Okay, so I've had a lot of requests for a video on the North Germanic languages.
So today, I present to you a video on Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Finnish.
[Crowd protestation]
What?
The North Germanic languages of the Nordic Nations
And Finnish isn't one of them.
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Langfocus channel and my name is Paul
Today, I'm going to talk about the North Germanic languages of the Nordic Nations.
That includes the scandinavian languages: Swedish, Danish and Norwegian.
And I will also touch on the languages of Icelandic and Faroese.
I wanted to call this video: the Scandinavian Languages
because I just love the way that word sounds: "Scandinavian"
But to the people of that region, the word "Scandinavian" only refers to Denmark, Sweden and Norway
and not to the other countries that I want to talk about.
So if I say the Nordic Nations, that also includes Iceland, the Faroe Islands as well as Finland.
I want to talk about the North Germanic languages spoken in all of those countries.
So I decided on the title: the North Germanic languages of the Nordic Nations.
And please note that Finnish is not a North Germanic language.
It belongs to a separate language family entirely.
But there is a Swedish-speaking miniority in Finland.
There are about 20 million native speakers of North Germanic languages.
And that includes about 9 million speakers of Swedish,
mainly in Sweden but also as a minority language in Finland.
Six million speakers of Danish, mainly in Denmark
but also as a minority language in the "Southern Schleswig" region of Northern Germany and in Greenland.
5 million speakers of Norwegian, mainly in Norway
320,000 speakers of Icelandic, mainly in Iceland
90,000 speakers of Faroese, about 2/3 of them living in the Faroe Islands and the rest mainly in Denmark
The North Germanic languages are, as you probably guessed, a branch of the Germanic language family.
All Germanic languages developed from Proto-Germanic, which was spoken around 500 BCE
Proto-Germanic possibly originated in Scandinavia
and different varieties of Germanic began to emerge with migration.
Runic inscriptions from the 2nd century CE show us that, by that time, Proto-Germanic had began to separate into distinct Western, Eastern and Northern dialects.
The northern dialect was spoken in Scandinavia and is today often referred to as Proto-Norse.
And became the ancestor of all the North Germanic languages.
Proto-Norse was spoken from around the 2nd century CE to the 8th century CE
and, by the beginning of the Viking Era in the eighth century CE,
It had evolved into the dialects that are collectively referred to as "Old Norse".
During the next few hundred years, Vikings, seafaring norse people, explored much of europe by sea and river,
conquering lands and establishing settlements and bringing their language with them.
During this time, "Old Norse" was divided into three mutually intelligible dialects of
"Old East Norse", "Old West Norse" and "Old Gutnish"
"Old East Norse" was spoken in Sweden and Denmark, as well as their overseas settlements in Russia, England and in Danish settlements in Normandy.
"Old West Norse" was spoken in Norway as well as its overseas settlements, the two most notable were Iceland and the Faroe Islands.
But also Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man and Norwegian settlements in Normandy.
Old Gutnish was mainly spoken on the island of Gotland, which is today part of Sweden as well as some overseas settlements to the East.
These West, East and Gutnish varieties of Old Norse gradually developed into the modern North Germanic languages around the 14th century CE.
The western branch of languages consists of Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese,
as well as some other extinct languages.
The eastern branch consists of Swedish and Danish.
The Gutnish branch consists of only the Gutnish language, which is still spoken to some extent on the island of Gotland.
But these days, the North Germanic languages are generally not thought of in terms of East, West and Gutnish.
They are thought of in terms of continental and insular.
The Continental languages are Danish, Swedish and Norwegian,
and the insular languages are Icelandic and Faroese.
These categories are based on the mutual intelligibility of the languages,
rather than on the genetic root language that they come from.
Norwegian is grouped with Swedish and Danish because, even though Icelandic and Norwegian developed from the same Old West Norse,
Norwegian is today much more intelligible with Swedish and Danish.
One reason for that is the political union of Denmark and Norway from 1536 to 1814.
During this time, the written Norwegian language stopped being used and it was replaced by the written Danish language
and this had a big impact on the spoken dialects of Norwegian, especially the central and eastern dialects.
The Continental languages also underwent a lot of influence from Middle Low German,
which is an influence that didn't affect Icelandic and Faroese.
The three continental languages can be referred to as the "Scandinavian languages".
When talking about the Scandinavian languages, it's important to note that there is a significant amount of dialectal variation within each language.
In fact, the three languages are made up of a dialect continuum,
that means if you travel in one direction, the dialects gradually change the further you go.
That means for example that, if you are Norwegian living near the border with Sweden,
you probably have an easier time understanding your neighbor just across the border in Sweden
than you do a Norwegian from the other side of the country,
even though you are supposedly speaking a different language from that Swedish person.
This makes it kind of hard to determine at what point these dialects become different languages.
Or if they are in fact different languages at all.
The three languages are all more or less intelligible, depending on where the dialect lies on that continuum.
And the written languages are almost entirely intelligible.
Danish seems to be the odd man out, with its complex phonology that has come to be quite distinct from the written language.
Swedes and Norwegians often say that Danish people sound like they're speaking with a potato in their mouth.
I can't actually confirm if they do speak with the potato in their mouth.
