Are Swedish, Norwegian and Danish the SAME LANGUAGE? 

So, ironically, the reason why Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish are not one single language, is because they're too close to really need a common standard code, and the reason why Maghrebi and Levantine are not separate languages, is because they're too different not to need a common standard code. Shows how the concept of what is language is actually a pretty arbitrary idea

There is an informal verbal mix of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish. I think it's called "Skandinavisk" or Scandinavian

My impression is that that 3 written languages are very similar, but the pronunciation is different. Of the three languages, Norwegian seems to be the easiest for native English speakers to speak, while Danish is the most difficult. Icelandic is like the distant cousin of the 3 languages.

It is also the issue between Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian.

As a norwegian, yes, these are all the same language imo. In Norway we are especially good at adjusting our ears because of our many dialects, and because of that, we have an easy time reading danish and hearing swedish. It really just comes down to exposure. I remember this kid I met who grew up with one danish parent and one norwegian parent, and growing up, he thought that danish was just a dialect of norwegian, despite what people say that danish is so hard to understand. My parents understand swedish better than some western norwegian dialects because the only TV-channels for kids that they had while growing up, were swedish ones. If we only give more exposure to each other's lanugages more often, there would be no discussion about this, and the answer would be obvious: they are the same language. It really wouldn't be hard to unite them all into one single written form as these languages are very similar to the point where they could be percieved as different dialects of the same language.

I speak Swedish I can manage to read Norwegian and Danish but its almost impossible to speak Danish.

As a Norwegian coming from Oslo I can tell you that first time I heard Swedish I tough that was Bergenser 😂. But yeah the rule goes that we Norwegians understand 99% of spoken Swedish, 80% spoken Danish and the percentage just switch in the written form. There isn’t a single Norwegian language, you speak your dialect and it’s Norwegian as much as others, it’s normal for Danes or Swedish people to just speak their language in Norway even if they’ve been living here for 50 years it’s culturally normal for us, no others nations have been united and at war as much as we Scandinavians, happy that today we see each other as the brothers and sisters we are! (The Finns to of course, but we don’t understand anything except Perkele Satan)

👑🇩🇰🤝🇳🇴🤝🇸🇪🤝🇮🇸🤝🇫🇮👑

There was a thing about Moldovan being a separate language from Romanian, but luckily no one in Moldova actually agreed to it lol as there was no nationalist movement to be distinct from Romania, there was the opposite actually!

As a Norwegian, i can understand all of those languages but they are very different from each other. If you know one of those languages it’s very easy to learn the rest.

When we meet we talk each orhers language but adapt the words that is used with all three languages to understand each other.

Ja låt oss nu begynnde at tale eit fälles panskandinavisk språg, det är nok forskillnader mellom våre länder

on italian "dialects" continuum please

Modern Norse 🇳🇴🇩🇰🇸🇪

how dare you compare that demon sounding sausage stuck in throat ahh danish to our fine and clear sounding swedish and norwegian?!

Even as a non-native Swedish speaker who learned the language In adulthood, I would confidently venture to say these three barely qualify as different languages; for I understand nearly 100% of all of their written forms and can make out their spoken forms pretty well if the speakers talk slowly. The same analysis I would impute to different dialects in my native language.

I wish Slavic (or South Slavic, because I'm South Slavic) had this. Keep the different languages, now Dialects, but have a "standard universal form" similar to Arabic, so we can understand. I've been to the Western Balkans (I'm Bulgarian), and depending where I am, I could understand the different languages but not enough... like the languages are obviously similar, but I can't understand the stuff I don't because s different word is use... If there was a "Universal Standard Form", where we can switch to a "universal word" or way of saying something, life would be so much better!

It used to be same near the Dutch-German border and low German is closer to Dutch than it is to standard German which is based off high German.

If arabs were able to make up a standard lanfuage throughout the arabic world, I think. Scanfidavian would exist or even merge with dutch or even german

Yes of course :) dialects of Japan much more diverse that these languages.

Let's return to Norse

Dane here. In my opinion understanding and communicating with Swedes and Norwegians really comes down to exposure and the will and persistence to understand the other part. That and slowing down and speaking clearly (yes, spit out the "potato" I know :P). This was also easier back when TV was limited to Danish, Swedish, Norwegian (and German) channels. It was easier back then, to build up a "passive vocabulary" of differences you needed to be aware of as well as "tune in" to dialects. We were kind of forced to it. Now it's all English. On a side note, I have a really easy time with Bokmål. I sometimes initially mistake written Bokmål for Danish with spelling errors, but then it's understandably as it stems from an old Danish dialect.

