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Mysterious similarities Swedish/Dutch | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 1 of 27 13 November 2009 at 9:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Several times when I have been in the Netherlands or Belgium I have noticed that there are Dutch words that are COMPLETELY identical to Swedish words EVEN THOUGH the same word is called something completely different in German (and English).
Usually it is words that you see written, on signs around town. Fairly "mundane" words. I can't think of a good example right now because it was a while since I was last there. But perhaps someone else has noticed this too and can remember a good example? If the word was the same in German too, it wouldn't be very strange or intersting. But I am curious how these Dutch words made their way into the Swedish language without "passing" Germany... Or perhaps it's even the other way around - Swedish influence on the Dutch language... Does anybody know anything about this? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 2 of 27 13 November 2009 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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It has been said that at least part of Denmark spoke some kind West Germanic language, and that tribes from mainland Denmark were part of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of the east coast of Great Britain.
The name "Jutland" ("Jylland", "Jütland") is thought to originate with the Jutes, who were part of the Anglo-Saxon invasion. Why did they invade Great Britain? Some suggest it was because they were starting to get raided by Danes from what is now Sweden (or possibly the modern Danish archipelago). A program recently on BBC about the genetic origins of the UK population said that the genetic markers for Denmark are not actually heavily affected by Scandinavian influx, and that the Danes are effectively a Low Germanic people, even though their language is clearly descended from Norse, so it's not unlikely that a few words from the "old tongue" stuck within the populace (English is peppered with Celtic words from the populace used from before the invasion; the vocabulary of Spanish is mainly Latin in derivation, but there are a number of Celtic, Basque of Iberian words that existed in the peninsula prior to the Roman occupation). These could have then fed into wider Scandinavian society through the various allegiances, kingdoms, border shifts etc etc etc. That said, it's wrong to think of New High German as being "central" in any way. It is a modern language and it will have gone through as many changes as any other language. The split between the High and Low branches is generally placed in the middle of the first millenium AD and the split between West and North no earlier than 500 BC, so there's a difference of about 1500 years between Dutch and High German and no more than 2500 years between either High German or Dutch and Swedish. Besides, isn't it generally accepted that the Germanic tribes started in the north (Scandinavia) and moved southwards? That would put High German and Upper Germanic (Alemannic and Austro-Bavarian) dialects as the frontier languages and most likely to have suffered change. There really is no reason to be too surprised at any similarities between any pair or Germanic languages that don't occur in others. Edited by Cainntear on 13 November 2009 at 10:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6272 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 3 of 27 14 November 2009 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Dutch may have been carried to Scandinavia by sailors, and closely related Low German was once widespread in the Baltic as a lingua franca. Perhaps these explain similarities.
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 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6894 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 27 14 November 2009 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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As far as I understand the key is in the old Low German that influenced Dutch and the Scandinavian languages alike. Then High German, Dutch and the Scandinavian languages each evolved in different directions.
If you compare between Scandinavian and some of the German dialects, you will make similar discoveries about everyday vocabulary they have in common, where High German has other newer words. Edited by Hencke on 15 November 2009 at 1:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6703 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 5 of 27 16 November 2009 at 2:14am | IP Logged | ||
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It is commonly accepted that Jutish and Saxonian warriors under the direction of Hengest and Horse went to England, summoned by local rulers, and that they then turned against the local rulers and imposed their own Germanic culture and language on the population which had hitherto been Celtic with traces of Roman culture. According to the venerable Bede (672 or 673–735) the Jutes were an independent tribe in Jutland, though some later historians have without any real reason tried to identify them with a Saxon subtribe, the Eucii or Euthiones.
Besides Jordanes has some remarks that might indicate that Danes from Sweden (!) conquered an older tribe called the Herules on Zeeland and Scania, but this is not confirmed by other sources. What is sure is that the 'Danes' at first didn't comprise the Jutish tribes. Denmark was only firmly established as a unity in the 900s. The Swedes had in the 'dark centuries' a similar division between the 'Western Goths' from Väster Götaland and the tribes centered around Stockholm and Birka. Back then Scania, Halland and Blekinge did not belong to Sweden. But these things happened around 4-500, and they have no relevance for the influx of Low German words, which with certainty is attested to a much later period, namely the period following the Viking Age up to around 1500. During this period the trade corporation called the Hansa was very prominent in Nordic politics, and Low German was in fact spoken at the Danish court well into the 1600s (Christian IV mostly spoke Low German). After the demise of the Hansa the Netherlands had their heyday, and especially in trade and shipping, but also in the handicrafts there are many Dutch words in Danish from this period - and presumably also in Swedish (but I know less about these specialist corners of the Swedish language than about the Danish ones). You would expect the influence of both Low German and Dutch to be somewhat less important in Swedish because of the geography (in the relevant period Sweden didn't yet posses the most Southerly part of the country), but it is certainly there. So the answer to the question of Cordelia ("I am curious how these Dutch words made their way into the Swedish language without "passing" Germany") must be that High German was not yet spoken in those parts of Germany that where relevant for the Nordic countries, and that the strong maritime traditions of the Nordic countries made influence from the Dutch very relevant in the 1600s when the Hansa had lost its power. There is only a noteworthy influence from High German in the 1700s and 1800s, but even then with a lot of French competition. Modern (High) German is obviously a contemporary language which has changed a lot since the Niebelungenlied and the time of the Minnesänger - but it is a curious fact that its morphology has been remarkably conservative - it has a highly vigorous subjunctive (called Konjunktiv) and four nominal cases where most other Germanic languages have dropped anything but the genitive (apart from a few fixed expressions). The accusative has only survived as part of a common 'oblique' case in the pronominal tables of these languages. This High German conservatism had some limited influence on Danish formal writing in the 1800s - and probably also on Swedish - but not nearly at the level of Low German some 4-500 years before. Edited by Iversen on 23 November 2009 at 9:38pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| JW Hexaglot Senior Member United States youtube.com/user/egw Joined 6122 days ago 1802 posts - 2011 votes 22 sounds Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Ancient Greek, French, Biblical Hebrew Studies: Luxembourgish, Dutch, Greek, Italian | Message 6 of 27 16 November 2009 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||
Avfall (SE) = Afval (NL) = Abfall (DE) = Garbage, Waste, Rubbish Although this doesn't exactly fit your pattern since the German word is not completely different and there is an English cognate: Offal. I would be interested in examples that fit your pattern exactly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6011 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 7 of 27 16 November 2009 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I keep meaning to go to the library and read up on the Hansiatic League. It's sad how little European history is taught in most countries. The rule seems to be that if my king wasn't involved and Rome wasn't involved, it's not important....
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5838 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 8 of 27 16 November 2009 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for all the responses.
I realise that I must give some examples for anybody to be able to comment in depth. I had hoped that some other Swede or Dutch person had noticed this too. Usually the word appears in the middle of a sentence that may or may not be "decipherable" to me with the help of my German skills. Avfall (SE) = Afval (NL) = Abfall (DE) = Garbage, Waste, Rubbish Yeah, these types of words are a dime a dozen... I meant words that are spelled in the exact same way and which don't appear in German at all.. Next time I go to NL I will write down these words if I see them. I find this really sweet for some reason and I'd love to find out how it happened. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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