Talk:Mutual intelligibility

English and Scots

Although I haven't heard Scots spoken much, reading it is fairly simple, having English as a mother tongue. sco.wikipedia.org is writen is Scots, and it is pretty easy to be understood —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bobotast (talk • contribs) 20:17, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd add Scots and English to the list, but I don't have any proper citations I could use. But yeah, they're mutually intelligible in both spoken and written forms, Scots just has a few more sounds compared to English. (Like that sound used in the proper pronunciation of "loch")122.175.70.160 (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Proper pronunciation of "loch". Lots of countries in Europe have that same "ch"/"g"/"j" sound. Although some countries (or even regions of countries) might pronounce it a bit harder than others. The south of the Netherlands and Belgium, for instance, pronounce it softly. But they have no problem whatsoever to do the "hard" sound. And the entire continent of South America can pronounce that sound. Usually soft in South American Spanish, usually hard in Spain Spanish. German usually has the soft version as well.

Arabic countries, I've heard the hard version. I even have a US colleague who laughs using the hard version. I have no citations, either. Just speaking from personal experience.

And if you want to talk about sounds, then mention tonal languages. With Thai and Mandarin Chinese, I believe both using 4 tones, and Cantonese even using 9. Or mention Dutch. With a dozen or so of two vowel combinations, each sounding different. (And I'm a native Dutch speaker, so I should know.)

It's not easy. Aren't there at least 5 or so different ways to pronounce the letter "r"? 68.200.97.152 (talk) 04:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Might the "hard sound" and "soft sound" repeatedly being brought up in this section be the velar fricatives [x] and [ɣ]!? If so, it is probably better to list them as such because there are many similar sounds (to English speakers) on the IPA, and "hard sound" or "soft sound" does not really mean anything at all. This sounds a lot like Folk taxonomy or totally arbitrary naming and is not very discriptive of the phonological differences between Scots English, and British or American English (or the aforementioned dipthongs (that is what "two vowel combinations" are called) in Dutch for that matter).

Also, if citations are really needed for these things: (assuming the other editors meant that the "hard" and "soft" sounds are [x] and [ɣ]) the sounds [x] and [ɣ]) both occur in Spanish and the [x] occurs in Scots.

AND!

What do tonal languages have anything to do with the mutual-intelligibility between Scots English, and other dialects of English?! English does not have any tonal suprasegmentals.

We need a better source for the claim that English and Scots are partially mutually intelligible. I am not going to take them off the list because it is obvious that they are at least partially mutually intelligible. The source that was cited for their mutual intelligibility was Answers.com, which is not an excellent source.Brianc26 (talk) 08:06, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

Brianc26 (talk) 02:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

About how they needed better sources for the mutual intelligibility of Scots and English, I personally speak both with a good level of fluency and can say for a fact that they both have a decent level of mutual intelligibility, but Scots still has many relations to German, Gaelic, Icelandic and on some occasions even Spanish/Italian.

German and Jiddisch

Though these languages arent mutually intellgible when written, they are when spoken. please add this example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Teutschvölkischer (talk • contribs) 16:27, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

We need a reliable source first. I doubt the intelligibility between them is very consistent; a Yiddish sentence made up only of words of German origin is certainly understandable to German speakers, but a sentence where all or most of the content words are of Slavic or Hebrew origin will be quite impenetrable. In practice, sentences have a good mixture of German and non-German words, so a German hearing spoken Yiddish will understand a lot, but will be thrown off by a fair proportion of unfamiliar vocabulary. I imagine the same is true in the opposite direction too. +Angr 20:47, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

This Youtube video shows 2 people communicating in their languages, one in Yiddish and another in German.--Kanzler31 (talk) 17:22, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

From the youtube video showing a Ukranian Yiddish speaker vs Standard German I was able to understand much of what the Yiddish speaker said. I would say that the greatest barrier in understanding is not grammar or sounds, but as mentioned above, a lexical barrier. Brianc26 (talk) 05:38, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I speak both (not fluent in German). There are very few words of Slavic origin in Juedisch but it does contain over 30% Hebrew. As such, a Juedisch speaker can understand a German speaker much easier than visa versa. Even there, I've made mistakes and used German words e.g.: vertoten instead of geharget geworen, and received blank stares. Of course, Jews tend to use the local vernacular in lieu of purist Juedisch in many cases. For example, "Ich bin a Member" (American) as compared to "Ich bin a Chaver" (Israel); or "Ich geh zu office zu reden mit do Manager" (American, note that Americans tend to not decline der) or "Ich geh zu Misrad zu reden mit den Menahel" (Israel). No source, from firsthand observations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.51.112.98 (talk) 18:32, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

Serbian and Montenegrin

I am native speaker of Serbian language and I claim that Serbs and Montenegrins understand each other in both Latin and Cyrillic script. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.189.132.31 (talk) 14:45, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

On the same subject, is it true that Macedonian and/or Bulgarian have mutual intelligibility with Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian-Montenegrin? --99.59.75.144 (talk) 06:47, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

A while back many maps showed that Macedonian and Bulgarian/as well as Montenegrin and Serbian were the same language/people! Bezuidenhout (talk) 07:47, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

As a native Serbian I can claim that there is a great degree of intelligibility between Serbian and Bulgarian and especially Serbian and Macedonian. This is especially true for speakers of south-eastern Torlakian dialect of Serbian. Intelligibility falls quickly as you move westwards. Speakers of central and western Serbian dialects, Croatian and Bosnian speakers understand less of Macedonian and Bulgarian. Phenomenon is somewhat asymmetric as Macedonians quite often understand Serbian better then Serbs do Macedonian. This is due to recent common history in Yugoslavia where Serbo-Croatian was a dominant language.--Stane (talk) 23:36, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, they're mutually intelligible.Zlaja094 (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Forgive I've forgotten my old handle - Any look at the wikipedia page (i know rules about self reference, but what i'm talking about is itself cited, that research applies here) on Montenegro. Everyone there called what they were speaking 'Serbian', according to the censuses taken, going back to at least the 1950's, again in the 70's - and then a change. In the 80's there was a distinction to call the language Serbo-Croatian. This is what had been called Serbian for hundreds if not thousands of years. Again I am paraphrasing from Serbian language page and Montenegran language page, itself cited. Anyone else interested in pursuing this line of thought can do the work, cite, edit,etc. I just had to get this out there because it was extremely annoying and political this non-scientific (not consistently applied) definition of umbrella, language, dialect, and mutually-intelligible. Using self-evident logic, Irish and American English ought to be considered unintelligble to each other if the standard of mere mutual-intelligibility describes Montenegran and Serbian. It would seem obvious to anyone who allowed themselves to think/argue outside of strict compartmentalization that the rapid and sudden 'invention' of a montenegrian language stinks of politics - it happened immediately and coincidentally with the secession of Montenegro from Serbia-Montenegro less than ten years ago. Can we be real? Are there any sources which demonstrate that Montenegran is a language, or is the Political Act of State itself enough to create Scientific Facts? How can we prove that Serbian and Montenegran are the same language despite the claims of a temporal government? Yes I realize I'm being editorial. This is the comments page. At the very least the debate should be presented as controversy. Really I'm surprised this whole subject doesn't note the subjectivity and political controversy which clearly overshadows this field from the eyes of academics in other actually scientific fields where terms must be defined and used consistently, strategically, and in a limited fashion ("definition" by definition delimits the meaning of a word from what it isn't)and requires a contrast to define it. The Serbo-Croatian issue is really political, not taxonomical in the scientific sense. Help! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.171.119.59 (talk) 10:26, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

