Lexical and orthographic distances between germanic. Languages of the world department of computer science. Even though the three west germanic languages dutch, frisian and afrikaans are also closely related, semicommunication is not usual between these languages. We first present the results of a selection of 1833 listeners representing the mutual intelligibility between young, educated europeans from the same 16 countries where the test languages are spoken. Modeling intelligibility of written germanic languages. We selected five germanic languages, five romance languages and six.
May 28, 2014 the comments in the blog are very interesting, but the best ones involve a personal note detailing contacts and the like. It depends on the combinations of slavonic languagesdialects under consideration. It is a north germanic language and quite similar to its sister scandinavian languages, danish and norwegian, with which it maintains partial mutual intelligibility and forming a dialect continuum. Mutual intelligibility among the romance languages.
Germanic languages didnt have a written standard, a comparable language to latin. Let us look first of all at since there is much nonsense floating. The language group is also referred to as the nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among danish. Bulgarian and macedonian are mutually intelligible between 80% and 90%, as are czech and slovak. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. The sidamo subgroup, a branch of east cushitic, was chosen for the. The germanic languages are related in the sense that they can be shown to be different historical developments of a single earlier parent language. An overview will be given of the intelligibility structure of a large number of languages established by means of language tests that make it possible to compare intelligibility of various language pairs in their. Other north germanic languages are faroese and icelandic, which are more conservative languages with no significant low german influence, more complex grammar and limited mutual intelligibility with the others today. The degree of intelligibility can vary on the users background in or familiarity with germanic languages in addition to whether one considers mutual intelligibility of spoken production or written production e. Its important to note that mutual intelligibility is highly subjective. Measuring mutual intelligibility in scandinavia sebastian kurschner, s.
The language group is also referred to as the nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among danish, faroese, icelandic, norwegian, and swedish scholars. To what extent are different slavic languages mutually. This research investigates the mutual intelligibility of danish, dutch, english, german and swedish and the factors that can predict the mutual intelligibility among these languages. Mutual intelligibility might have still existed with other descendants of pie, but it would have been strained, and the period marked the definitive break of germanic from the other indoeuropean languages and the beginning of germanic proper, containing most of the sound changes that are now held to define this branch distinctively. English, with approximately 360400 million native speakers, and german, with. Mutual intelligibility wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. The same holds true for most pairs of languages in this essay. Most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and the most separated ones not. Northern germanic languages spoken in scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. The germanic languages include some 58 sil estimate languages and dialects that originated in europe. Germanic languages wikimili, the best wikipedia reader.
Mutual intelligibility in slavic language specific languages. Sep 23, 2009 are german and swedish mutually intelligible. A note on the relationship between scandinavian and low german. We argue that mutual intelligibility testing is an adequate way to determine how different two languages or language varieties are. We first present the results of a selection of 1833 listeners representing the mutual intelligibility between young, educated europeans from the same 16 countries where the test. The standard division of germanic is into three branches, east germanic languages. Slavonic languages there is much nonsense said about the mutual intelligibility of the various languages in the slavic family. Pdf modeling intelligibility of written germanic languages. Mutual intelligibility of languages in the slavic family. However, the study of possible old english and old norse mutual. Protogermanic language wikipedia republished wiki 2. This study was designed to assess some of the determinants of mutual intelligibility within groups of related languages. Mutual intelligibility is a continuum that is, a gradient concept, marked by degrees of intelligibility, not by sharp divisions. Anecdotally, as a speaker of english and french, i understand about as much spanish as i do frisiansay 5080% as well as the languages in which im fluent.
In fact, many germanic kingdoms that followed the roman empire ruled over a population that spoke latin, as latin was so ingrained. Romance languages, etymology, cognates, string similarity 1. It may be orthography, morphologylexicon, or phonetics. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which. Language varieties dialects and languages 2712009 4 mutual intelligibility between. Newest germaniclanguages questions linguistics stack. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in europe. The scots language has a significant level of mutual intelligibility with english. In answering this question, i will honour a soviet tradition that i always hated starting a book, an article, a lecture, whatever, with a citation from marx or engels. Five national minority languages are also recognized by swedish law. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from.
