Danish has developed quite massively in terms of phonology, therefore a speaker of swedish without immersion into danish will have a very hard time understanding spoken danish. Faroese sometimes makes loanwords from icelandic, faroeseifies icelandic words, or models how icelandic make its new words. Experimental methods for measuring intelligibility of closely related language varieties pdf. One of the problems with a simplistic family model is that it assumes divergence and. How mutually intelligible are the finnish language and the. Pdf the influence of extralinguistic factors on mutual. Icelandic, faroese, norn as well as norwegian formerly comprised west nordic. May 15, 2012 faroese sometimes makes loanwords from icelandic, faroeseifies icelandic words, or models how icelandic make its new words. Norwegian, danish, and swedishmutually intelligible. 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. The north germanic languages or scandinavian 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 germanic languages. Hi, seeing as though icelandic has stood frozen in time since the middle ages and hasnt changed a single bit from old norse, is icelandic mutually intelligible with old english. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages 2712009 2 introduction.
It is not mutually intelligible with the continental scandinavian languages danish, norwegian, and swedish and is farther away from the most widely spoken. Thats evidence that these languages are not mutually intelligible to most people. Icelandic is an indoeuropean language belonging to the northern branch of the germanic group. Another way of classifying the languages focusing on mutual intelligibility rather than the treeoflife model posits norwegian, danish, and swedish as continental scandinavian, and faroese and icelandic as insular scandinavian. Icelandic or between french and spanish and italian and tries to figure out what shared forms. Of those languages, norwegian and faroese spoken in the faroe islands. Introduction anguage variation is an observed phenomenon found in.
However icelandic and faroese is much harder but there is many. Icelandiclanguage california institute of technology. Danish, norwegian bokmal and nynorsk, swedish island scandinavian languages. Norwegian is now grouped with danish and swedish because of its mutual intelligibility with those languages due to its heavy influence from them over the last millennium, particularly from danish. As i do not speak japanese it is of little use to me also, it appears to have been published in 1991 the 2 english estonian textbooks i have been studying are quite old texts and the language has moved on, especially in the idioms of conversational language. Swedish danish interactions are almost always in english. The language group is also referred to as the nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among danish, faroese, icelandic, norwegian, and swedish scholars. However, more recent analyses divide the north germanic languages into two groups. They are not mutually intelligible with what are known as the mainland nordic. Are norwegian, finnish, danish, icelandic and swedish. The mutual intelligibility of other germanic languages has also been investigated cf. 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.
There are about 320,000 speakers, mostly in iceland. Wikitravel users have collectively created a free icelandic phrasebook with the goal of making it possible for travelers to get by while traveling in areas where icelandic is spoken wikitravel phrasebooks are available in many languages and each one varies in depth and detail. Later on in the taxi ride back to our hotel, the danish man, myself, and a finnish woman were sitting in the back of the van together. Many icelanders have studied danish, since iceland was a. Danish dansk the first page of the jutlandic law originally from 1241 in codex holmiensis, copied in 50.
If compared with other languages, are german and swedish closer to each other than french and spanish are to each other. Is estonian mutually intelligible with finnish unilang. Based on the languages you know, danish will be easier for you than icelandic. All of them have some mutual intelligibility with each other if we consider written forms. Why do the nordic countries have different languages.
Are danish, norwegian, and swedish mutually intelligible. Today old norse has developed into the modern north germanic languages icelandic, faroese both inherited cases from the language, norwegian, danish, and swedish, of which norwegian, danish and swedish retain considerable mutual intelligibility. Its maybe not as objective as you want, but im danish, and judging from a couple youtube videos like this one, its about as intelligible as swedish there are words i dont catchunderstand, and i have to pay more attention than if it it were in danish or english, but i definitely get the gist of it in this analogue, i guess norwegian would be like english spoken with a heavy scottish. Swedish and norwegian have higher mutual intelligibility than swedish and danish. Mainland scandinavian languages, mutual intelligibility is in. May 31, 2009 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. 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. Faculty of arts university of groningen mutual intelligibility for the mainland scandinavian languages, mutual intelligibility is in.
Faroese, icelandic, norwegian, danish and swedish are all north germanic. 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 germanic languages. Mutual intelligibility as well as questions of power and language politics are questions of more and less and often cannot be answered definitively. Sep 23, 2009 are german and swedish mutually intelligible. Northern germanic languages spoken in scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility.
Danish birth certificate translation service mighty. Icelandic translation services certified english to. Historically, it was the westernmost of the indoeuropean languages prior to the colonisation of the americas. Danish are closely related to norwegian and thus intelligible to norwegians, although with. 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.
The nordic languages are now divided into insular nordic and mainland scandinavian languages. As long as we spoke very slowly, we could understand each other quite well. Nov 30, 2010 later on in the taxi ride back to our hotel, the danish man, myself, and a finnish woman were sitting in the back of the van together. A speaker of one of those might understand more of one of the remaining two than the other way around. Gothic extinct as a speaker of swedish north germanic i understand both norwegian and danish. Often words are spelled identically between the two, but the phonology is fairly different. Just thinking about my own mother tongue, if i talked like i did in 1991 i would get.
The influence of extralinguistic factors on mutual intelligibility. Icelandic and danish have a very low degree of mutual comprehensibility. Mutual intelligibility wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. It is generally used as the most important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.
