Harleigh Kyson Jr.

The North Germanic or Scandinavian languages include Faroese, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, which is divided into bokml and Nynorsk. Faroese and Icelandic have evolved in relative isolation, because of the island location of ...

The North Germanic or Scandinavian languages include Faroese, Icelandic, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, which is divided into bokml and Nynorsk. Faroese and Icelandic have evolved in relative isolation, because of the island location of their inhabitants. But Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, until recently, were so mutually comprehensible that they seemed to be only three varieties of a single European Scandinavian language. The last decades of the 20th century saw a growing dissimilarity between Danish and the other two European Scandinavian languages. Norwegians, Swedes and Danes still understand one another, however, though the Norwegians and Swedes can understand Danish only with great difficulty. A similar situation arose in the 1990's in the Balkans, when Serbian and Croatian began to develop significant differences. Still, even though Danish and Norwegian sound quite different, in terms of grammar and vocabulary they are more similar than the dialects of southern Germany. Translations of It was a moist, gray, summer day in late June will help illustrate the differences between English and the other Germanic languages: Icelandic: a var rakur, grr sumardagur lok jn. Faroese: Ta var ein rakur/fuktigur, grur summardagur sst juni. Danish: Det var en fugtig, gr sommerdag i slutningen af juni. Norwegian (Bokml): Det var en fuktig, gr sommerdag i slutten av juni. Norwegian (Nynorsk): Det var ein fuktig, gr sumardag/sommardag i slutten/enden av juni. Swedish: Det var en fuktig gr sommardag i slutet av Juni.