understanding what's being said, so I would disregard this fact.)

In other words: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are all dialects of a language we might call 'Mainland Scandinavian' (as opposed to 'Insular Scandinavian' (Icelandic and Faroese), both of which have retained a lot of archaic forms - something which makes them much harder to understand even for a competent speaker of Mainland Scandinavian).

Dutch (like old English) is close to old Frisian, and so is the local Danish dialect in the far southwest of Denmark. If a Dane speaks this dialect, he may well be able to have a conversation with a Dutch person (each speaking their own language). Standard Danish, however, is mostly based on the Copenhagen dialect spoken in the far east of our country, and is therefore much closer to Swedish than to Dutch.


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## MindBoggle

@Sepia:

Greater Copenhagen and Malmö + Suburbs are becoming sort of a mega-city. Everything is mixing a lot more than ever before.

Yes, very much.
So much so, in fact, that Malmö is now, colloquially, known as 'Copenhagen M'.


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## Tjahzi

"Men snart så kröp det fram, det bästa med Malmö var Köpenhamn"

― Promoe (Kråksången, Detta har hänt)


----------



## Ricard_o

Hello, 

I was looking for a page like wordreference but for danish students and I found this. I know my answer is not exactly about the subject but I thought among you people maybe somebody knows one. Beginning to study danish is hard to find a good dictionary, I have been using google translate and others pages but none of them give a context or exemples of how to use the word therefore sometimes they are innacurate. 

Thanks


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## Sepia

Ricard_o said:


> Hello,
> 
> I was looking for a page like wordreference but for danish students and I found this. I know my answer is not exactly about the subject but I thought among you people maybe somebody knows one. Beginning to study danish is hard to find a good dictionary, I have been using google translate and others pages but none of them give a context or exemples of how to use the word therefore sometimes they are innacurate.
> 
> Thanks



Google translate is not a dictionary. I don't know for what it is of any use, but it is not a dictionary.

Why don't you check up on what Danish publishers have to offer? Gyldendals used to be the top runners and may still be. And when you have the ISBN number you can order them in a book store.


----------



## Ricard_o

Thanks for the advice Sepia, I'll check it out. And in case someone else is studying Danish, another member told me about this page: www.bab.la which gives diferent exemples inside a sentence of the word you shearch.


----------



## Varis

I recently saw the Bron/Broen series (season 1 and 2) and I was curious: does the level of mutual intelligibility between Swedes and Danes depicted in it reflect reality (keeping in mind that Martin is a Copenhagen Dane and the Swedes are (mostly) from Scania) or have a lot of potential misunderstandings been 'smoothed out' for television?

Also, to contribute something to this thread: Dutch (my language) really isn't mutually intelligible with the Scandinavian languages to any significant degree, as has been previously established. Regarding the Bron/Broen series, I could understand only a few words and phrases directly (and they were mostly Swedish ones uttered by Saga; I guess she has a pretty clear articulation). Written Swedish I can understand a lot better, without having any formal training, provided I know the context. This is probably not due to to the common Germanic source from which both Dutch and Swedish (and the other Scandinavian languages) evolved, but has more to do with the massive influence of Low German/Dutch on Scandinavian, starting from the High Middle Ages (the time of the Hanseatic League).

And also: as a Dutch native speaker, I can't distinguish Swedish from Norwegian, but I can distinguish Danish. To put it in Lord of the Rings terms: to me, Danish sounds like how the minions of Sauron would speak Swedish/Norwegian


----------



## MindBoggle

Varis said:


> I recently saw the Bron/Broen series (season 1 and 2) and I was curious: does the level of mutual intelligibility between Swedes and Danes depicted in it reflect reality (keeping in mind that Martin is a Copenhagen Dane and the Swedes are (mostly) from Scania) or have a lot of potential misunderstandings been 'smoothed out' for television?



Even when speaking the same language people sometimes go "What did you say?" or "Pardon me?". This happens a bit more when we speak to our Scandinavian neighbors, but movies don't show this - as they don't when the movie is in one language. And they don't put all the 'eh's, 'hmm's, coughs etc. of natural conversation in either. And the reason is the same, I guess: It holds up the plot progression for no good reason.

