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Fredrik · Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 8:38 pm Post subject: Inter-Nordic intelligibility

Finally it has arrived, the scientific data for what many of you always ask: How well (or badly) do Nordic people understand each other! The Nordic Language Council has made an extensive survey of how Nordic people (Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Faroese, Icelanders and Finns) understand the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Danish and Swedish).
The last link on this page gives you the whole report (which is in Swedish):

http://www.nordisk-sprakrad.no/nsr_internordisk.htm

But I can provide you directly with the core numbers:
Total result for understanding other Scandinavian languages, on a scale from 0 to 10:

People with a Scandinavian mother tongue:
Mainland Swedish-Finns: 3,73
Danes: 3,86
Swedes: 4,39
Ålanders: 4,60
Norwegians: 6.14

Nordic people without a Scandinavian mother tongue:
Finnish-Finns: 2,14
Icelanders: 4,03
Greenlanders: 4,19
Faroese: 7,01

So Norwegians are the Scandinavian masters of inter-Scandinavian understanding, while the Faroese are the Nordic masters of the art.

Walker · Moderator Joined: 24 Aug 2006 Posts: 756

I read in a paper the other day that some Faroese dude had suggested that Swedish should be the second language in all Nordic countries, except for Sweden of course where it's the first. He wanted to prevent English from becoming too dominant. So according to him Faroese, Norwegian... children should learn Swedish in school. I think it's a crappy idea, though. It's enough having one "neighbor" that hates us.

Fredrik · Posted: Mon Nov 06, 2006 4:37 pm Post subject:

Hehe, I appreciate that you see this maturely and pan-Nordic and I agree with you. In Norway nobody would have wanted to waste their time on learning a language you can understand without any education. It's a bit different for the Faroese, though. They have to learn Danish today and perhaps they realize they would be better off learning a Scandinavian language that is phonetically closer to their own.

Didier69 · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:35 pm Post subject:

you write the text you give the link to is in Swedish. It's not it's in Norwegian bokmål.

Didier69 · Posted: Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:51 pm Post subject:

Förlåt jag hade inte märkt det är bara första delen av texten som är på norska.