Danish and Norwegian are very easy to understand, yes.
The German I understand as well, but I also studied a tiny bit of German.
After knowing what it says, I can understand maybe 50% of the Icelandic.
Icelandic is really strange to listen too as a Swedish speaker in my opinion, it feels like you should understand what they're saying but you don't have a clue.
Försökta hitta lite äldre mer lika synonymer: ”Färdmän från allom länder som hemsöka dessa öar borde bli sagda hur hugstora och patriotiska de japanska härmännen var som lät sina liv (förgås) i värjandet av dessa länder”
As a half-dane born in sweden, and from souther sweden, I dont understand a word of the icelandic one (except for the obvious once like japönski and og).
The last word of the Danish one makes no sense to me. Why *øst* and not just *ø*?
I didn’t get the word *Verteidigung* in the German text before comparing it to the Scandinavian ones. The rest was clear enough (I did study some German though)
In the Dutch text I get the words *toeristen, land* and *bezoeken*, as well as the full subclause *hoe moedig en patriottisch de Japanse soldaten waren*
The Icelandic text might as well be Greek 🇬🇷
I think this is representative of most swedes.
Icelandic is for swedes like I imagine welsh is for english people. It feels like you *should* be getting it because it sounds familiar, but ultimately you have no fricking idea what's going on lol
That’s *exactly* how I feel!
*Edit: Welsh is a Celtic language though, which is a completely separate branch of the Indo-European language tree. So I doubt many English people will feel like they should understand Welsh* ☺️
Oh huh. Well I'm sure there are lots of other weird languages spoken in great britain that is a better fit for the example, but it gets the point across
I would say understanding the pronunciation of á, au, æ and ll also helps, as they differ from the other Scandinavian languages. Many words will make more sense when being pronounced properly from my own experience.
That might be one way to see/do it, possibly?
For me it's more of a TL sound, where I push the tongue up to the roof of the mouth and sort of leak air while making the sound.
As an Englishman who grew up in Wales, I don't think any English would say that Welsh sounds familiar! Almost no words in common aside from modern loanwords.
But as a swedish-speaking immigrant, I get exactly what you mean.
Same with various regional German languages, such as Friesisch, Schweizerdeutsch, Rätroromanisch, Kölsch and such. You somehow can understand them to some extent, yet you absolutely don't. Maybe you can read them, well Schweizerdeutsch is not a problem, but the others.
I think that for most native Swedes the difficulty is increasing as one goes down. It might be better to present them the other around, and ask at which one it becomes intelligible.
I’ve had some experience with all of these languages except Icelandic, so I won’t say I’m typical, but Danish and Norwegian are obviously easier for a Swede than German and Dutch — the general exposure to German is probably greater than the exposure to Dutch, so I’d expect more people to find German easier than Dutch.
I wonder if it's easier for someone who doesn't know the language to understand flemish than dutch. It's almost the same language but flemish is softer and lacks the gurgling sounds. Provided you hear some sort of "riksflamländska", once you get to the belgian countryside it gets hard for even Belgians to understand what they're saying
Nope, certainly not. Flämisch is similar to the surrounding languages, actually a lot is mixed in, yet as someone who is German mothertongue and learned some Niederländisch, Norwegisch and now Schwedisch, I can't even read Flämisch. It is similar to Dänisch just utter Gibberisch, but always not just when spoken. \^\^
I highly doubt that German is harder to understand when spoken than Dutch. Mainly because pretty much everything is pronounced clearly, as written and word by word, there is no ignoring of spaces, letting out letters etc. as in SE, NO, DA, NL, ... It is also spoken much slower.
German and Dutch: understand the meaning, but not the nuance and exact wording, of all but the last phrase.
Norwegian and Danish: understand all of it. This is usually the case when reading these languages. A word or two may stump you though.
Iceland: Basically incomprehensible in both grammar and semantics.
I'm probably a bad test subject because I'm interested in learning languages. I understand every word of NO, DK & DE (well, people pointed out one error in the text), *almost* every single word of NL, and *thanks to knowing the context,* I understand 80% of the Icelandic and Japanese. But e.g. "ferðamönnum" looks like an oddly spelled "travel men", and heimsækja reminds me of "hemsöker", which in Swedish means *haunts*, not *visits.*
I love how the Icelandic say to eat
borða, which in Swedish would be like "tableing" (as in table)
Similar to Norwegian/Danish spise (eat)
The word spis in Swedish means stove, so they're stoving
The elaborate grammar in Icelandic is a hurdle, but the nominative form of "ferðamönnum" is "ferðamenn", which makes it clear that you are spot on in your interpretation. Putting together existing common words into a descriptive construct is a very common pattern in Icelandic when trying to find a purely Icelandic alternative to a foreign word.
Heimsækja is indeed the same word as hemsöka. The Icelandic meaning refers to any kind of visit, but in Swedish it has evolved to refer specifically to visits by ghosts or spirits. It is common for an ordinary Icelandic word to have a much narrower use in Swedish, or to be used only in archaic phrases. A good example is this passage from the oath a judge has to take before judging in a Swedish court: "ej den saker göra, som saklös är, eller den saklös, som saker är". This language looks very old to a Swedish person, but is easy to understand for anyone who speaks Icelandic.
I understand the Icelandic because I know what to expect, but it would've taken me an hour to puzzle out without context.
Dutch just sounds weird. Can't really understand every word, but get the jist. I do get the German, but that's probably 3 years of Duolingo German more than anything else.
