How Similar Are Danish & Norwegian (Bokmål)?

this video is brought to you by innovative language the creators of norwegian class 101 and danish class 101 innovative language courses are one of my favorite ways to start learning a new language online click the link in the description for a free lifetime account to give it a try hello everyone welcome to the langfocus channel and my name is johnson today we're going to compare danish and norwegian specifically one of the two official forms of norwegian buk maul due to the union of denmark and norway which lasted for centuries mall is largely based on the danish spoken by the upper classes in norway during that time danish and buk mal are in large part the same with some slight differences in grammar and spelling some different vocabulary words and usage and more than anything else differences in pronunciation danish is famous for being difficult to understand because of the tendency to slur and delete sounds that are more clearly pronounced in norwegian to be clear norwegian has no official pronunciation and all accents are considered correct but the pronunciation the accent of the capital oslo serves as a de facto standard let's compare some basic vocabulary and see where the differences lie especially in pronunciation in norwegian we have this word meaning weird or funny in danish means pleasant also notice the difference in the r sound in norwegian it's an alveolar trill in danish it's a uvular fricative or approximant at the beginning of the word and at the end of the word it's silent but in its place we can hear the glottal stop or creaky voice that appears in some danish words it's represented in ipa transcription by this symbol norwegian doesn't have this feature but instead has distinctions in pitch accent both of these words mean knife knee in both words the combination k n is pronounced the same but in norwegian iv is pronounced eve while in danish it's a diphthong and again the word ends in a glottal stop or laryngeal creaky voice these words mean dress there's a subtle difference in the sound that kj represents in either language in norwegian it's a voiceless palatal fricative while in danish it's in danish it's a cluster of two sounds k followed by because the second sound is palatal it ends up sounding somewhat similar to the norwegian sound which is also palatal these words mean deer in norwegian and in danish notice the difference in the initial consonant in danish k and g can appear before a front vowel but in norwegian they can't so the digraphs gj and kj are used to represent the different consonant sounds also notice the silent r in the danish word these words mean shirt in norwegian and in danish again notice the difference in the initial consonant this time represented by skj in norwegian it's while in danish it's there's also a difference in the vowel sound in norwegian it's more like while in danish it's more like or because the danish r after a vowel is pronounced as a vowel itself these words mean ship in norwegian and in danish notice that in the norwegian word sk represents while in the danish word it represents sk silent g occurs in both languages sometimes in the same contexts and sometimes in different contexts these two words are cognates and both feature a silent g in norwegian meaning delicious or lovely and in danish daily meaning wonderful or lovely and sometimes delicious also notice the slightly different spelling there are lots of little spelling differences like this between danish and norwegian while delicious is a primary meaning of the norwegian word in danish its more common meaning is wonderful or lovely these words mean book in norwegian [Music] and in danish notice the final k in the norwegian word and the g in the danish word in danish the final g is silent the vowel represented by o is also different in norwegian it's more like u while in danish it's more like o but here the omg together actually form a diphthong these words mean guest or visitor in norwegian yes and in danish yes notice the difference at the beginning of the words in norwegian g is silent before j so it's simply ye while in danish it's ge like i said before in danish ga can come before a front vowel but in norwegian it can't these words mean evening in norwegian and in danish in norwegian often is also used but it's less commonly used than kvel and a little more old-fashioned and in danish a cognate of the norwegian word exists but it's old-fashioned and not used much anymore these words mean page or side in norwegian seed and in danish see while these words look the same on paper the danish pronunciation has the soft d and the final vowel vanishes see now let's look at some sentences in both languages and see how different they are if you've seen my previous video on norwegian you may recognize these sentences these sentences mean i want to eat in norwegian and in danish yeah here we can see two sentences that are identical on paper of course there are some slight differences in pronunciation but nothing really worth pointing out here's another sentence meaning i haven't eaten anything today in norwegian and in danish yeah especially here's another sentence that's very similar on paper with some differences in pronunciation and one word with a slightly different form in either language in norwegian there's no the neutral singular of in danish there's the neutral singular of notice how the negation word is pronounced differently in either language in norwegian and in danish in norwegian the double k represents a long consonant in danish are voiced when doubled the double letter does not indicate a long consonant in danish also notice the difference in pronunciation of this word in norwegian and in danish in norwegian the long a vowel is pronounced ah while in danish it's pronounced a and in norwegian the g is pronounced as while in danish a final g like this is silent or an approximant that's almost silent like a slight r sound another sentence meaning they like to drive fast cars in norwegian d-league first notice the different ways of expressing like in the two languages in norwegian there's in danish like is expressed with the phrase kunali why does it include kuna which means