Germanic language mutual intelligibility (characteristics, UK, Scandinavia, water)
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I would say that Sweden in general is politically a very anti-dialect country.
Interesting. In German speaking areas, they are encouraged. There are efforts to try and save Low German from dying out, for instance. NDR does news podcasts in Low German and if you read the regional papers there are often articles about it. If you watch some of the other regional stations like Bayerischer Runkfunk, you'll see shows done in southern German dialects. Etc, etc.
Interesting. In German speaking areas, they are encouraged. There are efforts to try and save Low German from dying out, for instance. NDR does news podcasts in Low German and if you read the regional papers there are often articles about it. If you watch some of the other regional stations like Bayerischer Runkfunk, you'll see shows done in southern German dialects. Etc, etc.
I know. Sweden however discourages the official use of dialects, and so does Denmark. Dialects like Sønderjysk (Southern Jutlandic) are heavly discouraged, and local media in Southern Jutland is in Standard Danish. Which is sad cause Southern Jutlandic is a beautiful and very old dialect that reminds of the old Jutland. It is not intelligible with Standard Danish, or any other major Scandinavian language.
West Germanic:
English - first language 100%
Scots - 75%
Frisian - even though it's the language closets to old English, hard to understand - 25%
German - 20% (understand it better in text)
Luxembourgish - 15%
Yiddish - N/A
Dutch. - 20%
Afrikaans - 20%
North Germanic:
Swedish - 25-30% (listen to Swedish radio)
Danish - 20%
Norwegian - 20%
Icelandic - 20%
Faroese -N/A
Elfdalian -N/A
Modern Gutnish 15%
East Germanic:
Gothic (extinct) N/A
I would say that the Scandinavian languages are generally the easiest to understand at least in my case. I can hear words quite clearly through the accents or words that are similar to a word in English, but a lesser used English word e.g. hund = hound / dog, spöke = spook / ghost and barn = similar to how the Scots say "bairn" to refer to a child or lastly mörk = murky / dark (I'm sure the same applies to many other Germanic languages but using the OP's native language as an example).
When it comes to numbers, I can say at least 75-80% for both Swedish and German and this would most likely apply to the other Germanic languages if I heard numbers in those languages on a regular basis.
German is easier to read than to hear. I guess they have a lot of regional accents that make it more difficult to understand.
Still all Germanic languages are easier for me to understand and potentially communicate in than any of the Romance languages, including Spanish which I learned at school but never could master. In general as an English speaker, if you really listen a couple of tomes you can pick out certain words or expressions or even understand entire sentences.
I agree with just about all of your post. I have studied German and it certainly is easier to understand when reading than when hearing it. Besides dialectal differences, German seems to vary more with the individual speaker than most other languages.
I also grasp Germanic languages a little better too despite being surrounded by Spanish my whole life. I understand some Spanish of course but just seems to get German better. So my list is as follows:
English - first language 100%
Scots - 75% Almost seems like an English dialect to me
Frisian - Not the easiest, possibly because I haven't heard much of it.
German - I can understand between 30 and 40% written. More like 20% when spoken.
Luxembourgish - Maybe 5%
Yiddish - N/A
Dutch. - 20%
Afrikaans - 20%
North Germanic:
Swedish - 20%
Danish - 20%
Norwegian - 20%
Icelandic - 10% maybe
Faroese -N/A
Elfdalian -N/A
Modern Gutnish NA
It's interesting to notice, that in spite of such relatively small territory in Europe that it covers, Germanic language has so many varieties ( I'm talking about all these Swedish-German dialects that you've mentioned before, plus Norwegian and whatever other languages are close there,) yet through the whole span of Russian territory, Russian language is pretty much monolithic and the same, with no particular dialects ( that's why probably Ukrainian and Belorussian come as close as it gets to idea of "Russian dialect.")
It's clearly a very different picture when it comes to Germanic group of languages. I wonder why.