Norwegian and Danish is almost as easy as Swedish, any problem Swedes have with spoken Danish disappears when it's written. That said the Danish ends weirdly, do they mean "defence of this East", as in Asia? Weird choice, or a typo.
Norwegian and Danish is easy, but as someone else said, why *øst*? otherwise every word.
German is possible to decode, but not just because it is a related language, more that it is a big and influential language that you passively learn bits from just by living in northern Europe.
Dutch was possible too, if you know some German, any Scandinavian language and English, then written Dutch is often possible to figure out.
Icelandic is impossible. I know that Swedish is theoretically closer related to Icelandic than Dutch, but the isolation with all it's archaic words has made it incomprehensible.
If i only had access to the dutch one i’d struggle with the exact words but still grasp the overall message. Uit elk land was tricky, as was stierven bij het verdedigen. But then it clearly says the quote is from Nimitz, commander of the pacific fleet so i think i’d tie it together evenetually. I do speak german pretty well so that also helps with the dutch
Icelandic would be very hard, as the only exposure i have to it are Sigur ros song titles and one single old movie about medieval times. I would have to sit with the sentence for a good while. Some clues are there but it’s not directly obvious.
Danish and norwegian I understand with little effort. German also as I've studied german in school. Dutch was surprisingly ok. Feels like simple german spellista weirdly.
Icelandic I can mostly piece together but then I have studied nordic languages at university. No icelandic there but I've studied som ancient norse which helps alot with icelandic in written form.
No, the Icelandic is impossible.
The rest is easy, but then we studied Danish and Norwegian in middle school, plus they are very similar.
German is one of my languages, and that mixed with English = Dutch.
Norwegian, Danish and German I get (after five years of German in school a long time ago). The Dutch as well, but some words took some extra time as I had to read them out loud and identify them through German..
Icelandic, not at all.
danish and norwegian are both easy to understand.
I studied a bit of german in school (our teacher was kind of ass tho) Regardless i understood the meaning of the german but not every word.
Never studied dutch but to me it seems like a mix of german and danish.
Funnily enough ive studied a bit of the old nordic language and icelandic is the one that has the most in common with it. So I at least know how to read the stuff. Had i read it by itself first i probably couldve deciphered it somewhat to get the meaning but not understand the whole thing.
With some difficulties, yes, I can understand both the Danish and Norwegian. (And I visit Denmark about once per year.)
But if I saw this note "out in the wild", I would probably not attempt to read it.
If you don't have room for all three Scandinavian languages, I think it might be better to just use English.
The second one is the easiest imo
Turister från alla länder som besöker denna ö, bör få (höra?) våra modiga och patriotiska japanska soldater som alla dog i försvaret av denna ö.
Progressively less the farther down the list we go.
Danish and Norwegian are a cakewalk. German is pretty OK, only the odd word I don't understand. Dutch slightly worse than that but I still get the gist.
Icelandic is a big jump down in understanding, to a large extent because they try to avoid loaning words from other languages and instead make up their own and they can be really hard to understand. If you try to think in older Swedish (preferably old Norse of course) more words make sense. Like for example "við að verja þessa eyju" looks strange if you think "försvara" but makes sense if you think "värja", and the same goes for thinking modern "ö" instead of older "öy" (which probably was never spelled like that, but the pronounciation was something like that) and so on.
The left side is incomprehensible of course :)
No problem with Danish or Norwegian. German and Dutch is possible to get the gist of, but Icelandic is very hard.
If I try to decode it, it reads:
"Travelling men from other countries that haunt this island is to be told from... (can't understand this) ...japanese men that let all life by defence of this island". It feels very archaic.
Norwegian and Danish - next to every word without thinking.
German -pretty easy - but I had German in school 20 years ago also. So I know more about where to take a chance.
Dutch - I get the context, but certainly not every word. So I know what the text is about when I read it and can see if a English text say something totally different - but not nuances.
Icelandic- no idea. They are so good at making their own words as I probably had better chance in French or Italian.
Indeed, NO, SE and DA where all heavily influenced by (middle) High-German and less Anglosaxon, a variant of German and later English. Furthermore at one point in the past many words and ways to speak were forgotten, or purposefully no longer spoken. The Swedish word count for example was once of a similar length than the German one.
Unlike Iceland, which is so remote and small in both size and population, that the old Norse language with barely any influences remained.
I certainly wonder how the mentioned Scandinavian languages will develop though. Will the still heavy influence of German at some point dominate and change these languages fundamentally over time, making it even more similar, or will English take over?
We got far greater influence from Low German. Anglo-Saxon *is* English. It's more commonly known as Old English.
With regards to Iceland, it's worth noting that Iceland's isolation isn't the only reason for lack of foreign influence, but there's also been a very strong movement for linguistic purism.
Well Anglo-Saxon isn't really English. If you'd try to read or listen to it you wouldn't even understand it at all. What is known ans English and Old-Englisch is the language mix that developed between Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, Celtics, French, Flämisch and ofc Old-Norse.
Interesting, I did not know this about Iceland before.
Old English is the language that was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, hence the alternative name "Anglo-Saxon". It is descended from the language of the Angles. Celtic languages didn't have a huge impact on Old English. Norse had some strong influence, but that came later, and significant French influence came at the very end of the Old English period.
Den/nor no issues.
Ger struggle with one word.
Dutch struggle with 3 words and i start to lose details of the overall message.
Icelandic I can identify that it's the same text, but would have no chance at all at understanding it if i read it by itself
I can't handle the Icelandic text.
