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By the way, looking at these stats, it might not be such a bad idea to have English as the lingua franca in the Nordic Union after all
It feels much more natural for me to speak Swedish, rather than a foreign language I learnt in school. With Swedish I can speak with at least 20 million people without any major problem, and if there is problems, just speak a bit slower and it will work. It feels more comfortable and natural to express yourself and be understood in your own language, and easier of course. And I'm not a big fan of increasing English influences in Scandinavian languages
If anything should be an official Lingua Franca of a Nordic Union or even without a union, it should be some kind of constructed neutral mixture of Norwegian, Swedish and Danish, like this:
Hur skaper man e gemensam skandinavisk skriftspråk?
KAN man overhuvudtaget kombinere de skandinaviske språke?
Ren lingvistisk så er danske-, svenske- å norske dialekter variante av same språk. Av politiske å nationele grunde så har historisk de standardiserede skriftspråken desvere folgt olike veger.
Skandinavisk standard er e skriftspråk baseret på de gemensame ordforåd å gramatik i riksskriftspråke; dansk, svensk å norsk (bokmål å nynorsk).
Gramatike å syntaxe er forenkled å mer regelbunden. Månge svårigheter som studenter av fremende språk bruker kempe med er eliminerede: kasusformer å genussystem hos substantive saknes; plural bildes regelbundet; adjektive er uten endelser; personbojning hos verb saknes. Kasus å genus hos pronomen fins dok.
Målsetninge er at e någorlunde språklig bilded skandinav kan vel folje e teknisk eler vetenskaplig tekst inom si område på skandinavisk standard uten serskilde forstudier. At aktiv tilegne sej skriftspråke går åkså fort, even om de aldrig har hort tales om de. Meningen er at e taler av e skandinavisk språk direkt ska kune lesa å forstå skandinavisk standard, å kune skriva skandinavisk standard inom e par dage.
Skandinavisk standard er på nuvarende tidspunkt ike menat at vare i si slutgiltlige form eler designet enbart a e individ, men er menat at vare e kolektiv arbete av ale intresenter enligt e del grundlegende principer och regler.
Norwegian Bokmål: I de tre språkene fins det en mengde ord som er identiske og andre der forskjellene er ubetydelige og lette å gjennomskue.
Swedish: Det finns mängder med ord i de tre språken som är helt identiska eller andra där skillnaderna är obetydliga och lätta att genomskåda.
Danish: Der er masser af ord i de tre sprog der er helt identiske og der er andre hvor forskellene er ubetydelige og lete at gennemskue.
Standard Scandinavian (constructed) : De fins maser av ord i de tre språk som er helt identiske å andre der skilnaderne er obetydelige å lete at genemskåde.
In reality though there is not much need of a Lingua Franca here, our standard variants already are intelligible more or less.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 11-16-2014 at 05:59 PM..
It feels much more natural for me to speak Swedish, rather than a foreign language I learnt in school. With Swedish I can speak with at least 20 million people without any major problem, and if there is problems, just speak a bit slower and it will work. It feels more comfortable and natural to express yourself and be understood in your own language, and easier of course.
I was joking It would be awful to have English as the official language of Scandinavia. But I was surprised that not more Danish, Swedish and Finnish people mentioned other Scandinavian languages in the top 3.
I was joking It would be awful to have English as the official language of Scandinavia. But I was surprised that not more Danish, Swedish and Finnish people mentioned other Scandinavian languages in the top 3.
Well, those lists are almost always of langauges that you learnt in school and can master, that is, speak, write and understand. Not languages that you understand just cause they are similar, if so, Slovakian would be high on the Czech lists and Bosnian would be high on the Serbian lists. But they don't include that type of things.
I can't speak or write in Norwegian properly cause I haven't learnt it. But I can fully understand it when its written and spoken, unless we are talking about some distinct dialect. So it wouldn't be fair to say that 90% or so in Sweden can speak Norwegian, cause they can't speak it, they only understand it, particulary the Standard Bokmål variant.
See here the list of knowledge of foreign languages in Sweden, they only include those that people learnt on their own:
Why they included Swedish on your demographic of foreign languages in Denmark I don't know, I think far more than 13% of Danes can understand Swedish if its spoken to them and the person speaks clearly
EDIT: Found it out, it says 13% of Danes can speak Swedish, and thats a whole lot different than just understanding it:
And Limburg dialect isn't intelligible to Standard Dutch either if I'm not wrong?
Yes, that's right. They also speak with a "singing" intonation similar to the Scandinavian languages, which makes it harder to understand.
Keep in mind though that absolutely everybody in the Netherlands, young and old, knows how to speak Standard Dutch. There are no linguistic divisions whatsoever here like you see in many other European countries.
Quote:
It all seems very complicated and diverse between those West Germanic languages and dialects, up here in North Germanic Europe, standard variants (except Icelandic/Faroese) are intelligible to eachothers to a very high degree, to the degree that even a Norwegian stand up comedian can come to Sweden and pull jokes without changing language.
Apparently so. We have surprisingly little exposure to German through the media. It's extremely rare for German movies to be shown in the cinema or German music to be played on the radio. Not sure why this is.
Well, those lists are almost always of langauges that you learnt in school and can master, that is, speak, write and understand. Not languages that you understand just cause they are similar, if so, Slovakian would be high on the Czech lists and Bosnian would be high on the Serbian lists. But they don't include that type of things.
This one is just about languages that people are able to speak on a conversational level. But if Danish and Swedish are really so close that they're mutually intelligible, you would expect more than 13% of Danes to be able to have a conversation in Swedish. Not that I don't believe you but I just found it surprising
This one is just about languages that people are able to speak on a conversational level. But if Danish and Swedish are really so close that they're mutually intelligible, you would expect more than 13% of Danes to be able to have a conversation in Swedish. Not that I don't believe you but I just found it surprising
Well I can't speak Danish on a conversational level as I can't speak Danish at all, but I understand them for the most and I speak Swedish to them, and they speak Danish back, usually in such conversations both tries to speak a bit clearer and a bit slower. Its rare to meet a Dane who speaks Swedish, but it does happen sometimes, I can very much imagine thats around 13% or so. But most I talk with speaks Danish only, and that works fine too. I can speak Swedish with Danes and Norwegians on conversational level because of the mutual intelligibility.
I don't have to speak their language to be understood, and they don't have to speak mine. Very few people spends time on learning a language that is so similar and intelligible to your own, in the same way I don't think many Dutch people spends time on learning Afrikaans cause its already so similar.
Also there is quite alot of Norwegian and Danish movies, series and documentaries on Swedish TV.
SVT1 and SVT2 some days has just as much Danish or Norwegian content as Swedish content, and sometimes even Icelandic. And Swedish music is common on Norwegian radio.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 11-16-2014 at 07:57 PM..
It makes sense because Germany has a rather large immigrant community that speaks German as a second language. Perhaps it also includes people who speak a German dialect as their native language. The respondents in the survey were asked which other languages they were able to speak on a conversational level aside from their mother tongue. Notice that the UK also has English at 10% and Spain has Spanish at 16% which could be due to different regional languages in those countries.
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