I can't speak much for the slavic languages as I am not really familiar with them. Compared to Romance languages though, Germanic languages as far less rigid and less resistant to changes. The Romance languages even have a Latin league which in part is to help preserve the languages. Germanic languages are constantly adding new words, I believe English and German have the largest vocabularies of any languages. the rules of pronunciation are also more lax. In Spanish or french for example, getting the accent right on pronunciation seems to be a very critical thing one must master. In Germanic languages, if we can figure out what's being said, it's good enough. Over time as these copy errors accumulate, regional dialects and eventually languages develop. this happens with all languages but with European languages seems to be a much faster process in Germanic languages.
As for the 3 North Germanic languages Swedish, Danish and Norwegian, those are probably some of the most mutual intelligibility languages in the world. Just to give you an example, one of the most used weather forecast websites in Sweden is yr.no which actually is a Norwegian weather forecast website, written in Norwegian. But because Swedes understands Norwegian and cause that site is of much better quality than many Swedish weather forecast websites, the Swedes use yr.no instead. My family as well as many friends prefers yr.no over any Swedish weather forecast website. Norwegian is also very similar to Swedish when it's spoken.
Danish is a bit more different when spoken, but still similar enough for a conversation, and written it is fully intelligeble just like Norwegian is.
The famous Danish song Lille du by Gasoline, part of the lyrics in Danish:
Jeg kom til verden på 5. sal
min far var tosset, min mor var normal
men da de kørte ham væk, sagde mor til mig:
"hva' gør vi nu, lille du?"
Jeg gik i skole i mange år
røg på fabrik og fik mavesår
og så en dag sparkede bosse mig ud
hva' gør man så, lille du?
og tiden gik, og jeg gik med
jeg fløj afsted, fra sted til sted
og gadens løse fugle, de fløjtede og sang
hvor skal vi hen, lille du?
And here is the lyrics translated in Swedish
Jag kom till världen på 5. sal
min far var tokig, min mor var normal
men när de körde han väck, sade mor till mig:
"vad gör vi ni, lille du?
Jag gick i skolan i många år.
rök på fabrik och fick magsår
och så en dag sparkade bossen mig ut
vad gör man så, lille du?
och tiden gick, och jag gick med
jag flög iväg, från ställe till ställe
och gatans lösa fåglar, de visslade och sjöng
var skal vi hän, lille du?
If you are Swedish or Danish though, it will sound very awkward if you just translate lyrics like that, but this is a proper Swedish translation. As you can see, only a very few differences, and mainly just in spelling. This song which is in the Danish language is a classic in both Sweden and Denmark.
There are English dialects with more differences than that.
Afrikaans is not just spoken by white South Africans, that's a common misconception:
Afrikaans is essentially a Dutch dialect. It's quite different to standard Dutch but so are the many other Dutch dialects and accents spoken in The Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles.
The Germanic languages seem more distinct to me than the Romance languages. As a fluent speaker of French (using it on a professional level now), I can understand quite a bit of the other Romance languages although I have never studied them. The grammar seems quite similar and the vocabulary tends to adhere to the common Latin roots. Germanic languages are more divided although they are still clearly part of the same linguistic family.
Here's my opinion of the other Germanic languages:
German
I have studied German for 6 years in secondary school and I grew up near the German border so I am quite familiar with the German language. In terms of vocabulary, it has the most in common with Dutch. High German has gone through several language shifts (unlike Dutch and English) but once you are aware of them, you can often guess the Dutch equivalent of a German word and vice versa. Take for example the d/t shift: trinken - drinken, tanzen - dansen, tun - doen, Tag - dag, Gott - God, tief - diep, gut - goed, etc. Or the k/ch shift: machen - maken, Milch - melk, ich - ik, kochen - koken, Buch - boek, etc. With a little imagination, I'm sure you can guess the English translation of these words as well. Spoiler: to drink, to dance, to do, day, God, deep, good; to make, milk, I, to cook, book. Due to these language shifts, there are very few words that are exactly the same in German and Dutch (or English) and it's not always easy to realise the common roots of words in spoken language.