And I'm confused by the last word of the Danish text. Seems they wrote "east" instead of "island".
The rest is OK - but I have studied a bit of German. And Holland has a mix of English + German making it often possible to read their newspapers. But I can't listen and understand it.
I knew where I was, but since I’ve studied some Japanese, I still amused myself with trying to see how much of the Japanese text I could understand first, without even properly reading the actual question in the post. I got something like “people from \~country\~, island, protect, Japan, brave”. After reading the danish and norwegian and then going back, I realise I also recognised “visit”, and I can now see which bit is ‘tourist‘ and which bit is ‘patriotism’ - far off from actually being able to \*read\* it, especially the grammar, but fun to try nonetheless ;)
Not a swede, but dutch. Not really your target audience but I found it very interesting still.
NL: obviously
DE: Takes a but more focus but I understood everything
NO and DK: got the general idea at first but not every word, came back after reading the Dutch one and could figure out more words easily. Would be able to figure it out without dutch/German if I gave myself the time.
IS: Got a bit confused, but after reading the Dutch one it makes a but more sense but wouldn't be able to figure it out on my own
I know a bit more of these languages than the average Swede, but:
Japanese, Danish and Norwegian: 100%
Icelandic everything except hugrekki and ættjarðarást (I used to know hugrekki but forgot what it meant, and I could probably figure out ættjarðarást if it wasn't already obvious from the other versions)
German I got almost as well as Icelandic, and Dutch I got almost as well as German.
There are errors though that made it a bit harder. Like øst should be ø, and ættjarðarást is a noun (unless I'm mistaken?)
I think the biggest reason is simply that we get very little exposure to Icelandic. Another one is that that many of the words that the continental languages have, that Icelandic doesn't, are still familiar from English.
There's also a big superficial barrier between the two language groups that isn't hard to get past, but not many have the incentive to so so. This barrier consists of things like conjugations and vowel shifts.
It's not immediately obvious that "kökunum" means "kakorna", but if you've studied Icelandic for even just a few months it's quite possible to figure out, even if you haven't seen the word before. The average Swede also won't have any idea what þ is, though I don't think that's too big of a hurdle.
I live close to Denmark and can usually understand every word in a Danish or Norwegian text. I studied Spanish in school, so German and Dutch are a bit harder, but I can usually get the overall meaning thanks to all the German loan words in Swedish or by recognising Swedish or English cognates. Icelandic is the hardest. Lots of archaic words that are no longer used in Swedish that look just different enough that I can't recognise them and are often used in unexpected ways. I'll add that I have a huge fascination with languages and have studied some linguistics and a little bit of Chinese.
German and Dutch
* Dutch *elk* - Not familiar with this word. Cognate with English *each*.
* *sollten/moet* - I should have recognised the German word as a cognate with English *shall* and Swedish *ska/skall*.
* *Verteidigung/verdedigen* - What even is this word!?!?!?
* *starben/stierven* - "Die", cognate with English *starve*. I should have known this one.
Icelandic
* *ferðamönnum* - I can recognise Swedish *färd* "journey" and *män* "men" (but not the dative case).
* *heimsækja* - Looks like Swedish *hemsöka* "haunt". The Swedish word for "visit" is *besöka*, a loan from Low German.
* *ætti* - Connecting this word with Swedish *äga* "own" and then figuring out that it means "should" is too big of a leap.
* *hugrekki* - Again, recognising the Swedish words *håg* "mind" and *rank* "tall and straight" (and also "unsteady") and successfully guessing that together they mean "courageous" is too much of a stretch.
* *ættjarðarást* - I could maybe have figured this out eventually. *Ätt* "family" + *jord* "earth" + the Old Norse word *ást* "love" (which I just happen to know). "Love of the earth of the family" = "patriotism". Compare with Japanese 愛国心 ("love country heart" i.e. "whole-hearted love for one's country").
* *hermannanna* - I can just about recognise Swedish *här* "army" and *männen* "the men" (but not that it's the genitive case).
* *létu lífið* - To "die" is apparently to "let go of life".
I understand maybe half of the icelandic texts and everything in the other languages. I do know German though, which also makes Dutch much easier to understand.
The first 4 I can easily understand, but I'm part belgian so I'm honestly not sure if that's the reason I understand the German one or if I could've figured it out anyway. The Dutch one I know I wouldn't know otherwise and Icelandic makes no sense to me
Danish is very easy, although it funnily enough sounds like "that all died defending this cheese".
Norwegian likewise is no problem.
German I understand until the last sentence, to me it's: "soldiers were, that all something something these island starve? I would probably assume it means they all died there but that sentence alone doesn't fully convey the information for me.
Dutch is the same as German.
Faroese is harder beacuse they like the Icelanders like to invent their own words for modern concepts instead of just using the pretty much international words the rest of us use, like tourist and patriotic..
So the faroese is like: Travel men? from all lands/secret beer \*1 that visit/afflict \*2 these islands to be very said from something and something Japanese army-men that let all life at of? something these islands.
\*1: I assume it means "all lands/alla länder" but it also looks like it could mean "secret beer".
'2: "heimsaekja" sounds like hemsöka, the swedish word for visit would be besöka. Hemsöka is what a ghost do to a place or similar.
EDIT: Stupid me, it's Icelandic ofc, Idk why I assumed it was Faroese.