can or able to well even though now the whole phrase just means like it originated with the meaning of able to bear something meaning you're able to handle it or deal with it like it's not too bad next notice the different form of the infinitive particle like two in english and notice the different spelling and pronunciation of the verb meaning to drive next we see different adjectives meaning fast in norwegian and in danish woody the word does exist in danish but it's very old-fashioned to use it with the meaning of fast but it's still often used with the meaning of healthy also exists in norwegian as a synonym of rask another sentence meaning crime is increasing due to high unemployment in norwegian criminals and in danish criminality the main difference in this pair of sentences is a difference in vocabulary preference for example these words which are the present tense forms of the verbs meaning to increase there is a cognate of in danish is but the usual word would be stir and there's a cognate of stia in norwegian we see basically the same phrase meaning due to literally on ground of ground as in reason but there's a difference in pronunciation between these words here in norwegian and in danish in the norwegian word the u represents an u sound but in danish the u can be pronounced differently after the uvular r more like o and while the norwegian word ends in a long consonant the danish word ends in followed by a glottal stop or creaky voice the d is silent after n in this word the f is silent and at the end of the danish word for unemployment there's a soft d let's examine one final pair of sentences these sentences mean falling in love is common among young people in norwegian in this last pair of sentences again we see the same sentence structure with some different vocabulary preference the words for common are different notice the different spellings of the words meaning among blunt but again d is silent after n so we don't really hear a difference in the consonants here the main difference here is in the quality of the a vowel notice that the terms for young people are somewhat different there is a word for young people in danish that's more similar to the norwegian one though that word is pretty old-fashioned in danish as you can see norwegian and danish are very similar on paper but end up sounding quite different when they're spoken they're different enough to be considered different languages but they're close enough that speakers of either language can read the other one without much trouble it seems to me that speakers of either language could learn to understand the other one as it's naturally spoken by learning the features of the other language's phonology and then getting lots of exposure to it indeed people who move from one country to the other do just that and also learn to make their own speech more intelligible to speakers of the other language by speaking more clearly or more slowly but a lot of norwegians and danes as well as swedes tell me that they just speak english with each other instead and that brings me to the question of the day to speakers of norwegian and danish and swedes too if you want to jump in do you think learning to understand each other and communicate in your respective languages is a useful skill or do you think it's better to simply use english as many people do and other people what do you think about the differences between danish and buk maul do they genuinely seem like different languages to you if you're excited to learn more norwegian or danish then check out langfocus.com norwegian class or langfocus.com danish class innovative language courses are among the most popular online courses in the world and for good reason they're very extensive courses with literally hundreds of lessons for learners of any level their core feature is podcast style audio lessons which is great for people who like to learn using audio materials and for people who want to learn on the go i'm a member of several class 101 and pod 101 courses and i use them to improve my listening comprehension and to improve my pronunciation through shadowing the dialogues and monologues but class 101 and pod 101 courses offer more than just audio lessons they also have lots of video lessons and excellent tools like downloadable transcripts and lesson notes spaced repetition flash cards and quizzes features like these help you to review and solidify what you learn in each lesson so that you keep building upon what you've learned and create a strong foundation in the language class 101 and pod 101 lessons are compact and easy to complete in a single sitting but don't just move on to the next lesson and forget about the previous one the review tools are there to help solidify what you've learned it would be a mistake to breeze through all the lessons too quickly without using all of those extra review features i've never learned a language using only an innovative language course but i'm a member of several of their sites and i regularly use them as part of my study program lots of content is free including all new lessons which are free for the first couple of weeks and then if you want access to all the archived content you can upgrade to a paid account i really recommend you check out innovative language courses whether for norwegian danish or one of 32 other languages they offer click the link in the description to get a free lifetime account i also want to give a big shout out to all the langfocus patreon supporters especially the top tier patrons whose names are on the screen check out patreon.com langfocus and check out the benefits of the various tiers and to everyone thank you for watching and have a nice [Music] day [Music] you

Channel: Langfocus

Views: 88,129

Rating: 4.9558282 out of 5

Keywords: language study, polyglot, foreign language, linguist, linguistics, Danish language, Norwegian language, Bokmål, language comparison, how similar, how different, Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway, Northern Europe, European languages, Germanic languages, North Germanic, Norse, Nordic, Danish pronunciation, Norwegian pronunciation

Id: Q7EBAvS_GWw

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 10 2020