[Survey] HP users around the world

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(01-13-2018 08:12 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  I find this mutual intelligibility of the Romance languages interesting, because it seems very different from the situation with the Germanic languages. Dutch kids really have to work to learn German, even though those two languages are each other's closest relatives. I found English quite a bit of work to master as well (though easier than French, although French is easier to pronounce), but I find the Scandinavian languages (Danish, Swedish, Norwegian) absolute gibberish, especially when spoken. I guess the Germanic languages have been diverging from each other a lot longer.

Ha, ha - gibberish no less
Modern Norwegian written language is mostly derived from Danish. The true Norwegian is/was Norse, which today only is used/spoken in Iceland and Faroes.

Norwegian, Danish and Swedish are all North Germanic languages, mutually intelligble. All three countries can read and converse between each other, except if you have an odd dialect. I find North Danish (around Skagen, Frederikshavn) more difficult to follow 100% than Copenhagen Danish. I've learned to fully understand Skåne-Swedish (Southern) though that is quite different than Mid and North Sweden.

Another funny fact of Scandinavian languages is that several words spells and pronounces alike, but have completely different meaning. "Rolig", in Norwegian means calm/quiet but in Swedish it means funny/lively. Meaning that if you tell your taxi driver to take you to a "rolig" place, in Norway you'll be taken to a retirement home but in Sweden to a pub
There are several of these words.

Then we have the Indo-Germanian languages, Latvian and Lithuanian. Those two languages are the only ones in their language group. Though, Latvian is based more on Germanic branch and Lithuanian is the slavic branch and they cannot understand each other (according to my Latvian friends).

Finnish, Estonian and Hungarian is yet a completely different area of lingual matter.
Estonians and Finns may understand each other, but the Hungarians cannot.

As for the Dutch; the reason I have the ability to read and understand the main contents of a text is due to my Norwegian native language and my learning of German at school. And it became even easier when I learned the ij ligature