Apart from that, the conversation is realistic. Scandinavians can - and often do - have conversations like that. Some people may need a bit of exposure before they understand some dialects, but no language classes or dictionaries are necessary. If you have a colleague (like in the Bro(e)n series) from another Scandinavian country, and you don't understand that person immediately, you will get it after a few days of working with him or her.
Scandinavian, in my opinion, is one language with three different regional norms. Understanding other Scandinavian languages is only slightly more challenging than understanding the rural dialects of one's own language (which also, in some cases, may take a few days of getting used to).



> Also, to contribute something to this thread: Dutch (my language) really isn't mutually intelligible with the Scandinavian languages to any significant degree, as has been previously established. Regarding the Bron/Broen series, I could understand only a few words and phrases directly (and they were mostly Swedish ones uttered by Saga; I guess she has a pretty clear articulation). Written Swedish I can understand a lot better, without having any formal training, provided I know the context. This is probably not due to to the common Germanic source from which both Dutch and Swedish (and the other Scandinavian languages) evolved, but has more to do with the massive influence of Low German/Dutch on Scandinavian, starting from the High Middle Ages (the time of the Hanseatic League).



I have never studied Dutch, but I can read a Dutch text without much trouble. It's when you people speak, I have trouble. 



> And also: as a Dutch native speaker, I can't distinguish Swedish from Norwegian, but I can distinguish Danish. To put it in Lord of the Rings terms: to me, Danish sounds like how the minions of Sauron would speak Swedish/Norwegian



As a Dane, I can easily tell standard Norwegian from standard Swedish, but some of the dialects along the linguistic border (which, btw, runs far inside Sweden) can be hard to distinguish even for us. Sometimes I think the speakers of those dialects themselves can't even tell. And they don't need to. It's all Scandinavian. 

And finally...

According to the Swedes, Danish is just Swedish with a German accent. 

Greetings,
MindBoggle


----------



## MindBoggle

As a bit of extra info on this topic, let me add this from my own perspective:

When at work, speaking to a Swedish client, I speak Swedish. The situation - usually I'm offering him something - indicates for me to come to him rather than the other way round.
When I meet a Swedish person privately (i.e. on even terms) I speak Danish but 'swedify' my pronounciation a bit in order to make it easier for him to understand, and I expect him to do the same (i.e. I expect him to 'danify' his Swedish a bit, not that it's necessary, but just to be polite).

Here in Copenhagen, as Sweden is just across the bridge and Norway is quite far, we meet 50 Swedes for each Norwegian, so the Danish-Norwegian conversation is much more rare. Still, it happens relatively often, and when I'm in one, my attitude is the same: When with a client, I speak proper Norwegian (sometimes), and in private I 'norwegify' my pronounciation a bit and expect my conversation partner to 'danify' a bit.

I have to say, though, that with Norwegians I've always felt a bit silly when I switch. Standard Norwegian is very, very close to Danish, and since I don't switch to the Jutland dialect of Danish when speaking to a Jute, I feel no need to switch to the Norwegian dialect of Danish when speaking to a Norwegian.

- but recognizing that he will regard Danish as a dialect of Norwegian rather than vice versa, sometimes (when at work) I switch just to be polite.

Finally, let me add that (spoken) insular Scandinavian (Icelandic and Faroese) isn't really mutually intelligible with mainland Scandinavian (Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian).
Still, I have an Icelandic friend who has developed his own 'interscandinavian', which sits somewhere between Icelandic, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish (and it sounds something like Norwegian with an Icelandic accent). He speaks this all over Scandinavia - insular and mainland - and everybody understands.


----------



## Varis

Great info! And a bit contrary to what some Scandinavians were claiming before in this thread. I guess your linguistic situation is similar to the Dutch/Flemish/Afrikaans situation.


----------



## MindBoggle

> Great info! And a bit contrary to what some Scandinavians were claiming before in this thread. I guess your linguistic situation is similar to the Dutch/Flemish/Afrikaans situation.



