Welcome to the Nordic forum

naitkris

Hello and welcome to the Nordic forum on boards.ie! This forum is for those who want to discuss any of the Nordic languages (Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian & Swedish) and/or those who want to converse in any of them. Feel free to also post threads relating to the Nordic countries and questions you may have in relation to them. Also note that the general forum rules apply here as with any other forum. The forum can be easily accessed via http://www.boards.ie/nordic or via the “Society > Languages > Nordic” route.

I will give a brief outline of the Nordic and Scandinavian region for those who do not know a great deal about it. Firstly, Scandinavia, which may be more of a well known term then that of Nordic, consists of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Technically though, the Scandinavian area is really only Norway and Sweden if one looks at it geographically. However, this can be forgotten as Denmark is just as much in Scandinavia as Norway and Sweden in every other aspect of the meaning of the word in which it is used today.

Many people mix Finland and perhaps also Iceland as being included in the Scandinavian region due to their closeness to the other three Nordic countries and the fact that they share similar traits. However, Finland and Iceland are not part of Scandinavia, but are a part of the Nordic region.

Also, Finnish is an entirely different language and not related to the Scandinavian languages. It would be impossible for a Swede, Dane or Norwegian person to converse with a Finn and vice versa using their own tongues. Finland does however have Swedish as its national language beside Finnish, though Finnish is spoken as the mother tongue by the vast majority of the population, with roughly 300,000 Finns having Swedish as their mother tongue. Swedish is also taught in the schooling system in Finland.

A Swede talking to a Norwegian and vice versa however is of no problem in understanding one another as the langauges are very closely related. A Swede talking to a Dane though is more difficult, but understandable depending on ones grasp and practice of listening to the Danish language. I tend to see the Norwegian speakers as having the best of both world's as they can understand Danish better than most Swedes and understand Swedish better than most Danes.

Icelandic is derived from the Viking era and unlike the other Scandinavian languages is relatively untouched, in that not very many foreign words have made their way into Icelandic and may view Icelandic as the closest to what the Vikings used to speak a millenium ago.

I believe the vast majority of the above information to be correct but please let me know if you spot an error and I will gladly correct it. Enjoy your stay on this forum and feel free to start a new thread on any topic related to the Nordic languages and/or region.

- naitkris