12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2
Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6903 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 9 of 12 15 April 2009 at 10:55pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for your advice. I'm almost certain to choose Norwegian (because of the learning materials and as it seems to be a good starting point to other Scandinavian languages). Are Norwegians really that hard to understand by Danes and Swedes, though?
I'm still not sure what should I learn first - Dutch or a Scandinavian language (which would probably be Norwegian). Dutch will be much easier, that's sure, but it wouldn't be a problem to start with Norwegian. Which sequence I could benefit more from in your opinion?
About Icelandic: I didn't mean it's useless, it's just not as useful as other languages I mentioned. I still would like to learn it one day - how difficult would it be after achieving basic fluency in another Scandinavian language? Would one of these languages be better than the other ones?
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| Tyr Senior Member Sweden Joined 5782 days ago 316 posts - 384 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Swedish
| Message 10 of 12 15 April 2009 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
NuclearGorilla wrote:
Dutch would be easier, as it like English and German is a West Germanic language, whereas the Scandinavian languages are North Germanic. Dutch at least seems like it'd be really easy, in any case (you could probably learn to understand it rather quickly).
Any of the Scandinavian languages would bring you close to the others (well, I'm meaning the three "common" ones). None of them seem all that complex grammatically.
Note that I've never studied any of these for a long period of time (and indeed, only Swedish at all), so these are mostly impressions. I'd say the differences are small enough to just pick the one you like best. Surely there should be adequate materials for all these languages.
You haven't ruled out Gothic, which would give you an East Germanic language. But if you thought Icelandic was useless...
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Does Gothic even exist?
I thought it was not just extinct but almost totally lost.
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| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6786 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French
| Message 11 of 12 16 April 2009 at 2:44am | IP Logged |
Tyr wrote:
Does Gothic even exist?
I thought it was not just extinct but almost totally lost. |
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There isn't a lot; to my recollection, just Wulfilas' partial translation of the New Testament and some scraps. It's not enough to fully reconstruct the language, but it's a pretty good amount and therefore there exist a number of good resources. As far as I'm aware, there's no good reason to learn it outside of a context of historical linguistics, and within the field, probably only if you're doing Germanic linguistics (where it is however, quite valuable). Although I'm considering it would be fun to try to craft the knowledge of Gothic (and relevant information from proto-Germanic) into a fully viable language for modern use.
As further response to the main discussion: I don't think there will be any significant gain to be applied from learning Dutch to a Scandinavian language, or t'other way 'round. Icelandic will probably still be relatively difficult even with knowledge of a Scandinavian language, as it retains a number of archaic features of Germanic. As for which Scandinavian language would help most with that, I cannot say (although I do doubt an appreciable difference). With again the caveat that these are my impressions based on anecdotes and study of Germanic historical linguistics.
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| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6903 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French
| Message 12 of 12 16 April 2009 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
Quote:
I don't think there will be any significant gain to be applied from learning Dutch to a Scandinavian language, or t'other way 'round. |
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That's exactly what I thought. I guess I'll just see what I'll feel like studying when I'll be adding the new language (i.e. in two - three months).
I'm still not 100% sure about Norwegian, though. I hate decisions :)
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