Mutually Intelligible Languages

Visitor   Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:49 am GMT
<< 2. Polish, Czech and Slovak are all NOT mutually intelligible. >>

Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish are the ones that are not mutually intelligible, period.
Visitor   Mon Jan 04, 2010 2:50 am GMT
<< 2. Polish, Czech and Slovak are all NOT mutually intelligible. >>

Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Argentinian Spanish, Cuban Spanish, Venezuelan Spanish, and Puerto Rican Spanish are not mutually intelligible also.
encore   Mon Jan 04, 2010 10:41 am GMT
Low German and Dutch are mutually intelligible.I'm not Dutch and not Low German,but I understand both.
opinion   Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:02 pm GMT
The bridge between Polish and Russian is Ukrainian or Bielorussian.
Baldewin   Mon Jan 04, 2010 1:08 pm GMT
I also wonder how much intelligibility exists between Turkic languages.
Visitante.   Mon Jan 04, 2010 6:06 pm GMT
<<Castilian Spanish, Mexican Spanish, Argentinian Spanish, Cuban Spanish, Venezuelan Spanish, and Puerto Rican Spanish are not mutually intelligible also.>>

Blablabla, visiteur, your stupidity doesn't even make me laugh anymore.
JPT   Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:23 pm GMT
Polish, Czech, and Slovak
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Polish is completely non-mutually intelligible with Czech and Slovak. Between Czech and Slovak the perception differs substantially between the peoples. Slovaks claim to understand Czechs no problem, while Czechs have considerable difficulty understanding Slovak. I've heard other people say their is a similer phenomenon: I knew a Spaniard and Portugese person in Poland- they communicated in Spanish, but the Portugese person claimed to understand Spanish before he studied where as the Spaniard said Portugese wasn't intelligible. I have heard an Estonian say Finnish is the same langiage, and Finn say that Estonian is difficult. Even some Romanians have claimed to understand Italian, but no Italian has said the same... My theory is that people who speak the less common language receive more exposure to the other language and focus more on understanding the differences. This is based on Slovaks telling me that they still watch some Czech broadcasts, but Czechs never get exposure to Slovak unless they go to Slovakia (most Czechs go to Austria, Germany, or the Dalmatian Coast for international vacations).
Guest   Mon Jan 04, 2010 9:36 pm GMT
There's a new country, Dalmatia. How is Dalmatian mutually intelligible with Croatian?
JPT   Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:01 am GMT
<There's a new country, Dalmatia. How is Dalmatian mutually intelligible with Croatian?>

There actually is (well was) a Dalmatian language, but it was closer to Romanian (actually it was sort of the bridge language between the western Romance languages and Romanian). The last native speaker died over 100 years ago, but the vocabulary and grammar were fairly well documented before the last speaker died. Needless to say it wasn't similar to Hrvatski.

The Modern day "Dalmacija" is the narrow southern part of Croatia along the adriatic sea. It is home to most of Croatias main beaches and tourist cities.
Visiteur   Tue Jan 05, 2010 2:10 am GMT
<< Blablabla, visiteur, your stupidity doesn't even make me laugh anymore. >>

Blablabla, guest, your ignorance doesn't even make me laugh anymore.
Visitante   Tue Jan 05, 2010 5:14 am GMT
<<Blablabla, guest, your ignorance doesn't even make me laugh anymore.>>

Yeah, I'm so ignorant cuz I didn't even know that Colombians, Mexicans and Spaniards can't understand each other... :rolleyes:
fraz   Tue Jan 05, 2010 10:48 am GMT
<<I'd be interested to know if the different Gaelic languages of Scotland, Ireland, Wales and Brittany are mutually intelligible? >>

Scots and Irish Gaelic have diverged over the centuries but some mutual comprehension still exists. Welsh and Breton are more remote.

Irish used to be spoken the length and breadth of Ireland but is now mainly confined to a handful of "Gaeltacht" areas, separated by large expanses of English-speaking territory. As a result, the spoken dialetcs have separated further due to this isolation.
rep   Tue Jan 05, 2010 11:05 am GMT
Irish Gaelic:
"De Bhrí gurb é aithint dínte dúchais agus chearta comhionanna do-shannta an uile dhuine den chine daonna is foras don tsaorise, don cheartas agus don tsíocháin sa domhan,
De Bhrí gur thionscain a neamhaird agus an mí-mheas ar chearta an duine gníomhartha barbartha a chuir uafás ar choinsias an chine daonna, agus go bhfuil forógartha gurb é meanmarc is uaisle ag an gcoitiantacht saol a thabhairt i réim a bhéarfas don duine saoirse chainte agus chreidimh agus saoirse ó eagla agus ó amhgar,"

Scottish Gaelic:
"Do bhrìgh 's gu bheil e air aideachadh gu bheil dualchas nàdarra agus còirichean neo-sgaraichte uile bhuill a' chinne-daonna na stèidh airson saorsa, ceartas agus sìth an t-saoghail,
Do bhrìgh 's gun do dh' adhbharaich a bhith a' cur còirichean dhaoine ann an suarachas gnìomhan borba a shàraich cogaisean, a bhith air an cleachdadh, agus gum bheil an latha air teachd anns am bi saor-labhartas, saor chreideamh agus saorsa bho eagal agus dìth air a ghairm mar àrd-mhiann an t-sluaigh choitcheann,"
http://www.lexilogos.com/declaration/index_english.htm
guest   Tue Jan 05, 2010 4:58 pm GMT
Just a note on the Irish and Scottish texts posted above: these two languages have developed distinct (and, to most people, bizarre) orthographies, so words which look completely different in written form may be pronounced the same way in both. Manx Gaelic looks even more alien, but the same thing holds true.
Steak 'n' Chips   Tue Jan 05, 2010 9:26 pm GMT
fraz, rep, guest
Thanks for your interesting answers!

I wonder if Scottish Gaelic is more mutually intelligible with the Northern Irish dialects, since the Scot tribe came originally from Northern Ireland?

Those examples show some identical and close to identical words, and what seems to be similar structure, but otherwise very different ways of saying the same thing.

I remember a girl in my class, when I lived in Scotland, called "Mhairi", pronounced "Varry", which introduced me to Gaelic's unique way of representing sounds. As I understand it, word pronunciation in Gaelic languages can also shift depending on context, I suppose like Latin declensions do, but often applying to the beginning of words and I've got a vague idea it's based on sound pairings rather than grammatical rules. I guess that's the strange orthographies mentioned by guest?