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Easiest Scandinavian language? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6702 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 65 of 74 31 October 2013 at 10:53am | IP Logged | ||
I would say that they both are completely transparent and equally pleasant, but Swedish feels slightly more like a foreign language to me. Maybe it should be added that I have heard much harder dialects from both areas before so it should be possible to find examples where even I have trouble. When we listen to other Scandinavian languages in my family the level of comprehensibility also seems to be slightly higher for Norwegian - to the extent that my sister mostly refuse to listen to Swedish. However the real scare of the Swedish link wasn't the language, but the content. I have only visited Skånes Djurpark once, but if it really has such a bad economy that it might close overnight then maybe I should plan a trip to Höör to see it while it still is open. If their homepage is to be trusted I still have time to hurry to Sweden. Edited by Iversen on 31 October 2013 at 11:04am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 66 of 74 01 November 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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A funny find:
'' Finn-Erik Vinje has caused an escalation in what is promising to become an all out language war, by publishing a post on his blog last week asking, "Why are Swedes so stupid?". The citation, Vinje writes, is taken from a publication written 60 years ago but, he claims, remains a relevant question today. The basis of Vinje's assertion is that Swedish viewers of Himmelblå, a Norwegian television series based on the British production "Two Thousand Acres of Sky", have complained that the language is too difficult to understand and would prefer to see a series in Swedish, with Swedish actors, in a Swedish setting. Vinje reacts to a review of the series in the Expressen newspaper in which Norwegian is described as an "incomprehensible and ugly language". "Line Verndal in the female lead can look as much like (the Swedish actress) Lena Endre as she likes. But she is still speaking that strange double Dutch," Expressen's Nils Schwarts writes. The retired linguistics professor argues in response that Norwegians have no trouble understanding spoken Swedish. "Swedish is child's play for us - in its spoken form anyway. When we have contact with Swedes and realize that they don't understand we simply shift to using the equivalent Swedish word." http://www.thelocal.se/20090810/21208 Røverspråk Expressens Nils Schwarts formulerte seg slik i sin omtale av «Himmelblå»: «Det hjelper nok dessverre ikke - svenske tv-seere vil se svenske skuespillere i svenske miljøer - og da kan Line Verndal i den kvinnelige hovedrollen ligne Lene Endre så mye hun vil. Hun snakker fortsatt det der fremmede røverspråket.» http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/08/07/kultur/tv/tv_og_medier/sp rak/blogging/7554374/ --- Himmelblå is being shown on Croatian TV at the moment, I find it interesting, but I don't benefit a lot from watching it (since I'm not familiar with the Nordland/Lofoten dialect[s]). I like the ''tonefall'' but the pronunciation is not very clear. It would be easier to understand if they had shot it in Finnmark (the local dialects there are closer to Bokmaal). Edited by Medulin on 02 November 2013 at 12:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 67 of 74 02 November 2013 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Translating "røverspråk" with "double Dutch" sounds really strange to me. Røverspråk is what readers of
Astrid Lindgren's Mesterdetektiven Kalle Blomquist use when they do not want others to understand. It is a language where you take your native language (in the book Swedish) as a starting point, and then double every consonant and insert an "o" in between. Solfrid becomes Sosololfofroridod for instance, Marit becomes Momaroritot, Silje becomes Sosiloljoje. I used it with my daughter just a couple of months ago, when we were in the presence of a foreigner who understood Norwegian pretty well, and we needed to communicate without him understanding us. Norwegian he could do - Røverspråk not. It doesn't work quite as well in English because of the quirky spelling, but it would work quite well in Spanish. Eroresos unon totonontoto. (Eres un tonto) :-) Every Scandinavian who knows his Swedish children's literature knows this language. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 02 November 2013 at 12:36am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4771 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish | Message 68 of 74 02 November 2013 at 7:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Double Dutch can also refer to a language game (or several of them) sort of similar to what you described, but that seems like a less commonly used meaning of that term. Edited by vonPeterhof on 02 November 2013 at 7:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 69 of 74 02 November 2013 at 8:06am | IP Logged | ||
Thank you, I did not realise! I had only heard Double Dutch used in the sense of "foreign incomprehensible language". Much like we would say "This is Greek to me" in Norwegian. Then the translation makes perfect sense :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 70 of 74 02 November 2013 at 5:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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The differences between Bokmål and standard Danish can be compared to the ones between Brazilian Portuguese and Continental Portuguese. In the written part, they share more than 95% of similarities.