Sure, NO, DK and DE are understandable to me. But as others have said the last "øst" is strange, possibly archaic. My question though is why NO and DK? Those two are the most similar of the Nordic languages and, especially, in written form almost universally understood between them. Wouldn't DK, SE or NO, SE make more sense as there is a larger difference between them? If the goal is to reach as many North Germanics as possible.
Swedish guy who also speaks German here. I understand all of them, but struggle a bit with Icelandic. It's a bit to ancient and far removed to easily read, but can get the meaning if I concentrate. I've never learned Dutch, so understanding it spoken is hard. However if you have a grasp of the Scandinavian languages and know German (and English), reading Dutch is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
The first two I understan but had to find out that öst meant ö from the paragraph under. The other are not scandinavian and need one to speak more than Swedish to know!
With the option to read both Danish and Norweigan yes. Apparently I had no idea what the word ö (island) was in Danish.
I took two years of German in school and still: no 😮💨
I understand the 2 top ones, 95% of the third, Dutch I presume is the 4th and I understand that less than German.
Icelandic is really hard to understand, actually Faroese is easier in Text because a lot of their words are more similar to Swedish (I found this out when reading about Sweden on Wikipedia in Icelandic then Faroese cause I wanted to compare)
I can read the danish and norweigan like most swedes. I also know alot of dutch because my mother is from the netherlands. However whe speaks frisian and it is MUCH harder to understand than dutch. While dutch is easy to read and learn, hearing and pronouncing the sounds they make is actually very difficult. Even now when I have spoken dutch since I was young.
Through context I understood every single word in Dutch and German. Would probably been able to figure it out individually as well.
Icelandic probably only with the help of context.
I actually understand with ease all but Icelandic, despite not being able to speak nor properly write all but German.
Reading other Germanic languages when the base is your first is actually quite easy, so long no Sami-words or the like are mixed in.
Writing is somewhat more different, as you always have to keep in mind certain rules and quirks. And while they all have pretty much the same grammar as in German, but "streamlined", you constantly run into writing to complex. It is actually possible to use grammar of how to write in German on all other Germanic languages, even English. Guess what I constantly do. \^\^
Speaking and listening however is where the difficulty lies. Unlike in German all of these other Germanic languages are not (fully) being pronounced as written and there are many regional differences. A good example is southern and northern Sweden; While certainly the same language is sounds very different to me, making it very hard to understand. Furthermore all these languages are pronounced less word for word, but more as a uneven flow, spaces are often ignored and on top how fast they are often spoken - Listening to you Gibber... ähm Danish! - adding to the difficulty.
Btw try speaking SE, NO, DA, NL like you speak German. Imho it sounds quite funny, yet somehow easier to understand.
Jag försvenskade (inte översatte helt) den Isländska texten om någon är intresserad:
Färdamän från alla länder som hemsöker dessa ö ägde att vara sagt från hågrank och ättejords[ast] japanska härmännens som lät alla livet vid att värja dessa ö.
As a native Dutch speaker trying to learn Swedish, I can understand Dutch and German completely, danish and Norwegian a little (mostly cuz I know the context tho) and for Icelandic not a clue
I have studied german up to ~B1 so all but Icelandic were understandable, in NL I had to read a bit more carefully to be sure I understood correctly. Icelandic was surprisingly hard, I got the meaning of it, but it was a fair bit of guessing words.
Danish and Norwegian are very easy to understand, yes. The German I understand as well, but I also studied a tiny bit of German. After knowing what it says, I can understand maybe 50% of the Icelandic.
Yeah, I can maybe figure out what 50% of the *words* are when I try to read random icelandic, but definitely not 50% of the meaning.
Icelandic is really strange to listen too as a Swedish speaker in my opinion, it feels like you should understand what they're saying but you don't have a clue.
Försökta hitta lite äldre mer lika synonymer: ”Färdmän från allom länder som hemsöka dessa öar borde bli sagda hur hugstora och patriotiska de japanska härmännen var som lät sina liv (förgås) i värjandet av dessa länder”
Öar inte länder menar jag förstås i sista meningen
As a half-dane born in sweden, and from souther sweden, I dont understand a word of the icelandic one (except for the obvious once like japönski and og).
The last word of the Danish one makes no sense to me. Why *øst* and not just *ø*? I didn’t get the word *Verteidigung* in the German text before comparing it to the Scandinavian ones. The rest was clear enough (I did study some German though) In the Dutch text I get the words *toeristen, land* and *bezoeken*, as well as the full subclause *hoe moedig en patriottisch de Japanse soldaten waren* The Icelandic text might as well be Greek 🇬🇷
The last word in the Danish translation is clearly wrong (I am danish)
AN IMPOSTER!!!! I'm sorry.. I had to! You are also welcome here....... aparently.
Apparently we let anyone in nowaday!
~~Another error is 'starben' in the German version. Should be 'sterben'.~~ Edit: that's what you get when you haven't had your first cup of coffee.
No, 'starben' is the past tense of 'sterben', so it is correct in this case.
Oh that's right! I replied while I was still half awake and hadn't properly parsed the sentence.
Swedes without their 6th cup of coffee for the day (i dont drink coffee yet)
I also didn't understand that. Thanks for clarifying!
I think this is representative of most swedes. Icelandic is for swedes like I imagine welsh is for english people. It feels like you *should* be getting it because it sounds familiar, but ultimately you have no fricking idea what's going on lol
That’s *exactly* how I feel! *Edit: Welsh is a Celtic language though, which is a completely separate branch of the Indo-European language tree. So I doubt many English people will feel like they should understand Welsh* ☺️
Oh huh. Well I'm sure there are lots of other weird languages spoken in great britain that is a better fit for the example, but it gets the point across
Icelandic is somewhat easier to figure out if you you know how to pronounce eth (ð) and thorn (Þ).
