Mutual intelligibility

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as an important criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, although sociolinguistic factors are often also used.

Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understanding the first. When it is relatively symmetric, it is characterized as "mutual". It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum.

Linguistic distance is the name for the concept of calculating a measurement for how different languages are from one another. The higher the linguistic distance, the lower the mutual intelligibility. One common metric used is the Levenshtein distance.

Intelligibility

For individuals to achieve moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and/or practical application. However, many groups of languages are partly mutually intelligible, i.e. most speakers of one language find it relatively easy to achieve some degree of understanding in the related language(s). Often the languages are genetically related, and they are likely to be similar to each other in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, or other features.

Intelligibility among languages can vary between individuals or groups within a language population according to their knowledge of various registers and vocabulary in their own language, their exposure to additional related languages, their interest in or familiarity with other cultures, the domain of discussion, psycho-cognitive traits, the mode of language used (written vs. oral), and other factors.

Mutually intelligible languages or varieties of one language

There is no formal distinction between two distinct languages and two varieties of a single language, but some linguists use mutual intelligibility as one of the primary factors in deciding between the two cases.[1][2]

Some linguists[3] claim that mutual intelligibility is, ideally at least, the primary criterion separating languages from dialects. On the other hand, speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other; thus there are varying degrees of mutual intelligibility, and often other criteria are also used. As an example, in the case of a linear dialect continuum that shades gradually between varieties, where speakers near the center can understand the varieties at both ends, but speakers at one end cannot understand the speakers at the other end, the entire chain is often considered a single language. If the central varieties then die out and only the varieties at both ends survive, they may then be reclassified as two languages, even though no actual language change has occurred.

In addition, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, the varieties of Chinese are often considered a single language even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. Another similar example would be varieties of Arabic. In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between different Scandinavian languages, but as each of them has its own standard form, they are classified as separate languages.[4]

To deal with the conflict in cases such as Arabic, Chinese and German, the term Dachsprache (a sociolinguistic "umbrella language") is sometimes seen: Chinese and German are languages in the sociolinguistic sense even though some speakers cannot understand each other without recourse to a standard or prestige form.

Asymmetric intelligibility

Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but where one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding the other language than the other way around. There can be various reasons for this. If, for example, one language is related to another but has simplified its grammar, the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but not vice versa. For example, Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understand Afrikaans than vice versa as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar,[5] although the large number of false friends between these languages can cause misunderstanding.

Perhaps the most common reason for apparent asymmetric intelligibility is that speakers of one variety have more exposure to the other than vice versa. For example, speakers of Scottish English have frequent exposure to standard American English through movies and TV programs, whereas speakers of American English have little exposure to Scottish English; hence, American English speakers often find it difficult to understand Scottish English or, especially, Scots (which differs significantly from standard Scottish English), whereas Scots tend to have few problems understanding standard American English.

Northern Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia form a dialect continuum where two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. As such, spoken Danish and Swedish normally have low mutual intelligibility,[5] but Swedes in the Öresund region (including Malmö and Helsingborg), across a strait from the Danish capital Copenhagen, understand Danish somewhat better, largely due to the proximity of the region to Danish-speaking areas (see Mutual intelligibility in North Germanic languages). While Norway was under Danish rule, the Bokmål written standard of Norwegian originates from Dano-Norwegian, a koiné that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danish vocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions.[5] As a consequence, spoken mutual intelligibility is not reciprocal.[5]

Similarly, in Germany and Italy, standard German or Italian speakers may have great difficulty understanding the "dialects" from regions other than their own, but virtually all "dialect" speakers learn the standard languages in school and from the media.

List of mutually intelligible languages

Below is an incomplete list of fully and partially mutually intelligible varieties sometimes considered languages.

