Here danish has the reputation of being poorly intelligible to other scandinavian listeners, whilst the other scandinavian languages, i. Unfortunately, the mutualintelligibility test does not always lead to clearcut results. Mutual intelligibility may also not be equal in both directions. Internetonderzoek naar onderlinge verstaanbaarheid van. The finnish woman piped up in swedish most finns can speak swedish because there is an area of finland that is swedish speaking, so we were having a mutually intelligble conversation in norwegian, swedish, and danish. This paper reports on an investigation of the mutual intelligibility of the three mainland scandinavian languages danish, swedish and norwegian. Im danish and i read norwegian with no problem at all ive often mistaken norwegian for badly spelled danish before i realized that it wasnt actually my language while swedish is a little harder, but there is still no problem. Is norwegian as mutually intelligible with danish and.
Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in europe pdf. The similarity and mutual intelligibility between amharic. Othman, 2017 looked at mutual intelligibility between malaysianaccented english and swedish accented english. The north germanic languages are national languages in denmark, iceland, norway and sweden, whereas the nongermanic finnish is spoken by the majority in finland. Recordings by native speakers from southern sweden, norway, and denmark. Understanding of spoken language will vary greatly from per. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in. My wife is from the western part of norway and dont understand swedish half as well as i do. Dialects of english not mutually intelligible with. I have read some discussions about the mutual intelligibility between the two languages, but people seem to have different opinions. These languages are so closely related that the speakers mostly use their own lan. The bestdocumented case of asymmetric intelligibility is danish swedish. English scots frisian german luxembourgish yiddish dutch afrikaans north germanic. The contribution of linguistic factors to the intelligibility of.
Kajkavian has higher mutual intelligibility with slovene than the national varieties of shtokavian, while chakavian has a low mutual intelligibility with either, in part due to large number of loanwords from venetian. Like between the slavic languages, there is also many similarities and in some also mutual intelligibility between germanic languages. The source that was cited clearly doesnt show this in my opinion. The three mainland scandinavian languages danish, swedish and norwegian are so closely related that the speakers mostly communicate in their own languages semicommunication. How close is the norwegian language to the swedish language. Pdf mutual intelligibility of malay and swedishaccented. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in europe charlotte gooskens. Finnish, being completely different, belongs to the finnougric language family. Other languages consist of dialects which are in fact so different that. One sign of that that i know of is that norwegian, icelandic and faroese have the classical indoeuropean gender system of malefemaleneuter, while swedish. They are subdivided into east danish, swedish and westscandinavian norwegian, icelandic languages. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a double take.
If this is true it may be because, as scandinavians sometimes say, norwegian is pronounced like danish is spelt, while danish pronunciation bears a rather more. Norwegian, danish, and swedishmutually intelligible. Comparison of norwegian bokmal and standard danish wikipedia. Germanic language mutual intelligibility best, country. Danish swedish mutual intelligibility black lake series 1 episode 2. Even though the three west germanic languages dutch, frisian and afrikaans are also closely related, semicommunication is not usual between these languages. I do know that, from a linguistichistoric perspective rather than a mutual intelligibility perspective, norwegian is more closely related to icelandic and faroese than swedish or danish. The contribution of linguistic factors to the intelligibility. The article states that mutual intelligibility means mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without intentional study or special effort. Mutual intelligibility of scandinavian languages archive. It is often said, for instance, that danes understand norwegians better than norwegians understand danes. My question relates to language mutual intelligibility, specifically for norwegian, swedish, and danish. Oct 23, 2019 unfortunately, the mutual intelligibility test does not always lead to clearcut results. Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly, both between the dialects themselves as well as with other languages.
Lets talk about the mutual intelligibility and similarities of the germanic languages. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Spoken by more than 10 million people, swedish is a scandinavian language that has mutual intelligibility with danish and norwegian, and has the status of an official language in sweden as well as in finland. Observed semicommunication zeevaert 2004 danish norwegian swedish haugen 1966, maurud 1976. Asymmetry has been observed, for example, between spanish and portuguese and between czech and slovak. Jun 07, 2019 whats the difference between swedish, danish and norwegian. It is a north germanic language and quite similar to its sister scandinavian languages, danish and norwegian, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility and forming. Just that words that are the same in finland swedish are also spelled the same as in. Finnish, icelandic, and one of the three languages danish, norwegian and swedish.
