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> Famously Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are mutually intelligible[0], yet this does not create equal understanding between all parties. Norwegians fair the be

> Famously Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish are mutually intelligible[0], yet this does not create equal understanding between all parties. Norwegians fair the best while Swedes are out of luck. Except that they aren't mutually intelligible. See what a Dane thinks: https://satwcomic.com/cold-reality-shower https://satwcomic.com/cold-reality-shower > From the very beginning when I started making this comic Swedes and Norwegians have been telling me jokes about how weird Danish is, and how it's so weird not even Danes understand it so they have to speak Swedish or Norwegian to communicate. The Norwegian and Swedish languages are a lot closer to each other, so I can see where the joke comes from. > That's all well and good and I laughed along, until I started meeting a lot of Swedes and Norwegians at conventions and realized a lot of them honest to god think that Danes understand Norwegian and Swedish Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible (or if they aren't there's enough interaction that difficulties don't arise). Danish isn't mutually intelligible with either. Written Danish and written Norwegian are mutually intelligible, because they have conservative orthography. But the languages have diverged.

godelski 1y ago
From the wiki I linked > Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages can read each other's languages without great difficulty. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. > In general, Danish and Norwegian speakers will be able to understand the other's language ***after only a little instruction or exposure*** Emphasis my own. The wiki goes on to discuss large variations and regional issues that can make understanding even harder. The claim is not that they understand one another in a zero-shot setting, but they do need exposure and training. They are different languages. Mutually intelligible is a spectrum, not a binary thing (as would be requisite from the original comment).

godelski 1y ago

From the wiki I linked > Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages can read each other's languages without great difficulty. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. > In general, Danish and Norwegian speakers will be able to understand the other's language ***after only a little instruction or exposure*** Emphasis my own. The wiki goes on to discuss large variations and regional issues that can make understanding even harder. The claim is not that they understand one another in a zero-shot setting, but they do need exposure and training. They are different languages. Mutually intelligible is a spectrum, not a binary thing (as would be requisite from the original comment).