Scandinavia

Scandinavia is the cultural and historic region of the Scandinavian Peninsula and some surrounding areas. The Scandinavian countries are in present day understood as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, even if the latter actually does not reside on the Scandinavian Peninsula. These countries have mutually recognized each other as parts of political and cultural Scandinavia, since the golden days of the nationalist movements in respective countries in the middle of the 19th century CE.

Languages

Main articles: North Germanic languages, Finno-Ugric languages

Related Topics:
North Germanic languages - Finno-Ugric languages

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Most dialects of Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are mutually intelligible, and Scandinavians can with little trouble understand each other's standard languages as they appear in print and are heard on radio and television. The reason they are traditionally viewed as different languages, rather than dialects of one language, is that they each have their "army and navy", being spoken in separate countries. They are related to, but not intelligible with, the other North Germanic languages, Icelandic and Faroese, which are descended from Old Norse. Danish, Swedish and Norwegian have, since medieval times, been influenced to varying degrees by Low German.

Related Topics:
Danish - Swedish - Norwegian - Standard language - Icelandic - Faroese - Old Norse - Low German

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The Scandinavian languages are (as a language family) entirely unrelated to Finnish and Estonian, which as Finno-Ugric languages are distantly related to Hungarian. This said there still is a great deal of borrowings from the Swedish language in both the Finnish and Estonian language. Although Swedish speakers constitute a small but influential minority in Finland — and Finnish speakers constitute a minority in Sweden of similar relative size — and most ethnic Finns have studied Swedish as a mandatory school subject, the linguistic distance between the language families is often seen as indicative of a cultural distance and a reason not to classify the Finns as Scandinavian. This view was particularly prominent among Finns influenced by the ethnic nationalist Fennoman movement in the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the language-based Scandinavian movement in the other Scandinavian countries in the 1850's. Only in 1902 was Finnish language granted an equal status with Swedish as an official language of Finland. Still in present day, the municipality with the highest percent of native Swedish speakers of the population in the world, Korsnäs, resides in Finland.

Related Topics:
Finnish - Estonian - Hungarian - Ethnic Finns - Mandatory school subject - Ethnic nationalist - Fennoman - Scandinavian movement - Korsnäs

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Finns and Icelanders who have studied Swedish and Danish, respectively, as foreign languages often also find it hard to understand the other Scandinavian languages. On the other end of the scale are the Norwegians, who with two parallel written standards, and a habit to hold on strongly to local dialects, are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish as only slightly more distant dialects. In a conversation between a Swedish speaker and a Dane there can be significant dfficulties in understanding eachother's spoken language, due to German and Dutch influence in the Danish vocabulary. In the Faroe Islands Danish is mandatory, and since Faroese people this way become bilingual in two very distinct Nordic languages find it relatively easy to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages.

Related Topics:
Faroe Islands - Danish

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http://www.nordkontakt.nu/.

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