Written and spoken forms

Spoken forms mainly

Written forms mainly

  • Icelandic: Faroese[51]
  • French: With some Romance languages.[52]
  • German: Dutch. Standard Dutch and Standard German show a limited degree of mutual intelligibility when written. One study concluded that when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German test subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German is identical or near identical (including most commonly used vocabulary). The Levenshtein distance between written Dutch and German is 50.4% as opposed to 61.7% between English and Dutch.[53][54] The spoken languages are much more difficult to understand for both, with studies showing Dutch speakers having slightly less difficulty in understanding German speakers than vice versa, though it remains unclear whether this asymmetry has to do with prior knowledge of the language (Dutch people being more exposed to German than vice versa), better knowledge of another related language (English) or any other non-linguistic reasons.[53][55]

List of mutually intelligible varieties

Dialects or registers of one language sometimes considered separate languages

  • Assyrian Neo-Aramaic: Chaldean Neo-Aramaic,[58] Lishana Deni,[59] Hértevin,[60] Bohtan Neo-Aramaic,[61] and Senaya[62][63] – the standard forms are structurally the same language and thus mutually intelligible to a significant degree. As such, these varieties are occasionally considered dialects of Assyrian Neo-Aramaic. They are only considered separate languages for geographical, political and religious reasons.[44]
  • Catalan: Valencian – the standard forms are structurally the same language, and hence mutually intelligible. They are considered separate languages only for political reasons.[64]
  • Hindustani: Hindi and Urdu[65] – the standard forms are separate registers of structurally the same language (called Hindustani or Hindi-Urdu), with Hindi written in Devanagari and Urdu mainly in a Perso-Arabic script, and with Hindi drawing its vocabulary mainly from Sanskrit and Urdu drawing it mainly from Persian and Arabic.
  • Malay: Indonesian (the normative register regulated by Indonesia)[66] and Standard Malay/Malaysian (the normative register used in Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore). Both varieties are based on the same material basis and hence are generally mutually intelligible, despite the numerous lexical differences.[67]
  • Serbo-Croatian: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian – the national varieties are structurally the same language, all constituting normative registers of the Shtokavian dialect, and hence mutually intelligible,[2] spoken and written (if the Latin alphabet is used).[68] For political reasons, they are sometimes considered distinct languages.[69]
    • The non-standard vernacular dialects of Serbo-Croatian (Kajkavian, Chakavian and Torlakian) are considered by some linguists to be separate, albeit closely related languages to Serbo-Croatian (Shtokavian), rather than its dialects, as Shotkavian has its own set of subdialects. Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly, both between the dialects themselves as well as with other languages. Kajkavian has higher mutual intelligibility with Slovenian than the national varieties of Shtokavian, while Chakavian has a low mutual intelligibility with either, in part due to large number of loanwords from Venetian. Torlakian (considered a subdialect of Serbian Old Shtokavian by some) has a significant level of mutual intelligibility with Macedonian and Bulgarian.[70] All South Slavic languages in effect form a large dialect continuum of gradually mutually intelligible varieties depending on distance between the areas where they are spoken.
  • Tagalog: Filipino[71] – the national language of the Philippines, Filipino, is based almost entirely on the Luzon dialects of Tagalog
  • Romanian: Moldovan – the standard forms are structurally the same language, and hence mutually intelligible. They are considered separate languages only for political reasons.[72] Moldovan does, however, have more foreign loanwords from Russian and Ukrainian due to historical East Slavic influence on the region but not to the extent where those would affect mutual intelligiblity.