As a native speaker of Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian from Bosnia I claim that we can understand and read Macedonian (Bosnians and Serbs can read it because we use the Cyrillic script too). My point is that Macedonian should be added to the Serbo-Croatian as a partially intelligible language. If you have any thoughts I'd like to know them. Zlaja094 (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I want to add that as a native Bulgarian speaker I can comunicate very good with Serbs (each of us speaking on his mothertongue), our languages are close so I think this should be noted.Xr 1 (talk) 18:21, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian

Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are all mutually intelligible, both written and spoken. Comparing texts, it's possible that they could be mutually intelligible. Kanzler31 (talk) 01:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

This is incorrect. All the Russians CANNOT understand Ukrainian as well as Belorussian except the ones who learn one of those two languages. The same about understanding of Russian by Ukrainians. For example Canadian Ukrainians don't understand Russian at all. Of course almost all Ukrainians from Ukraine studied Russian so that's why they understand it. --Sergm (talk) 21:25, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never learnt Belorussian or Ukranian but still understand both languages. Your argument is wrong. It's time your learnt the definition of an interchangeable language. ~Anonym. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.51.31.17 (talk) 07:35, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean can understand everything that is said or can you just get the gist? If the former, couldn't it be that what you hear is a mixture of those with Russian? AFAIK this happens regularly. --JorisvS (talk) 11:03, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

This is similar to the case of Portuguese and Spanish. Generally, Portuguese speakers can understand Spanish fairly well because they studied it a lot, while on the other hand Spanish speakers can only partially understand it. Not to mention a Brazilian Portuguese speaker can understand a Mexican Spanish speaker better than a European Spanish Speaker.Kanzler31 (talk) 17:26, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

As a native speaker of Russian I can say that both Belarusian and Ukrainian are at least partially intelligible for most Russians. There are,of course, few Russians who claim they cannot understand anything said in Ukrianian or Belarusian, while there are also some who claim they understand almost everything perfectly; but the majority is probably somewhere in between. The degree of understanding differs very much depending on education of a particular Russian person, cultural background, ability to deduct the meaning of separate unfamiliar words from the context, his or her knowledge of Russian language itself and especially its archaic and otherwise obsolete vocabulary which is not used in modern high-style Russian speech any more but still can be found in Russian classic literature of 18-19th centuries and which might be spared and widely used in Ukrainian or Belarusian (for example "очи", "уразуметь", "середа", "особливо", "зала", "брехать", "абы", "убиец"). It is also important to know that the intelligibility of Ukrainian speech can also depend on how Ukrainians speak themselves and what kind of vocabulary is used. Ukrainian language has a lot of synonym pairs in which one is more "Russian-like" and another more "Polish-like" (e.g. "родина"/"сiм'я" for "family", "дякую"/"спасибi" for "thank you", "голитися"/"бритися" for "to shave" etc.). So, a Ukrainian speaker can conciously adjust his choice of words to make him or her more (or less) understandable to Russians. There is also one interesting thing - spoken Belarusian can be better understood by Russians than spoken Ukrainian, while with written forms it's all exactly the opposite way.Dilas25 (talk) 16:01, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

What about Chinese and Japanese?

Shouldn't the written forms of both Chinese and Japanese be here? I have a Chinese friend who comes from Hong Kong and though he don't understand Japanese at all he can still understand the written form so long as there ain't no katakana or hiragana in the text. He understand kanji well. What do you think? Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 01:44, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, that's quite a stretch. Sure, you can get the gist of a few words here and there because many kanji and hanzi have similar meanings, but this is far from mutual intelligibility. For one thing, the grammar of Japanese is vastly different than that of any Chinese language. For another, Japanese is never (as far as I know) written without kana. For another, even the various Chinese languages are not mutually intelligible with one another, much less with Japanese. rʨanaɢ (talk) 01:51, 18 October 2010 (UTC)

All right, just wanted to know your opinion. I know what you mean, I've never seen a text written in Japanese without katakana or hiragana either, but I thought it could since my friend had not to much trouble understanding it. And since Kanji originally came from China I thought it could work. My friend always used to say that the Japanese written form was 60% Chinese while the rest was adapted and changed by the Japanese themselves. Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 03:01, 19 October 2010 (UTC)

There is limited written intelligibility between the two languages, but I don't know how significant it is until I can see an expert source that talks about it. Cla68 (talk) 06:12, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Sure, no problem. If I find one I'll make sure to post it here. Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 04:27, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

Trust me, they are not mutually intelligible. Like I said above, speakers of one language might occasionally be able to recognize what a text is broadly about (I can usually find the methods sections in Japanese sciencey articles...), match a few simple familiar constructions, especially when you already know what it's supposed to mean (for instance, it's easy to figure out what 私の1997 means when you already know it's the Japanese release of 我的1997), but they certainly can't understand one another's grammar. Just this afternoon I was at a complicated seminar talk about the Chinese bǎ construction, and the Japanese people were just as confused as all the other non-Chinese speakers. rʨanaɢ (talk) 04:46, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

It's okay. Thamks for all the info, I've learned much from you. Thank you.Freedom Fighter 1988 (talk) 17:43, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

I'd also like to point out that the perceived intelligibility between Chinese and Japanese is a property of their writing system, not of the languages. It could be said to be iconographic intelligibility. Chinese and Japanese are as distant as, for example, Icelandic and Turkish. Japanese has even been considered a language isolate by some (or at least the Japonic language group is considered unrelated to other groups). But if Icelanders and Turks by some chance began using a common writing system where a circle means the Sun, speakers of both could immediately understand what that circle stands for without knowing a single word of the other language and without these languages having anything in common. The circle would be an icon for the Sun itself, whereas group of icons consisting "S", "u" and "n" only form the word that means our nearby star in English but you'd have to know that in advance. JJohannes (talk) 09:36, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

This article frequently uses the phrase "partially intelligible". It would still probably be safe to say that Japanese Kanji and Chinese Kanji are Partially Intelligible. The only problem with claiming partial intelligibility seems to be that Japanese and Chinese are genetically unrelated languages. I do not know of any formal studies about the intelligibility of written Japanese and Mandarin Chinese. It would also be interesting to see a study on the intelligibility of written Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Chinese (I know for a fact that the spoken varients are not mutually intelligible and that sections discussing whether they were have not been entertained because of their unlikeliness)Brianc26 (talk) 21:11, 29 July 2012 (UTC).