In terms of grammar, German is quite different from the other West-Germanic languages (I'm not familiar with the North-Germanic languages in this regard). For example, Dutch and English do not distinguish between masculine and feminine nouns, they are both "de" or "the", whereas German has "der" for masculine and "die" for feminine nouns. Furthermore, the suffix for "the" in German changes depending on the context. Take the example of "the man" in German compared to Dutch and English:
E: the man
D: de man
G: der Mann
E: of the man
D: van de man
G: des Mannes
E: with the man
D: met de man
G: mit dem Mann
E: for the man
D: voor de man
G: für den Mann
I hope that was correct, my German is a little rusty These different suffixes are also used for the adjectives (e.g.: gut, guter, gutes, guten, gute, gutem, etc.) so you can imagine the impact it has on the language. Dutch and German generally have the same sentence structure. One difference I can think of is that German always puts the verb at the end of a subordinate clause whereas in Dutch the verb is usually put before the infinitive. For example:
E: I hope I will see him.
D: Ik hoop dat ik hem zal zien.
G: Ich hoffe, dass ich ihn sehen werde.
As for mutual intelligibility between Dutch and German, all I can say is that living in Maastricht, I'm surrounded by a lot of Germans (including my roommates) and I have never witnessed communication between Germans and Dutch that was not in English. I have tried to speak to my roommates in Dutch sometimes but they just look at me wide-eyed, lol.
English
On the surface, English seems quite different to the other Germanic languages due to its French influences but it's not hard to recognise the Germanic roots of many words (especially if you speak another Germanic language). I already gave some examples above. Of the major Germanic languages, English is closest to Dutch as they are both West-Germanic but did not go through the same language shifts that High German did. Dutch also has significantly more French influences than the other Germanic languages, although clearly not to the same extent as English. In terms of grammar, English is quite different from the other Germanic languages, especially when it comes to sentence structure. For example, a sentence like "I have read a book" would be formulated as "I have a book read" in other Germanic languages. Or the sentence I mentioned above, "I hope I will see him", would be formulated as "I hope that I him will see" in Dutch or "I hope that I him see will" in German. On the other hand, English does put the adjective ahead of the noun which is a typical Germanic trait ("a red car" vs. "a car red"). It's hard for me to guess how mutually intelligible English is to other Germanic languages because I don't really remember a time when I didn't speak a word of it. I do know that I once took an Italian friend (exchange student) to my grandma's house and my grandma somehow managed to ask her what she wanted to drink and understood her answer. This Italian girl also understood that I was talking about her house (in Dutch) to another Dutch friend although she didn't know the details. I suppose this goes back to the Germanic roots of many English words.
Low Saxon
This language (or dialect) is native to the region I was born and raised in, the very eastern part of Gelderland. It's mostly spoken by the older generation (such as my parents) but younger people still understand it. It seems like a middle ground between German and Dutch to me. If you go to the Dutch Wikipedia (Wikipedia.nl), the homepage is offered in standard Dutch, Frisian, Low Saxon and Limbourgish. The Low Saxon version looks like this: Wikipedie You be the judge.
North Germanic languages
For the most part, North Germanic languages sound totally unintelligible to me when spoken. I can recognise a word here and there but I don't really grasp the context. Written language is a lot easier but still they seem like very distinct languages to me. I can't tell the difference between Norwegian and Swedish.
Linda, I'm not 100% certain but I think "des Mannes" should be "vom männer"
There are English dialects with more differences than that.
I know, and that's why some people suggests that Swedish, Danish and Norwegian should be considered as the same language. It's a classic example of "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy". I personally would prefer if we just called it Scandinavian, then having standardized dialectal subdivisions like "Swedish Scandinavian", "Danish Scandinavian" etc. But due to patriotism and language politics, that will never happen.
Here you have another example of these similarities:
Swedish:
Det var en fuktig, grå sommardag i slutet av juni.
Danish:
Det var en fugtig, grå sommerdag i slutningen af juni.
Norwegian:
Det var en fuktig, grå sommerdag i slutten av juni.
(English: It was a moist, grey summer day at the end of June.)
Interesting. In German speaking areas, they are encouraged. There are efforts to try and save Low German from dying out, for instance. NDR does news podcasts in Low German and if you read the regional papers there are often articles about it. If you watch some of the other regional stations like Bayerischer Runkfunk, you'll see shows done in southern German dialects. Etc, etc.
Not here. All local radio people speak perfect standard German and mostly do not even com from this region (southwestern Germany). Also, virtually all characters in German TV programmes as well as synchronised foreign films share the same boring standard German. OK, sometimes there are some Bavarian accents, but that's about it. German dialects are slowly vanishing, thanks to TV and radio.
