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.
At 4:12 he has a map of Denmark-Norway that conspicuously excludes Iceland. Iceland was a part of Denmark-Norway as long as that country existed.
He propably should have included how TV and radio have effected this.
Most Norwegians and most Danes (at least the ones on Själland) can and have for generations been able to listen to Swedish radio and see Swedish TV, while only southern Sweden have been able to do the same for Danish and only western Sweden (which is generally very sparsely populated) for the Norwegian counterparts. It makes Swedish a tad bit easier to understand for most Norwegian and Danes.
Also, parts of what is today Sweden used to belong to Denmark (Halland, Blekinge, Skåne) or Norway (Bohuslän, Jämtland, Härjedalen, Särna, Idre), which also affects the dialect continuum.
I also think Danes speak faster (as in more words per minute) than Norwegians and Swedes, making them harder to understand.