As has been said above and at Talk:Mutual_intelligibility/Archive_2#Mandarin_and_Cantonese, the written forms of these languages are not mutually intelligible. Again, there are some areas of overlap (sometimes you can pick out words here or there because of the writing system) but it's far from mutual intelligibility. rʨanaɢ (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry that I have not looked through all of the archives for discussion records. That being said, this article classifies most of the "mutually intelligible" languages listed on the front page as "Partially Intelligible" and problems with this classification have popped up in almost every section. Why does being able to "pick out words here or there" because of a logographic writing system not fall into the catagory of partially intelligible? Intelligibility is just an abstract word used to describe the ability to comprehend something. How partial does something have to be? The phrase "partially intelligible" seems to have an obvious, but very undefined meaning. None of the "partially intelligible" languages listed (in written or spoken forms)have any explanation as to the degree of intelligibilty. Brianc26 (talk) 03:46, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Yes, that's problematic. Most speech varieties that linguists consider distinct languages are typically not fully mutually intelligible. However, quantifications of this partial intelligibility are rare, the only ones I've seen is of Dutch, West Frisian, and Afrikaans and Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish (see the source). We could add these, but I suspect we're stuck with "partial" for most language pairs. --JorisvS (talk) 13:15, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Polish-Ukrainian-Belarusian?

I read somewhere, not sure where, that Ukrainian and Polish have 72% similar vocabulary, while Ukrainian and Russian have only 60% similar vocabulary. It also stated that Ukrainian and Belarusian have 85% similar vocabulary. Now I, being Ukrainian, understand over half of what i hear in Polish. It should also be noted that Ukrainian and Belarusian (previously known as one language: Ruthenian) were heavily influenced by Polish. So my question is, are these three languages (Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian) mutually intelligble? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.104.180.211 (talk) 20:34, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

No, they are not mutual intelligible. Only Ukrainian and Belorussian are mainly mutual intelligible. Similarity of the vocabulary of Polish/Ukrainian/Belorussian languages primarily is due to their common root (as all Slavs) and neighborhood, and not the "heavily" influence one by another. This is all politics. In the same article stated both of Mutual Intelligibility of Ukrainian and Russian and Ukrainian and Polish. But then Russian and Polish must be Mutual Intelligible too! And true is that both poles and russians DO NOT UNDERSTAND the Ukrainian without learning it. А якщо ти українець, то я скажу тобі українською. Взаємнозрозумілі - це коли без всякої підготовки дві людини носія двох мов садовлять побалакати, то вони без проблем один одного зрозуміють. Ані поляк який ніколи не чув української мови, ані росіянин, не зрозуміють мову бабусі ані з Тернопільської області, ані з глибокого поліського села. Яка в дідька взаємозрозумілість? Її тут оцінюють по тому що мовляв українці і росіяни "недавно" розділились, українці балакають на суміші укр. і рос. мов. і таке інше. Але ж це чисте політиканство. Що значить "недавно", хто це виміряв що вони взагалі розділились, і врешіт решт мова йде про порівняння мов на предмет взаємозрозумілости чи суржику, який утворився як наслдіок асиміляції? А якже з урахуванням факту шо всі українці і білоруси вчили і вчать росмову, а за Польщі польску? Це оцінка взаємозрозумілости мов чи мовних політик і ситуацій? Чи цитувальники брітанських вчоних не розрізняють одне від іншого? Все це дуже "науково". Як і все що повязано з цим питанням. Що значить хевілі інфлуенсед? Тобто ти хочеш сказати, шо вся схожість української і польської обумовлена впливами останньої? Це ж маячня рівня імперських шовіністів. Дві сусідні словянські мови просто і не могли не бути схожими. Невже ми запозичили в поляків спільнословянські слова? Реальний пласт польських запозичень абсолютно не грає ролі в розглянутому питанні. Бо він перекривається значно вагомішим спорідненням. Просто дивно, що румини не приповзли зі своєю мячнею. Агов, ми і звами mutual intelligible?... 92.112.156.191 (talk) 07:16, 20 September 2011 (UTC)Яфігєю

What is the reason for the above emotional response? Yes, I would say they are mutually intelligible - I'm Polish, and I can easily watch both Belorussian and Ukrainian television and follow along. Truth be told - yes, I studied <a little Russian> and maybe because of that, some missing vocabulary is filled in - but that's all.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.6.88.187 (talk) 06:11, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

As a native Russian I could understand perfecty that emotional and heavily politicized responce written in Ukrainian (which had even some stances mentioning "imperial chauvinism"). It reminded me the reaction of West-Ukrainian nationalists when someone tells them that Russian and Ukrainian are truly very closely related to each other and have common roots. Somehow they feel a threat in this purely linguistic fact to their "незалежнiсть" (i.e. independence), some of them are in a phase of denial and want to exaggerate their "difference from Russians" and absence of everything in common. The same phenomenon can be observed in case of Serbians/Bosnians/Croatians/Montenegrins who will all try to convince us that they all speak "fundamentally" different languages while in fact we are simply having a bunch of dialects. This is all just politics!Dilas25 (talk) 16:22, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