Dialect continua

Romance

Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of the Romance languages are given; in The Linguasphere register of the world’s languages and speech communities David Dalby lists 23 based on mutual intelligibility:[73]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Gröschel, Bernhard (2009). Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit [Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics: With a Bibliography of the Post-Yugoslav Language Dispute]. Lincom Studies in Slavic Linguistics ; vol 34 (in German). Munich: Lincom Europa. pp. 132–136. ISBN 978-3-929075-79-3. LCCN 2009473660. OCLC 428012015. OL 15295665W.
  2. 1 2 Kordić, Snježana (2010). Jezik i nacionalizam [Language and Nationalism] (PDF). Rotulus Universitas (in Serbo-Croatian). Zagreb: Durieux. pp. 101–108. ISBN 978-953-188-311-5. LCCN 2011520778. OCLC 729837512. OL 15270636W. Archived (PDF) from the original on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 3 August 2014.
  3. ↑ See e.g. P.H. Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, OUP 2007, p. 103.
  4. ↑ Chambers, J.K.; Trudgill, Peter (1998). Dialectology (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4. ISBN 978-0-521-59646-6.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Gooskens, Charlotte (2007). "The Contribution of Linguistic Factors to the Intelligibility of Closely Related Languages" (PDF). Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. University of Groningen. 28 (6): 445. doi:10.2167/jmmd511.0. Retrieved 2010-05-19.
  6. ↑ Aramaic (Assyrian/Syriac) Dictionary and Phrasebook – Nicholas Awde, Nineb Lamassu, Nicholas Al-Jeloo – Google Boeken. Books.google.com. 2007-06-30. Retrieved 2012-08-17.
  7. ↑ Tezel, Aziz (2003). Comparative Etymological Studies in the Western Neo-Syriac (Ṭūrōyo) Lexicon: with special reference to homonyms, related words and borrowings with cultural signification. Uppsala Universitet. ISBN 91-554-5555-7.
  8. 1 2 "Asturian".
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  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 G. "çuvaşlar: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic Languages".
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 Kasapoğlu Çengel, Hülya (2004). Ukrayna'daki Urum Türkleri ve Folkloru. Milli Folklor, 2004, Yıl. 16, S. 16, s. 59
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Sinor, Denis (1969). Inner Asia. History-Civilization-Languages. A syllabus. Bloomington. pp. 71–96. ISBN 0-87750-081-9.
  13. 1 2 3 Alexander M. Schenker. 1993. "Proto-Slavonic," The Slavonic Languages. (Routledge). Pp. 60–121. Pg. 60: "[The] distinction between dialect and language being blurred, there can be no unanimity on this issue in all instances..."
    C.F. Voegelin and F.M. Voegelin. 1977. Classification and Index of the World's Languages (Elsevier). Pg. 311, "In terms of immediate mutual intelligibility, the East Slavic zone is a single language."
    Bernard Comrie. 1981. The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge). Pg. 145–146: "The three East Slavonic languages are very close to one another, with very high rates of mutual intelligibility...The separation of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian as distinct languages is relatively recent...Many Ukrainians in fact speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, finding it difficult to keep the two languages apart...
  14. 1 2 Language profile Macedonian, UCLA International Institute
  15. 1 2 "Are the 4 major Filipino languages mutually intelligible? - Quora". www.quora.com.
  16. ↑ https://www.ethnologue.com/language/cos
  17. 1 2 Trudgill, Peter (2004). "Glocalisation and the Ausbau sociolinguistics of modern Europe". In Duszak, Anna; Okulska, Urszula. Speaking from the Margin: Global English from a European Perspective. Polish Studies in English Language and Literature 11. Peter Lang. ISBN 0-8204-7328-6.
