This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. WikiProject Linguistics or the Linguistics Portal may be able to help recruit one. If a more appropriate WikiProject or portal exists, please adjust this template accordingly.

This article does not cite any references or sources. (May 2008) Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a property exhibited by a set of languages when speakers of any one of them can readily understand all the others without intentional study or extraordinary effort. It is sometimes used as one criterion for distinguishing languages from dialects, though sociolinguistic factors are also important. For the journal, see Linguistics (journal). ... For dialects of programming languages, see Programming language dialect. ... Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. ...

Intelligibility between languages can be asymmetric, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understand of the first. It is when it is relatively symmetric that 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. A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ...

Intelligibility

For individuals to achieve moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their mother tongue or first language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through study and/or practical application. However, for those many groups of languages displaying mutual intelligibility, namely, those, usually genetically related languages, similar to each other in grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, or other features, speakers of one language usually find it relatively easy to achieve some degree of understanding in the related language(s). Languages mutually intelligible but not genetically related may be creoles and parent languages, or geographically adjacent variants of two unrelated languages. First language (native language, mother tongue, or vernacular) is the language a person learns first. ... “Native Language” redirects here. ... Look up practice, practise in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... In biology, phylogenetics (Greek: phylon = tribe, race and genetikos = relative to birth, from genesis = birth) is the study of evolutionary relatedness among various groups of organisms (e. ... For the rules of the English language, see English grammar. ... The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing new sentences. ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable language that originates seemingly as a nativized pidgin. ...

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 interest in or familiarity with other cultures, psycho-cognitive traits, and other factors. Psychological science redirects here. ... Look up Cognition in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Mutually intelligible languages or variants of one language?

According to some definitions, two or more languages that demonstrate a sufficiently high degree of mutual intelligibility should properly not be considered two distinct languages but, in fact, multiple variants of the same language. Conversely, it is sometimes the case that different varieties of what is considered the same language—according to popular belief, governmental stance, or historical convention—are not, in fact, mutually intelligible in practice. (For more on this, see Dialect, and Dialect continuum—as well as Diasystem and Diglossia for two closely related but distinct language forms.) As a simple example, Scots Wikipedia is not intelligible to all speakers of English. A variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. ... For dialects of programming languages, see Programming language dialect. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... In linguistics, in the field of structural dialectology, a diasystem is a single genetic language which has two or more standard forms. ... Look up Diglossia in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

List of mutually intelligible languages

This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. Please improve the article by adding references. See the talk page for details. (May 2008)

Written and spoken forms

Indo-European

• Germanic: Most Germanic languages share at least a common basic vocabulary, but are generally not mutually intelligible.
  • Afrikaans, Dutch (including Flemish and Limburgish), Low German, and the most western forms of Low Saxon.
  • To a limited extent, Dutch speakers can understand spoken sentences in German and in Frisian whereas speakers of German find it easier to read Dutch than to understand it when spoken.
  • There is also intelligibility between nearby dialects of German, Low Saxon, Limburgish, Luxembourgish all rooted largely in vocabulary cognate with German vocabulary^{[citation needed]} (see West Germanic Dialect continuum).
  • Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. The three are considered to compose the Mainland Scandinavian group. Written Danish and the Bokmål form of Norwegian are particularly close (Norway was in political union with Denmark from 1536-1814), though the phonology and prosody of all three languages differ somewhat. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the others, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand any of the other languages. (see Scandinavian languages and differences between Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish.)
  • Icelandic and Faroese may seem almost identical written down, but even to the untrained ear, vast differences in pronunciation can be heard. For this reason, linguists do not consider the two languages mutually intelligible.