Many Russian speakers claim to be able to understand a south slavic language, Bulgarian . I have noticed that there are many lexical similarities between the two, maybe because of Church Slavonic borrowings. Linguists often seem to dodge the issue of mutual intelligibility across branches; in another section Spanish vs Itallian, users who speak Spanish an Ibero-Romance Language, are claiming to be able to understand Itallian, an Italo-Western Romance Language while at the same time speakers of another Ibero-Romance Language Porteguese, are claiming to not understand Spanish! A similar thing is happening here, where Ukrainians are claiming that Russian and Ukrainian are not mutually intelligible, but a Polish speaker, Polish being a Western Slavic Language, is claiming to be able to understand Ukrainian, an Eastern Slavic language. Is it possible that some languages within a branch are less mutually intelligible to members of their own branch, but are mutually intelligible with some languages of different branches due to lexical borrowings, or more similar Phonology (many Ukrainians use [w] whereas Russians and Bulgarians use [v] (see Bulgarian Language and Russian Language))? Brianc26 (talk) 06:24, 8 June 2012 (UTC) The Spanish vs Itallian section also has places where "knowledgeable users" delete sources which say that Spanish and Itallian are mutually intelligible! Brianc26 (talk) 06:35, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

As a user of polish language I claim that ukrainian and polish are not mutual intelligibility. Only basic words are similiar, but this doesnt allow to understand each other in formal situation, only in casual, but not always. Polish is very close to Slovak - we have almost the same gramma and silimiar vocabulary. Andrzej19 (talk) 08:04, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

German and some others

The article says that German is (albeit partially) mutually intelligible with Dutch. Being a German I wouldn't have dared to suggest that, though the similarity is, of course, clear and I think we understand written Dutch if it isn't too difficult and not too much of it at a time. But be that as it may, it is way easier to understand Luxembourgish or Low German than Dutch, the latter being a different language than German (just as the Langue d'oc is different from French). At least if you know a dialect of German, not necessarily closely related, since Standard German is somewhat remote from the developped language anywhere. (I also doubt the oral intelligibility of Schwyzerdytsch for Germans.) (That is not a source but a suggestion.) --91.34.228.200 (talk) 13:33, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

I heard that the dialects of people living close to the border are sufficiently close to Dutch so that they understand it well. Of course one may then ask if they can really be considered as dialects of standard German, rather than Low German, and one can also suspect that the exposure to Dutch plays a role. Hans Adler 14:12, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

Being a native Dutch I wouldn't have 'suggested' it either, so I critically looked in the source and found that it actually said something like 'mutually intelligible to some extent', so unless you happen to know a reliable source that specifically says that this is not the case, I'm afraid we're stuck with it. Actually, I'd say the best thing would be to have the intelligibility quantified, but I don't expect there to be many studies like this at our disposal. Also, do note that Luxemburgish/Moselle Franconian, Low German, the Alemannic Germans and Austro-Bavarian are actually divergent enough to be considered distinct languages. As with German-Dutch, there will, of course (since we're dealing with a big dialect continuum), be transitional varieties that could have higher levels of intelligibility with varieties they bridge. --JorisvS (talk) 16:51, 30 April 2011 (UTC)

It's indeed incorrect. If you do a google book search for Dutch German mutually unintelligible or intelligible you will find dozens that clearly state the two languages aren't mutual intelligible with each other (except in the border area perhaps). We could add this, but it would be the first in the list to expand on this, so I suggest to remove it from the list. Machinarium (talk) 15:15, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

This may be another example of a-symmetric. German vs. Dutch. Several German people I have talked to told me that Dutch sounds like a "German dialect" to them, but "one they couldn't understand". The asymmetry, however, may stem from the fact that Germany is a much bigger country than the Netherlands and that a lot of people in the Netherlands take (or even HAVE to take) German in school. While that is not the same the other way around. Most Dutch people, in my experience, can understand German to some degree, maybe even understand it fluently, because of TV and school and such. The Netherlands is a tiny country. "We" have to learn English, German, French, because there is no way most of the people from those much bigger countries are going to learn Dutch. That may be to "our" advantage, too, though. In my years in highschool, at one point or another, I took 6 languages. Not very likely that someone in a school in Germany, France, Britain, Spain, Italy, and so on, would do the same... 68.200.97.152 (talk) 03:44, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

At a German conversation table (I am a native speaker of English who has studied German in college)I was able to somewhat understand Dutch (there are some native Dutch speakers who know German and go to our table). That is probably not news to anyone, but the strangest thing was that a Dutch speaker claimed to partially be able to understand the North Germanic languages... I have found very little research into inteligibility across branches of the Germanic family, it would make some sense however. The north Germanic languages, like Dutch and the low Germanic languages, did not go through the high German consonant shift. Consider Ny Norsk: Eg heter Amy vs Dutch: Ik heet Amy. (Forgive me if the verb conjugations are off, I only know English, German, Russian, and a little bit of Swedish) Is it possible that there is not just partial mutual intelligibility between West Germanic languages, but also North? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianc26 (talk • contribs) 05:27, 7 June 2012 (UTC) Brianc26 (talk) 05:48, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

It's definitely a stretch to call Dutch and German mutually intelligible. Dutch people tend to understand some German, because they're forced to undergo years of studying it in school, not because of any similarities between the language. To me, Dutch is much closer to the Germanic part of the English language (but obviously without the large French/Latin component of English). The way you communicate with toddlers is phonetically often almost the same between Dutch and English. Low German and Dutch were probably dialects of one and the same language as late as the middle ages, but High German has warped pronunciation beyond human comprehension and added a number of unnatural and incomrehensible declension rules to the language, because Latin had those too, and it looked more classy to have them when translating the Bible. Dutch and German people tend to communicate in English with each other.--92.254.20.163 (talk) 06:19, 17 August 2012 (UTC)

This is complete nonsense. Those declensions were not "added" to German, they originally existed in English and Dutch as well, but were eliminated over the centuries. If at all, one can say that Latin helped to retain them in German, but they were certainly not "added" to the language... The relationship between Low German, Dutch and High German is much more complicated than you so suggest. Dutch stems from Franconian, as do many High German dialects, but in contrast to Low German which stems from Saxonian... Finally, Germans and Dutch people communicate in German, Dutch or English. I'd say that German is the most frequent choice among older people and English among younger people, but that varies. Especially in regions along both sides of the border, people usually don't use English... The only thing to which I agree, is that Dutch and German are not mutually intelligible in speech. They are however mutually intelligible to some degree in writing. A monolingual Dutch speaker will without a doubt get much more information out of a German text than an English one.

