DANISH,NORWEGIAN AND SWEDISH

THANK YOU!

The differences between the Scandinavian languages are mostly about pronounciation and grammar, that is endings of plurals and verb conjugations.

E.g. horse, which is "hest" in Norwegian and Danish and "häst" (I think) in Swedish:
English - one horse - horses
Book Norwegian - en hest - hester
New Norwegian - ein hest - hestar
Danish - en hest - heste
Swedish - en häst - hästar

Vocabulary is also 90 % the same. Sometimes words have a slightly different meaning, like Norwegian "rolig" (= quiet) means "funny" in Swedish. And Danish "du må" (you can) means "you have to" in Norwegian.

But we Scandinavians are aware of most of these differences. Denmark and Sweden are often the first places we go on holiday when we grow up and we also watch Swedish and Danish tv. In school we also learn about these differences, as inter-scandinavian understanding is a government priority. In university you sometimes have to read curriculum in Danish or Swedish. If you make an effort an listen carefully, you will always understand. Reading is even easier.

The differences are much smaller than High German - Dutch. Probably like High German - Low German or Low German - Dutch or Dutch - Afrikaans.

Icelandic-Norwegian might be like Dutch-High German.

When it comes to pronounciation Norwegian-Swedish might be like British English - American English. Norwegian-Danish might then be like Dutch-Frisian (pronounciation, not vocabulary, that is).

Something I wrote some time ago:

Chrash-course in Danish pronounciation:

"Rødgrød med fløde" (= red porridge with cream) is a Danish dessert and a famous Danish tongue twister.

RØD - say a deep French/Parisian r, then a hard and long ø (like u in church) while you push some air violently out of your lungs and just ignore the d.

GRØD - a hard g, then this French r, then the ø again and pronounce the d as th in Englsih that.

MED =meh

FLØDE - f, then l, then very long ø (u as in church), d as th and at last and eh.


When it comes to vocabulary Norwegian (and especially Bokmål) is close to Danish, but when it comes to pronounciation we are more like the Swedes. The Danes speak in a strange, soft and unclear way, as if they have a potato in their mouth, so we some times have to ask them to speak more slowly in order to understand them. But reading Danish is so easy that you often forget that you are reading Danish in stead of Bokmål. Swedes are easier to understand orally, but their vocabulary is sometimes a bit different.

As somebdoy pointed out the consonants p t and k become soft in Danish: b d and g. The same happens on the south coast of Norway (The soft coast strip), where I come from.

Danish - rødgrød med fløde
My dialect - rødgrød / rødgraud med fløde
New Norwegian - rødgraut med fløyte
Book norwegian - rødgrøt med fløte

Danish uses a lot glottal stops (just like German), if you are familiar with that. Danish also has only one tone (tonem?) while Norwegian (and Sedish, I think) have two.
In Norwegian bønder (farmers) and bønner (beans) are pronounced similar, but with different tones. In Danish they are pronounced similar and with the same tone, too. But I think Danish has a glottal stop in one of them.

Yes, the stoed : no stoed contrast (sorry about the spelling) has replaced the tonemes in Danish. Moreover, Swedish dialects in Skaane and Goetaland don't have tonemes, and neither does Finland Swedish.

Aha - that is why Finlands Swedish sounds so dull and monotone.
But does Jutish Danish have tonemes?

At least I think traditional Jutish lacks the stød.

As far as I know, there are southern Danish (Jysk) dialects that do indeed lack the stød. I don't believe there are Danish dialects with tonemes, but I'm not completely sure.

Ved:
Funny (and impressive!) that you know so much about Danish and come from...? Ever been to Denmark?

In my ears Jutes sound a bit less monotone in their speech than most Danes, but not as "singing" as us Norwegians.

The one time I was in Denmark I vissited "Legoland" talking about Monotone.......At the end of the day the only things I could see where squares.

But at least Legoland is very very Danish, because of the motto: Small is cool!

Sander:
As a Dutchman you really should give Danish castle architectur a closer look, for example Rosenborg in Copenhagen. King Christian IV just loved the Dutch Renaissance style!

=>But at least Legoland is very very Danish, because of the motto: Small is cool! <=

yeah,
In the Netherlands we have "Madurodam"in Amsterdam wich is a minature theme park of all the dutch "attractions".But usually its crowded with Jappanese tourists....

Fredrik from Norway,

I heard the Norwegian is a part of the Dannish royal familly,that's not true is it ?