A recent survey showed that Norwegians (in general) understand both Danish and Swedish quite well AND that Danes and Swedes understand Norwegian quite well. It also showed that the general population of Danes and Swedes (depending on dialect and previous exposure) sometimes do have some trouble understanding one another.
This suggests that Norwegian sits somewhere in the middle, half way between Danish and Swedish, which fits quite well with the observation of my Icelandic friend who has found an Icelandyfied Norwegian to be the most universally understandable and therefore the 'linguistic center' of the Scandinavian language(s).

This is somewhat surprising given the fact that Danish and Swedish are both classified at 'east Nordic' while Norwegian (and insular) are 'west Nordic'. One would think, therefore, that Danish and Swedish were closest to one another, but for some reason this is not the case. Not in terms of mutual intelligibility of the spoken language, at least. Maybe this is due to Norway and Denmark having been united in one country for longer time and much more recently (200 years ago) than Denmark and Sweden have (500 years ago).

I don't know how this compares to the Dutch/Flemish/Afrikaans-situation. To me they all sound like Dutch. 
I think I may be able to distinguish Afrikaans from the other two, but I wouldn't put money on it.
If I had to learn one of the three, which one, in your opinion Varis, would be most intelligible by everybody in that language continuum?


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## verdas gong

Do Danish people understand  standard vestnorsk / nynorsk, for example as used in the news: http://tv.nrk.no/serie/distriktsnyheter-rogaland/DKRO98090114/01-09-2014


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## MindBoggle

verdas gong said:


> Do Danish people understand  standard vestnorsk / nynorsk, for example as used in the news: http://tv.nrk.no/serie/distriktsnyheter-rogaland/DKRO98090114/01-09-2014



Yes, I often watch Norwegian TV. The vocabulary is virtually identical to Danish, they just pronounce the words differently (as if with a Swedish accent). I have no more difficulty than with Jutland Danish. Most people in Denmark feel the same way.

Let me quote from earlier in this thread:



GoranBcn said:


> *"Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish" *


----------



## MindBoggle

A friend of mine is Norwegian. He has been living in Copenhagen for 25 years and still just speaks Norwegian. His pronounciation hasn't changed one bit since he moved here all those years ago.
We, his friends, keep telling him that after 25 years he really should be able to speak Danish, but he keeps replying that it's never been necessary.


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## verdas gong

This does not sound/look like Danish:



> _Den avstand som skil oss to no skapar  eit sakn hjå meg som berre du kan forstå; Kvart minutt så tenkjer eg på  deg, eg drøymer om den dag du kjem hit til meg; Men tida går og alt eg  har er bilete og minne frå ei tid der; Me...alltid var saman der, me...  hadde fri; Aldri trudde eg det ville verta så tøft å væra frå deg, men  det viser seg; Folk seier at det aldri vil gå at me held saman og eg  tvilar no; Men tida går og alt eg har er bilete og minne frå ei tid  der...
> *eg saknar deg*_


----------



## MindBoggle

verdas gong said:


> This does not sound/look like Danish:


_

_Yes it does. Every single word, save one, is the same in Danish (we just spell them diffently). Compare the translation I've added below:
_
Den avstand som skil oss to no skapar eit sakn hjå meg som berre du kan forstå
Den afstand som skiller os to nu, skaber et savn hos mig som bare du kan forstå.

Kvart minutt så tenkjer eg på deg, eg drøymer om den dag du kjem hit til meg;
Hvert minut så tænker jeg på dig, jeg drømmer om den dag du kom hid til mig

 Men tida går og alt eg har er bilete og minne frå ei tid der; 
Men tiden går og alt jeg har er billedet og mindet fra en tid hvor

Me...alltid var saman der, me... hadde fri;
Vi...altid var sammen hvor, vi... havde fri

Aldri trudde eg det ville verta så tøft å væra frå deg, __men det viser seg; __
Aldrig troede jeg det ville blive så hårdt at være fra dig, men det viser sig

Folk seier at det aldri vil gå at me held saman og eg tvilar no; 
Folk siger at det aldrig vil gå at vi holder sammen og jeg tvivler nu

Men tida går og alt eg har er bilete og minne frå ei tid der...
Men tiden går og alt jeg har er billedet og mindet fra en tid hvor

*eg saknar deg
jeg savner dig.

