What Is The Language Of Sweden And Norway?

Scandinavian Countries:

Scandinavia is a region in Northern Europe. There are three countries in the region: Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. The three countries share strong historical and cultural ties. They also have similar social systems. They are the happiest countries in the world. The citizens of Sweden, Denmark, and Norway enjoy civil liberties, high per capita income, and high quality of life. The countries also rank highly on the Human Development Index. The similarities, however, doesn’t just end there. The Scandinavian languages form a dialect continuum and are mutually intelligible. This means that a native speaker of Swedish can understand a Norwegian and vice versa.

There are a lot of misconceptions about Scandinavian countries. The Noric region adds to people’s confusion. Many assume that Iceland, Greenland, Finland, and the Faroe Islands are also a part of Scandinavia. They think that Finnish, Icelandic, Faroese are also mutually intelligible with Swedish, Norwegian, and Denmark. But that’s not true. The Nordic countries also share a lot of similarities but it is the Scandinavian languages that are mutually intelligible.

Swedish vs. Norwegian:

So, if the three North Germanic languages spoken in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark are mutually intelligible, what makes them different from each other? There are a lot of ways in which Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian have maintained their uniqueness throughout the years. Despite being closely related, the vernaculars have not become one. They have also maintained their differences from other languages of the region like Finnish and Faroese despite the fact that all Nordic languages descended from Old Norse.

A Swedish vs. Norwegian comparison can explain the differences between the two to outsiders. Here’s how the two languages differ from each other:

1. Norwegian and Swedish may sound the same on many occasions, but the written words differ from each other. In comparison, Norwegian and Danish are almost identical when it comes to vocabulary.
2. The two languages have a few false friends. These are words that exist in both languages but have different meanings. Such words can often be confusing during a conversation between a Swede and a Norwegian.
3. There are numerous Norwegian dialects and they are all very unique. The greater the distance between two regions, the more different their dialects will be. The Swedes also speak plenty of different dialects but they are not as different from each other as the Norwegian dialects.
4. The speakers of Norwegian are the best at understanding Swedes and Danes. But Swedish speakers often have difficulty understanding the Danish language.

Are the three neighboring languages becoming strangers?

Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Faroese, and Icelandic are all spoken in the Nordic region and have the same ancestor. However, they are not very similar. Out of them, the official language of Norway along with Danish and Swedish belong to a group of mutually intelligible vernaculars. But with time, every national language undergoes change. Some become simpler, while others get influenced by a foreign language and become unique.

Over the years, the three vernaculars of Scandinavia have developed many differences. This is making people wonder whether the languages are slowly becoming stranger. It is true that the degree of mutual intelligibility between the three has decreased in the past century, but that doesn’t mean that they are about to become completely different from each other.

Whether it is a minority language that affects the vocabulary of people or a foreign language, no one can deny that vernaculars change frequently. Due to a large number of immigrants coming over to Sweden, the immigrant languages have affected Swedish greatly. However, the three neighboring Scandinavian vernaculars are not going to become strangers any time soon because they share a lot of similarities.