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  19. ↑ http://www.let.rug.nl/~gooskens/pdf/publ_litlingcomp_2006b.pdf
  20. ↑ Kaufmann, Manuel (2006). "English in Scotland — a phonological approach". GRIN: 21.
  21. 1 2 Katzner, Kenneth (2002). The languages of the world. Routledge. p. 105. ISBN 0-415-25003-X.
  22. ↑ Taagepera, Rein (1999). The Finno-Ugric republics and the Russian state. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN 0-415-91977-0.
  23. ↑ "French".
  24. 1 2 Wright, Sue (1996). Monolingualism and bilingualism: Lessons from Canada and Spain. Multilingual Matters Ltd. p. 80. ISBN 1-85359-354-0.
  25. 1 2 Beswick, Jaine (2005). "Linguistic homogeneity in Galician and Portuguese borderland communities". Estudios de Sociolingüística. 6 (1): 39–64.
  26. ↑ "Ladino".
  27. ↑ Christina Bratt Paulston. International Handbook of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. p. 110.
  28. ↑ "Italian".
  29. 1 2 Voigt, Stefanie (2014). "Mutual Intelligibility of Closely Related Languages within the Romance language family" (PDF). p. 113.
  30. ↑ https://www.ethnologue.com/18/language/lim/
  31. 1 2 Macedonian language on UCLA
  32. 1 2 Borg, Albert J.; Azzopardi-Alexander, Marie (1997). Maltese. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-02243-6.
  33. 1 2 Gordon 2005, Xibe
  34. ↑ GAVILANES LASO, J. L. (1996) Algunas consideraciones sobre la inteligibilidad mutua hispano-portuguesa In: Actas del Congreso Internacional Luso-Español de Lengua y Cultura en la Frontera, Cáceres, Universidad de Extremadura, 175–187.
  35. ↑ "Comparação Português e Castelhano". www.omniglot.com.
  36. ↑ "Algumas observações sobre a noção de língua portuguesa" (PDF).
  37. ↑ https://www.ethnologue.com/language/oci
  38. 1 2 "UCLA Language Materials Project: Language Profile". Lmp.ucla.edu. Retrieved 2013-09-04.
  39. ↑ https://www.ethnologue.com/language/ita
  40. ↑ "Spanish".
  41. ↑ Sayahi, Lotfi (24 April 2014). Diglossia and Language Contact: Language Variation and Change in North Africa. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-86707-8.
  42. 1 2 3 Angogo, Rachel. "LANGUAGE AND POLITICS IN SOUTH AFRICA". Studies in African Linguistics Volume 9, Number 2. elanguage.net. Retrieved 30 September 2013.
  43. ↑ Katsura, M. (1973). "Phonemes of the Alu Dialect of Akha". Papers in Southeast Asian Linguistics No.3. Pacific Linguistics, the Australian National University. 3 (3): 35–54.
  44. 1 2 Heinrichs, Wolfhart (ed.) (1990). Studies in Neo-Aramaic. Scholars Press: Atlanta, Georgia. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.
  45. ↑ Beyer, Klaus; John F. Healey (trans.) (1986). The Aramaic Language: its distribution and subdivisions. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. p. 44.
  46. 1 2 3 4 5 "Dari/Persian/Tajik languages" (PDF).
  47. ↑ Rimsky-Korsakoff Dyer, Svetlana (1977). "Soviet Dungan nationalism: a few comments on their origin and language". Monumenta Serica. 33: 349–362. Retrieved 2011-02-15. p. 351.
  48. ↑ Avrum Ehrlich, Mark (2009). Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora: origins, experience and culture, Volume 1. ABC-CLIO. p. 192. ISBN 978-1-85109-873-6.
  49. 1 2 "Ausbau and Abstand languages". ccat.sas.upenn.edu.
  50. ↑ Łabowicz, Ludmiła. "Gdzie "sicz", a gdzie "porohy"?! (ст. 15), Part II". Archived from the original on 2013-05-01. Retrieved 19 July 2014.
  51. ↑ Barbour, Stephen (2000). Language and nationalism in Europe. Oxford University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-19-925085-1.
  52. ↑ https://www.ethnologue.com/language/fra
  53. 1 2 "Gooskens et al., Cross-Border Intelligibility on the Intelligibility of Low German among Speakers of Danish and Dutch" (PDF).
  54. ↑ Gooskens & Heeringa (2004)
  55. ↑ Vincent J. van Heuven; Charlotte Gooskens; Renée van Bezooijen (12 November 2010). "Mutual intelligibility of Dutch-German cognates by humans and computers" (PDF).
  56. 1 2 "Kirundi language, alphabet and pronunciation". www.omniglot.com.