So, Scandinavians, can you let me know if that's true in the comments down below?
I have Danish roots. So I'm allowed to make fun of Danes.
From what I understand, Norwegians have the easiest time understanding the other two Scandinavian languages.
Though, they understand Swedish better than Danish.
Swedes can generally understand Norwegian but they have much more trouble understanding Danish, because of its pronunciation
And Danes can more or less understand Norwegian and, to a lesser extent, they can understand some Swedish.
From what I understand, Scandinavians will generally not speak the other person's language.
They will speak their own language, while making an effort to understand the other person's speech.
And maybe, they will slow down and clarify things when necessary.
But, when they have significant trouble communicating, they might switch to English,
which isn't that tough for them because Scandinavians are magical geniuses when it comes to learning English.
In this kind of situation where you have three closely related languages that kind of blend together on a continuum,
the languages are not defined by the spoken variety, but rather by the official standard language associated with that country or region.
In Denmark, there is Standard Danish. In Sweden, there is Standard Swedish. And, in Norway, there is Standard Norwegian.
Or wait, no, there are actually two Standard Norwegians.
What?
That's right, Norway actually has two official standard written languages:
Bokmål and Nynorsk.
Bokmål which means "book language", is a Danish-influenced standard language,
which is very close to standard Danish but which uses Norwegian pronunciation.
Nynorsk or "new Norwegian" is intended to be a purer version of Norwegian, based on Norway's more conservative Western dialects
Which standard language Norwegians are educated in depends on the region they grow up in.
But, despite having two official standard languages, Norwegians don't really speak them.
Norwegians generally speak their own local dialect, whenever they are speaking.
Even in formal situations and even when they're speaking to people from the other scandinavian countries.
Because of this, Norwegians have to get used to understanding a wide variety of spoken dialects
And that's probably part of what makes it easier for them to understand Swedish and Danish.
But that, of course, is just my speculation. So, native speakers, you can confirm or disconfirm that.
So let's take a look at the three continental languages and see just how similar they are.
In English : "I love you"
First in Swedish:
Now in Norwegian :
Now in Danish :
As you can see, these sentences are very similar but with some differences in spelling and in pronunciation.
In particular, the Swedish pronunciation is a little different than the other two.
Listen to the first person pronoun again
At the end the swedish one, you can hear a hard g sound.
It is not also pronounced that way, it depends on exactly where the speaker is from.
Another example : "Dogs are the best pets".
First in Swedish:
Next in Norwegian :
And in Danish :
Here we see some more noticable differences even though the sentences are still really similar.
Notice the differences in the words for "dogs".
The swedish word is pretty much pronounced as written.
But in the Norwegian and Danish words, some letters are not pronounced.
And notice the different words for "pets".
The Swedish word is different from the other 2.
And the Norwegian and Danish words are almost the same but a different initial sound and slightly different vowels.
Another example
Tomorrow I will go to Germany.
In Swedish:
And in Norwegian :
And in Danish :
In this case, the Norwegian and Danish sentences are basically the same, but the Swedish sentence is pronounced a little differently.
Again we hear those hard g sound which aren't present in the Norwegian and Danish sentences.
But again they're not always pronounced in Swedish either.
One more example. In English:
The party was fun because I liked the music.
First in Swedish:
Then in Norwegian :
And in Danish :
In these sentences, the word for fun is different in each language.
The word meaning "because" is also different in Swedish.
And in Norwegian and Danish, it's spelt the same but pronounced differently
And "like" is expressed differently in all 3 languages.
or "gillade" with a hard g sound, more as the voice in the recording.
In Danish it is expressed with 2 words, the first one expressing "could".
The phrase literally means "could suffer".
And listen to the difference for the words for "music" In Norwegian and Danish.
Listen how the k sound disappear in Danish.
And listen to the pronounciation of this phrase again.
The end of the second word seems to vanish.
This could be part of that "potato phenomenon" discussed earlier.
So you can probably see just how similar these three languages are.
And you can probably see how - relatively speaking - they are easy for English-speakers to learn.
They are all category 1 languages, according to the American Foreign Service Institute, which trains diplomats for their overseas assignments.
None of the North Germanic languages are amongst the most widely spoken languages in the world.
And people from the Nordic countries generally speak excellent English.
So, is it a waste of time to learn a North Germanic language? Of course not!
If you're interested in the cultures and the history of that region,
then learning one of the languages could bring you immense joy.
And because the three Scandinavian languages are so similar, learning one of them can unlock the doors to the other ones, especially of the written languages.
And, if you're an avid traveler or you want to go backpacking around the world,
then you will probably meet a surprising number of Scandinavians.
And, knowing their language or even one of the other two languages will help you break the ice
and get to know some wonderful and, possibly, highly attractive people.
And if you are interested in the old Nordic cultures, then you might benefit from learning Icelandic.
Since written Icelandic is still very similar to Old Norse.
So don't hesitate to start learning one of the North Germanic languages,
which could be your portal into a whole new world
So the question of the day:
Native speakers of North Germanic languages, what is your experience communicating with the speakers of other languages?
Which of the other languages do you understand the most?
And how do you bridge that communication gap? We'd like to know.
And everyone else, jump in and leave whatever comment you want.
Thank you for watching and have a nice day.