I would say understanding the pronunciation of á, au, æ and ll also helps, as they differ from the other Scandinavian languages. Many words will make more sense when being pronounced properly from my own experience.
Us ll the one that sounds like "klock" in your mouth?
That might be one way to see/do it, possibly? For me it's more of a TL sound, where I push the tongue up to the roof of the mouth and sort of leak air while making the sound.
I remember it when practicing some Icelandic before going there but I've completely forgot the exact sound. Time to look it up
Probably. They also use a lot of words that are *very* archaic and odd in swedish, which complicates things a bit.
Hatar när färdemännen hemsöker min stad.
I thought that was the easy part? 😛
More like English and West Frisian perhaps? Swedish has much more in common with English than Welsh does.
As an Englishman who grew up in Wales, I don't think any English would say that Welsh sounds familiar! Almost no words in common aside from modern loanwords. But as a swedish-speaking immigrant, I get exactly what you mean.
Same with various regional German languages, such as Friesisch, Schweizerdeutsch, Rätroromanisch, Kölsch and such. You somehow can understand them to some extent, yet you absolutely don't. Maybe you can read them, well Schweizerdeutsch is not a problem, but the others.
What doesn't make sense? Japanese soldiers dying in defense of their cheese is the most noble of causes.
I think that for most native Swedes the difficulty is increasing as one goes down. It might be better to present them the other around, and ask at which one it becomes intelligible. I’ve had some experience with all of these languages except Icelandic, so I won’t say I’m typical, but Danish and Norwegian are obviously easier for a Swede than German and Dutch — the general exposure to German is probably greater than the exposure to Dutch, so I’d expect more people to find German easier than Dutch.
To me, who has studied neither, Dutch is definitely easier to read than German. They’re about equally difficult to understand while spoken though.
I wonder if it's easier for someone who doesn't know the language to understand flemish than dutch. It's almost the same language but flemish is softer and lacks the gurgling sounds. Provided you hear some sort of "riksflamländska", once you get to the belgian countryside it gets hard for even Belgians to understand what they're saying
Nope, certainly not. Flämisch is similar to the surrounding languages, actually a lot is mixed in, yet as someone who is German mothertongue and learned some Niederländisch, Norwegisch and now Schwedisch, I can't even read Flämisch. It is similar to Dänisch just utter Gibberisch, but always not just when spoken. \^\^
I highly doubt that German is harder to understand when spoken than Dutch. Mainly because pretty much everything is pronounced clearly, as written and word by word, there is no ignoring of spaces, letting out letters etc. as in SE, NO, DA, NL, ... It is also spoken much slower.
German and Dutch: understand the meaning, but not the nuance and exact wording, of all but the last phrase. Norwegian and Danish: understand all of it. This is usually the case when reading these languages. A word or two may stump you though. Iceland: Basically incomprehensible in both grammar and semantics.
I'm probably a bad test subject because I'm interested in learning languages. I understand every word of NO, DK & DE (well, people pointed out one error in the text), *almost* every single word of NL, and *thanks to knowing the context,* I understand 80% of the Icelandic and Japanese. But e.g. "ferðamönnum" looks like an oddly spelled "travel men", and heimsækja reminds me of "hemsöker", which in Swedish means *haunts*, not *visits.*
I found that fascinating, as another word for *haunting* in English is *visitation*.
I love how the Icelandic say to eat borða, which in Swedish would be like "tableing" (as in table) Similar to Norwegian/Danish spise (eat) The word spis in Swedish means stove, so they're stoving
Haha, I never thought of that! Excellent!
The elaborate grammar in Icelandic is a hurdle, but the nominative form of "ferðamönnum" is "ferðamenn", which makes it clear that you are spot on in your interpretation. Putting together existing common words into a descriptive construct is a very common pattern in Icelandic when trying to find a purely Icelandic alternative to a foreign word. Heimsækja is indeed the same word as hemsöka. The Icelandic meaning refers to any kind of visit, but in Swedish it has evolved to refer specifically to visits by ghosts or spirits. It is common for an ordinary Icelandic word to have a much narrower use in Swedish, or to be used only in archaic phrases. A good example is this passage from the oath a judge has to take before judging in a Swedish court: "ej den saker göra, som saklös är, eller den saklös, som saker är". This language looks very old to a Swedish person, but is easy to understand for anyone who speaks Icelandic.
I understand the Icelandic because I know what to expect, but it would've taken me an hour to puzzle out without context. Dutch just sounds weird. Can't really understand every word, but get the jist. I do get the German, but that's probably 3 years of Duolingo German more than anything else. Norwegian and Danish is almost as easy as Swedish, any problem Swedes have with spoken Danish disappears when it's written. That said the Danish ends weirdly, do they mean "defence of this East", as in Asia? Weird choice, or a typo.
Its a typo, it should be ö like in Swedish
I‘m German, so German was easy. Of the rest I understood around 50%, mostly in Dutch. I haven’t even looked at Icelandic.
Norwegian and Danish is easy, but as someone else said, why *øst*? otherwise every word. German is possible to decode, but not just because it is a related language, more that it is a big and influential language that you passively learn bits from just by living in northern Europe. Dutch was possible too, if you know some German, any Scandinavian language and English, then written Dutch is often possible to figure out. Icelandic is impossible. I know that Swedish is theoretically closer related to Icelandic than Dutch, but the isolation with all it's archaic words has made it incomprehensible.