Another thing is that there is a dialect continuum between Dutch and German. Modern Dutch and German are standard languages based largely on the historic varities of Holland and respectively Southern Saxony / Northern Bavaria. These are the centres where the standard langagues originally come from, 700 km apart from each other. But the dialects in between bridge the gap little by little. Listen to this song from Kerkrade: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpNY_BuoZK8. Neither a standard-Dutch speaker nor a standard-German speaker can understand it. But I can understand almost all of it because I come from Bonn (100 km distance) where a similar dialect is spoken. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.214.155.151 (talk) 21:43, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Don't know if this is a stupid question but what about German and Swiss German? While they are both written the same, they seem to be two separate languages when spoken, rather than different dialects. According to my own research, a German would not necessarily by able to understand a Swiss in their version of the language and it takes education in standard German for a Swiss to understand Germans. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.194.177.7 (talk) 19:51, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Most German dialects which are geographically far from each other, are not mutually intelligible, e.g. Low German to a Swabian, or Colognian to a Bavarian. Swiss German is not special in this regard. It is however special because it is used much more frequently than any other German dialect. For example, Swiss television and radio are mostly in the local variety unlike any other German-speaking country or region (except maybe Luxembourg).

Italian and Spanish

I've only been studying Spanish for 2 months and I've tried talking to an Italian person in chat and we understood each other quite well. I've also heard similar experiences. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 114.108.192.10 (talk) 08:57, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

It's true that there are similarities, especially in writing and when two people are able to cooperate with one another. But they are not mutually intelligible. rʨanaɢ (talk) 09:14, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Rjanag i noticed you removed my edit regarding mutual intelligibility between spanish and italian - you arbitrarily decided that the sources are not reliable; also you claim that a discussion in the talk page concluded they are not mutually intelligible (m.i.) - well, that is not true since, from what i read, most readers agree they are m.i. ; also i checked your user page, where you state you barely know spanish and do not know italian - i wonder then how could you be so sure about your claims; my mother language is italian and i've lived in central america for about one year, and i assure you that the two languages are at least partially m.i. ; with little cooperation both parts can develop a simple conversation on most topics, so i strongly disagree with your edits and i am going to revert them.--Itemirus^{Message me!} 07:35, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I never said "a discussion in the talk page concluded they are not mutually intelligible", I said this blog post is not a reliable source and it has been removed from the article before, by editors other than me. I didn't "arbitrarily" decide the blog post isn't a reliable source; please review Wikipedia's guidelines regarding reliable sources.

The fact that you are a native speaker of Italian, or that I am not, does not matter, because Wikipedia does not accept personal experience as a source for article content. You can only add content that's supported by a reliable source, not by your personal opinions.

Please refrain from edit warring, and limit your contributions to this discussion until a consensus is reached. Wikipedia's policy on edit warring states that once a disagreement has arisen over article content, you shouldn't just keep on restoring your disputed edit, but should wait until a consensus is reached before continuing to edit. rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:11, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I only just now noticed that your addition included two sources, not one. I have some comments about both of them.

• http://www.lancs.ac.uk/staff/letchfoa/comparison/comparison.htm Again, this is a personal website, not a reliable source. Furthermore, from what I can tell, it never explicitly argues that the two languages are mutually intelligible; it's just a long list of various similarities and differences between the two languages.
• http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/02/08/mutual-intelligibility-in-the-romance-languages/ This is a personal blog, not a reliable source, like I said. Furthermore, it only contains one line that can be remotely construed as arguing that Spanish and Italian are mutually intelligible:

  What is interesting is that everyone accepts that Spanish, Portuguese and Italian are separate languages, despite 54% intelligibility for Spanish and Portuguese and even higher for Spanish and Italian.

  The author of the blog post does not indicate where any of these numbers came from. The rest of the post is comparing different languages (the only academic paper he cites is one comparing Spanish and Portuguese), or only talking about lexical similarity (which is not the same thing as mutual intelligibility).

I am not arguing that there is absolutely no degree of mutual intelligibility between the languages. I am just pointing out that you have not provided acceptable sources to add these languages to the list in any way. rʨanaɢ (talk) 08:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

We could start a debate as to where a strict application of the reliable sources rule is to be applied and where common sense is a more reasonable approach , but this would result in a lengthy and off-topic discussion. I just think sometimes a rigid application of some rules is doing more harm than good as it results in stripping an article of a contribution which most people knowledgeable about the subject matter would consider agreeable even without citing sources. I am here listing some sources that support my point of view regarding italian/spanish intelligibility - let's see if the community considers them reliable on the premise that Wikipedia policies state that "the reliability of a source depends on context." It seems that no one has already seriously delved into the matter; in fact most of these links point to amateur linguists blogs and forum discussions, nonetheless I would consider them a dependable source.

I don't understand why Italian and Spanish are not listed as mutually intelligible. As a native Spanish speaker I can say that I can partially understand Italian with no problem, even more than Portuguese. Calin99 (talk) 19:32, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

• http://www.yearlyglot.com/2010/12/italian-and-spanish-compared/
• http://lapipetua.com/?p=22
• http://mypage.iu.edu/~shetter/miniatures/mutual.htm
• http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1323495

--Itemirus^{Message me!} 15:31, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

I've twice come across Italian speakers who did not speak English (one of them a Russian), and I used Spanish with them to decent effect. But I at least partially agree about sourcing: although the politics of Spanish vs. Italian are probably just about nonexistent, that is not true for other languages, where claims of mutual intelligibility or lack thereof are motivated by national identity rather than actual comprehension. Also, sources saying things like "they are 50% intelligible" doesn't really tell us much: does that mean you can hold a conversation or not? How about after spending a couple days together? If we're going to accept amateur sources, they should discuss the issue in enough depth that we can actually draw a conclusion from it, and not be politically motivated. — kwami (talk) 22:25, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

I am a native Spanish speaker and I understand Italian quite well, even I use the Italian Wikipedia when I have to. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alexander K. Cox (talk • contribs) 16:38, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Arabic and ivrit?