Im danish and i can read Norwegian without any problems, its so similar to danish🔥 Swedish is a little bit harder for me but still understandable🇩🇰🇧🇻🇸🇪

I talk swedish, and Danish,Norwegian and swedish is not the same language 💀

I'm an American and when I visited Norway while growing up I thought my father's family in Oslo spoke a different language from my mother's family in Oppdal (south of Trondheim).

Swedish is different in orthography. Danish is different in pronunciation. Norwegian is different because it is less complex than the other two.

In Denmark there isn’t quite a standardized form of danish as in Norway and Sweden, what we call standard danish is just the language in the region of Copenhagen which got to main dialects called Højkøbenhavnsk (High Copenhagen) and Lavkøbenhavnsk (Low Copenhagen), these two dialects differ in pronunciation and vocabulary and both of them have a ton of sub dialects.

Norwegian here🙋‍♂️🇳🇴 let's merge guys 🇩🇰🇸🇪

The dialect map is a little off. The 14 should stretch all the way to the east coast

As an outsider with an interest in languages, my impression is that Swedes and Norwegians have far less difficulty speaking/understanding each other than both of them have with Danish, which, to my ear, sounds very very different, even if the written form does not. Yes? No? I have Swedish and Danish ancestry but no language skills there.

As a Swede and English speaker, the difference between Norwegian and Swedish is like the difference between standard British and a scottish accent. I can understand when a Scottish person speaks but I have to think a little extra when listening. The difference between Swedish and Danish is like standard English and a heavy Irish accent, idk what the hell they’re saying besides a few words here and there that I can piece together. Funnily enuf, there are Swedish dialects that I understand less of than Norwegian. A language is really just a dialect with a government and an army, I would like to see our governments get together and create a common language. We would still use different words, like the Danes call it “kartoffel” and we call it “potatis”, but I would like our spellings of common words to be the same and to try to being our languages closer together.

I as a norwegian understand easily swedish but danish is difficult

Sounds like why Indonesian ans Malaysia are not one single language

The dialect continuum is slowly disappearing. At least in Denmark young people are losing their dialects.

If the languages of Chongqing, Beijing, and Harbin all count as Mandarin, then Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish can be one language

Lol as a Norwegian, my mom is a Norwegian language teacher, I can say no we are very much three different languages. Sure it’s similar because they are related and historically always been close, but I know ton of Norwegians who doesn’t understand neither Swedish nor Danish, and either has to speak in English, or they just don’t converse all together. And even though the written form of Danish is the easiest to understand, the spoken version is for many the hardest. And because Swedish and Danish is so similar, it’s also confusing because even though we understand, they use either other words than we would use in that particular context or sentence, or they stock around with the order of which the words are put. And many words which are the same when written has completely different meaning in either languages… then again we are kinda lucky because besides English, we’re fluent in Swedish and Danish by default, but usually it’s either one or the other. This also stems down to something as simple as which one you like more, and many of us has relatives in either countries as well.

One day, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish Elfdalic, Danish, North Frisian, Old Norse and Proto Germanic will come together and form Actual Hodiern Norse. 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚

Let's do that then

Interesting, It really just depends on the exposure. I’m from Värmland bordering Norway and think Norwegian mostly is easier to understand than Skånska, the dialect in Southern Sweden close to Denmark. I speak the dialect Värmländska wich is close to Norwegian and many swedes agree that värmländska is almost a mix of Swedish and Norwegian.

As a Dane I speak both languages because it’s alike but up here we just call it Scandinavian

As a swede, no. What will be the standard Scandinavian then? Is it not better to have 3 different languages than to have on language and 3 very different dialects? I’d say that it’s much easier to preserve the already existing dialects if we don’t create more.

Im Norwegian and says swedish is weird Norwegian and danish Are Norwegian with a potato stuck in The throut😅

If mutual intelligibility is your definition of a language then norwegian isn't one language, its like five.

I agree, people should make Standard Scandinavian Languages

So no, not the same language. And yes, close enough. I do like clarity.

I am Danish, to me Swedish might as well be Sanskrit, but if I spend a couple of days in Norway, I pretty much speak Norwegian, the variant that is very similar to danish, whichever that is.