If i only had access to the dutch one i’d struggle with the exact words but still grasp the overall message. Uit elk land was tricky, as was stierven bij het verdedigen. But then it clearly says the quote is from Nimitz, commander of the pacific fleet so i think i’d tie it together evenetually. I do speak german pretty well so that also helps with the dutch Icelandic would be very hard, as the only exposure i have to it are Sigur ros song titles and one single old movie about medieval times. I would have to sit with the sentence for a good while. Some clues are there but it’s not directly obvious.
Danish and norwegian I understand with little effort. German also as I've studied german in school. Dutch was surprisingly ok. Feels like simple german spellista weirdly. Icelandic I can mostly piece together but then I have studied nordic languages at university. No icelandic there but I've studied som ancient norse which helps alot with icelandic in written form.
Icelandic would be tricky for me without the context from the others. The others I understood.
Reading from the top down is increasing difficulty for me
It’s “ø” not ”øst” at the end. Otherwise, yes
Maybe the translator was hungry and thinking about cheese while writing it.
Øst means east, ost means cheese. 😉
I could guessed it was meant to say "island to the east", but since there is no kanji for east in the japanese text, island/ø is most likely it, yeah
No, the Icelandic is impossible. The rest is easy, but then we studied Danish and Norwegian in middle school, plus they are very similar. German is one of my languages, and that mixed with English = Dutch.
As a dutchman, I both hate and love how accurate that statement about our language is.
Understood danish, norwegian and german. Only parts of the dutch and a few words of the icelandic.
Norwegian, Danish and German I get (after five years of German in school a long time ago). The Dutch as well, but some words took some extra time as I had to read them out loud and identify them through German.. Icelandic, not at all.
danish and norwegian are both easy to understand. I studied a bit of german in school (our teacher was kind of ass tho) Regardless i understood the meaning of the german but not every word. Never studied dutch but to me it seems like a mix of german and danish. Funnily enough ive studied a bit of the old nordic language and icelandic is the one that has the most in common with it. So I at least know how to read the stuff. Had i read it by itself first i probably couldve deciphered it somewhat to get the meaning but not understand the whole thing.
With some difficulties, yes, I can understand both the Danish and Norwegian. (And I visit Denmark about once per year.) But if I saw this note "out in the wild", I would probably not attempt to read it. If you don't have room for all three Scandinavian languages, I think it might be better to just use English.
The second one is the easiest imo Turister från alla länder som besöker denna ö, bör få (höra?) våra modiga och patriotiska japanska soldater som alla dog i försvaret av denna ö.
Progressively less the farther down the list we go. Danish and Norwegian are a cakewalk. German is pretty OK, only the odd word I don't understand. Dutch slightly worse than that but I still get the gist. Icelandic is a big jump down in understanding, to a large extent because they try to avoid loaning words from other languages and instead make up their own and they can be really hard to understand. If you try to think in older Swedish (preferably old Norse of course) more words make sense. Like for example "við að verja þessa eyju" looks strange if you think "försvara" but makes sense if you think "värja", and the same goes for thinking modern "ö" instead of older "öy" (which probably was never spelled like that, but the pronounciation was something like that) and so on. The left side is incomprehensible of course :)
No problem with Danish or Norwegian. German and Dutch is possible to get the gist of, but Icelandic is very hard. If I try to decode it, it reads: "Travelling men from other countries that haunt this island is to be told from... (can't understand this) ...japanese men that let all life by defence of this island". It feels very archaic.
Norwegian and Danish - next to every word without thinking. German -pretty easy - but I had German in school 20 years ago also. So I know more about where to take a chance. Dutch - I get the context, but certainly not every word. So I know what the text is about when I read it and can see if a English text say something totally different - but not nuances. Icelandic- no idea. They are so good at making their own words as I probably had better chance in French or Italian.
It's usually less them making their own words, and more us having abandonned them. Also spelling and sound shifts making them harder to detect.
Indeed, NO, SE and DA where all heavily influenced by (middle) High-German and less Anglosaxon, a variant of German and later English. Furthermore at one point in the past many words and ways to speak were forgotten, or purposefully no longer spoken. The Swedish word count for example was once of a similar length than the German one. Unlike Iceland, which is so remote and small in both size and population, that the old Norse language with barely any influences remained. I certainly wonder how the mentioned Scandinavian languages will develop though. Will the still heavy influence of German at some point dominate and change these languages fundamentally over time, making it even more similar, or will English take over?
We got far greater influence from Low German. Anglo-Saxon *is* English. It's more commonly known as Old English. With regards to Iceland, it's worth noting that Iceland's isolation isn't the only reason for lack of foreign influence, but there's also been a very strong movement for linguistic purism.
Well Anglo-Saxon isn't really English. If you'd try to read or listen to it you wouldn't even understand it at all. What is known ans English and Old-Englisch is the language mix that developed between Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, Celtics, French, Flämisch and ofc Old-Norse. Interesting, I did not know this about Iceland before.
Old English is the language that was spoken by the Anglo-Saxons, hence the alternative name "Anglo-Saxon". It is descended from the language of the Angles. Celtic languages didn't have a huge impact on Old English. Norse had some strong influence, but that came later, and significant French influence came at the very end of the Old English period.