Is there any degree of mutual understanding of spoken text among jews (either liturgical hebrew and ivrit) and arabs (say saudi arabs), both being semitic languages? 87.97.98.49 (talk) 09:55, 9 July 2011 (UTC) No. I am an Arabic speaker and Hebrew isn't understandable to me, even though many, if not most, words are very similar, and sentence structures are also similar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM6lzHE4DXs — Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.202.182.226 (talk) 12:23, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Hebrew and Arabic are distant enough to the point where the two languages are not mutually intelligible. The verbal roots are often the same, but the interweaving is done totally differently. For example in Arabic: yuktab(u) يُكْتَب or يكتب "being written" (masculine) tuktab(u) تُكتَب or تكتب "being written" (feminine), wheras in Hebrew "niḵtaḇ" נכתב "it was written" (m) "niḵteḇa" נכתבה "it was written" (f). The Triliteral Root "ktb" is the same in both languages, but the morphology is very different. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.168.106.111 (talk) 10:22, 16 February 2013 (UTC)

"separate languages only for political reasons"

this remark stands for "Serbo-Croatian" language. how come that other mutually intelligible languages dont have seuch remark? Norwegian language is also called that way because of political reasons. (just an example).

it should be removed, because it is obvious. if the languages really are mutual intelligible, right?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.136.70.51 (talk) 18:46, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

In the case of Norwegian, there is at least a dialectical difference. It's a matter of whether you want to call s.t. a dialect or a language. Same for Russian and Belarussian. There would be some difference even without standardization, and the standards were based on different varieties. But SCB are all based on the same dialect. It's really an exceptional case. It would be as if American English were based on the same dialect of London English as RP, but spelled some words differently, used 'billion' for 'milliard' and 'baby carriage' for 'pram', etc., and therefore claimed to be a different language. — kwami (talk) 06:25, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

I note that Norwegian, etc. are down as only partially mutually intelligible - I seem to recall reading somewhere that younger generations don't find them mutually intelligible, although I can't cite a source off the top of my head.Allens (talk) 12:49, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Different dialects of Norwegian are not fully intelligible with each other. I'm not sure if the international differences are really of a different order than the intra-national differences, except perhaps for the leveling effect of the national standard. — kwami (talk) 16:44, 11 January 2012 (UTC)

First of all, I don't agree with your statement about Norwegian dialects. All dialects of Norwegian are (at least in practice, see below) fully intelligible with each other. Some inhabitants of the capital, Oslo, will claim to be unable to understand other dialects, but (with a few exceptions) this is essentially an attempt to belittle other Norwegians by suggesting that their dialect is "bad Norwegian", which is ironic, considering that the Oslo dialect is more heavily influenced by the vocabulary of the old Danish(-speaking) ruling class than any other Norwegian dialect. Also, "real world intelligibility" is greater than a transcription of speech in various dialects might suggest, because it's extremely difficult for a Norwegian to go through life without being frequently exposed to several other dialects through media, as well as friends or colleagues (or family members, for that matter) from other parts of the country.

Second, with regard to the international differences, the short answer is that it's complicated. Standard written Norwegian (well, the most popular of the two standards, anyway) and standard written Danish are arguably more similar than any two spoken Norwegian dialects, in part because of their shared roots, in part because both were heavily influenced by Low German and in part because Norway was under Danish rule for more than 300 years. The most significant differences between the three Scandinavian languages, however, have to do with pronunciation rather than vocabulary or grammar. Norwegian and Swedish have fairly similar (but by no means identical) and easily mutually intelligible pronunciations, whereas Danish pronunciation is generally considered very different from both (arguably more similar to German phonetically, but with an unusual feature, which other Scandinavians often describe as similar to speaking with a swollen tongue). On the other hand, there are more (but still relatively few) differences in vocabulary between Swedish and Norwegian than between Danish and Norwegian. Danish pronunciation is typically not entirely unintelligible, but does tend to require a bit of effort for other Scandinavians. This can perhaps be compared to the difficulty Americans or Brits may have understanding Caribbean accents of English (by which I don't mean full-on patois, but the "milder" accents), whereas Norwegian and Swedish pronunciation is arguably comparable to the difference between, say, Southern and Midwestern accents in the US. That being said, "Norwegian" pronunciation is a bit of an abstract entity. From an outside perspective, at least (I'm Norwegian), dialect differences within Swedish and Danish are small (with some notable exceptions, such as the formerly Danish region of Skåne/Scania, in Sweden) and the national standards seem to have had a significant leveling effect. Norway, however, is a long, thin and sparsely populated country with countless natural barriers (large and small), which have historically contributed to the development of a great variety of both regional and local dialects. There has been a less concerted effort to impose a national standard pronunciation than in Denmark or Sweden and less popular acceptance of such a goal, although the dominance of the southeastern/Oslo dialect in national media (which has, however, decreased somewhat in the last two decades or so) has had some leveling effect. There has also been convergence/leveling on a regional level, which has probably had a greater impact. Nonetheless, there is still a lot of variety in terms of pronunciation and, to a lesser extent, vocabulary, notably pronouns (as an example, the English pronoun "I", depending on the dialect, can be translated as jeg, eg, e, æ, æg or i). The most distinct dialects can reasonably be said to be more different from each other, in terms of pronunciation (but not vocabulary), than any given Norwegian dialect and "standard" Swedish. Some may even feel that the differences between the more "extreme" dialects (by which I mean intensely local, and therefore rare, dialects from historically very isolated areas) are as great as the differences between some Norwegian dialects and Danish. To summarize, I think it's reasonable to say that, in the Norwegian case, the international differences are probably not of an entirely different order than the intra-national differences. The Swedes and Danes may feel differently about their own, more limited, intra-national differences, though. Maitreya (talk) 15:54, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

There is no such language as "Serbo-Croatian", as same as there is no "Czecho-Slovakian", or some others... This term is nothing but a mere political fabrication, coined for the purposes of national unification in a period of two Yugoslav states! It's biggest puzzle why, even today, some linguists insist on such a predominantly political concept, although, for instance, no one, at least among the linguists, doesn't use obsolete but very similar concept of "Czecho-Slovakian" language?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.29.243.217 (talk) 08:21, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

You're confused/misinformed about the situation. First of all, the term was coined in the 19th century, predating Yugoslavia by quite some time. Secondly, regardless of when the term was coined, Standard Croatian, Standard Serbian, and Standard Bosnian (and Montenegrin) are barely different: their grammars are identical and there are only minor differences in vocabulary, which are not even exclusive to their respective countries or ethnicities. The standard languages are all based on the same subdialect, Eastern Herzegovinian, of the Shtokavian dialect. The other main dialects of Serbo-Croatian, Chakavian, Kajkavian, and Torlakian are more different, but that does not really matter: "Croatian" (like the others) is no coherent grouping of dialects. Czech and Slovak are closely related, but far more distinct than "Croatian" from "Serbian". A comparison with Dutch vs. German is even totally ridiculous: Even German "dialects" are far more distinct than "Croatian" from "Serbian". --JorisvS (talk) 09:09, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

No, you are! I know that this term is coined in 19th century, but that does not prove nothing! Your remarks regarding standard CSBM languages and it's grammars also aren't sufficient argument, since there are so many elements that form any language! Fixating on some of them isn't exactly scientific approach in linguistic!