Entirely anecdotal, but ive had a conversation with a norwegian person where i was speaking icelandic and he was speaking norwegian. Faroese keeps more international words than icelandic, but many regular words may be the same just based off shared origins or by chance because they are related languages. Even though written danish is quite close to swedish, it is too guttural for most swedish people to understand. The written forms of the continental scandinavian languages have a very high mutual intelligibility. Germanic language mutual intelligibility best, country, people, english user name. I have read some discussions about the mutual intelligibility between the two languages, but people seem to have different opinions. Its parent language was old norse, which during the viking age. In some cases, a specific word will be used in norwegian and another in danish.
I have slightly reduced and reordered the information given in subsections 1. Swedishdanish interactions are almost always in english. Closely related languages a and b have lower mutual. The old east norse dialect was spoken in denmark, sweden, settlements in kievan rus, eastern england, and danish settlements in normandy. Mutual intelligibility in the germanic language area. Which languages are most closely related to icelandic. 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. Faroese keeps more international words than icelandic, but many regular words may be the same just based off shared origins or. Danish, swedish, and norwegian are similar enough to each others that there is some mutual intelligibility, but its uneven. Their exact relation is difficult to determine from the sparse evidence of runic inscriptions, and they remained mutually intelligible to some degree during the migration period, so that some individual varieties are difficult to classify. Various studies have shown norwegian speakers to be the best in scandinavia at understanding other languages within the language group. Jan 03, 2018 danish, swedish, and norwegian are similar enough to each others that there is some mutual intelligibility, but its uneven.
Some linguists claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects. Mutual intelligibility wikipedia republished wiki 2. On the other hand, speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other to a fair degree. Index termslanguage variation, standard language, dialect, mutual intelligibility, convergence and divergence. Measuring mutual intelligibility in scandinavia rug. It belongs with norwegian and faroese to the west scandinavian group of north germanic languages and developed from the norse speech brought by settlers from western norway in the 9th and 10th centuries. Icelandic grammar is considerably inflected, a lot more than german. As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, 7 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 the proximity of the region to danishspeaking areas. Some preliminary results from danish and swedish preschoolers article pdf available january 2010 with 2,555 reads. Measuring crosslinguistic intelligibility in the germanic. 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 intentional study or special effort. 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. Danish norwegian mutual comprehension 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100.
Also, minor danishspeaking communities are found in norway, sweden, spain, the united states, canada, brazil, and argentina. Old icelandic was very close to old norwegian, and together they formed the old west norse dialect, which was also spoken in settlements in ireland, scotland, the isle of man and northwest england, and in norse settlements in normandy. In writing, yes, in the spoken language most speakers report no. Mutual intelligibility is sometimes imperfect and asymmetric. The mutual intelligibility between the continental scandinavian languages is asymmetrical.
It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Its closest relative is faroese icelandic is an indoeuropean language belonging to the north germanic or nordic branch of the germanic languages. In this paper we will present nordic dialect corpus. The language group is sometimes referred to as the nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among danish, swedish and. Icelandic is an indoeuropean language belonging to the north germanic or nordic branch of the germanic languages. Of the modern scandinavian languages, written icelandic is closest to. Some of the poetry, such as the eddas, that were written down a little later nevertheless contain. I have also parsed icelandic words where it seemed to me helpful to do so. North germanic languages wikimili, the best wikipedia reader.
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which. Pdf the three mainland scandinavian languages danish, swedish and. As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but swedes in the oresund region. Free englishicelandic dictionary and translator freelang. However, in nearly all cases, both words will exist in the other language and have pretty much the. Can native german and swedish speakers understand each other without learning. Until the 16th century, danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from schleswig to scania with no standard variety or spelling.
Pdf the contribution of linguistic factors to the intelligibility of. Icelandic language, icelandic islenska, national language of iceland, spoken by the entire population, some 330,000 in the early 21st century. Danish has a partly different language structure, for example for numbers. Danish norwegian icelandic faroese elfdalian modern gutnish east germanic. A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken danish, norwegian, and swedish as mainland scandinavian, while icelandic and faroese are classified as insular scandinavian.
Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. Many icelanders have studied danish, since iceland was a colony of denmark until fairly recently. The main difference between danish and norwegian is the spelling of and pronunciation of words the words are the same words, just spelled very slightly differently. Norse that have become the cornerstone of the mutual intelligibility argument. The germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups. Most of the phrasebooks include a pronunciation guide, a general phrase list. Germanic language mutual intelligibility best, country. 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. The history of the icelandic language began in the 9th century when the settlement of iceland, mostly by norwegians, brought a dialect of old norse to the island the oldest preserved texts in icelandic were written around 1100, the oldest single text being islendingabok followed by landnamabok. There is a fairly high degree of mutual intelligibility between danish and swedish but obviously not completely. The finnish woman piped up in swedish most finns can speak swedish because there is an area of finland that is swedishspeaking, so we were having a mutually intelligble conversation in norwegian, swedish, and. Most western european languages have greatly reduced levels of inflection, particularly noun declension. Understanding of spoken language will vary greatly from per. After the protonorse and old norse periods, the north germanic languages developed into an east scandinavian branch, consisting of danish and swedish.
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