How similar are Dutch and Afrikaans?

After doing a bit of research on the two languages it strikes me that the vocabulary is 80-90% identical, with minor spelling differences. However, Afrikaans grammar is ultimately significantly more simplified than Dutch grammar, so on the basis I would suspect Dutch would have an easier time understanding Afrikaans than vice versa.

Technically they are two distinct languages, but the two don't strike me as any more distinct than English and Scots, if anything I think the situation between Scots and English and Dutch and Afrikaans is rather comparable, and if Scots is merely the tradtional English dialect of Scots, then Afrikaans is merely the Dutch dialect of Dutch-Whites in South Africa.

Considering the closeness of much of the vocabulary I would be highly suprised if Dutch and Afrikaans speakers could absolutely not understand each other. As an American English speaker who has visited Scotland, at certain times I have had to listen to some speakers who spoke to me in a very heavy dialect, I guess what you would call Scots, and weren't interested in speaking more standard English, and despite this I was more or less able to understand them, even though Scots is very far removed from any English dialect you would find in North America. So I don't see why the situation between Dutch and Afrikaans should be any different?

Cheers

Read topic "Is Afrikaans Basically the Same As Dutch?" and you will get an answer.

Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are a lot closer to each other than Dutch and Afrikaans to each other.

The 3 languages can be considered dialects of a single language or mutually intelligible macro language.

The differences between the 3 are the same as that between Bahasa Malay and Bahasa Indonesian.

On the other hand Afrikaans became considerably different from Dutch because the speakers of the latter make it intentional.

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Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish are a lot closer to each other than Dutch and Afrikaans to each other.>>
Dutch and Afrikaans are mutually inelligible. Read post of kevin
kevin Sat Jan 16, 2010 1:17 pm GMT in topic "Is Afrikaans Basically the Same As Dutch?"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fYB9s0Nyzk
Danish and Swedish intelligibility level in spoken form is similar to Portuguese and Spanish intelligibility level.

<< Danish and Swedish intelligibility level in spoken form is similar to Portuguese and Spanish intelligibility level. >>

No, they speak to each other as if they're using a single language.

Spaniards and Portuguese have a hard time understanding each other and if they it's because of common or cognate words less so with grammar.

Afrikaans is closer to Dutch than Quebec French is to French..


I don't know about Swedish, Danish and Norwegian but I do know Afrikaans people can read Dutch newspapers and vice versa without problems. If you speak standard formal Afrikaans and standard formal Dutch, people can understand each other perfectly fine.

It's only when Afrikaans people speak slang, non formal Afrikaans that the language becomes more difficult to understand. This works both ways. Speak standard formal Dutch and a Afrikaner will understand. Speak slang or dialect Dutch and it becomes more difficult.

Really somebody speaking Quebec French wouldn't even be understood in Paris France.

I don't know that much about Quebec French, but isn't there a huge difference between hardcore old Quebec dialects and modern Quebecois? Doesn't the younger generation speak a language that has been influenced a lot by European French? Or have the hardcore Quebecois dialects been merged together to a softer variant and does the language still differ a great deal from it's European sister?

its sister*

Quebecois French aka Joual.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lB-AX8_lSA



Nova Scotia Acadian French

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUrbdLnPkmE

Very difficult for French people to understand.