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Amazingly, up here north of Germany, in the tiny land of Denmark, Danish dialects manges to be mutually incomprehensible. Or at least they did, up until about a

Amazingly, up here north of Germany, in the tiny land of Denmark, Danish dialects manges to be mutually incomprehensible. Or at least they did, up until about a generation ago. Going to the northenmost or westernmost regions, I find no shortage of people I simply do not understand. On the other hand, a lot of Norwegian - officially a different language - appears to me like a distinct, but unproblematic dialect. Interestingly, in this small, flat, homogenous country, linguistic faultlines can still be persistent and razor sharp, clearly reflecting population boundaries from way, way back - the viking age and earlier. Travel some thirty kilometers between some neighbouring major towns, and hear the tone of spoken language change abruptly about midway.

jacobush 9y ago
This IS interesting. Some thoughts: Norway was ruled from Denmark, so the danish ruling class in Norway probably spoke a similar dialect to yours. (See bokmål, basically danish style Norwegian.) Norway has dialects VERY different from each other - these were used as stock for an attempt at standardization of non-danish-inspired language, which they call "nynorsk". Which is confusing, because it's basically a mix of OLDER norse dialects. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Aasen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Aasen In Norway, the very distinct local dialects makes sense, because people were separated by high mountain ridges. (The same story goes for Greek dialects, but I digress.) So it IS indeed interesting that Denmark, which is very flat, still has these sharp boundaries. :)
- interfixus 9y ago
  Everything you said. And yes, obviously I'm thinking primarily of Norwegian bokmål. Although I do comprehend at least som spoken fjeldnorsk. Having had a Faroese girlfriend, and some exposure to Icelandic does help :) Rhythm and intonation of spoken Danish shifts markedly down towards the southern islands. No difficulty of compehension whatsoever, but it's clearly a dialectal belt with a history quite different from neighbouring parts of Sjælland (or "Zealand"). I'd love to see a genetic mapping of the local communities. I'm almost certain that lots of corresponding patterns would turn up.

jacobush 9y ago

This IS interesting. Some thoughts: Norway was ruled from Denmark, so the danish ruling class in Norway probably spoke a similar dialect to yours. (See bokmål, basically danish style Norwegian.) Norway has dialects VERY different from each other - these were used as stock for an attempt at standardization of non-danish-inspired language, which they call "nynorsk". Which is confusing, because it's basically a mix of OLDER norse dialects. :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Aasen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivar_Aasen In Norway, the very distinct local dialects makes sense, because people were separated by high mountain ridges. (The same story goes for Greek dialects, but I digress.) So it IS indeed interesting that Denmark, which is very flat, still has these sharp boundaries. :)

interfixus 9y ago
Everything you said. And yes, obviously I'm thinking primarily of Norwegian bokmål. Although I do comprehend at least som spoken fjeldnorsk. Having had a Faroese girlfriend, and some exposure to Icelandic does help :) Rhythm and intonation of spoken Danish shifts markedly down towards the southern islands. No difficulty of compehension whatsoever, but it's clearly a dialectal belt with a history quite different from neighbouring parts of Sjælland (or "Zealand"). I'd love to see a genetic mapping of the local communities. I'm almost certain that lots of corresponding patterns would turn up.