Is English a Scandinavian Language?

[Neon Knight]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...1127094111.htm

"Have you considered how easy it is for us Norwegians to learn English?" asks Jan Terje Faarlund, professor of linguistics at the University of Oslo. "Obviously there are many English words that resemble ours. But there is something more: its fundamental structure is strikingly similar to Norwegian. We avoid many of the usual mistakes because the grammar is more or less the same.

Faarlund and his colleague Joseph Emmonds, visiting professor from Palacký University in the Czech Republic, now believe they can prove that English is in reality a Scandinavian language, in other words it belongs to the Northern Germanic language group, just like Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic and Faroese. This is totally new and breaks with what other language researchers and the rest of the world believe, namely that English descends directly from Old English. Old English, or Anglo-Saxon, is a West Germanic language, which the Angles and Saxons brought with them from Northern Germany and Southern Jylland when they settled in the British Isles in the fifth century.

[Methmatician]

I wonder how easy it is for English speakers to learn Norwegian, Swedish or Danish? Has anyone here tried?

As for your question: I don't know, I'm not a linguist. What exactly makes English a North Germanic language?

[Neon Knight]

Hopefully, some native Scandinavian speakers can give their opinions.

[Ouistreham]

What exactly makes English a North Germanic language?

In English, word order and the use of auxiliary verbs is much more similar to Scandinavian languages than to German or Dutch.

An example from the top of my head:

Ger.: Du solltest es nicht sagen.
Eng.: You should not say that.
Swe.: Du skulle inte säga det.

On the other hand, distinctive Scandinavian features like definite articles replaced by declensions or the passive voice with a simple -s after any verb weren't transmitted to English.

[Loki]

No. It's a West Germanic language. There are many similarities with Scandinavian languages though, since they are also Germanic. When I went to Sweden for example, I could understand many words due to their similarity to Afrikaans.

[Loki]

The Anglo-Saxons seemed to have strong links to Sweden. In the Sutton Hoo burials some artifacts of Swedish origin have been found, and the burial mounds are almost identical to those found in Sweden.

[Graham]

England was conquered by Normans, the place could easily have been called Normanland, the Anglo Kingdom fled. The language is a hybrid.

[♥ Lily ♥]

English is a West Germanic language due to the grammar base of the English language, but there's over 600 words of Norse origin in the English vocabulary.

This word list can be seen in the link below (English words of Norse origin).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...d_Norse_origin

English words of Scandinavian origin.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...inavian_origin

Viking words in the English vocabulary
http://www.vikingrune.com/2009/10/vi...ds-in-english/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Norse

Several days of the week in the English language are named after Germanic and Norse Gods, such as Thursday (Thors Day), Wednesday (Wodin (Odin's) Day), Friday (Freya's Day), etc.
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/sho...ighlight=Pagan

There's over 15,000 words of French origin in the English language due to the Normans (a group of Anglo Saxon and Viking settlers known as the 'North men' who had settled in Normandy and spoke a variation of French).

There's also many Latin and Greek words (particularly medical and scientific words) forced onto the English people throughout the constant evolution of the English language, known as English due to being formed from a merge of different languages in England.

English has the widest vocabulary of any known language on the planet.

'Hell-o' as a greeting may stem from the Norse Goddess Hel of the Underworld.

[alfieb]

England was conquered by Normans, the place could easily have been called Normanland, the Anglo Kingdom fled. The language is a hybrid.

Sicily was Normanland first.

I find Dutch to be a vulgar sounding tongue, but it is clearly more similar to ours than the Scandinavian languages are.

[Loki]

England was conquered by Normans, the place could easily have been called Normanland, the Anglo Kingdom fled. The language is a hybrid.

The Danes had a much bigger genetic and cultural influence on England than the Normans.