An intriguing case of nonreciprocal intelligibility is found in northern europe. Swedish and norwegian have higher mutual intelligibility than swedish and danish. Why some speakers cant understand speakers who understand. Its a graphical representation of how close european languages are. Hence, the present study examined the distance and the mutual intelligibility between amharic and two tigrigna varieties together with the effect of the attitude on the mutual. They are all very similar that most people from the three countries can understand each other. Pdf some scientific intelligibility studies robert. The clearest linguistic criteria that we have mutual intelligibility is ruled out by your question, because that would make the question selfcontradictory. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a. In the present investigation, results from intelligibility. Pdf the languages danish and swedish are so similar to each other that they are partially mutually intelligible. The present study investigates the crosslinguistic intelligibility of malayaccented english and swedishaccented english, regarding the three phonetic features word stress pattern, consonant. The north germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the germanic languages, a subfamily of the indoeuropean languages, along with the west germanic languages and the extinct east.
Languages of sweden wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. Delsing and lundina u kesson, 2005 who determined mutual intelligibility among scandinavian languages danish, norwegian and swedish using a comprehension test with just. For those who speak at least one of the three, is there a particular order to learn these languages. Faroese, icelandic faculty of arts university of groningen mutual intelligibility for the mainland scandinavian languages, mutual intelligibility is in. But you might like this map, its one of my favourites and i find it oddly fascinating. Scandinavian countries, swedish, danish and norwegian, which are mutually intelligible.
A result of swedens cultural influence in scandinavia and that tv shows and movies tend to flow out of sweden and into neighboring denmark and norway more than the opposite. But again, this is a separate discussion from mutual intelligibility. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which. Generally, speakers of the three largest scandinavian languages danish, norwegian and swedish can read each others languages without great difficulty. Previous studies have indicated that mutual intelligibility between closely related language pairs is sometimes asymmetric. Linguistic determinants of mutual intelligibility in. Sep 23, 2009 are german and swedish mutually intelligible.
It belongs to the finnougric family along with estonian and hungarian. But swedish, danish, and norwegian are official languages of separate countries, and there are separate spelling conventions for some of the sounds in the languages. Mutual intelligibility of chinese dialects experimentally tested. In earlier investigations on interscandinavian intelligibility, mutual intelligibility has often been tested in the capitals only e. All of those are germanic except finnish which belongs to the uralic language family and is therefore more related to hungarian and estonian. What factors play a role in mutual intelligibility.
What is the level of mutual intelligibility of closely related languages in europe. Pdf the influence of extralinguistic factors on mutual intelligibility. Mutual intelligibility wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. Dialects of english not mutually intelligible with standard english. Between sources, you might find some claiming that two languages are mutually intelligible, while other sources claim those same languages arent. Insular scandinavian faroese and icelandic, and continental scandinavian danish, norwegian, and swedish, based on mutual intelligibility due to heavy influence of east scandinavian particularly danish on norwegian during the last millennium and divergence. It may be orthography, morphologylexicon, or phonetics. This holds especially true of danish and norwegian. Hi, im a secondlanguage learner of swedish and i want to actually learn to speak norwegian. Like to know more about the history and culture of the northic countries, especially sweden. Germanic language mutual intelligibility people, england. They are so closely related that they are sometimes considered dialects of a common, nonexistent, language maurud 1976, braunmuller 2002. Danish is a language you need to be exposed to to understand, because of the pronunciation.
These factors are hypothesized to influence mutual intelligibility asymmetrically, for example, because swedish is more prevalent in the media than danish asymmetrical contact and danish is. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. I would say that swedish, danish and norwegian can be to a fairly high degree mutually intelligible, but it depends a lot on dialects, and there are a lot of dialects spread out across the region. Having a large body of recognizable vocabulary is a necessary condition for mutual intelligibility, but it is nowhere near sufficient. I understand these three are, to an extent, mutually intelligible. Germanic language mutual intelligibility people, england, english, swedish user name. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages introduction. As many have already said, the written forms of swedish, norwegian and danish are easily understood by pretty much everyone in all three countries and the swedish contingent in finland.
