Relationship between Danish and Dutch

--Of course I have sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shift--

I know about this consonant shift. But then, if you've ever been to Germany, you would realize that most Germans speak a dialect which didn't underwent all features of this consonant shift. I am french and I live right on the border to Germany, so I've been there very often!
If you ever heard of the Grimm's Laws, especially the first one, then the High German consonant shift seems quite natural since plosives became fricatives again (ship-->Schif). But this isn't the point actually:
There are other germanic languages where there had been a phonetic change although the spelling remained the same:
for example the pronounciation of "g" as mostly "j" in Swedish or Danish, or the swedish "k" in most cases as the german ich-sound, and so on.
See, this is also a sound change - a shift- but not taken into consideration only because it didn't enter the Swedish spelling system!

I have been to Germany many times, and if you had been too, YOU would have realised that most Germans have High German dialects, and that the Low German dialects and on the verge of extinction.

Finished with your amazing bitching?
Good!
I wrote that Danish had a lot of clitics. Does this apply to Dutch too?

>>Sander hat keine Ahnung, und davon ziemlich viel... <<

Oh Sander hat Anhung, und er kann auch Deutsch. Schade nicht?

People who claim that the number of German speakers with low German dialects exceeds that of the High German speakers, is a layman.

* are laymen.

Frederik,

No, Dutch doesn't have a lot of clitics, in fact I believe there is only one in standard Dutch "ie" which is a proclitic, meaning 'hij' (he).

Certain dialects tend to use them more often though.

Frederik från Norge,

Vad menar du att det finns många "clitics" på danska? kann du ge mig några examplar av det? om det går, vär så snälla och skriv de examplarna på norska ochså, för att jämföra dem.

Brennus and Sander,

I think my original question is just fading in the void... hehe. Either is this subject quite uninteresting or there are no further comments to do. Anyway I am following this discusion, and I must insist, the theory of a Celtic substratum is quite new for me, and does not fit well with the poor knowledge I have of the Dutch language and history.

Aber auf jeden Fall, Niederländisch ist eine faszinierende Sprache. Hoffentlich komme ich irgendwann mal dazu, die zu lernen. Sander, hast Du Vorurteile gegen Hochdeutsch oder ist es Dir wurst, wenn ich Dir auf Deutsch schreibe? ich frage lieber...

>>Aber auf jeden Fall, Niederländisch ist eine faszinierende Sprache. Hoffentlich komme ich irgendwann mal dazu, die zu lernen. Sander, hast Du Vorurteile gegen Hochdeutsch oder ist es Dir wurst, wenn ich Dir auf Deutsch schreibe? ich frage lieber... <<

I wish you good luck ;)

And no I don't mind if you speak German to me, afterall I said I speak the language.But I guess I would be offended, or surprised if you would have spoken to me in German without knowing I spoke it in the first place.

Prejudice against German ... hmm yes, like many fellow Dutchmen I think German sounds feminine, high pitched, at first I actually had problems taking German males seriously, because they sounded like women.

Sander,

Well, actually I knew that you speak German because you have already mentioned it in older threads, you have even written in German before. So, I "dared" to write in German to you ;-)

On the other hand, perhaps this is a stupid missconception we not-Dutchmen and not-Germans have, that both languages are mutually intelligible, and that when speaking/writing with a Dutchman, German is always an option, perhaps preferred to English, but as I said, this is the most probable just a missconception, isn't it?

My girlfriend is from Dortmund, and at least the people from this part of Germany have a very positive concept of evertything related to the Netherlands, I don't know if it is the same viewed from the Netherlands side, obviously not taking into account two things: WWII, and the Big country vs. Small country syndrome. But anyway, I am getting away from the original subject. I prefer to stay in linguistical topics.

>>On the other hand, perhaps this is a stupid missconception we not-Dutchmen and not-Germans have, that both languages are mutually intelligible, and that when speaking/writing with a Dutchman, German is always an option, perhaps preferred to English, but as I said, this is the most probable just a missconception, isn't it? <<

Yes, it's very dangerious to think that German and Dutch are mutually intelligible, because they most certainly aren't.

But somehow it's a common misunderstanding. From my own experiences I learned that some Germans even think the Dutch have German as 'official language' and that Dutch is just their dialect in the same way as the Swiss.

Also, many Germans think that all of the Dutch speak German.They most certainly do not.

« My girlfriend is from Dortmund, and at least the people from this part of Germany have a very positive concept of evertything related to the Netherlands »

You know, I find that people in England tend to have a positive attitude towards the Netherlands as well, even though it isn't somewhere which features very prominently in the media here. Without meaning to sound condescending, it might be because they are both nearby and largely inoffensive (and I totally agree with the big country vs. small country syndrome thing). I wouldn't know what sort of attitude people from the Netherlands might have towards England, whether they'd have a more or less positive attitude towards England than to Germany, or which country (if any) worldwide Dutch people tend to have the most positive attitude towards.

« But somehow it's a common misunderstanding. From my own experiences I learned that some Germans even think the Dutch have German as 'official language' and that Dutch is just their dialect in the same way as the Swiss. »

LMAO

« Also, many Germans think that all of the Dutch speak German.They most certainly do not. »

The common misconception here is that all of the Dutch can speak both English and German in addition to Dutch. I've even heard some people suggest that the Netherlands will become an English-speaking country in 50 years time... it's ridiculous.

