From: anders@lise4.lise.unit.no (Anders Christensen)
Subject: Re: Understanding language (Was: Re:  <None>)
Organization: /home/flipper/anders/.organization
	<1992Jul27.173931.2526@corax.udac.uu.se>
Date: 28 Jul 92 00:51:42

In article <1992Jul27.173931.2526@corax.udac.uu.se> andersa@Riga.DoCS.UU.SE (Anders Andersson) writes:
> In article <ANDERS.92Jul27023440@lise12.lise.unit.no>, anders@lise12.lise.unit.no (Anders Christensen) writes:
> > It is a test given by military recruits, performed in the seventies.
> >
> >               Understands:  Swedish  Danish  Norwegian  Average         
> >                      --------------------------------------------------
> > Swedish recruits               -       23%     48%        36%
> > Danish recruits               49%       -      69%        58%
> > Norwegian recruits            88%      73%      -         81%
> > 

[...]

> > Comments on those numbers?
>
> I'd like to see averages calculated by language as well.  Assuming
> that the number of recruits of each nationality was the same, they
> might be something like:
> 				   69%      48%     59%
> 
> Perhaps that tells something about which language is easiest to
                                                       ^^^^^^^
> understand (even though I admit that the difference is not as
> striking as for the averages by nationality)..?

Oops ... jumping to conclusions, are we?  :-)

According to these numbers, Swedish is the language most understood by
people from the two other countries.  But that does not mean that
Swedish is easiest to understand. I can think of several reasons
for the high number of Norwegians understanding Swedish:

1) A relative large proportion of the population in Norway lives close
   to the Norwegian/Swedish border, and regularly can (and do) watch
   Swedish television.

2) A lot of Swedish terms has been imported into Norwegian, initially
   often as slang.

3) Radio and TV in Norway don't mind sending music with Swedish text.
   In fact, Swedish LP/CD/whatever are often sold 'as-is' in Norway,
   without being translated.

4) Norwegians, when speaking to Swedes, tend to fill in some Swedish
   words in the conversation, to make it more easy to understand, and
   thus not 'forcing' Swedes to understand Norwegian. I have seldom
   heard Swedes do the same thing.

Of course, some of these reasons interact, e.g. 2) may partly be a
result of 1).  Correct me if I'm wrong, but none of these points are
generally true about Sweden? If so, that might explain some of the
numbers. 

This means that Norwegians, in general, have been much more exposed to
Swedish, both in spoken and written form, than Swedes have been
exposed to Norwegian. Interpreting that as Swedish is 'easier' to
understand than Norwegian ... well, that seems to be a bit farfetched
to me.

I think the most striking numbers emerge when you look at any two
languages separately:

  1) 73% Norw. understand Danish, 69% Danes understand Norw. 

  2) 23% Swedes understand Danish, 49% Danes understand Swedish
 
  3) 48% Swedes understand Norw., 88% Norw. understand Swedish

In 1) the numbers are about identical, in 2) and 3) the number of
Swedes understanding the other language is about half of the number of
persons speaking that language who understand Swedish. Why does Swedes
seemingly understand the other languages less than Danes and
Norwegians (except from the old unfruitful and flamish arguments about
being "stupid and arrogant").

-anders