How mutually intelligible are the finnish language and the. Mutual intelligibility between speakers of north and west. The similarity and mutual intelligibility between amharic and. Are scandinavian languages mutually understandable. To what degree do neighbouring languages share mutual intelligibility. Nov 23, 2010 in the present investigation, results from intelligibility tests measuring the mutual intelligibility of danish, norwegian and swedish were compared with results of similar tests of mutual intelligibility between speakers of dutch, frisian and afrikaans. Pdf some scientific intelligibility studies robert lindsay. Northern germanic languages spoken in scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. The three mainland scandinavian languages danish, norwegian and swedish constitute an interesting linguistic community with respect to mutual intelligibility.
The language intelligibility problem is also mentioned in the report published in 2007 at the european commission by the high level group on multilingualism hlgm, which emphasizes a lack of knowledge about mutual intelligibility between closely re. If you know one of the scandinavian languages, do you know them all. These listeners came from nine different towns in denmark, norway, sweden and the swedish speaking part of finland see figure 2. How can the mutual intelligibility between closely related languages be measured. Linguistic and extralinguistic predictors of interscandinavian. Its important to note that mutual intelligibility is highly subjective. It should be realized that the amount of work involved in establishing mutual intelligibility among a set of. Pdf experimental methods for measuring intelligibility of closely. As noticed, there are several aspects by which linguistic distances ld between a certain pair of languages may differ.
As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but swedes in the oresund region including malmo and helsingborg, across a strait from the danish capital copenhagen, understand danish somewhat better, largely due to. Thus on grounds of mutual intelligibility, we might consider some of these languages to be dialects of a single language. The muchdiscussed mutual intelligibility between the scandinavian languages. If compared with other languages, are german and swedish closer to each other than french and spanish are to each other. Thus scots english may at first be quite unintelligible to speakers of the various varieties of standard american english, and vice versa. Anecdotally, norwegians tell me swedish is more easily intelligible than danish but the standard account seems to be that danish and swedish are equally intelligible to norwegians. I am aware of the mutual intelligibility of the languages. In the present investigation, results from intelligibility tests measuring the mutual intelligibility of danish, norwegian and swedish were compared with results of similar tests of mutual. Duolingo is annoying because 99% of the time it is just slightly altered swedish, so i was hoping there was something geared more towards people who speak swedish. Linguistic and extralinguistic predictors of inter. Internet experiment testing swedishdanish mutual intelligibility at the word level.
Determinants of mutual intelligibility between closely. Swedish and norwegian languages versus chinese dialects. Swedish is the official language of sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10 million inhabitants of the country. Mutual intelligibility wikipedia republished wiki 2. Some linguists claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects. Yes, but like others in the thread have already pointed out, the mutual intelligibility is mostly restricted to writing. Swedish and norwegian, are more readily understood by danish listeners. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages. Can native german and swedish speakers understand each other without learning.
Nov 30, 2010 the finnish woman piped up in swedish most finns can speak swedish because there is an area of finland that is swedish speaking, so we were having a mutually intelligble conversation in norwegian, swedish, and danish. Icelandic is related all are north germanic languages, but if icelanders and swedes, danes, norwegians want to talk, they need to use a language they have studied nowadays it is often english. It is largely mutually intelligible with norwegian and danish, although the degree of mutual intelligibility is largely dependent on the dialect and accent of the. Norwegians are generally better at understanding swedish than vice versa. Are norwegian, finnish, danish, icelandic and swedish. There are a lot of swedes here, so swedish is a language i understand very well. Also, there is an article on wikipedia called mutual intelligibility, and it has a nice list of mutually intelligible languages. Conditional entropy measures intelligibility among related. Closely related languages a and b have lower mutual. The study looks at the intelligibility of auditory and written material and concludes that. This strategy is widely used for communication among speakers of the three mainland scandinavian languages, i. Are danish, norwegian, and swedish mutually intelligible.
In internordic contexts, texts are today often presented in three versions. On the other hand, speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other to a fair degree. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. True, given enough time and goodwill, mutual intelligibility can be achieved without too much effort. Introduction this paper reports on an investigation of the mutual intelligibility of the three mainland scandinavian languages danish, swedish and norwegian. May 31, 2009 norwegian sounds like swedish and looks like danish, due to a complex history. Pdf conditional entropy measures intelligibility among related.
Reading tends to be significantly easier in my experience. Its easier for danish speakers to understand swedish than the other way around. How well do speakers of closely related european languages understand each other in nonnative english compared to semicommunication. However, more recent analyses divide the north germanic languages into two groups. Today i want compare swedish, danish and norwegian with each other. As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but swedes in the oresund region including malmo and helsingborg.