Updated December 9th 2008

Prewords

I made this site with an interset for these languages. I am no linguist nor do I have the skill or time to provide more of complete and deep information (yet). Various links are provided that should support. I hope some of this will become useful for anyone who looks for info in the subject, whether it be for private interest or school work. Thank you for reading!

Scandinavian Languages

The terms Scandinavian languages, or North Germanic langauges, refers to languages in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Faroe Islands.
There are also the Finnish languages and the related Samic laguages in Finland, Norway and Sweden. The most close link between these languages are at the level that forms the Finno-Lappic language group. (As to be found in this Finno-Ugric language classification list.

The term North Germanic languages reflects its being one of three branches of Germanic languages, North, West and the extinct East Germanic languages. In Scandinavia, about 20 million people speak any of the Scandinavian languages as their mother tongue.

The Scandinavian/North Germanic languages have the same origin, developed from an Old Norse language.
In the 14th century they first became influenced by Low German and later in the 16th to 19th century by High German, French and Latin and by English since the late 19th century. The languages have evolved mostly in a symmetrical way so that most scandinavians are able to understand eachother to a certain level.

Is spoken in Sweden by nearly 9 million people. In Finland by ca 5.5% of the finnish population. Swedish, were spoken in Finland, has evalved a finnish accent. Some old swedish dialects in Finland are small or close to etinct.

Divided in nynorsk and bokmål. Norway was under Danish administration for about 400 years, thus a danish influence had a large impact on the norwegian language. In the 19th century national movements emerged and in that a claim for the own language. Many dialects still had a lot of the old norwegian and there was a need to agree upon a standard for a more original norwegian language. Eventually that did happen with nynorsk (ny norsk = new norwegian) but the "new" norwegian still had danish elements. But since the danish influence had gone so far even in many dialects, any 100% "pure" norwegian could not be achieved.

The Danisk language has a more own prosody than the other Scandinavian langauges. It evolved from Old Norse slightly earlier than Swedish and Norwegian and after the influence of Low German language that begun in the 14th century.

The icelandic language has remained pretty much the same for nearly 1000 years. The people once came primarily from west Norway.

Very close to icelandic though somewhat "newer".

Including a significant Swedish minority in Finland. Languages belonging to the North Germanic language tree are also (to some extent) spoken on Greenland and by immigrant groups mainly in North America and Australia.

Not all people, even in Scandinavia that there are different sami language although some are closer related to eachother and some less close. Nevertheless, even though they also have dialects, they are that separated between eachother so that it by definition has to defined as several sami languages.

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