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Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

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Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#31

Post by mseebach »

danh wrote: post #28
pavlov wrote: post #24

Does anyone know of a similar artificial language to unify the Scandinavians? Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic are similar enough that it should be possible to create a language that could be passably understood by all speakers -- call it "skandiska"...?

A linguist would probably say that Scandinavia already has a common language, and that Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are mere dialects of the same Scandinavian language. They are considered different languages mainly for political and historical reasons, but since they are mutually intelligible (with the possible exception of drunk Danes) "Scandinavian" is really a single language from a linguistic perspective. Icela…

Danish and Norwegian are dialects, Swedish qualify as a separate language. "Nynorsk" ("New Norwegian") is a new language designed specifically to qualify as a new language, mainly for political reason (Norway was a colony of Denmark).

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#32

Post by mseebach »

henriklied wrote: post #26
pavlov wrote: post #24

Does anyone know of a similar artificial language to unify the Scandinavians? Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic are similar enough that it should be possible to create a language that could be passably understood by all speakers -- call it "skandiska"...?

As a Norwegian, I have no problems understanding both Swedish and Danish. That's mostly correct the other way around as well.

As a Dane I have not no problems understanding Norwegian and Swedish, but with a bit of getting used to it, and an open mind(1), it's my experience that most Scandinavians will be able to understand each other perfectly well.

1: Especially young people will switch into English immediately, and I find that I have to force myself to not do that when talking to fellow Scandinavians. It's a shame since there's often much meaning lost in the double translation + our languages are quite beautiful, IMHO.

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#33

Post by vidarh »

pavlov wrote: post #29
henriklied wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Norwegian, I have no problems understanding both Swedish and Danish. That's mostly correct the other way around as well.

Ah. I didn't realize that Scandinavians already understand each other so well. I'm a Finn who studied mandatory 6 years of Swedish at school, yet I can't understand a word of Danish... I wish they would teach us something more useful than Finland's regional Swedish dialect and accent -- it only has a few hundred thousand native speakers, of whom 95% speak Finnish anyway :(

Regarding Danish, have you tried reading it? Spoken Danish can be pretty hard for Norwegians and Swedes too at times. There's a common expression in Norway that Danes speak as if they have a potato in their mouth - a lot of sounds in Norwegian (and Swedish) are a lot harder/sharper than in Danish.

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#34

Post by gacek »

For me (Polish) it is very understandable, but if I were to say what it seems like - I would say that it is like Slovak/Czech with some Russian (mostly verbs).

However, these are the three slavic languages I had most contact with. I can speak some Russian and I can recognize Slovak and Czech (but I wouldn't be able to tell one from the other). And I guess this might be similar for other slavic HN readers - they might speak one or two extra languages, they might have had contact with two or three more. This means that similarities described here ("sounds like ...") will be greatly influenced by the level of contact between nations.

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#36

Post by ph0rque »

kmuzykov wrote: post #9
dchest wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Russian, and I can read and understand about 90% of their sample texts. It reminds me Serbian (though I don't know it or any other Slavic languages, and I've read more Serbian and Macedonian than any other Slavic language, so maybe there's a bias because of this). BTW, Bulgarian is harder to read for me than Serbian or Macedonian.

Yep, totally agree. I'm Russian too and language is completely understandable.

Same here... it feels like Ukranian to me, but the only Slavic language I know is Russian.

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#37

Post by danh »

mseebach wrote: post #31
danh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A linguist would probably say that Scandinavia already has a common language, and that Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are mere dialects of the same Scandinavian language. They are considered different languages mainly for political and historical reasons, but since they are mutually intelligible (with the possible exception of drunk Danes) "Scandinavian" is really a single language from a linguistic perspective. Icela…

Danish and Norwegian are dialects, Swedish qualify as a separate language. "Nynorsk" ("New Norwegian") is a new language designed specifically to qualify as a new language, mainly for political reason (Norway was a colony of Denmark).

That all depends on your definition of "language". For most linguists, all that matters is mutual intelligibility. For others, a language is a "dialect with an army and a flag", i.e. a political construct.

A Swedish person like me most of the time have no trouble at all understanding spoken Norwegian, and reading both bokmål and nynorsk is quite easy. Spoken Danish requires some effort and getting used to, but it is still quite possible to have a conversation.

Re: Slovianski-language that a Slav should be able to learn in 7 days

#39

Post by r7000 »

pavlov wrote: post #24

Does anyone know of a similar artificial language to unify the Scandinavians? Swedish, Norwegian, Danish and Icelandic are similar enough that it should be possible to create a language that could be passably understood by all speakers -- call it "skandiska"...?

There is Folkspraak. Although it is meant to be for all Germanic languages (including English) not just the North Germanic languages.

http://www.langmaker.com/folkspraak/folkgrammar.htm

http://www.langmaker.com/folksprk.htm#Introduction

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