Linguist Makes Sensational Claim: English Is a Scandinavian Language

biko

Lol I knew it!

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.

"We can show that wherever English differs syntactically from the other Western Germanic languages -- German, Dutch, Frisian -- it has the same structure as the Scandinavian languages." Here are some examples:
* Word order: In English and Scandinavian the object is placed after the verb:
I have read the book.
Eg har lese boka.
German and Dutch (and Old English) put the verb at the end.
Ich habe das Buch gelesen.
* English and Scandinavian can have a preposition at the end of the sentence.
This we have talked about.
Dette har vi snakka om.
* English and Scandinavian can have a split infinitive, i.e. we can insert a word between the infinitive marker and the verb.
I promise to never do it again.
Eg lovar å ikkje gjera det igjen.
* Group genitive:
The Queen of England's hat.
Dronninga av Englands hatt.
"All of this is impossible in German or Dutch, and these kinds of structures are very unlikely to change within a language. The only reasonable explanation then is that English is in fact a Scandinavian language, and a continuation of the Norwegian-Danish language which was used in England during the Middle Ages."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121127094111.htm

Sabre Man

I'm sure you can say that a lot of languages are Scandinavian when using arguments like that.

Alun

I think he has something of a point. I lived in Germany and the Netherlands for over 20 years, and spoke pretty good German and close to fluent Dutch. While I was in the Netherlands I learnt Swedish at an evening class, and the teacher, who was originally Swedish, often found it easier to explain features of the language to us in terms of their English equivalents rather than in Dutch. The other Dutch participants in the class found it easier that way too.

Personally, given that Dutch and, to a lesser extent, German are pretty well ingrained in me still, I often have great difficulty reading Swedish, as subconsciously I'm 'expecting' a more Germanic word order and sentence structure. I have to almost force my brain into looking for a more English-like structure before some sentences begin to make any sense.

And it's true, the Scandinavians do, on the whole, speak better, i.e. more grammatically correct, English than any Dutch or Germans I've ever met.