Sander,

But somehow it's a common misunderstanding. From my own experiences I learned that some Germans even think the Dutch have German as 'official language' and that Dutch is just their dialect in the same way as the Swiss.

Well, that would be cathegorised as one of the biggest stupidities ever thought I guess, just comparable to the also common believe among laymen, that Catalan is a sort of dialect of Spanish.... no, it would be worst, because at least Catalonia is no independent country and has had no especially big performance in the history or politics of Europe in the last century, but Netherlands have always been there and have had a very big contribution in history!!!!

Also, many Germans think that all of the Dutch speak German.They most certainly do not.

Again, this is quite chauvinistic...

Well Sander, thank you for making this point clear to me. I had never had the chance before to hear the Dutch version on this matter (the myth of the mutually intelligible German vs. Dutch languages).

Should some other interesting items concerning the phonetic relationship between Danish and Dutch come up, or interesting links on that matter, they will be welcome anytime!!!!

I have noticed from this and other forums, that the least researched Scandinavian language is precisely Danish; there are really very few questions about Danish, whereas there are a lot of questions about Swedish and Norwegian. Is there some especial reason for this, like the complexity of pronountiating it well which disencourages more people from wanting to learn it, than it happens with the other two languages?

Heh heh, time to have a field day!

I'm currently studying Dutch, have spent a year and half learning Danish, and took four years of German in high school. (I'm now in my first year of college.) Besides obtaining T. Jorgenson's Norwegian-English school dictionary and the Swedish-English counterpart by W. Harlock, I don't intend to delve further into these two languages. I hope to study Icelandic after I finish Latin at the local university.

Thus being my experience with the major Germanic tongues, let's see what I can contribute to the discussion:

The consensus among students of Dutch seems to be that the most difficult to pronounce consonant sound is 'g', regardless of its position within the word. From the recordings I've heard, it sounds analogous to German 'ch'. Conversely, Dutch 'ch' sounds like a 'k'; thus, the pronunciations of 'schip' (ship) and 'school' [cognate] make them seem as if they should be spelled 'skip' and 'skool'. The equivalent Danish words are 'skib' and 'skol'. Hmmm...

Speaking of the Danish language, its toughest consonant sound is 'd' in all positions except as the first letter, in which case it is the same as English, or after 'l'/'n'/'r', in which case it is silent. Whether it's the 'd' in the simple preposition 'ud' (out) or the 'd' in the verb 'organiserede' (organized), this baffling sound switches from sounding like the 'th' in 'both' or 'thin' to a general 'l'. The latter pronunciation seems to be the preferred one, so instead of imitating the former - which the Hugo course recommended - I let loose with the twelfth letter. I do the same thing whenever I see a 'v' after a vowel: rather than guess as to whether it's a 'v' or 'w' sound, I usually just pretend I'm reciting some Latin texts. (My limited knowledge of the way that proto-Romance language was spoken includes reading that v's were pronounced as w's.)

To get back to Dutch, however, I'd like to mention one peculiar feature that might link it to the Nordic languages. A substantial number of people in the Netherlands and Belgium have the tendency to drop the 'n' from the plural ending/infinitive ending -en. Thus, verbs such as 'hopen' (to hope), 'denken' (to think), and 'horen' (to hear) sound as if they were written 'hope', 'denke', and 'hore'. In this respect, it loses similarity with German, whose 'hoffen', 'denken', and 'hören' are pronounced as they are written, i.e. the final 'n' is always pronounced. But in doing so, Dutch infinitives also begin to resemble the infinitive forms 'håbe', 'tænke', and 'høre', whose final -e is characteristic of most Danish verbs.

But speaking and listening to a language form only half the picture. In terms of vocabulary, there are a few words that not only distance both Dutch and Danish from German, but also bring them together:

English:
always, entire, shall (3rd person singular)

Dutch:
altijd, hele, zal

German:
immer, ganz, wird

Danish:
altid, hele, skal

So that's some vocab for thought. Before I go to sleep, though, I have to wonder about words unique to Dutch and Danish. For Dutch, many three-consecutive-vowel words fit the bill: saai (boring) and mooi (beautiful) come to mind. And if anyone here learns to count in Danish, well, you'll discover some convoluted ways to express numbers.

Hmm, interesting.

Although HT, Dutch (having a very large vocabulary) also knows "immer" and "gans" (the latter with a slightly limited meaning compared to 'hele')

The similarities made me curious though, could someone provide the Danish words for:

Ja (yes) -- ...
Oorlog (war) -- ...
Krijger (warrior/tribesman) -- ...
Stam (tribe) -- ...
Taal (language) -- ...
Spraak (speech) -- ...
Vlinder (butterfly) -- ...
Ooievaar (stork) -- ...
Stront (shit) -- ...
Gemakkelijk (easy) -- ...
Schoon (clean) -- ...
Meerderheid (majority) -- ...
Meerderheden (majorities) -- ...
Blikje (beverage can) -- ...
Bolwerk (Bastion) -- ...
Omwenteling (revolution, as in "revolutions per minute")
Leger (army) -- ...
Vriendin (girlfriend) -- ...
Vijand (enemy) -- ...
Hangslot (padlock) -- ...
Luchtmacht (airforce) -- ...
Onderzeeër (submarine) -- ...
Woestijn (dessert, as in landscape) -- ...

stupid me, the latter is spelled DESERT