*_Further: Where the Norwegian text has *verta*, it is possible to translate to *vorde*, but in Danish this sounds archaic, and where the Norwegian has *der*, again it is possible to use the same word in the translation, *der*, but that would be unusual usage in Danish, and where the Norwegian has *tøft*, it's possible to translate by the English loan *tough*, which we use in Danish too.
Summa summarum: The only word which is not the same in Danish is the pronoun *me*.

Several Norwegian pronouns are different from their Danish equivalent for some reason, but that's about it when it comes to the diffence in lexicon between the two languages.

In short: It takes half an hour of exposure (to the weird pronounciation and the unusual pronouns) to turn an average Dane into a Norwegian (with dyslexia and a German accent!).

It's the same language - Scandinavian. Norwegians just base their spelling on how they speak it in Oslo rather than in Copenhagen.


----------



## Ben Jamin

MindBoggle said:


> [/I]
> 
> It's the same language - Scandinavian. Norwegians just base their spelling on how they speak it in Oslo rather than in Copenhagen.



You have to define the term "the same language". 
It seems that this term is used very freely by different individuals.
With a mutual speech understanding of less then 50% it's hard to call Danish and Norwegian one language.
Besides, spoken language and written language are two different things. The similarity in spelling does not correspond to similarity im pronounciation.
Write both texts in phonetic alphabet, and the impression will be completely different.


----------



## MindBoggle

Ben Jamin said:


> You have to define the term "the same language".



That's true. Everything depends on definition.



> It seems that this term is used very freely by different individuals.



Also true.



> With a mutual speech understanding of less then 50% it's hard to call Danish and Norwegian one language.



That does depend on the definition, as you say. 

My view is this:

According to the numbers quoted earlier in this thread by GoranBCN, Norwegians understand 73% of spoken Danish, and Danes 69% of spoken Norwegian. On average. For the written language, the percentage is higher still. On average. And for competent speakers, like those in this forum, the percentage in both categories is _even_ higher.
This suggests that the mutual understanding is way more than 50%. My friend would testify to that. As indicated, he lives in Copenhagen and is speaking Norwegian here and has done so for 25 years with hardly any problems.

Does that make the two languages one? That still depends on your definition. A language, the old joke goes, is a dialect with an army. If this is our definition, Danish and Norwegian are distinct. But that's more of a joke than a definition. In my opinion the two are the same. If pressed for reasons, I would give:

1. The vocabulary is 95% identical. Practically every word in the Norwegian poem quoted above is the same in Danish. I've never seen a Norwegian text where this was not so. The pronounciation is somewhat different, it's true, but understandability is very high.
2. But mutual understandability is not 100%? True, but if mutual understandability was the only criterion, then several dialects of Danish, which are further away from Copenhagen Danish than Norwegian is, would have to be called languages in their own right, too.
3. Although mutual understanding is not 100%, among competent speakers with just a little bit of exposure it's not far off - at least for the standard versions of the languages (Oslo Norwegian and Copenhagen Danish).



> Besides, spoken language and written language are two different things.



Yes, in writing, as Goran quotes, mutual understanding is 89 and 93% - _on average, __for any speakers_. That's easily 100% for competent, native speakers.



> The similarity in spelling does not correspond to similarity im pronounciation.
> Write both texts in phonetic alphabet, and the impression will be completely different.



I don't agree with that. The pronounciation is not sufficiently different to hide the fact that the words are the same, as Goran's numbers indicate. Spoken understanding is over 70%.

In short:
In my opinion...

Danish is just Norwegian with a German accent, and
Norwegian is just Danish with a Swedish accent.

We can choose to focus on the differences if we want to, but the similarities are far greater.
In my opinion.

Have a nice day.


