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Concept
North Germanic languages
Summary
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also referred to as the Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term used among Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish scholars and people.
The term North Germanic languages is used in comparative linguistics, whereas the term Scandinavian languages appears in studies of the modern standard languages and the dialect continuum of Scandinavia. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are close enough to form a strong mutual intelligibility where cross-border communication in native languages is very common, particularly between the latter two.
Approximately 20 million people in the Nordic countries speak a Scandinavian language as their native language, including an approximately 5% minority in Finland. Besides being the only North Germanic language with official status in two separate sovereign states, Swedish is also the most spoken of the languages overall. 15% of the population in Greenland speak Danish as a first language.
This language branch is separated from the West Germanic languages to the south, like English and Dutch. It is also distinct from Finnish just to the East which belongs to a completely different language family: the Uralic languages.
The modern languages and their dialects in this group are:
East Scandinavian
Danish
Jutlandic dialect
North Jutlandic
East Jutlandic
West Jutlandic
South Jutlandic
Insular Danish
Bornholmsk dialect
Swedish
South Swedish dialects
Scanian
Göta dialects
Gotland dialects
Svea dialects
Norrland dialects
Jämtland dialects
East Swedish dialects
Finland Swedish
Estonian Swedish
Dalecarlian language
Elfdalian
West Scandinavian
Norwegian
Bokmål (written)
Nynorsk (written)
Trønder dialects
East Norwegian dialects
West Norwegian dialects
North Norwegian dialects
Faroese
Icelandic
Gutnish
The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: West, East and North Germanic.
Official source
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