Denmark and Norway are closely related historically, culturally, economically and educationally. The two languages also have similar grammars, past tense systems and vocabulary. Unlike Danes, though, Norwegians actually pronounce their consonants. We found that because Danish speech is so ambiguous, Danes rely much more on context — including what was said in the conversation before, what people know about each other and general background knowledge — to figure out what somebody is saying compared to adult Norwegians.
Together, these results indicate that the way people interpret language is not static, but dynamically adapts to the challenges posed by the specific language or languages they speak. Our discovery about Danish challenges the idea that all native languages are equally easy to learn and use.
Indeed, learning different languages from birth may lead to distinct and separate ways of processing those languages. Our results also have important practical implications for people who are struggling with language — whether because of a single traumatic event like a stroke or due to genetic and other long-term factors. Many current interventions meant to support language recovery are based on studies in one language, usually English.
Researchers assume that these interventions would apply in the same way to individuals speaking other languages. Linguists have looked at differences between languages before , but few have been concerned with the possible impact that such differences may have on the kind of processing machinery that develops during language learning.
Instead, much of the focus has been on searching for universal linguistic patterns that hold across all or most languages. However, our research suggest that linguistic diversity may result in variation in the way we learn and process language. Sign up for our weekly newsletter. Danish language , Nordic culture , Nordic languages. Eimee Brown. Christina Bjerggaard. Warning: As you may expect, this article contains uncensored swearing which some readers may find offensive.
Read more Making it work with Nordic people: some rules of thumb Making it work with Nordic people: some rules of thumb 22 April William Hagerup.
All rights reserved. UK company incorporation number: Our Danish translation services. Find out more. A strange number system Danish has an infamously odd and convoluted number system that even fellow Scandinavians find difficult to make sense of.
Nordic dialect map Learn about the languages and dialects of the entire Nordic region with our interactive map. Nordic dialect map. It only occurs at the beginning of a word or syllable and is a relict of Old Norse that still exists in some of the Germanic languages. Unfortunately, the many different vowel sounds in Danish are difficult to distinguish for most learners. Phonetically, there are more than 20 vowel sounds in the Danish language. Double consonants only appear in the middle of a word or syllable in Danish.
More about that particularly tricky rule in a bit.
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