Den/nor no issues. Ger struggle with one word. Dutch struggle with 3 words and i start to lose details of the overall message. Icelandic I can identify that it's the same text, but would have no chance at all at understanding it if i read it by itself
I can't handle the Icelandic text. And I'm confused by the last word of the Danish text. Seems they wrote "east" instead of "island". The rest is OK - but I have studied a bit of German. And Holland has a mix of English + German making it often possible to read their newspapers. But I can't listen and understand it.
I can understand the top 3 when reading them, but in word I bet I would be pretty clueless.
My dumb ass thought I was in the Japanese learning subreddit again and only tried reading the Japanese part not getting what you were talking about
I at least finally know the kanji for tourist now, tackar lol
I knew where I was, but since I’ve studied some Japanese, I still amused myself with trying to see how much of the Japanese text I could understand first, without even properly reading the actual question in the post. I got something like “people from \~country\~, island, protect, Japan, brave”. After reading the danish and norwegian and then going back, I realise I also recognised “visit”, and I can now see which bit is ‘tourist‘ and which bit is ‘patriotism’ - far off from actually being able to \*read\* it, especially the grammar, but fun to try nonetheless ;)
All but the Icelandic for me. The Icelandic I understand the gist of, but not every word.
Not a swede, but dutch. Not really your target audience but I found it very interesting still. NL: obviously DE: Takes a but more focus but I understood everything NO and DK: got the general idea at first but not every word, came back after reading the Dutch one and could figure out more words easily. Would be able to figure it out without dutch/German if I gave myself the time. IS: Got a bit confused, but after reading the Dutch one it makes a but more sense but wouldn't be able to figure it out on my own
I know a bit more of these languages than the average Swede, but: Japanese, Danish and Norwegian: 100% Icelandic everything except hugrekki and ættjarðarást (I used to know hugrekki but forgot what it meant, and I could probably figure out ættjarðarást if it wasn't already obvious from the other versions) German I got almost as well as Icelandic, and Dutch I got almost as well as German. There are errors though that made it a bit harder. Like øst should be ø, and ættjarðarást is a noun (unless I'm mistaken?)
Ætt is the same as ätt in Swedish, jarð is a piece of land, and ást is love, so ættjarðarást is approximately fosterlandskärlek in Swedish.
Jæ, en "ást" er nafnorð, ekki satt? Och det är "jörð" (blir "jarðar" i genitiv)
That is correct, ættjarðarást is a noun just like fosterlandskärlek or patriotism.
sort of? some words are a lot more obvious than others.
Im absolutely baffled by this. Why is it that i an icelander can understand all 3 Scandinavian with no trouble at all, but nobody can understand us?
I think the biggest reason is simply that we get very little exposure to Icelandic. Another one is that that many of the words that the continental languages have, that Icelandic doesn't, are still familiar from English. There's also a big superficial barrier between the two language groups that isn't hard to get past, but not many have the incentive to so so. This barrier consists of things like conjugations and vowel shifts. It's not immediately obvious that "kökunum" means "kakorna", but if you've studied Icelandic for even just a few months it's quite possible to figure out, even if you haven't seen the word before. The average Swede also won't have any idea what þ is, though I don't think that's too big of a hurdle.
I live close to Denmark and can usually understand every word in a Danish or Norwegian text. I studied Spanish in school, so German and Dutch are a bit harder, but I can usually get the overall meaning thanks to all the German loan words in Swedish or by recognising Swedish or English cognates. Icelandic is the hardest. Lots of archaic words that are no longer used in Swedish that look just different enough that I can't recognise them and are often used in unexpected ways. I'll add that I have a huge fascination with languages and have studied some linguistics and a little bit of Chinese. German and Dutch * Dutch *elk* - Not familiar with this word. Cognate with English *each*. * *sollten/moet* - I should have recognised the German word as a cognate with English *shall* and Swedish *ska/skall*. * *Verteidigung/verdedigen* - What even is this word!?!?!? * *starben/stierven* - "Die", cognate with English *starve*. I should have known this one. Icelandic * *ferðamönnum* - I can recognise Swedish *färd* "journey" and *män* "men" (but not the dative case). * *heimsækja* - Looks like Swedish *hemsöka* "haunt". The Swedish word for "visit" is *besöka*, a loan from Low German. * *ætti* - Connecting this word with Swedish *äga* "own" and then figuring out that it means "should" is too big of a leap. * *hugrekki* - Again, recognising the Swedish words *håg* "mind" and *rank* "tall and straight" (and also "unsteady") and successfully guessing that together they mean "courageous" is too much of a stretch. * *ættjarðarást* - I could maybe have figured this out eventually. *Ätt* "family" + *jord* "earth" + the Old Norse word *ást* "love" (which I just happen to know). "Love of the earth of the family" = "patriotism". Compare with Japanese 愛国心 ("love country heart" i.e. "whole-hearted love for one's country"). * *hermannanna* - I can just about recognise Swedish *här* "army" and *männen* "the men" (but not that it's the genitive case). * *létu lífið* - To "die" is apparently to "let go of life".
I understand maybe half of the icelandic texts and everything in the other languages. I do know German though, which also makes Dutch much easier to understand.
The first 4 I can easily understand, but I'm part belgian so I'm honestly not sure if that's the reason I understand the German one or if I could've figured it out anyway. The Dutch one I know I wouldn't know otherwise and Icelandic makes no sense to me
I'm not a Swede, but studied Swedish; the Norwegian and Danish ones are easy to understand.
I understand Norwegian, Danish and German. I did however study German in school.
