I've heard that Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic are all so similar, that if you can read, write and speak one, you can at least understand the others on a basic level. Is this true, and if it is, how much of a similarity is there? Is it like Spanish vs. Italian and other Romance Languages?
I am most interested in knowing what Icelandic is 'compatible' with, as this language has the greatest similiarity to Old Norse.
2007-08-17 04:34:25 · 5 answers · asked by ConradoThePirate 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
Not exactly.
Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes can all understand each other, although Norwegians and Swedes might have a problem understanding Danes.
Icelandic is similar to Old Norse, what norwegian, swedish, and danish evolved from. Icelandic has a lot grammatical structures that aren't found in any of the other scandinavian languages.
2007-08-17 04:41:34 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 0⤋
Swedish and Norwegian are very similar to each other.
In some communities along the Norwegian-Swedish border, Swedes and Norwegians can even basically understand each other speaking their own languages.
Icelandic is a related language and most people who settled in Iceland originally came from Norway and the Swedish provinces of Skona and Norland.
However, the Icelandic language has changed little since about the year 1100 A.D. Low German and French loan words which came into Swedish and Norwegian between 1200 and 1850 never made it into Icelandic.
If you were to make a comparison with the Romance languages, comparing Swedish and Norwegian with Icelandic would be like comparing Spanish and Italian with Sardinian or Romanian.
2007-08-17 13:39:34 · answer #2 · answered by Brennus 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes, the first answer is correct.
You should know that Old Norwegian and Icelandic derived from West Scandinavian, while Danish and Swedish come from East Scandinavian.
Norwegians were under Danish rule first, and later under Swedish rule, and that's why they are so proud of being an independent country now - and why there is some confusion about which language they really speak today (does it come from West or East Scandinavian?)
You can read more about History and classification of Germanic languages here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languages#History), and about the struggles of some Norwegians to "purify" their common, Danish-like language (Bokmal) into a new pure one, similar to that of Icelanders (Nynorsk).
2007-08-17 12:14:44 · answer #3 · answered by Cacarlos 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
danish, swedish and norwegian are closer to eachother than spanish and italian. they are like hochdeutsch and bayerish, swiss-german, nearly three dialects of the same common scandinavian language. I know some foreigners who learned bokmaal (east-norway), but cant understand nynorsk (west-norway) and of course don`t understand swedish and danish. but scandinavians have some exersice in understanding eachothers languages and dialects
2007-08-19 18:15:12 · answer #4 · answered by Marie H 1 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The guy above is correct.
2007-08-17 11:54:40 · answer #5 · answered by Smackthat! 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