  57. 1 2 "Tokelauan - Language Information & Resources". www.alsintl.com.
  58. ↑ Geoffrey Khan. "Remarks on the Historical Background of the Modern Assyrian Language". University of Cambridge.
  59. ↑ Maclean, Arthur John (1895). Grammar of the dialects of vernacular Syriac: as spoken by the Eastern Syrians of Kurdistan, north-west Persia, and the Plain of Mosul: with notices of the vernacular of the Jews of Azerbaijan and of Zakhu near Mosul. Cambridge University Press, London.
  60. ↑ Jastrow, Otto (1990). Personal and Demonstrative pronouns in Central Neo-Aramaic. In Wolfhart Heinrichs (ed.), Studies in Neo-Aramaic, pp. 89–103. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press. ISBN 1-55540-430-8.
  61. ↑ Fox, Samuel. 2002. "A Neo-Aramaic Dialect of Bohtan", in W. Arnold and H. Bobzin, "Sprich doch mit deinen Knechten aramäisch, wir verstehen es!" 60 Beiträge zur Semitistik Festschrift für Otto Jastrow zum 60. Geburtstag, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 165–180.
  62. ↑ Takashina, Yoshiyuki.1990. "Some Remarks on Modern Aramaic of Hertevin." Journal of Asian and African Studies 40: 85–132
  63. ↑ Greenfield, Jonas. 1978. "The Dialects of Early Aramaic". Journal of Near Eastern Studies, Colloquium on Aramaic Studies 37: 93–99
  64. ↑ "Dictamen de l'Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua sobre els principis i criteris per a la defensa de la denominació i l'entitat del valencià" Archived 2008-12-17 at the Wayback Machine.. Report from Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua about denomination and identity of Valencian.
  65. ↑ Gumperz, John J. (February 1957). "Language Problems in the Rural Development of North India". The Journal of Asian Studies. 16 (2): 251–259. doi:10.2307/2941382. JSTOR 2941382.
  66. ↑ Swan, Michael (2001). Learner English: a teacher's guide to interference and other problems. Cambridge University Press. p. 279. ISBN 978-0-521-77939-5.
  67. ↑ Adelaar, K. Alexander; Himmelmann, Nikolaus (2013-03-07). The Austronesian Languages of Asia and Madagascar. Routledge. ISBN 9781136755095.
  68. ↑ Kordić, Snježana (2004). "Pro und kontra: "Serbokroatisch" heute" [Pro and contra: "Serbo-Croatian" nowadays] (PDF). In Krause, Marion; Sappok, Christian. Slavistische Linguistik 2002: Referate des XXVIII. Konstanzer Slavistischen Arbeitstreffens, Bochum 10.-12. September 2002. Slavistishe Beiträge ; vol. 434 (in German). Munich: Otto Sagner. pp. 110–114. ISBN 3-87690-885-X. OCLC 56198470. Archived (PDF) from the original on 4 August 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2015. (ÖNB).
  69. ↑ Greenberg, Robert David (2004). Language and identity in the Balkans: Serbo-Croatian and its disintegration. Oxford University Press. p. 14. ISBN 978-0-19-925815-4.
  70. ↑ Радева, Василка (15 July 2018). "Българският език през ХХ век". Pensoft Publishers – via Google Books.
  71. ↑
  72. ↑ "Moldovan (limba moldovenească / лимба молдовеняскэ)".
  73. ↑ David Dalby, 1999/2000, The Linguasphere register of the world’s languages and speech communities. Observatoire Linguistique, Linguasphere Press. Volume 2, p. 390-410 (zone 51). Oxford.

Further reading

  • Casad, Eugene H. (1974). Dialect intelligibility testing. Summer Institute of Linguistics. ISBN 0-88312-040-2.
  • Gooskens, Charlotte (2013). "Experimental methods for measuring intelligibility of closely related language varieties" (PDF). In Bayley, Robert; Cameron, Richard; Lucas, Ceil. The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics. Oxford University Press. pp. 195–213. ISBN 978-0-19-974408-4.
  • Gooskens, Charlotte; van Heuven, Vincent J.; Golubović, Jelena; Schüppert, Anja; Swarte, Femke; Voigt, Stefanie (2017). "Mutual intelligibility between closely related languages in Europe". International Journal of Multilingualism. doi:10.1080/14790718.2017.1350185.
  • Grimes, Joseph E. (1974). "Dialects as Optimal Communication Networks". Language. 50 (2): 260–269. JSTOR 412437.
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