Mutually intelligible languages

A pair of languages is said to be mutually intelligible if speakers of one language can readily understand the other language. A group of languages is said to be mutually intelligible if all the language-pairs in the group are mutually intelligible. According to some definitions, if two speakers are sufficiently mutually intelligible, they are actually speaking the same language. Sometimes different speakers of what is considered the same language are not mutually intelligible. For more on this, see Dialect and Dialect continuum.

It usually requires considerable time and effort to learn or understand a new language. However, many languages are similar in their grammar and vocabulary to other related languages. Speakers of these languages find it relatively easy to read or to understand the related language or languages. However, the intelligibility among languages can vary from individuals, according to their knowledge of their own tongue, their interests in other cultures, their broadmindedness and other factors. On a broader level, this can lead to asymmetries in mutual intelligibility between languages; for example, Spanish speakers often claim to have more trouble understanding Portuguese speakers than vice versa.

Table of contents

1 List of mutually intelligible languages 1..1 Written and spoken forms 1..2 Spoken forms only 1..3 Written forms only 2 Related languages that are not mutually intelligible 3 List of mutually intelligible languages in ancient times

List of mutually intelligible languages

Written and spoken forms

• Afrikaans, Dutch-Flemish, Frisian and Low Saxon.
• Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian
• Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia
• Belarusian and Russian are mutually intellible.
• Urkranian is 'in between' or to some degree mutually intelligible with both Russian and with Polish.
• Bulgarian and Macedonian
• Catalan, Occitan,self-defined as separate languages only since 1934, and Friulian
• Cornish, Breton, and Welsh
• Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian
• Danish, Norwegian (Eastern dialects / bokmål only), and Swedish.
• English and Lowland Scots
• French, Walloon, Romansh, and Occitan
• French and its Norman-descended cousins the Channel Island languages of Sercquiais (Sarkese), Dgèrnésiais, and Jèrriais
• German and Yiddish
• Italian and Sicilian (Sicilian is not officially recognized as a separate language from Italian)
• Occitan and northern Italian dialects
• Portuguese, Galician to a large degree with Spanish.
• Portuguese and Galician self-defined as separate languages. Portuguese evolved out of Galician(Gallego).
• Portuguese, Spanish, Italian are to some degree mutually intelligible.
• Punjabi, Seraiki, and Hindko.
• Romanian and Moldovan, which are actually the same language differentiated due to political reasons.
• Romanian and Aromanian (not always mutually intelligible)
• Samoan and Tongan
• Sardinian and Italian
• Scottish Gaelic and Irish
• Slovak, Czech, and Polish
• Thai and Laotian
• Turkish and Azeri
• Zulu and Xhosa

Spoken forms only

• Spoken Hindi and spoken Urdu see Hindustani language
• Spoken Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Slovenian. see Serbo-Croatian language
• Spoken Uzbek and Uyghur

Written forms only

• Written Mandarin and written Cantonese (but not if the vernacular is written).
• Written Chinese can be read to a limited degree by many Japanese and vice-versa.
• Icelanders can read Old Norse with little difficulty.
• Modern Greeks can read Classical Greek with little difficulty.

Related languages that are not mutually intelligible

• English and Low German including Dutch
• Levantine Arabic and Maghreb Arabic
• Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes have difficulty understanding Icelandic
• Spoken Mandarin and Spoken Cantonese
• Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia speakers can not understand Tagalog.
• Romance languages:
  • French is not mutually intelligible with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Romanian.
  • Romanian is not mutually intelligible with Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or French.
• Many Germanic languages, though related, are generally not mutually intelligible.
• Slavic languages, though related, are generally not mutually intelligible.
  • Russian and Polish are not mutually intelligible but Ukranian is m.i. to some degree to both.
• Finnish and Estonian

List of mutually intelligible languages in ancient times

• Biblical Hebrew, Moabite, and Phoenician
• The Germanic languages in antiquity and early Middle Ages, e.g. Old Norse, Old English, Old Saxon, Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic.

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