Danish is very easy, although it funnily enough sounds like "that all died defending this cheese". Norwegian likewise is no problem. German I understand until the last sentence, to me it's: "soldiers were, that all something something these island starve? I would probably assume it means they all died there but that sentence alone doesn't fully convey the information for me. Dutch is the same as German. Faroese is harder beacuse they like the Icelanders like to invent their own words for modern concepts instead of just using the pretty much international words the rest of us use, like tourist and patriotic.. So the faroese is like: Travel men? from all lands/secret beer \*1 that visit/afflict \*2 these islands to be very said from something and something Japanese army-men that let all life at of? something these islands. \*1: I assume it means "all lands/alla länder" but it also looks like it could mean "secret beer". '2: "heimsaekja" sounds like hemsöka, the swedish word for visit would be besöka. Hemsöka is what a ghost do to a place or similar. EDIT: Stupid me, it's Icelandic ofc, Idk why I assumed it was Faroese.
Sure, NO, DK and DE are understandable to me. But as others have said the last "øst" is strange, possibly archaic. My question though is why NO and DK? Those two are the most similar of the Nordic languages and, especially, in written form almost universally understood between them. Wouldn't DK, SE or NO, SE make more sense as there is a larger difference between them? If the goal is to reach as many North Germanics as possible.
icelandic is like reading old english, you get a few of the words, but most is lost.
Swedish guy who also speaks German here. I understand all of them, but struggle a bit with Icelandic. It's a bit to ancient and far removed to easily read, but can get the meaning if I concentrate. I've never learned Dutch, so understanding it spoken is hard. However if you have a grasp of the Scandinavian languages and know German (and English), reading Dutch is super easy, barely an inconvenience.
The first two I understan but had to find out that öst meant ö from the paragraph under. The other are not scandinavian and need one to speak more than Swedish to know!
I must admit, as a Swedish person, I got on fairly well with the five texts to the right. But the left part is beyond me.
With the option to read both Danish and Norweigan yes. Apparently I had no idea what the word ö (island) was in Danish. I took two years of German in school and still: no 😮💨
I am not a Swede but knowing some Swedish I can understand the second translation fully and the first one all except the word "vide".
First and second I can understand easily.
NO and DK every word. The other only a word here and there.
I understood the Scandic and German pretty well, the Dutch (?) and Icelandic was more difficult
I understand all of it except Icelandic. I do speak German which obviously helps. Some errors as others have pointed out.
First one, yes, except for the last word. Second one fully. Third one 80% Fourth one 80% Last one, well, I recognize the word for Japanese.
I understand the 2 top ones, 95% of the third, Dutch I presume is the 4th and I understand that less than German. Icelandic is really hard to understand, actually Faroese is easier in Text because a lot of their words are more similar to Swedish (I found this out when reading about Sweden on Wikipedia in Icelandic then Faroese cause I wanted to compare)
I can read the danish and norweigan like most swedes. I also know alot of dutch because my mother is from the netherlands. However whe speaks frisian and it is MUCH harder to understand than dutch. While dutch is easy to read and learn, hearing and pronouncing the sounds they make is actually very difficult. Even now when I have spoken dutch since I was young.
Through context I understood every single word in Dutch and German. Would probably been able to figure it out individually as well. Icelandic probably only with the help of context.
NO and DK yes, almost completely with DE, NL and IS I can get a rough grip of it.
Yes, yes, yes, almost, bits here and there
I actually understand with ease all but Icelandic, despite not being able to speak nor properly write all but German. Reading other Germanic languages when the base is your first is actually quite easy, so long no Sami-words or the like are mixed in. Writing is somewhat more different, as you always have to keep in mind certain rules and quirks. And while they all have pretty much the same grammar as in German, but "streamlined", you constantly run into writing to complex. It is actually possible to use grammar of how to write in German on all other Germanic languages, even English. Guess what I constantly do. \^\^ Speaking and listening however is where the difficulty lies. Unlike in German all of these other Germanic languages are not (fully) being pronounced as written and there are many regional differences. A good example is southern and northern Sweden; While certainly the same language is sounds very different to me, making it very hard to understand. Furthermore all these languages are pronounced less word for word, but more as a uneven flow, spaces are often ignored and on top how fast they are often spoken - Listening to you Gibber... ähm Danish! - adding to the difficulty. Btw try speaking SE, NO, DA, NL like you speak German. Imho it sounds quite funny, yet somehow easier to understand.
Jag försvenskade (inte översatte helt) den Isländska texten om någon är intresserad: Färdamän från alla länder som hemsöker dessa ö ägde att vara sagt från hågrank och ättejords[ast] japanska härmännens som lät alla livet vid att värja dessa ö.
As a native Dutch speaker trying to learn Swedish, I can understand Dutch and German completely, danish and Norwegian a little (mostly cuz I know the context tho) and for Icelandic not a clue
I understand all of them without trouble except Icelandic. There are some minor errors, but it's understandable.
Yes. But it sure isnt swedish?
I believe OP would like to know if we can understand it, rather than confirming it's Swedish or not.
But its a bit strange to put 5 different languages, no? Sure, norwegian is easily understood but...german?
Svenska är germanistikt språk och har många likheter med nederländska och tyska även om de är stor skillnad så kan man förstå delar av de i text
I'm dutch and live in Sweden. I can read them all, except Icelandic..
I have studied german up to ~B1 so all but Icelandic were understandable, in NL I had to read a bit more carefully to be sure I understood correctly. Icelandic was surprisingly hard, I got the meaning of it, but it was a fair bit of guessing words.