Pdf mutual intelligibility among the romance languages. Several individual languages within a language branch share a common origin in recent past few differences in grammar and vocabulary western germanic language branches a group of languages that share a common origin but have evolved into different languages germanic language family. Gooskens 2007 determined mutual intelligibility among three westgermanic languages frisian, dutch, afrikaans. So how much a dutch person understands of german doesnt only reflect the similarity between the languages, but also their schooling. Oct 23, 2019 mutual intelligibility is a situation in which two or more speakers of a language or of closely related languages can understand each other. The total number of germanic languages through history is unknown, as some of themespecially east germanic languages disappeared during or shortly after the migration period. If compared with other languages, are german and swedish closer to each other than french and spanish are to each other. Mutual intelligibility also occurs in a wide variety of degrees, ranging from none, to partial, to full mutual intelligibility. As noticed, there are several aspects by which linguistic distances ld between a certain pair of languages may differ. I think mutual intelligibility might be harder to measure because nearly everyone in the netherlands gets german classes in school.
Measuring crosslinguistic intelligibility in the germanic. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages. The scots language has germanic roots and is spoken widely in lowland scotland and some regions of ulster. The germanic languages are a branch of the indoeuropean language family spoken natively by a population of approximately 500 million people mainly in north america, oceania, central europe, western and northern europe the west germanic branch includes the two most widely spoken germanic languages. Danish and swedish are the most mutually comprehensible, but german and dutch are also mutually intelligible. Finnish swedish there are lexical borrowings of swedish into finnish, but they are from different language families, and i dont think mutually intelligible at all. Mutual intelligibility is a situation in which two or more speakers of a language or of closely related languages can understand each other. Nov 26, 2018 the scots language has a significant level of mutual intelligibility with english.
Germanic is a language group of its own just like romance and slavic, some germanic languages has gotten more romance influence. The three mainland scandinavian languages danish, swedish and norwegian are so closely related that the speakers mostly communicate in their own languages semicommunication. West germanic languages all trace back to one parent language. Is there a language that is mutually intelligible with. Introduction and related work determining degrees of similarity between the worlds languages is an intensely debated issue lebart and rajman, 2000, many of the controversies in historical and com. Mutual intelligibility wikipedia republished wiki 2. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. The backstory is usually most important in sorting out this kind of question of mutual intelligibility. Germanic languages are englishs distant cousins, so to speak. Divisions between subfamilies of north germanic are rarely precisely defined.
Mutual intelligibility in the slavic language area. It also makes a bit sense that the only north germanic languages and the only west germanic languages that are not intelligible to the rest, are spoken on islands. When the set of languages exceeds ten, only opinion tests are employed e. Mutual intelligibility of chinese dialects experimentally tested. Dinu faculty of mathematics and computer science, university of bucharest center for computational linguistics, university of bucharest alina. In addition, the differences between the slavonic dialects are so great that. Is there a list of mutually intelligible languages. In a cloze test both texts and individual words are. This thesis deals with the mutual intelligibility of five germanic languages. Whats the difference between a language and a dialect. As new evidence and the reevaluation of old evidence emerges, research in the historical germanic languages continues to paint a clearer picture. We tested the mutual intelligibility of 15 chinese dialects. It is commonly believed that all slavic languages are fully mutually intelligible, which implies that they are close. Germanic language mutual intelligibility travel, people, germans, english user name.
It is generally used as the most important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used. Germanic is a language group of its own just like romance and slavic, some germanic languages has gotten more romance influence than others, but that does not make them nongermanic. Mutual intelligibility between german and dutch i am a native dutch speaker who also knows a bit of german. We tested twenty language combinations using the same uniform methodology, making the results commensurable for the first time. In the present investigation, results from intelligibility tests measuring the mutual intelligibility of danish, norwegian and swedish were compared with results of similar tests of mutual. Germanic language mutual intelligibility bank, latin. Germanic language mutual intelligibility people, living. Although for some language families there are written records of the parent language e. We report on a largescale investigation of the mutual intelligibility between five germanic languages. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages intelligibility. Languages understandable to englishspeakers without learning. Sure, americans and brits have their linguistic differences, but we can usually understand each other. Its often said that all slavic languages are mutually intelligible with each other. These mutually intelligible languages will make you do a double take.
Can native german and swedish speakers understand each other without learning. French les langues romanes comme le francais, litalien, lespagnol, le portugais et le roumain sont toutes des langues qui viennent du latin vulgaire, parle par les romains il y a 2000 ans. Mutual intelligibility among the slavic languages by robert lindsay the mutual intelligibility mi of the languages of the slavic family is an interesting topic because many are mutually intelligible to one degree or another. The level of mutual intelligibility is not as high as amongst romance or slavic languages, though. The north germanic languages, on the other hand, remained unified until well past ad, and in fact the mainland scandinavian languages still largely retain mutual intelligibility into modern times. The north germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the germanic languages, a subfamily of the indoeuropean languages, along with the west germanic languages and the extinct east germanic languages. University of groningen mutual intelligibility in the slavic. So to sum it all up, there is 2 dialect continuums with this type of mutual intelligibility in the germanic world. With languages so much depends on personal experiences. Why are the romance languages so much more mutually intelligible than the germanic languages.