Yes they are. Some local elder languages might be their own languages, ex forrn gotllans language. Despite danes counts in 2*40/ounces they be way more similar than finnish vs estonian.

And then there's Finland...

The written forms are similar, but Bokmål is honestly a really bad way to write any Norwegian dialect. Tons of mute consonant and wrong vocal sounds which are really annoying to learn growing up. Something inbetween Nynorsk and Bokmål would probably be more accurate. Which is pretty different written than Swedish and Danish. Also Danish is not easy to understand for a Norwegian to be honest. It is not like a dialect. While traveling to Denmark I often just speak English. I have to really consentrate if I want to understand Danes. Swedish on the other hand I could almost call a dialect, except for all the different words and sentence structures. Making it seem easier than it really is. Would say they are different languages, but Norwegian writting is just a mess.

To all my danish bros: kamelåså.

They should do that so people learn their language more often

My half sister has a Swedish mom, a Danish dad and live in Norway.😊

I want to add that Swedish is not just one language. It's actually several languages. Hear me out before saying "nuh uuuh", as i most likely have a different qualifier for what makes a language different from the rest. First off, let's start with just how little Norwegian and Swedish actually differ from each other. Most of it is just how the word is spoken (and rarely a minute difference in how it's written) which might as well be deemed a different dialect. Yet, Swedish and Norwegian are still classified as different languages. Now, why is Sweden multi-lingual then? Each regional dialect has their own words for things. Scania has lots of mix words from both Danish and Swedish and a whole bunch of made up words of their own. So people from Scania speak a completely different language than the rest of Sweden, and while most Swedes joke that they speak Danish and should join Denmark, they really don't speak Danish at all. The Scania dialect also spans over a bit to the east, but over there it's somewhat different to regular Skåne (Scania) dialects. They don't employ the same words and they have more of a mix. Then we have the Götaland dialect (which itself is split into many subgroups) which also has their own words not used elsewhere. I classify this region as traditional Swedish, this is where the Swedes originally came from. (who were since long already distinct from the Danes) The different sub groups all have their own quirks and words and i could go and classify each of them as a new language if i wanted. But it's too subtle for me to venture that far. I will say though that Göteborska (Gothenburg) dialect is quite distinct and has a whole dictionary of their own with words ONLY used in and around Gothenburg. Then we have Svealand dialects, with their own distinct words. Their speech sounds much like the Götaland dialect except their have something up their nose, or at least that's what it sounds like when they speak. Pompous and posh too. This is generally called Rikssvenska (State-Swedish) but i disagree as the majority of Swedes still speak the Götaland dialect, despite the dense (pun intended) population living in Svealand. Then we have the Norrland dialect, again all with their distinct words and even quite unique way of forming sentences. And not to mention the mixing bowl all along the western border with Norway where there's several very local and each quite distinct dialects like Dalmål, Värmländska and Dalbo just to name a few. And finally, Gotländska is its own little inbred language spoken on Gotland. Inbred only because it's an island and so there's bound to be inbreeding. ;) Don't be upset, every island with a permanent population on it is inbred in my eyes. Do each of these dialects understand each other? Only if they adhere to strictly Swedish words and speak clearly. As soon as they start speaking their local dialect they could all be speaking a different language. And while not an official language/dialect in Sweden, we have been invaded by so many different nationalities that a whole new language has been developed called Förortssvenska (Suburb Swedish / Ghetto Swedish) and/or (not sure if they are the same or not, depends on region i suppose) Shobresvenska (Sho-Bre, Hi Bro) as spoken by most immigrants who simply haven't had enough exposure to the Swedish language to adopt it fully. Many native Swedes who have previously learned proper Swedish will regress into förortssvenska/shobresvenska because of a desire to look cool and/or to fit in where a majority of young people around them are immigrants. Ghetto culture is quite bad in most larger cities in Sweden as immigrants are shoveled into run down concrete jungles and left there to rot.

Coming from norway I understand a huge variety of norwegian dialects, also including the two standard languages "nynorsk" and "bokmål". Therefore i don't have a hard time understanding swedish or danish. Might take sometime to fully understand but I think after a couple months of living with a swedish/danish we would understand each other fully no problem.

