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No Norwegian would say "god spis," except possibly someone deliberately mangling their dialect to make it sound Swedish. "God appetitt,"(Bon apetit) or more likely "Værsågod" (Help yourselves) would be what you're looking for... But you're right, many words are the same or at least very similar - I'd hazard a guess that most Scandinavians can read text written in all three languages.
I can also guarantee you that if those show hosts had been from Western or Northern Norway, they would not have been able to interview Skarsgård so easily in their native language Notice how at the very start, he doesn't quite understand them, and then they start making an effort to enunciate.
But at least its proof that the languages are extremely similar since its even possible to have an interview on TV. That would for example never work between English and Dutch which is similar, but not at that level, no matter which English or Dutch dialect they used.
And "varsågod" is very common to say in Sweden as well, either that or "smaklig måltid". Some older people says "god spis".
If you understand this you are better at Swedish than me. I can understand just a few words and meanings of Gutamål, but as for Närpesmål and Överkalixmål, could as well be different languges, but is Swedish nonetheless, Närpes kommun is actually in Finland but is located in the Swedish-speaking Österbotten and is officially Swedish-speaking. The Närpesmål dialect has nothing to do with Finnish, its just a very old fashioned and distinct Swedish dialect.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 12-29-2013 at 04:53 PM..
My exposure to Norwegian has been limited, and I have clear difficulties to understand some of what they say. I get what they're talking about, but when I'm not that familiar with many of the words used, some sentences are difficult to comprehend. Reading Norwegian is obviously easier, as I can take my time and figure out the unclear words in peace.
So naturally I hear a clear difference between Swedish and Norwegian, and Danish as well.
My exposure to Norwegian has been limited, and I have clear difficulties to understand some of what they say. I get what they're talking about, but when I'm not that familiar with many of the words used, some sentences are difficult to comprehend. Reading Norwegian is obviously easier, as I can take my time and figure out the unclear words in peace.
So naturally I hear a clear difference between Swedish and Norwegian, and Danish as well.
Its also common that foreign students who learns Swedish as their second language has a hard time understanding Norwegian. But also Finns who speaks Swedish as a first language, since they do not live anywhere near Norway and there is little to no Norwegian influence on the very small Finland-Swedish media (Yle Fem) as far as I know. Swedish-speaking people in Sweden however most likely knows what words like "vanskligt" etc means which actually is a Swedish word as well, just not commonly used anylonger.
South-western Scandinavia which includes Oslo, Gothenburg, Malmö and Copenhagen and several middle-size cities surrounding them has the highest population density in Scandinavia. Stockholm though is a bit off being on the Baltic coast surrounded by lakes and forest.
I think that a west coast Swede (and very many Swedes are from the west coast), as well as many landlocked western Swedes like Värmlanders, Dalslanders, Dalecarlians, Jämtlanders, etc are probably more likely to understand Norwegian than a Stockholmer. Still though it will be much easier for a Norwegian to get understood in Stockholm than in a Swedish-speaking town in Finland.
In Sölvesborg where I live which technically is on the east coast (but only 1 hour and half from the Öresund bridge) we dont have any greater problem understanding Norwegian or even Danish for that matter, the rest of Sweden though has a problem understanding us cause when SVT made a documentary about the Sölvesborg fur farming industry it was shown with subtitles on TV.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 12-30-2013 at 07:40 AM..
Närpesmål sounds a little bit like dialects from Hallingdal. Not that I understand any of it, nor Gutamål
That said, people from southeastern Norway (at least those who didn't recently move there) have a heck of a time understanding people from other parts of the country unless we speak s l o w l y I think living too close to a nation's capital makes you slow-witted :P
Närpesmål sounds a little bit like dialects from Hallingdal. Not that I understand any of it, nor Gutamål
That said, people from southeastern Norway (at least those who didn't recently move there) have a heck of a time understanding people from other parts of the country unless we speak s l o w l y I think living too close to a nation's capital makes you slow-witted :P
And people in Stockholm are not the best at understanding southern Swedish dialects either, look here what happens when someone from the south tries to order at McDonalds in Stockholm, they dont even understand that water in Skånska is "vand" and not the standard Swedish "vatten". We say vand in Blekinge as well, which is also in the south.
Swedish and Norwegian has an impressive amount of dialects, for example comparing to Finnish. Here the dialects have been "standardized" for long, and except for a few isolated pockets, most people speak just standard Finnish with a few regional words and pronounciations to spice it up.
The Lapland dialect is the only one which creates even some minor difficulties, but even for that no subtitles are needed.
Well, three if you count Sami, which is completely unrelated, but only bokmål and nynorsk are taught in schools to everyone. However, both are strictly written languages, nobody speaks like what the texts say. Both are approximations - Bokmål is supposed to be closer to the Danish that clergy and public servants used for 400 years, while Nynorsk was, at least in its inception, supposed to be closer to the dialects spoken by ordinary people outside government circles, and outside of the Christiania/Oslo area. There is determined policy to make these two written languages more similar, but in certain circles it is very trendy to write in a very distinctive Nynorsk.
Personally I find Nynorsk writing a bit more similar to Standard Swedish writing than Bokmål sometimes, like for example byrja intead of begynne, veke instead of uge, vatn instead of vann etc, those words are more similar to the Swedish words (börja, vecka and vatten). And like Swedish, it is more common to use a in some words in Nynorsk instead of e, like elskar instad of elsker. But at the same time they can be more different in many situations.
Example:
"I come from Norway":
Standard Swedish: "Jag kommer från Norge"
Bokmål Norwegian: "Jeg kommer fra Norge"
Nynorsk: "Eg kjem frå Noreg"
In that case, Bokmål is clearly more similar to Swedish than Nynorsk. Still, I dont have any problems reading either of them, some has said that written Nynorsk is "very similar" to Icelandic and Faroese but I call BS on that, most Norwegians (including Nynorsk writers) as well as other continental Scandinavians can't read Icelandic/Faroese unless they learnt it. Sure we can read and understand a few words and sentences of Icelandic and Faroese, but not any context of it. Kind of sad I would say, cause its Faroese and Icelandic that is the most similar to our common ancestor Old Norse. But here on continental Scandinavia we speak languages and dialects that has been bastardized by hundreds of years of German and French influences.
It is of course also worth mentioning that Bokmål and Nynorsk are not languages, they are official standard written versions of the language Norwegian, and its not the only language that has more than 1 written standard (the one I can think of right now is Serbian, which has both Cyrillic and Latin official standard written versions). There is no persons who speaks Bokmål or Nynorsk, only writes. Bokmål tends to be similar to spoken Norwegian in the east, and Nynorsk tends to be similar to spoken Norwegian in the west.
Similarly, there is not really any persons who speaks Standard Swedish as its written, however it is the most similar to the dialects spoken in the Mälaren Valley area (Stockholm, Uppsala, Eskilstuna, Örebro etc) where about 1/3 of Swedes lives.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 12-31-2013 at 06:37 PM..
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Notice how at the very start, he doesn't quite understand them, and then they start making an effort to enunciate.