----------



## Ben Jamin

If you think that 70% of intelligibility is enough to call to langauges one, it is your own personal meaning, and many will disagree with you. By the way, there is the question of how old this research is. There are reports that say that the mutual intelligibility  between Scandinavian languages are rapidly declining, especially among young people. So if for example the figure of 70% is valid for an average of all ages, then the figure is much lower among people under 30. My daughter, who is a native Norwegian speaker, went to Denmark with her two friends 9 years ago. They tried to communicate with the Danes at the street speaking Norwegian, and the Danes did not understand them, they had to switch to English.

Another aspect of the question is that a person with some linguistic talent can learn another Scandinavian language very quickly, enough to raise the intelligibility to 90%, but this is not the same as the communication between two completely unaccustomed persons. We should differentiate between apples and bananas.


----------



## MindBoggle

I agree that two people, a Dane and a Norwegian, who have both never heard the other language spoken in their lives, will have some trouble - but this is true of dialects too. You need a bit of exposure to get used to the alien pronounciation.
When I went to Jutland as a child and heard Jutish for the first time, I didn't understand a word. And this was Danish. I think this is normal for a young person who is exposed to dialects for the first time. Yes, you say, young people have trouble. Maybe. I have no idea how the development in mutual understanding is, but in general young people have trouble understanding a lot of things. I would put that down to the fact that they are young.

My friend has no trouble, and although it's true that he is not a young person anymore, he's 45, he has been speaking Norwegian in Denmark basically all his adult life, and he has never had any trouble, not even when he was young. Nobody ever switches to English with him, and I've never heard a Norwegian switch to English with a Dane. I _have_ heard some Swedes do so, though - some of them have trouble with spoken Danish, as Gorans numbers show, but we understand them better than they understand us.

At least, from my personal experience, I can say this:

At my workplace we have a lot of Scandinavian clients. Many of my colleagues simply speak Danish to them. They answer in Norwegian or Swedish, and it's never a problem. Ever. It's true that our clients are generally mature, educated natives, but none of them are educated in Scandinavian languages, and neither are we.

Based on my extensive experience with this demographic, I would say that any native Scandinavian, who is of mature age (40+) and has any interest in intellectual pursuits of any kind, will understand close to 100% of his fellow Scandinavians - or at the very least enough to have a normal, everyday conversation. I see this happening every day. 

Anyway - it's not important. If you want to separate the Scandianvian languages, it's fine with me.  
But in that case, in my opinion, we have at least 10 Scandinavian languages in Denmark alone: Vendelbo, West Jutish, East Jutish, South Jutish, Funish, Langelandian, West Zealandian, Lollandic, Bornholmian, and Copenhagenish. _And_ more. And I'm sure this is the case in the other Scandinavian countries too.


----------



## såsom_smultron

MindBoggle said:


> A recent survey showed that Norwegians (in general) understand both Danish and Swedish quite well AND that Danes and Swedes understand Norwegian quite well. It also showed that the general population of Danes and Swedes (depending on dialect and previous exposure) sometimes do have some trouble understanding one another.
> This suggests that Norwegian sits somewhere in the middle, half way between Danish and Swedish, which fits quite well with the observation of my Icelandic friend who has found an Icelandyfied Norwegian to be the most universally understandable and therefore the 'linguistic center' of the Scandinavian language(s).
> 
> This is somewhat surprising given the fact that Danish and Swedish are both classified at 'east Nordic' while Norwegian (and insular) are 'west Nordic'. One would think, therefore, that Danish and Swedish were closest to one another, but for some reason this is not the case. Not in terms of mutual intelligibility of the spoken language, at least. Maybe this is due to Norway and Denmark having been united in one country for longer time and much more recently (200 years ago) than Denmark and Sweden have (500 years ago).
> 
> I don't know how this compares to the Dutch/Flemish/Afrikaans-situation. To me they all sound like Dutch.
> I think I may be able to distinguish Afrikaans from the other two, but I wouldn't put money on it.
> If I had to learn one of the three, which one, in your opinion Varis, would be most intelligible by everybody in that language continuum?


----------



## verdas gong

Norwegian is not West Scandinavian, only Nynorsk and western dialects (except for bergensk) are.


----------



## Thorz

This is based on the experience I have observed.

