North Germanic language
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The North Germanic languages (also Scandinavian languages or Nordic languages) is a branch of the Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the Faroe Islands and Iceland.
There are two main branches, West Scandinavian and East Scandinavian. The eastern branch is heavily influenced by especially Low German and consists of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish along with their various dialects and varieties. The western branch includes Faroese, Icelandic and Neo-Norwegian. There is another way of classifying the languages that focuses more on mutual comprehension than historical development that classifies Norwegian with Danish and Swedish as Continental Scandinavian and Faroese and Icelandic as Insular Scandinavian. Due to the long dominance of Danish in Norway, Bokmål/Riksmål (Standard Norwegian), the first written standard language in Norway and now the dominating official language, is considered Continental.
As a result, Danish and Norwegian may in reality be somewhat more similar to each other than either is to Swedish. Due to the long political union between Norway and Denmark, the Norwegian Bokmål/Riksmål shares much of the Danish vocabulary. In addition, due to Danish pronunciation, Swedes usually find it easier to understand Norwegian than Danish. One witticism about Norwegian that expresses the basic similarities and differences between the languages is that "Norwegian is Danish spoken in Swedish." The relationships between the three languages might be summarized by the following diagram:
+ phonology
Norwegian ----------------- Swedish
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- phonology
+ vocabulary
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Danish
The North Germanic languages are often cited as proof of Hubert Lyautey's aphorism "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." The differences in dialects within the countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are often greater than the differences across the borders, but the political independence of these countries leads continental Scandinavian to be classified into Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish in the popular mind. The creation of Nynorsk out of Insular dialects after Norway became independent of Denmark in 1814 was an attempt to make the linguistic divisions match the political ones.Family tree
All North Germanic languages are thought to be descended from Proto-Norse. Note that divisions between subfamilies of North Germanic are rarely precisely defined; most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and the most separated ones not.
- West Scandinavian
- East Scandinavian
- Standard-Norwegian¹ (in Norway)
- Danish
- Gutnish3 (Gotland, Sweden)
- Swedish
- Sveamål (in Svealand except Bergslagen)
- Bergslagsmål spoken (in Dalarna, Värmland and parts of Västmanland, in Sweden)
- Norrländska mål (in Norrland)
- Götamål (in Västergötland, Östergötland, Dalsland and Småland)
- Östsvenska mål
- Finland-Swedish3 (in some coastal areas of Finland)
- Sydsvenska mål, formerly East Danish², (southernmost part of the Scandinavian Peninsula, see: Scanian)
- Sveamål (in Svealand except Bergslagen)
- Beside the two official written norms of Norwegian, there exists two established unofficial norms: Riksmål, similar to, but more conservative (closer to Danish) than, Bokmål, which is used in different extent by a large number of people, especially in the cities; High-Norwegian (Høgnorsk), rather similar to Nynorsk, used by a very little minority.
- The classification of the Bornholm-dialect together with Scanian is based on phonology and undisputed. They could maybe more correctly be called South Scandinavian dialects, but that term is not used. It must be noted that Swedish influence on Scanian has been considerable since the conquest in 1658.
- The classification within Swedish is rather antiquated and arbitrary, and here mainly used to single out the most important of the clearly distinguisable varieties. New scientific work is in progress.
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