What makes english like the other languages in its subfamily. In the present investigation, results from intelligibility. At least one author has argued for mutual intelligibility among most germanic languages 2neither language was completely standardized at this point, but the di. As for intelligibility, previous research has shown that danish and swedish are mutually intelligible to a large extent. Abstractby means of a largescale webbased investigation, we established the degree of mutual intelligibility of 16 closely related spoken languages within the germanic, slavic and romance language families in europe. Germanic language mutual intelligibility bank, latin, country, places user name. We tested the mutual intelligibility of 15 chinese dialects functionally at the level of isolated words wordintelligibility and the level of sentences sentence intelligibility.
Between sources, you might find some claiming that two languages are mutually intelligible, while other sources claim those same languages arent. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in europe pdf. Lexical and orthographic distances between germanic, romance. Predicting the mutual intelligibility of germanic languages. English is in the west germanic branch along with german, dutch, afrikaans, and a few others. The most widely spoken germanic language, english, is the worlds most widely spoken language with an estimated 2 billion speakers. This understanding can be in spoken or written communication. The degree to which a speaker of one variety understands the speech of another closely related variety can be expressed in a single number closely related languages. There are many cognates and similar grammar between them. Linguistic and extralinguistic predictors of mutual intelligibility. Afrikaans is a daughter language of dutch, and theres decent mutual intelligibility between those two languages. Swedish is the official language of sweden and is spoken by the vast majority of the 10 million inhabitants of the country.
There are conflicting reports about the mutual intelligibility of turkic languages, but still, they differ much less among each other than say,the germanic or romance languages. Also, there is an article on wikipedia called mutual intelligibility, and it has a nice list of mutually intelligible languages. Mutual intelligibility in slavic language learning languages. Germanic language mutual intelligibility travel, people. The sil ethnologue lists 48 different living germanic languages, of which 42 belong to the western branch, and 6 to the northern branch. The germanic languages are a branch of the indoeuropean language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in europe, north america, oceania and southern africa. Pdf the similarity and mutual intelligibility between. The mutual intelligibility mi of the languages of the slavic family is an interesting topic because many are mutually intelligible to one degree or another. Gooskens 2007 determined mutual intelligibility among three west germanic languages frisian, dutch, afrikaans.
Moulton 1988 addresses the general question of mutual intelligibility among the older. Dutch, german, english, swedish and danish are all germanic languages but the degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages differs. As such, spoken danish and swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility, but swedes in the oresund region including malmo and helsingborg, across a strait from the danish capital copenhagen, understand danish somewhat better, largely due to. Pdf we measured orthographic differences between five germanic. Mutual intelligibility o the mutual intelligibility between the continental. In fact, uygur probably differs less from turkish than some dialects within germany and italy,for example.
Mutual intelligibility of chinese dialects experimentally. Mutual intelligibility in the germanic language area. We first tested both written and spoken language by means of cloze tests. The german and dutch children were comparable in that they did not know the other language or a related dialect and expressed equally. Do we need to distinguish between orthographic stem and affix variation. The present paper reports on the results of a comprehen sive project on cross language intelligibility between closely re lated languages within the germanic, slavic and romance language. It sounds like the premise of this question is probably fallacious. To what extent are different romance languages mutually. Mutual intelligibility refers to whether speakers of one language can understand speakers of another language. Questions tagged germaniclanguages ask question branch of the indoeuropean languages from northern europe, including english, german, dutch, and the scandinavian languages.
All germanic languages are derived from protogermanic, spoken in iron. Pdf mutual intelligibility of dutchgerman cognates by children. Finnish hungarian same family, but different languages, no mutual intelligibility. I recently saw a video on youtube explaining the mutual intelligibility between russian and ukrainian. Hi, seeing as though icelandic has stood frozen in time since the middle ages and hasnt changed a single bit from old norse, is icelandic mutually intelligible with old english. Mutual intelligibility the most obvious way to distinguish a language from a dialect is by looking at mutual intelligibility. Languages of sweden wikimili, the best wikipedia reader. In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without intentional study or special effort. Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in. Intelligibility of germanic languages underestimated. Why are the romance languages so much more mutually. On the romance languages mutual intelligibility alina maria ciobanu, liviu p. Gooskens and heeringa, 2004 for 15 norwegianvarieties, tang and van heuven, 2007 for 15 sinitic varieties. Within this research program, a largescale webbased intelligibility test is performed, including cloze tests and word translation tasks.
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