For most native Norwegian speakers, specially adults under 50, it is quite easy to understand Swedish. This is because the phonetic similarity of both languages and maybe because there was a lot of TV in Swedish broadcasted in Norway before the 2000s. It is a little more difficult for the native speakers, but still happens all the time, to understand Danish. I have seen this because I work at a place where you find the 3 nationalities.

As a foreign person that has learned to speak Norwegian (bokmål) I can tell you that it has really helped me to understand Swedish. It is not easy but you can definitely train your ear for achieving this. I do not speak Swedish when I am in Sweden, I use Norwegian, and it works quite well. As for Danish, as pointed before on this thread, it is very easy to read it if you can bokmål, both are really alike in written form, but it very difficult to understand it in spoken form. I almost always change to English when I am speaking with a Danish person.

So I support what has been said here before. Norwegian (bokmål) is located more in the middle of the scale between the 3 of them, specially from a foreign speaker's point of view.


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## razukin

I speak Norwegian as a foreign language. I started out learning bokmål, switched to my wife's (Western Norwegian/Sunnhordlandsk) dialect, switched back to bokmål, and switched back to dialect again before we moved. I've been learning and speaking it for around 10 years.

I have also studied Swedish and Danish a little. Maybe 1 or 2 chapters of some edition of Teach Yourself Swedish and a few units of online material from the Danish government or a university or something. I've also been to both countries. I didn't talk to many native Swedes in Sweden, but I did talk to some in Denmark.

Having done that, I have no trouble conversing with Swedes. I was just at a conference in France to which some Swedes also went, and I only used Norwegian with them. They understood me fine (I often ask to make sure). And they were relatively "young." I think it somewhat depends on the person. My wife understands Swedish quite well because she grew up with a television program called _Emil_ (as someone mentioned earlier when they talked about Swedish programs being shown on Norwegian TV in the past).

It's a little harder with Danes sometimes, but since I've put in a little bit of work, I can usually understand them. Maybe 60-80%, depending. I was at a different conference in November that some Danes came too. They often quickly switched to English with the Norwegians who weren't used to Danish, but I spoke with one of them in Norwegian and understood the important parts of what he said, to the point that I could ask clarifying questions, etc. It wasn't the first time. Some Danes even understand me speaking dialect! Granted, they were from a company that has a Norwegian branch, so it's possible they were somewhat used to Norwegian.

It's pretty interesting, in any case. I wouldn't say it's as easy for English speakers to acclimate to other languages (e.g. Spanish in the US) as it is for Scandinavian speakers. I've also heard that Norwegians start making sense of Icelandic after around two weeks in Iceland.

I've also heard about the trend towards mutual intelligibility going down among younger people. I hope the trend reverses, and I kind of think it will at some point. Well, either that, or the entire populations will just switch to English  — and then mutual intelligibility will be restored anyway!


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## cocuyo

Thorz said:


> This is based on the experience I have observed.
> 
> For most native Norwegian speakers, specially adults under 50, it is quite easy to understand Swedish. This is because the phonetic similarity of both languages and maybe because there was a lot of TV in Swedish broadcasted in Norway before the 2000s. It is a little more difficult for the native speakers, but still happens all the time, to understand Danish. I have seen this because I work at a place where you find the 3 nationalities.
> 
> As a foreign person that has learned to speak Norwegian (bokmål) I can tell you that it has really helped me to understand Swedish. It is not easy but you can definitely train your ear for achieving this. I do not speak Swedish when I am in Sweden, I use Norwegian, and it works quite well. As for Danish, as pointed before on this thread, it is very easy to read it if you can bokmål, both are really alike in written form, but it very difficult to understand it in spoken form. I almost always change to English when I am speaking with a Danish person.
> 
> So I support what has been said here before. Norwegian (bokmål) is located more in the middle of the scale between the 3 of them, specially from a foreign speaker's point of view.