Thanks for the information. Is for example Surinamese Dutch hard to understand for someone in the Netherlands, like Caribbean English (for example Jamaican) is to standard English?
That's one of the main differences between the 3 major North Germanic languages. Remove one letter and add another one and you have a word in the other language. For example the k/g shift, the nm/vn shift, the d/t shift or the ck/kk shift
S: bok
DK: bog
S: också
DK: også
S: icke
DK: ikke
S: mycket
DK: mykket
S: dricka
DK: drikke
S: jacka
DK: jakke
S: hamn
DK: havn
S: namn
DK: navn
In Norwegian it get's more mixed, cause there they use Danish endings on some words, and Swedish endings on other words.
Then it's very different from here. I have never heard Swedes speaking English to Norwegians and Danes, infact we even have one talkshow where the host is Norwegian, and the guests are both Swedish and Norwegian, all speaking their own language.
.
That is one of the few big similarities between English and North Germanic. In the North Germanic languages, you also formulate sentences that way. For example in Swedish/Danish/Norwegian, it would be formulated as "I have read a book" and not "I have a book read". And also, in S/DK/NO, it would be formulated as "I hope I will see him" and not "I hope that I will him see"
(which I personally think is way too far fetched, English is very clearly West Germanic)
I am not surprised that you can't tell the difference between Norwegian and Swedish, if both were the same country it would probably be considered as the same language, there is dialects within Sweden that are much harder to understand than the commonly spoken dialects of Norwegian. I think the difference between Dutch and Afrikaans, or even between Dutch and Flemish, would be a fair comparison.
It is for example fully possible for a Norwegian stand up comedian to have a show in Sweden without speaking Swedish, and people will still understand it and laugh at the jokes, example here:
Yes it is subtitled in Swedish on TV, but the audience who watched him live did not have any subtitles and they understood him perfectly and laughed at the jokes. In Sweden though they usually subtitle EVERYTHING that is not in Standard Swedish on TV, including people and shows from the area where I live, so if I was on TV I would also be subtitled. The main thing here is that and audience can watch a Norwegian comedian live without subtitles, and understand it.
As for North Germanic compared to West Germanic, yes North Germanic is very distinct from all West Germanic languages, also the North Germanic languages are considered as a whole lot harder to learn than any West Germanic language. There is also distinction within the North Germanic languages, while the mainland languages Swedish/Danish/Norwegian is almost the same, the 2 small island languages Icelandic and Faroese are pretty much distinct from the mainland languages.
Faroese is a bit easier to understand than Icelandic for me because there has been more mainland influences on Faroese, but still unintelligible for mainland speakers and I only understand 20% or so.
While the subdivisions of the North Germanic languages is officially East Scandinavian (Swedish and Danish) and West Scandinavian (Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese), I would instead like to divide them as Mainland Scandinavian (Swedish, Danish and Norwegian) and Insular Scandinavian (Icelandic and Faroese). Cause Norwegian today is nothing like Icelandic and Faroese, it only has been historically.
To sum it all up:
West Germanic languages are less similar to each others than the Romance languages. While German and Dutch (plus Flemish and Afrikaans) are quite similar, while English is quite different due to French influences.
North Germanic languages are a whole lot more similar to each others than the Romance languages, if you exclude Icelandic and Faroese which is distinct from the mainland languages. Also the North Germanic countries has a common culture and heritage, where people from all 5 countries considers themselves as "Scandinavians" or "Nordboer".
This is one of the best post on language I have ever seen. Very informative. Interesting on the opinion of English possibly being a Scandinavian language. Someone posted here a while back that Swedish would be easier to learn for an English speaker than German because the grammar is easier.
Also, didn't know that Scandinavians had a common identity between all the countries.
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These different suffixes are also used for the adjectives (e.g.: gut, guter, gutes, guten, gute, gutem, etc.) so you can imagine the impact it has on the language. Dutch and German generally have the same sentence structure. One difference I can think of is that German always puts the verb at the end of a subordinate clause whereas in Dutch the verb is usually put before the infinitive. For example: 
