How closely related are the Scandinavian languages?

Question

If you speak Swedish in Copenhagen will you be understood?

Answer 1

The Scandinavian languages are usually classified into two categories:

1) Continental: Norwegian, Swedish, Danish

2) Insular: Icelandic, Faroese, Norn ( Spoken in the Shetland Islands and extinct since the 1930's.)

There is a fair degree of mutual intelligiblity between Norwegian, Danish and Swedish even though comprehension won't always be perfect.

They all contain many common loan words borrowed from the Low German (or Plattdeutsch) of the *Hanseatic League which was quite active in Scandinavia during the Middle Ages ( c. 1200 - 1500 A.D.).

These three Scandinavian languages even form a linguistic Sprachbund (or "speech union") which has sometimes been called the "Nordic Sprachbund.") Several North German dialects are included in it too.

On the other hand, Icelandic and Faroese have changed little since about 1100 A.D. and modern Danish, Norwegian and Swedish speakers can't understand these languages any better than we can understand Anglo-Saxon and Chaucerian English.

Since Hanseatic ships rarely ventured to Iceland and the Faroes, the influence of Low German on these language is negligible.

So yes, you could get by to some extent speaking Swedish in Copenhagen.

*Hanseatic League - An organization of German soldier merchants who dominated the economies of the Scandinavian countries in the Middle Ages and sometimes wielded more power than the native rulers did.

Answer 2

Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are very similar. They can all understand each other, although many words have totally different meanings. Icelandic though is a bit tricky for them. Finnish is of another language branch, so a Finnish-speaking person doesn't understand any of the other Scandinavian languages and vice versa.
So yes, if you speak Swedish in Copenhagen you would be understood, although they would need to concentrate a bit harder and you'd maybe need to explain a few words that are different.

Answer 3

Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Danish are in the Germanic family of languages along with English and German. But Finnish is not and is most closely related to Hungarian.

So, Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are similar, but not the same language. I took German in high school and college and I can somewhat understand someone speaking Danish, but not exactly. My stepgrandmother spoke Swedish fluently and I had no clue what she was saying.

If you spoke Swedish in Copenhagen, you probably wouldn't be understood unless the person spoke Swedish along with Danish.

Answer 4

There are many issues involved with this situation. Danish and Norwegian, usually have similar if not the same spelling. All three share similar grammar. They actually all evolved at a similar rate, whereas their cousin Icelandic, which is somewhat similar, has grammar that was retained from the Middle Ages.
There are other things as well. For one thing, both Swedish and Norwegian are developing on a Tonal basis, whereas Danish hasn't developed that way.
Norwegian has two primary dialects, as well as a lot of little ones, which also makes it hard for one to go there without a basis in one of those.
One must compare it to heavy dialects of Scottish or Irish to Standard American or British RP. There are some heavy southern accents too which are different than others which sounds different, and very confusing for those of a more standard dialect. That might be what it's like for a Swede, Norwegian, or Dane to talk to one other.

Answer 5

If you speak Swedish there's a high chance you can understand someone speaking Norwegian or Danish. But Danish and Norwegian are more closely related than Swedish is to them, they even have a lot of the same words and grammar.

Finnish is completely different. And so is Icelandic.

Answer 6

Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are quite similar, with Norwegian (which actually has 2 forms, called riksmǻl in the South and East and landsmǻl in the west) as an intermediary form between Swedish and Danish. Lappish and Finnish, 2 other languages spoken in Scandinavia are unrelated and very different to Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.

Answer 7

GrahamH,
riksmǻl & landsmǻl have been replaced by the terms Bokmål and Nynorsk a long time ago.

Norway used to be a part of the Swedish controlled territories? Norway was also controlled by the Danish for a time.

That is why all 3 languages are so similar.

Answer 8

sure. The Scandinavians got here from right this moment's Germany via Denmark interior the Stone Age. playstation : Finland isn't a factor of Scandinavia, and the finnish are Finno-Ugric, no longer Scandinavian.