I have a similar experience with a few Spanish variants, as well as mutual intelligibility between Spanish and Portuguese. I learned Spanish mostly with South Americans, most of them from Chile, but also other countries, as Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. When I first heard Spanish from Castilla Real, I thought it might be another language, although I understood everything. The phonetics were quite different from what I was used to. But I also understood Portuguese rather well, and some Italian as well. When in Galicia, I couldn't distinguish Galego from Portuguese, but I find Brazilian Portuguese easier to understand. One thing that puzzles me a bit is that my Cuban wife, knowing no other language than Spanish, cannot understand a word of Portuguese. To my ears, it seems as it should have better intelligibility than Danish to a Swede. The differences are mainly in the pronunciation. 

So it seems that "intelligibility" is the key word. If you are tuned to understand, you do, but if not, you won't. I have had many conversations with Brazilians, I speaking Spanish, they Portuguese, and there is mutual understanding. Most Brazilians I met have no problem at all in understanding Spanish, although the opposite is not true. It seems as Italians have a lot harder to understand Spanish, and my wife does not understand Italian, although I understand it rather well. Maybe the training in mutual understanding of the Nordic languages makes it easier to understand nearly related other languages, when one of them is known? I have been working in Norway for some time, and I have no problem at all in understanding Norwegian, most dialects. However, Danish is really challenging, except when written. 

We do have some false friends, but so does Spanish - in itself. For example, in Argentina, I would use _"templar la viola"_ for tuning the guitar, and in Cuba _"coger la guagua"_ for taking the bus, but not the other way around. To me, Spanish differs in different countries just as much as Swedish and Norwegian.


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## Sepia

cocuyo said:


> I have a similar experience with a few Spanish variants, as well as mutual intelligibility between Spanish and Portuguese. I learned Spanish mostly with South Americans, most of them from Chile, but also other countries, as Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. When I first heard Spanish from Castilla Real, I thought it might be another language, although I understood everything. The phonetics were quite different from what I was used to. But I also understood Portuguese rather well, and some Italian as well. When in Galicia, I couldn't distinguish Galego from Portuguese, but I find Brazilian Portuguese easier to understand. One thing that puzzles me a bit is that my Cuban wife, knowing no other language than Spanish, cannot understand a word of Portuguese. To my ears, it seems as it should have better intelligibility than Danish to a Swede. The differences are mainly in the pronunciation.
> 
> So it seems that "intelligibility" is the key word. If you are tuned to understand, you do, but if not, you won't. I have had many conversations with Brazilians, I speaking Spanish, they Portuguese, and there is mutual understanding. Most Brazilians I met have no problem at all in understanding Spanish, although the opposite is not true. It seems as Italians have a lot harder to understand Spanish, and my wife does not understand Italian, although I understand it rather well. Maybe the training in mutual understanding of the Nordic languages makes it easier to understand nearly related other languages, when one of them is known? I have been working in Norway for some time, and I have no problem at all in understanding Norwegian, most dialects. However, Danish is really challenging, except when written.
> 
> We do have some false friends, but so does Spanish - in itself. For example, in Argentina, I would use _"templar la viola"_ for tuning the guitar, and in Cuba _"coger la guagua"_ for taking the bus, but not the other way around. To me, Spanish differs in different countries just as much as Swedish and Norwegian.


 If you are tuned to understand, you do, but if not, you won't.

Exactly - while many Swedes understand Danish relatively well and vice versa, somebody who learned either Danish or Swedish but is native in a non-Scandinavian language usually does not or has a really hard time understanding the other language. And Swedes usually do not understand the southern Jutland version of Danish - just as little as Danes who have not learned Swedish understand Skånska. (A dialect that lots of Swedes hate, by the way. I find it quite nice.)


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## Svensk-Hongkongare

Hej, och jag är en Hongkongare.
Jag lär mig svenska från mig själv. Nu kan jag handla uttalen av Svenska Språket, även 7-ljudet som är svår till er kan uttalas riktigt av mig.



robbie_SWE said:


