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Sweden seems more similar to Norway to me. Finnish has a language that isn't even Indo-European, let alone related to Swedish, while Norwegian is almost a dialect of Swedish. Finnish also tend to be more conservative and religious.
Sure,if you hear swedish and norweigian, they sounds to be same. But they are not.
In Finland, here is some areas were peoples are speaking just swedish...and then are some areas were peoples are speaking finnish/swedish 50/50 and also here areas were peoples are mostly speaking just finnish but common issue to all is that all can speak swedish more or less because it is compulsary for children/young ones to learn it at school.
Exsample on this are were I live(South), discuss can change from finnish to swedish and back again with out any agreement and then back to finnish again.
I would say that dont put too much "Weight" to lanquage because after all, this is not big issue...Other wise we can ask how much US and Canada have similarities and answer is that not at all because on eastern Canada they mostly speaking just french.
On that issue, that finns are more concervative than sweds, you may be some what right...but not too much.
Just anecdotal observation. Personal attitudes on that matter seem to me in line with the rest of the Nordic countries. But of courseI lack the first-hand knowledge you have.
Just anecdotal observation. Personal attitudes on that matter seem to me in line with the rest of the Nordic countries. But of courseI lack the first-hand knowledge you have.
Also in your opinion are there other pairings of countries that are similar to each other (excuse my assumptions here) Australia and New Zealand or England and Scotland/Ireland?..any non english speaking countries where the culture is very similar to each other?
Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
Virtually any two neighboring countries in Central America, South America or Africa.
I've lived and worked in both and went to school in Czech Republic. The languages are mostly mutually intelligible. With most Slavic languages there is some understanding of certain terms, similar to Latin languages having similarities based upon the root language. For instance Czechs pick up most of what Poles say to them, although the structure is often backward and it sounds antiquated. Similarly several words in Russian or Ukrainian, Serbo-Croat and Slovene are cognates or similar. But there are few languages are as close as Slovak and Czech. Today there is some trouble with the younger generation in Czech having trouble with some Slovak words since they no longer view Slovak television, radio and learn it in school (it's similar in the Slovak Republic but there are more Czech television/radio stations broadcast and the Czech newspapers/magazines are still common). Before the velvet divorce (1993) the two nations promoted Slovak learning in Bohemia and Moravia, and Czech was the national Czechoslovak language. Like a lot of samples, this is really two closely related peoples with a common ancestry that developed into two nations. The Slovaks fell under closer influence of Hungary while the Czechs traded mostly with Austrians and Germans, so each drifted enough to have differences.
Last edited by NYisontop; 02-01-2012 at 03:34 PM..
Reason: for brevity
Sweden seems more similar to Norway to me. Finnish has a language that isn't even Indo-European, let alone related to Swedish, while Norwegian is almost a dialect of Swedish. Finnish also tend to be more conservative and religious.
yup
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