It always baffles me how Europe can have so many different dialects and languages within a few hours drive from each other

I just started studying Norwegian over the last month or so, and I'm really amazed at the similarities I've encountered with Swedish, which I just barely "flirt-studied" several years ago.

We are just in Scandinavian and that means we understand our languages but its not the same :)

How do Icelandic and Faeroese fit into this continuum of Scandinavian languages?

Not the same languages, as a Swede I can understand Norwegian better than Danish but still there are different in grammar and words. It's like having the first and last letter the same but changing the letters in the middle. Ö becomes Ø and Ä becomes Æ. Reading both languages are OK but Danish are the odd one out, when they speak. They don't speak what they write🥔Norwegian (bokmål) is closest to Swedish in my opinion. (Nynorsk) is not close.

they aren’t the same (coming from someone with half of my family being swedish) they are similar though.

Was just thinking of this and as a Swede I say: yes. If Old Norse is regarded as 1 language with 3 main dialects, then modern Scandinavian surely is also 1 language with 3 main dialects (Icelandic being something in between due to the tiny exposure to other languages). It goes without saying that this is the case because they're so damn similar. I guess the constant brother wars and rise of separate and clearly distinguished kingdoms made the foundation for this idea of each dialect being it's own unique language. Hell, even the people here are basically the same with minor variations depending on which country you are in (only including ethnic Scandinavian people of course).

As a Swede i cant make out a single word out of Danish, norwegian is easier but still hard

I'm Swedish, lived most of my adult life in Norway, and have many Danish friends. Most Norwegians have watched a fair amount of Swedish TV and to a lesser extent Danish TV and can usually understand the other languages quite well. Danes and Swedes rarely watch anything from our neighbor countries. If Danes and Swedes were more like Norwegians, then we could probably all speak to one another without any great difficulty, instead of usually switching to English like most Danes and Swedes do when talking to one another.

Wow, you are a brave guy, Paul 😂

I looked up Norwegian, and this is what it said *_a sTAnDaRdiSED diALEcT oF dANiSH….._*

It is mostly Swedish that have picked up a lot and changed a lot of words. If you have a broad knowledge of old words Norwegian and Danish is easy to understand. (Except when danes skip all the consonants in a whole phrase) And the assumption that everyone spoke "old norse" back... in the day? is just absurd. There were even more dialects and even languages in the north of Europe 100 years ago.

Here’s the thing, Swedish people understand Norwegian, Norwegian people understand Danish, but Danish and Swedish people. Just no. But some people in “Skåne” understand Danish because “Skåne” is located very close to Denmark.

Long story short, no, they are not the same language. Just because I know Swedish does not mean I understand Norwegian verb inflections or Danish omission rules. The three languages vary wildly in pronunciation and vocabulary. When a Dane speaks, I often don't understand a fucking thing, and mind you, I have studied linguistics and have a pretty good ear for finding cognates. If you can't even understand 30% of what another person is saying, they are not speaking the same language, end of story.

Alright but remember to sleep and drink water

Basically yes, as are Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian/Montenegrin. The thing is that people just want to be seen too individualistic these days.

I’m from the Faroe Islands but I’ve been living in Sweden for 12 years now and I speak all 5 Scandinavian languages fluently (plus Finnish and Estonian). While Norwegians and Swedish are very similar, Danish is not always mutually intelligible. It is a different class and written and spoken Danish is very different

I do all three on duolingo but a part of that is because I have hyperlexia which makes it not so difficult.

As an American, I had a (fairly) embarrassing time at the airport when I tried to help a Danish woman by speaking in Swedish 😅

They’re different languages. They are mutually intelligible to a large extent, and it doesn’t take a lot of practice to basically understand everything, but speaking is an entirely different matter. They are till significantly different. There used to be a dialect continuum but not anymore as all three languages have undergone a standardization process. I don’t get your point about a constructed common Scandinavian language, yes if that existed it would be one language, but it doesn’t exist and it wouldn’t make the three existing languages the same language.

well its more of phonics and speed tha tcreate a barrier because you could have 'a norwegian phrase that looks the same in swedish written down, or similar but hwen said it may be much quicker or said differently

There is the problem of the potato in the throat however

what about turkic language? if it de-Arabic and de-russic can it be mutual between turkic speakers?

In the end, categories are simply human constructs to fit our human conveniences. For example, Standard Indonesian and Standard Malaysian Malay are objectively the same languages but with slightly different standardisations but they are categorised as different languages due to politics. Meanwhile, Cantonese, Fujianese etc. are completely different to Mandarin and have a completely different cultures and traditions behind them but they are called dialects of Chinese.