Your regards abut Czech and Slovak languages are just Your bias interpretations, since you're probably aren't native speaker of any of these languages, including Croatian and Serbian... And in that so called "Serbo - Croatian" language, among the native speakers in Serbia, BiH and Montenegro, you can't find any of the speakers using Chakavian and Kajkavian dialects, ... Also, many linguists condemn that artificial term, also made for political reasons - for the purposes of the Yugoslav unification, regardless of time when it's coined!

Using this artificial term, predominantly foreign linguists insult Croats, Serbs, ... More importantly, in this way, they are also denying cultural and historical identity of those nations! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.29.243.217 (talk) 09:40, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Just go to Serbia and speak your "Croatian" (or vice versa): no trouble communicating. That's the whole point. And no, there is not more to language than its phonology, its grammar (incl. syntax) and its vocabulary (incl. semantics). Everything about a language (i.e. structural) is subsumed under those terms. Things that are not structural are social (sociolinguistic) phenomena, and are not relevant to the language per se. --JorisvS (talk) 10:08, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

"Just go to Serbia and speak your "Croatian" (or vice versa): no trouble communicating." That's very lousy argument since Czech and Slovaks also understand each others perfectly well! And one more thing must be stated out! There are many very different words in modern Serbian and Croatian languages, used solely by one nation like: hartija (sr.) vs papir (hr.) for paper, bioskop - kino for cinema, pirinač - riža for rice, avion - zrakoplov for airplane, fudbal - nogomet for football,

mašina - stroj for machine,lice - osoba for person, saobračaj - promet for traffic, pasulj - graf for beans, čas - sat for hour, ... List is countless! So I'm not sure if someone younger, born after Yugoslavia collapsed, would understand someone in other country completely! There is huge amount of words and expressions that always differed between Croatian and Serbian language. Even sole construction of sentences was always different in between these two languages!

You're hugely overstating the differences between the languages. Sure, the are a bunch of words that are different, but the vast majority isn't. The future tense is written differently, but pronunciation is identical. The biggest grammatical difference is that Serbian has pretty much lost its infinitive, whereas Croatian hasn't, but this doesn't impede communication. --JorisvS (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Your answer proves once more only that some small nations, obviously, don't have right to have language on their own since international linguists (in cooperation with politicians) are denying their natural right!

It is simply act of schouvinism ! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.29.243.217 (talk) 12:44, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Absolutely not, I encourage people to use their local languages. If Croatians would adopt Chakavian as their language, then few people would argue with you about Croatian not being distinct, because Chakavian is much more distinct, to point where intelligibility is hampered. It's fine to use your local (standard) language, but you just shouldn't pretend it is a distinct language from what people in neighboring countries speak (because by any serious definition of 'language' it isn't). --JorisvS (talk) 13:05, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

We agree that we do not agree and it's no problem! But, please explain to me how come your arguments doesn't apply on Chech and Slovak languages?!These languages are strikingly similar and also mutually understandable... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.29.243.217 (talk) 13:17, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Why just simply state: "separate languages only for political reasons", when the matter is (even hotly) contested, and wouldn't it be better if this article would be more moderate and state that "languages are almost identical, though their respective nations declare them distinct, and discussion is still under way about various aspects such as origins, grammar differences and differing in developments over time." Or in similar words? That would satisfy both sides... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.198.73.11 (talk) 14:36, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Because the only reason that it is (hotly) contensted is politics. There is no linguistic characteristic that could makes the Serbo-Croatian standards separate languages. Origins are irrelevant; their grammars are nearly identical. --JorisvS (talk) 17:30, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Maximum mutual intelligibility with Latin?

I am curious as to whether there is any data as to what language is maximally compatible with each of the various varieties (in terms of times and, for the spoken forms, pronunciations) of Latin. A modern-day test case might be the interaction between Vatican City and (the rest of) Italy, for those in the Vatican who didn't learn Italian before coming there, but do know Latin fluently. IIRC, Sardinian is sometimes considered the closest to Latin in at least some regards? Thanks! Allens (talk) 02:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Intercomprehension

Please, check the voice in the subject, because maybe this one and Mutual intelligibility are redundant. --Pequod76 (talk-ita.esp.eng) 23:45, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Philippine Languages:

On the Languages of the Philippines page it claims that there are 168 unmutually intelligible languages using the a comparison of many languages (not only Philippine Languages) employing the very complicated phrase "he who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination".

Going off of this page's somewhat controversial phrase (almost every Talk category seems to attack it) "Partially Intelligible", I am disagreeing with the Languages of the Philippines page's claim of Philippine Languages being totally unintelligible.

Sometimes a sentence in Cebuano uses an identificational, locative, or simple predicational phrase and is exactly the same (word for word) as the sentence in Tagalog:

Tagalog: Ang gobernador sa Pilipinas siya.

Cebuano: Ang gobernador sa Pillipinas siya.

English: S/he is the governor of the Philippines.

Tagalog: Taga-Asia ang mga Bisaya.

Cebuano: Taga-Asia ang mga Bisaya.

English: Visayans are from (born in/originate from) Asia.

Frequently simple sentences are a little different, but still slightly similar:

Tagalog: Nasaan ang simbahan?

Cebuano: Asa ang simbahan?

English: Where is the church?

Tagalog: Ano ang mo kailangan? (Ano ang kailangan mo? = more grammatical sentence order)

Cebuano: Unsa ang imong kinahanglan?

English: What do you need?

BUT (when the utterance is extremely complicated, vague, and abstract) for complicated phrases, all intelligibility seems to be lost (unless you can speak both Tagalog and Cebuano of course):

Tagalog: Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makararatíng sa paroroonan.

Cebuano: Kadtong dili kabalo molingi sa iyang ginikanan, dili makaabot sa iyang gipadulongan.

English: "He who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination".

Admittedly, the two languages frequently use words which are so dissimilar that two speakers of the two different languages would be unable to understand each other (as in the example "he who does not (know how to) look back at his past (where he came from) will not reach his destination"), but in very simple sentences they can be identical. Does being 100% mutually intelligible in certain sentences fit the definition of Partial Mutual Intilligibility? Brianc26 (talk) 02:06, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The Ethnologue 2013 edition finally started listing situations of Mutual Intelligibility within Philippine Languages... Hence the edition of the Ilokano language and the Bontoc language. I shall skim through it some more to find more examplesBrianc26 (talk) 22:05, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Uh is Partial M.U. really useful? It's like English with Spanish. --Uh look! I recognize 'presidente' or 'escuela' or 'estudiante'.-- I'm from the Philippines. We really can't understand the other dialects but recognize some words. People really have to use Tagalog when interacting with people from other places. Those example are very shallow. --Jondel (talk) 13:28, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

What about Spanish and Catalan?