> I would recommend that you start with Swedish (I promise that I'm not bias  ). Here are my reasons:
> 1. Swedish is the biggest/most spoken language of all of the Scandinavian languages (spoken by over 9 million people in Sweden and appr. 1 million in Finland).
> 2. I've been to Norway and Denmark and Swedish has helped me countless times (Norwegian is easier to learn if you know Swedish, Danish is much harder but if you speak Swedish in my dialect _[“Skånska”] _it’s much easier!).
> 3. Last but not least, Swedish grammar isn't that hard as people think that it is. The verbs are very easy to learn, because they only have one form in the present (and all other forms too by the way  ). But pronunciation is hard!!! That will take you a while to learn, you may even have to live here  .
> So, that's my opinion. Hoppas ingen från Norge eller Danmark tar illa upp!!!
> GOOD LUCK WITH WHATEVER YOU CHOOSE!!!
> robbie



(Why do you say Swedish Pronunciation is hard? Do you mean the sj-sound? I live a lot of miles far away from Scandinavia in East Asia but I can sound the sj-sound properly!)


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## cocuyo

Svensk-Hongkongare said:


> Hej, och jag är en Hongkongare.
> Jag lär mig svenska från mig själv. Nu kan jag handla uttalen av Svenska Språket, även 7-ljudet som är svår till er kan uttalas riktigt av mig.
> 
> 
> 
> robbie_SWE said:
> 
> 
> 
> /.../ But pronunciation is hard!!! That will take you a while to learn, you may even have to live here /.../
> 
> 
> 
> 
> (Why do you say Swedish Pronunciation is hard? Do you mean the sj-sound? I live a lot of miles far away from Scandinavia in East Asia but I can sound the sj-sound properly!)
Click to expand...


Of course I don't know exactly why robbie_SWE states that Swedish pronunciation is hard, but it is not only that some particular sounds are difficult for many speakers, but it is the melody as well, the intonation, accents. But also what's difficult for someone may be less difficult for another. Chinese people often get both pronunciation of the various sounds and the intonation correct, while both seem to be impossible to learn for most Spanish speakers unless they learn it at young age. People who speak closely related languages, as German or Dutch seem to get it rather easy, although English speakers tend to have more difficulty.

So it can indeed be difficult for many people, even if you find it easy, and the pronunciation quirks are different depending on where you start, what language or languages you already know. People who speak three languages or more mostly have greater facility to learn another, even when its pronunciation is a bit more intricate.

There is also not a definitely "correct" way to pronounce the _sj_-sound, but there are two main ways, one often referred to as Swedish, akin to the Spanish pronunciation of _j_ and the other the "French" pronunciation. We call it French here, although German might be more descriptive - like _sch_ in German. In some dialects, the _sj_-sound is closer to the German _Ach-Laut_, or even as Dutch _g_ or _ch_. So pronunciation of the _sj_-sound differs greatly. 

I would say that the pronunciation that takes more time to acquire, and which many foreign people never get, is the particular "song", the intonation that is typical for native speakers.


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## 2RANbit

Hmm... Difficult to say...
Anyway, the one who started this whole thread, alexandro, did it way back in 2006. Since nine years have past since then, I think that continuing this thread is probably pointless by now.


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## bicontinental

2RANbit said:


> Hmm... Difficult to say...
> Anyway, the one who started this whole thread, alexandro, did it way back in 2006. Since nine years have past since then, I think that continuing this thread is probably pointless by now.



Yes, he should be fluent by now…in all three languages 

Bic.


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## 2RANbit

Spectre scolaire said:


> Being a fan of the “mutual intelligibility discussions” on this forum I’d like to bring to the fore some remarks. They come in two parts.


"The Germanic group of languages, according to linguistic conventions, is split into a *Northern* and a *Southern* group." Not quite right. While it is true that there is a *northern* branch, when I did my own research, I found no evidence that in terms of systematics, there was or is a southern branch. Instead, what I found by means of scientific terminology is that there are an *eastern* and a *western* branch of germanic languages. It might be true that the eastern branch originated in the north, but at least later on in history, it was designated as its own seperate branch. It is to this branch which languages like gothic, vandalic and burgundian are grouped to. However, later on in history, the eastern branch vanished from use completely. The other two branches have remained to this day.
My personal opinion is that if _this _system has been in use for decades, if not for centuries, and has already been recognised for this time in germanistics worldwide as the *standard*, there is no need to deviate from it.


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