Re: The definition of the Standard variation of British English

Hatunen wrote...
Ilpo wrote:

Swedish speaking Finns and Swedes typically have very little difficulty understanding each other,

Nor, I understand, do Norwegians and Danes. I am not alone in suggesting that Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are dialects of the same language.

[There we have that wretched "nor" again with no absolute negative to refer to...]

I question your understanding. A Dane will understand much of what a Norwegian or a Swede might say to him (provided the Swede does not use one of the more extreme regional accents), but a Norwegian or a Swede would be lucky to pick up more than a small fraction of anything spoken by a Dane. I'm tempted to say that Swedish and Danish are as different from each other as are Spanish and Portuguese - would you claim that these are dialects of the same language?

And, just to link up to an entirely unrelated thread, I might even suggest
Icelandic : Norwegian :: Latin : Italian
--
Noel

.

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