While I have studied Spanish, I haven't studied Catalan, but I understand it near perfectly.

Those 2 have a great deal of mutual intelligibility. 71.173.19.10 (talk) 15:10, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

We can only add languages to this list if there are reliable sources confirming their mutual intelligibility. Personal anecdotal experience is not sufficient. rʨanaɢ (talk) 18:29, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Bulgarian and Macedonian

A previous editor added "partially" for those two and wrote "and mutual intelligibility is high" does not mean "are mutually intelligible". This is just wrong - if we are talking in terms like low and high it is clearly that when it is high the two languages are close related and people speaking them can communicate without any trouble, and they are mutual intelligible. Even if it was low the languages would be mutual intelligible to some degree. The source states further that some see Macedoanian as a dialect of Bulgarian. Also these two and the other Slavic languages form a continuum, thus I saw appropriate to add "partially" for Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian. Xr 1 (talk) 08:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Those that see Macedonian as dialect of Bulgarian are just the Bulgarians and foreign academics that use BG sources. However, Macedonians more easily understand Serbo-Croatian than Bulgarian and Bulgarians understand Serbo-Croatian and Serbo-Croats understand Macedonian and Bulgarian. This has to be mentioned, it is very wrong if you state that only MK and BG are intelligible (some sources only mention that BG and MK are intelligible and that's because of the grammar similarities which does not give the wider picture of the South Slavic languages). Even Slovene can be understood by Macedonians.--MacedonianBoy (talk) 08:52, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

"Mutual intelligibility is high" means that speakers can make out a lot of what the other is saying, but not everything. So not fully intelligible, hence partially. If they could make out everything, then their speeches would be simply "mutually intelligible". And no, Slovene cannot be 'understood' by speakers on the other end of the continuum, the source is clear about that. --JorisvS (talk) 09:16, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

The why don't you apply this to all the languages listed here? There are different thing, some difficulties that occur in the understanding between each in the groups. Plus "partially" would suggest a relationship less close than the one Bulgarian and Macedonian have. Xr 1 (talk) 10:06, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

So far 'partially' has been used to indicate any language pair that is not fully mutually intelligible. If you have a good suggestion for nice short words akin to 'partially' that differentiate between the amount of intelligibility, then that would be great! --JorisvS (talk) 10:37, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Most Bulgarian linguists consider the Slavic dialects spoken in the region of Macedonia as a part of the Bulgarian diasystem. Numerous shared features of these dialects with Bulgarian are cited as proof. Bulgarian scholars also claim that the overwhelming majority of the Macedonian population had no conscience of a Macedonian language separate from Bulgarian prior to 1945. Moreover, Bulgarian linguists assert that the Yugoslav linguists who were involved in codifying the new language in 1945 artificially introduced differences from literary Bulgarian to bring it closer to Serbian. Jingiby (talk) 12:49, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Graphical representation

Scottish Gaelic - Irish


            Galician
             //   \\
     Portuguese - Spanish


      Norwegian = Swedish
             \    /
             Danish


Karelian - Finnish - Estonian


            Russian
             /    \
    Belarusian = Ukrainian


    Macedonian = Bulgarian
           \       /
          Serbo-Croatian
               |
           Slovenian


         Czech = Slovak


       Turkish - Azerbaijani


       Persian = Dari


   West Frisian  German
             \   /
             Dutch
               |
           Afrikaans


   Kinyarwanda = Kirundi


      Tuvaluan = Tokelauan


Key:   = fully    - partially

I found the relationships between languages in Mutual_intelligibility#List_of_mutually_intelligible_languages difficult to visualise as the list is sorted alphabetically, and so created the text graphic on the right. To me, it makes the complex relationships of 3 or more languages e.g. between Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian much clearer.

However, JorisvS objected to it, stating "ugly, if nothing else". I agree that using preformatted text could be improved, but is the general idea sound? Could he or she also please elaborate on the "if nothing else" part? Thanks, cmɢʟee☎✉ 21:03, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, a visualization of the relationships can be a good thing. There are several problems, though. Firstly, using an = implies to the casual reader that the varieties are equal, instead of sufficiently similar. Secondly, using more than two languages in a diagram can create the impression that some varieties mentioned are not even somewhat partially mutually intelligible, even though this is simply not known (e.g. Dutch–Afrikaans–West Frisian–German). I would also like to note that using such a visual representation makes the difference between fully and partially intelligible much more noticeable to casual readers, and hence mistakes on this part much more problematic.

Furthermore, the current system of fully vs. partially fails to capture the difference between e.g. 20% intelligible vs. 80% intelligible. This has been problematic in the case of Bulgarian vs. Macedonian. So maybe a more nuanced approach using, say, "somewhat", "partially", and "mostly", both in the list and any diagram, may be better. The problem with this would be that sources may not be all that clear about to what extent varieties are mutually intelligible. --JorisvS (talk) 21:31, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Spanish and Ladino

How come Spanish and Ladino are not included as mutually intelligible? I can read and understand practically everything in the Ladino Wikipedia because I speak Spanish. Tsf (talk) 17:44, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Because inclusion requires a reliable source that says so. If you have one you can add the pair. --JorisvS (talk) 17:57, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a linguist but it seems rather obvious when you try to read a Ladino text. Any linguist here who can suggest a reliable source? Tsf (talk) 19:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Polish - Czech - Slovak

As a native speaker of polish I have alwas been able to communicate with Slovak and to lesser extent Czech people without ever learning any of the languages. so they are partially intelligable 178.36.24.29 (talk) 12:41, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, but more Polish and Slovak than Polish and Czech. Slovak has almost the same gramma and vocabulary as polish. Andrzej19 (talk) 20:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd say that they are asymetricaly intelligible. From my experience Slovaks understood almost everything I said in Polish, while I often had to ask them to repeat slowly or explain what they meant - but that could be because most of my visits to Slovakia were in places besieged by Polish tourists, so it is likely that the Slovaks I met heard a lot of Polish, while I heard Slovakian only once a year or so. 77.254.140.36 (talk) 12:36, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

English and Scots as registers of one language

Does Kaufmann say in English in Scotland — a phonological approach on page 21 that English and Scots are registers of one language (as suggested by the anon)? In fact, where does he say that they are even mutually intelligible? I can't properly access the page in question. --JorisvS (talk) 22:18, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Welsh and Breton

Could Welsh and Breton be considered mutually intelligableScatach (talk) 22:07, 31 January 2014 (UTC)