What are the North Germanic Languages?

@simrin: No, there is no mutual intelligibility between North and West Germanic speakers. I am Icelandic and even I had to learn Danish in school to be able to understand the rest of the North Germanic languages. While there are some things I understand in German and Dutch, there is no way I could even survive a day in either country by just relying on common Germanic vocabulary. I would have to use English.

I don't know much about the Icelandic language. But I can understand why this language is similar to the Old Norse language that was spoken way back before the 14th century.

Some of the Vikings came to settle in Iceland somewhere around the 10th or 11th century, I think. They must have spoken the Old Norse language. Iceland has been kind of an isolated community, without too many other cultures settling there. So the language didn't change too much.

My grandmother and grandfather were both immigrants to America. My grandma came from Norway and my grandpa was from Sweden. Before they learned English, they didn't have much trouble communicating with each other. So the

Swedish and Norwegian language couldn't be too different.

I learned to speak some words in Swedish and Norwegian when I was small. My grandmother taught us to say some of the manner words, which we were expected to use.

I think quite a few words are similar in the languages of Scandinavia and English. But the intonation between the two is quite different. That makes it hard to learn - speaking anyway.

@fify-- I think Swedish and Danish are pretty similar too. If you ask me, I'd actually say that all Germanic languages are similar. I think it's possible for even native North Germanic language speakers to understand West Germanic language speakers and vice versa.

That's why I'd rather say 'Germanic languages' in general rather than East or West. Even though they don't all have the same exact origins, these languages have been heavily influenced by one another for centuries. So I think they've come to resemble one another. I'm not claiming that someone who speaks Danish will understand a German perfectly. But they can probably communicate enough to get by.

@turquoise-- If I remember correctly Swedish is the most widely spoken North Germanic language. I know it's spoken by around 10 million people but the other North Germanic languages are spoken by less. So that makes Swedish the most widely spoken one.

A friend of mine knows Swedish and he says that it's actually really similar to Norwegian. He can understand some Norwegian with his Swedish even though he didn't study Norwegian at all. So I think you would be best off learning Norwegian. You can probably pick up on some of the other ones later too.

I studied German and took a couple of Dutch courses as well, which are both West Germanic languages. I never had problem finding tutors or materials to study with. I think finding materials for North Germanic languages is a tad bit harder than West Germanic ones. But I still think you'll have more opportunities with Swedish.

I really want to learn a North Germanic language. I'm actually a member of a North Germanic culture group because my parents both have Norwegian roots, although neither speak the language. Sometimes native speakers come to our meetings and I've had the chance to hear Norwegian and Danish at our meetings. I think both sound great.

I'm actually most intrigued by Icelandic, which I believe is the oldest language out of the bunch. But I've never met anyone who speaks Icelandic and I certainly don't know of any places that teach Icelandic so I think it would be difficult to learn it and practice it.

Which North Germanic language is spoken by the most number of people and would that be the best one for me to try to learn?

@vogueknit17- I think part of it is laziness. A lot of schools in the US only offer Spanish or maybe one or two other languages, so there aren't a lot of choices. If people go on to take a language then in college, they still don't learn anything besides maybe a little more Spanish. Honestly though I think it would be really helpful for more people to learn something more unusual. If you want to go to Europe from the US, for example, something like a Dutch course or a Danish course or something else less common might get you a job where other people couldn't go.

@widget2010- I think that English speakers don't try to learn things like German or Norwegian because they see them as less valuable than Spanish or French; of course, that's not always true either, since in Europe a lot of people use German or Italian as a second language as well, to say nothing of things like Chinese in some parts of the world.

I speak Norwegian and it really is true that it's so connected to English. I found Norwegian to be really simple because of this, and even learned a little bit of Icelandic to see how it was different. What I really find interesting about this, though, is the way that most people in the United States who learn another language seem to try to learn Spanish or French, when German or another Nordic language might be much easier to pick up if you don't know another language already.