Languages (was Re: [Sca-cooks] globetrotting)

[Nanna Rognvaldardottir]

Stefan asked:
>
> Most of these are similar, aren't they? Or maybe there is more
> differance between the Scandanvian languages and German than say
> between the Dutch and the Spanish or Dutch and Hungarian.

Depends on your definition of similar, I guess. Norwegians, Danes and Swedes
understand each other fairly easily and an Icelander who has studied Danish
can usually read Norwegian and Swedish too. But the Danes, Norwegians and
Swedes are usually fairly clueless when confronted with Icelandic or
Faroese.

The Scandinavian languages belong to the German group of languages, as do
modern German, English, Dutch and Afrikaans. Icelandic is about as much
related to German as it is to English but English is much easier to learn
because the grammar is so simple. Dutch, to me, looks like a mixture of
German and English with some strange sounds and letter combinations thrown
in (with apologies to any Dutch speakers here). Hungarian, BTW, is totally
unrelated to any other European language except Finnish and Estonian.

> What are the roots of Faroese? Is it a combination of a Norse
> language and perhaps Scots Gaelic?

Faroese is a direct descentant of Old Norse that has changed a bit more than
Icelandic but most of the influences have been Danish - the islands are
still under Danish rule, although they may gain independence when they
manage to decide if they really want it. There are no discernible Gaelic
influences, as far as I know. Icelanders usually find the Faroese language
hilarious, as it looks like a distorted version of Icelandic; the Faroese
think the same about Icelandic. And even if you think you understand every
word, there are many pitfalls - for example, the word "epli" is used in both
languages but in Icelandic it means "apple", in Faroese it means "potato".

Nanna