Scandinavian Languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish)

According to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, and Finland), http://www.norden.org/en/the-nordic-region/language/language , Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Faroese, and Icelandic belong to the North Germanic “Nordic” branch of the Indo-European language family.  Furthermore, speakers of Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish) http://www.norden.org/en/about-nordic-co-operation/areas-of-co-operation/language are expected to be able to understand each other because these 3 languages are so closely related.  The best example is the working language policy of the Nordic Council and the Nordic Council of Ministers.  Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are the working languages.  Translation is offered between Finnish, Icelandic, and Scandinavian, but not between the Scandinavian languages.

I have limited exposure to the Scandinavian languages.  Norwegian (I am only talking about Bokmål here) seems to be between Danish and Swedish.  In fact, there is a humorous saying that Norwegian is written Danish with Swedish pronunciation.  There is another saying that Danish is written Norwegian with German and French pronunciation.  There is some truth to these jokes.  Written forms of Danish and Norwegian look extremely similar.  It is almost like British English and American English.

Tests have shown that the Norwegian people are better than Danes and Swedes at understanding non-native languages within the Scandinavian language group.  Please keep in mind that we are talking about the standard versions of Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish.  Mutual intelligibility is not guaranteed with dialects.  But yes, if you learn a Scandinavian language, you are learning a good amount of the other two at the same time.  It is almost like buy 1 get 2 free.

Language is a huge component of culture.  With linguistic similarity, it is crystal clear that Iceland and Finland are not part of Scandinavia.  Icelandic is in the same North Germanic “Nordic” group of the Indo-European family with the Scandinavian languages, but it is not similar enough for mutual intelligibility.  Finnish, on the other hand, is not even Indo-European!  For reference purpose:

Indo-European -> North Germanic (Nordic) -> Scandinavian (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish), Icelandic, Faroese.

If more people, especially my fellow Americans, have exposure to Scandinavian languages, then there would be a lot less, even no confusion between Scandinavia and Nordic countries.  The benefit of broader understanding of world cultures also applies to learning other foreign languages.  Nobody disputes the importance of the English language as it is the international language.  Complement your English proficiency with one or more foreign languages will open doors for you!

Advertisement