Re: The definition of the Standard variation of British English

On Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:05:44 +0100, "Ildhund"
<jnllb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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?

I think it's arguable.


--
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