This video way undersells the lack of mutual intelligibility between spoken Swedish and Danish as well as spoken Norwegian and Danish (although less so). In writing I'd agree they're all mutually intelligible (though not without at least a little effort), but in speech, not so much. Specifically, spoken Danish is very hard for both Norwegians and Swedes. Overall, Norwegians and Swedes understand each other's speech (though the Norwegians tend to understand Swedish more than vice versa) but neither of them understand spoken Danish very well.

Excuse me (swedish) you are mental if you think I can understand a Danish without reflecting on every sentence. Man I know one Danish song and the only word I understand is whisky

As a person who is from the Swedish speaking parts of Finland I can say there’s a noticeable difference in how the language is spoken and there’s many different dialects. The most confusing one is Närpesiska, it should be it’s own language

Sometimes this is what happens, you might be actually speaking one language but because of political division, suddenly you know two or more languages, maybe not speak but understand. In my case, Malay and Indonesian since I'm Malaysian, while I can't speak Indonesian, I can understand quite a bit without learning it, more if I do learn it. In songs, they're almost identical in accent, we can only tell by the word choice. They're much closer than the so-called Chinese dialects are to each other.

Swedish is of course the best language and should be the standard.

You really think the Danes could get the 🥔 out of there mouths lomg enough to speak Standard Scandinavian

The thing is no one understands Danish people and it’s a common joke here in Sweden but it’s also true. But I also think Norway and Denmark has some form of joke about Swedish people too so it kinda sorts it self out😂

They have the same language and same flag damn

As a Dane i consider it all as the same language, with different dialects. I find some Danish dialects harder to understand, than typical Swedish or Norwegian.

Want to know something cool My friends speaks danish and Swedish and the funny thing is that we are a trio, but we can still understand what we’re saying because the languages are so similar

As a native danish speaker I would say that you are at least not correct when it comes to danish. All three countries can understand each other, but the geographical thing doesn’t really count when I can (and my peers) have it way easier when it comes to understanding relatively distant Norway as appose to Sweden which is a few kilometers away from us

as a Dane, Swedish is very difficult but I can read Norweigian for like a solid minute before realising its a different language

I think the languages are growing further apart....when i grew up people spoke to each other in Swedish and Danish now they switch to English.... So nobody colours their language for mutual intelligible

The fact the end result is "danish dialect" really gets on my nerves especially when Norway is the catalyst since Danes and Swedes can't exactly understand eachother but everyone can understand Norwegians... Why does Denmark get the credit?

We all come from a shared ancestor language Norse.

The way people explain this to me as a native English speaker is funny because it made me realise. If someone from the deep South of the United States met someone from the Scottish highlands they'd probably struggle to understand each other despite both being native English speakers.

Still Vikings to me lol

Note that Bokmål ("book language") and Nynorsk ("new Norwegian") are both written forms, not spoken. No one speaks Bokmål or Nynorsk, they speak Oslo dialect and Bergenser and Trønder and Romsdøling and Harstadværing and Finnsmarksdialect. There are also three other written forms, Riksmål ("state language"), Landsmål ("national language"), and Samnorsk ("common Norwegian") which are not official. Riksmål and Landsmål are both ultraconservative versions of Bokmål and Nynorsk, respectively, while Samnorsk is an attempt to combine the two standards into one. Bokmål is older than Nynorsk, and more widely written, with Nynorsk being used primarily in the western parts of southern Norway, the area called the Westland. (The other areas are the Eastland, the Southland, Middle Norway, Trøndelag, and Northern Norway. Northland is a county, not a region. The Eastland, the Westland, the Southland, and Middle Norway are all in southern Norway, in the "guitar body" part. Trøndelag is the "guitar neck", and Northern Norway is the "head".)

As a swede I can pretty easily understand norwegan but I can not understand a single word in danish

Thinking of our language uni 22 countries as standard language, also uni 7 countries as standard and slang language

They all understand each other....they just pretend not to. They also still slam on each other transgressions that happened in the 11th century and earlier which is really hilarious.

Norwegian you can understand, atleast from the Oslo region. But dansh is way different and you can understand maybe a few words but otherwise i dont understand a thing. Swedish and norweigian are most close to eachother. / a Swede