What are the two countries in Europe that have the two most similar languages
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Only og is a word that is totally different. We use 'en' and there is no English or German equivalent either that makes guessing easier.
Lots of Dutch People settled in Bergen city back in the old days, and lots of Norwegians immigrated to Holland about 200 years ago. Old Dutch People sounds littlebit like striler when they speak, striler are rural People who lives outside Bergen city in Norway.
Norway and Denmark, but not Swedish...because I live in Denmark. Conversations between Danes, Swedes and Norwegians generally take place with each person speaking their own language; however the spoken languages sound different, with Danish being the hardest grasp for English-speaking ears, followed by Swedish and Norwegian.
I guess Flemish and Dutch are quite close, but NOT Frisian.
The Dutch and Germans seem to be the most agile learners of Danish, as their alphabets contain many of the same vowel sounds, but not the soft consonants (in Danish).
It is a matter of opinion what language Norwegain is the most similar to. Written Norwegian is much closer to Danish, but on the other hand, Norwegian numbers, consonants, articulations, vowels, and pronunciations (especially those from the Oslo area and eastern Norway) is much closer to Swedish, it has even happened that Norwegians has been mistaken as Swedes in Denmark, at least according to a Norwegian linguist on Swedish radio last week said her family was mistaken as Swedes by some people at Tivoli and that the confusion is not too uncommon in situations like asking someone for directions.
On the sidenote, I have once been mistaken as a Dane in Norway for my thick Scanian accent when asking for directions.
Regardlessly, the 3 Scandinavian languages are more than 90% the same words (same as in either the same words or just slight spelling differences), and the grammar and order of words is also almost the same in Swedish, Danish and Bokmål Norwegian. Written Nynorsk is not very far from either.
Last edited by Helsingborgaren; 11-22-2014 at 07:47 AM..
Wow that's surprising its almost like Portuguese and Spanish are dialects of thee same language.
Not at all, they are completely separate languages.
I am fluent in Portuguese, and I also understand Spanish, but that doesn't mean that I could write what I hear or that I understand every word. Often the mind ignores and simply fills in the gaps and differences based on what one expects the other the say, what makes sense, etc. Sometimes it is just jumping from lexeme to lexeme and making sense of it all. This way one can follow a conversation. It is a bit like with speed reading, one gets the content without being aware of every word read.
I was watching an interview in Dutch recently and understood most of it, although I have never had anything to do with the Netherlands or learned any Dutch. I can follow the conversation simply because I speak German. But I could not write or repeat anything they said.
Thats the same languages, does not count as similar.
this kinda reminds me....when i was living in dubai my boss was Irish, so he asked me once: "Have you got a pen" - it took like 5 minutes to get that he meant "do you have" lol. People should speak like Americans, otherwise it's not comprehensible , jk.
Lots of Dutch People settled in Bergen city back in the old days, and lots of Norwegians immigrated to Holland about 200 years ago. Old Dutch People sounds littlebit like striler when they speak, striler are rural People who lives outside Bergen city in Norway.
One of the Frisian historic eleven cities, Hindeloopen, has a local Frisian dialect (Hylpers) that is not only Old-Frisian (as opposed to standard Frisian) but also has some Norwegian influences. This originates from the time Dutch and Frisians were involved in whaling.
This is from Wikipedia in Hylpers:
Bittersweet, bittersweet
priuwt dizze likje minnesang
sol dyn aer wol eenkear fange
as de fyne droppen 't ryne
Hylpers is only spoken by 300 elderly people, so it is rapidly becoming extinct.
By the way, Frisian is a really interesting language (although I am not Frisian )
Italian and French have quite a similar vocabulary (up to 89 % of lexical and gender similarity) and enjoy a very similar grammar (Italian has more articles, more declined prepositions, much complex subjunctive, French has a slightly different use of past/future/duration, a little bit more complicated indefinite pronouns and adjectives).
What makes French strikingly different is phonology.
Icelandic and Faroese are close in written form. Pronunciation is different, but I would think not too difficult to master if you speak one or the other.
Faroese: At vera at skilja, at eita.
Icelandic: Að vera, að skilja, að heita
Faroese: Eg eiti ikki John.
Icelandic: Ég heiti ekki John.
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, jk.
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