The only difference is the pronunciation. Many Norwegians have problems with spoken Danish, just like many Brazilians have problems with spoken Portuguese of Portugal (that's why many Portuguese movies are subtitled in Brazil, and the only 3 Portuguese soap operas exported to Brazil had to be dubbed into Brazilian Portuguese prior to being shown on Brazilian TV because they had failed the comprehension test with the limited audience). So, Norwegians shouldn't be too upset when people say: Bokmål is Danish. ;) Just like the Danish exported their language to Norway, Portuguese exported their language to Brazil. After the overseas population finally embraced the ''foreign'' language, the original language changed its phonology (drastic changes affecting pronunciation of Danish and Continental Portuguese are a recent phenomenon, of 100-150 years). Which is the easiest Scandinavian language? 1) we would need opinion of non-Scandinavian people who have learned all three of them to the advanced level OR 2) we would need some official statistics on non-Scandinavian people taking advanced language tests like Bergenstesten or TISUS. The reactions so far: 1) Danish --- people tend to find it difficult 2) Swedish --- people tend to find it nor difficult nor easy (without going to extremes) 3) Norwegian --- 50% of people find it very easy, 50 % of people find it very difficult (because of two writing languages, each with two subnorms, a right-wing one anda left-wing one, with almost every third word being able to be used in 3 or more different orthographic or morphologic ways...plus [too] many dialects and native speakers pride of using them even in formal situations and even with foreigners). (so when in the case of Norwegian we get ''extreme reactions''). I just checked Nordnytt on SVT and the variety used is Standard Swedish with a Northern accent (basically just a different speech melody). On Nordnytt on NRK the variety used are Northern dialects of Norwegian (so you get a lot of morphology and word differences and not just a different vowel here and there or a different pitch accent). It is even difficult for the native speakers. In Central Norway, Nordland and Troms, the local dialects are neither close to Bokmaal nor to Nynorsk. So, children there have to learn two different language codes which are both dissimilar to their native dialect. Edited by Medulin on 02 November 2013 at 6:04pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Halfdan Newbie Canada Joined 4183 days ago 13 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Danish, Mandarin, French | Message 71 of 74 04 November 2013 at 6:07am | IP Logged | ||
Okay, but wouldn't their opinion on which language is more difficult change based on which one they learn first? If, say, they learn Swedish first, then Norwegian, isn't it safe to say that they would find Norwegian to be easier because of their advanced knowledge of Swedish? (They essentially have a headstart) So their opinion would effectively be rendered invalid because they have no way of knowing what it would be like to learn Norwegian without their prior knowledge of Swedish. Edited by Halfdan on 04 November 2013 at 6:09am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4667 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 72 of 74 11 November 2013 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||
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An interesting article:
http://www.uniforum.uio.no/nyheter/2005/03/nynorsk-noe-for-s vensker.html '' Men svensk har da også ord som synes ubegripelige for oss nordmenn. Hva med denne setningen: "Hembiträdet dåsade i fåtöljen på vinden." Oversetter vi til dansk, blir det straks forståelig: "Hushjælpen døsede i lænestolen på loftet." Det er ikke tvil om at kongelig fellesskap med danskene gjennom århundrer har satt sine spor. - Norske skoleelever oppfatter svensk og nynorsk som ganske likt og bruker ofte svenske ord i sine nynorske stiler. Svenskene selv har en forestilling om at nynorsk er komplett uforståelig. Men det er nok skoleelevene som har mest rett. På svensk er det blant annet uhyggelig mange ord som ender på a, akkurat som i nynorsk, påpekte han. Torp har gjort noen sammenlikninger av vanlige svenske substantiver med tilsvarende på bokmål og nynorsk. - Åtgjerd (bokmål: 'forholdsregel') vil vel mange tenke er et sært nynorsk ord. Men på svensk skrives det ganske likt: åtgärd, og uttalen er helt lik. Andre eksempler på svenske ord som har sine nynorskliknende motsvar: början-byrjing, ljus-ljos, huvud-hovud, hamn-hamn, vecka-veke, skådespelare-skodespelar og vatten-vatn. - Men det er selvfølgelig også mange tilfeller der svenske substantiver er mer lik bokmål, som for eksempel säkerhet-sikkerhet (tryggleik) og verklighet-virkelighet (røyndom), framholdt Torp, og viste til en undersøkelse som slår fast at svenskene faktisk forstår nynorsk noe bedre enn bokmål. - Men da visste de riktignok ikke at det var nynorsk de leste! Det er rett og slett en svensk fordom at nynorsk er ubegripelig. '' 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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