• Slavic: Most Slavic languages have some degree of mutual intelligibility. Languages spoken in near-by countries tend to have higher propinquity. East Slavic languages are, in general, more comprehensible to both West Slavic and South Slavic speakers than West to South or South to West.
  • Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian, and Rusyn all belong to the East Slavic language group and are mutually understandable to a fairly considerable degree, more when written than spoken.
  • Belarusian and Ukrainian both have the same roots in the Ruthenian language but they also have many similarities to Polish due to the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth's cultural impact upon them. Ukrainians and Belarusians understand Polish much better than the other way around. Poles generally understand Ukrainian more than Belarusian because of closer pronunciation
  • Belarusian and Russian have similar pronunciation, which aids mutual intelligebility. Typically Russian-speakers can understand spoken Belarusian better than spoken Ukrainian for this reason.
  • Rusyn (more so with Carpatho-Rusyn than with Pannonian Rusyn) and Ukrainian; many East Slavic linguists consider Rusyn to be a dialect of Ukrainian.
  • Bulgarian and Macedonian - the eastern group of the South Slavic branch. They have very similar grammars (which differ from all other Slavic literary language grammars), similar lexics and slightly different pronunciations. Their major lexical difference consists of loanwords, borrowed mainly from Russian in Bulgaria and from Serbian in Macedonia after 1944. The majority of the Bulgarian linguists assert that the Macedonian literary language, created in 1945, is one of the three norms of the Bulgarian language. This point of view is rejected by the Macedonian linguists and politicians. In accordance with these positions, in diplomatic relations, Bulgarian side prefers not to use interpreters but the Macedonian side insists on their necessity. Bulgarians also understand the spoken form of other Slavic languages to some degree.
  • Serbo-Croatian and Russian are particularly close, but they are not mutually intelligible to those who had no preliminary exposure to them.
  • Torlakian dialect, spoken in Southern and Eastern Serbia, Northern Republic of Macedonia North-Western Bulgaria and South-Western Romania is mutually intelligible within these four regions and shares similarities with all of the corresponding Slavic languages in these countries. Torlakian is not standardized, and its subdialects significantly vary in some features.
  • Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin in the central western group of the South Slavic branch - extremely intelligible (may be considered one language, Serbo-Croatian).
  • Slovene and Kajkavian dialect of Croatian - mutually intelligible.
  • Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Polish, and the Sorbian languages are close - all of them of the West Slavic branch. The first two in particular show a great degree of mutual intelligibility. However, Czech and Polish speakers find it difficult to understand each other because of dofferences in writing, and Kashubian, despite being a Lechitic language, is not considered a Polish dialect because Poles find it difficult to understand (all Kashubians are proficient in Polish).

• Romance: These languages have a higher degree of mutual intelligibility, especially when written. The extremes are French and Romanian.
  • Italian and Spanish (and to a lesser degree Portuguese) have a varied exponent of typically medium intelligibility with mostly similiar prnunciation. However, despite having vitrually the same grammar, there are a lot of words that are written and pronounced almost the same in both languages but convey very different meanings (It. guardare means "to see, watch" while Sp. guardar means "to store, shelve"; sentire means "to hear" while sentir means "to feel").
  • Spanish (Castillian), Portuguese (especially European), and Galician have a high degree of mutual intelligibility. Galician is much closer to Portuguese than Castilian is. Speakers of Portuguese understand Spanish, Ladino and Galician more easily than vice versa, understandably due to a much simpler phonetic system in the latter, but most Spanish speakers will still almost perfectly understand the written language.
  • Spanish and Catalan have a high degree of mutual intelligibility.
  • Catalan and Occitan.
  • Standard Italian and Corsican (sometimes considered part of the Tuscan dialect).
  • Romanian, Aromanian, Megleno-Romanian, and Moldovan (the latter is identical to Romanian but has this name in the Republic of Moldova).
  • Romanian and Italian show a limited degree of asymmetrical mutual intelligibility: speakers of Romanian seem to understand Italian more easily than vice versa. This may be due, in part, to the fact that Romanian has preserved the noun case system of classical Latin to a limited degree, while Italian did not. Also, Romanian has many Slavic words that Italian lacks, but has also kept the Latin words as doublets.
  • Jèrriais, Dgèrnésiais and Sercquiais speakers have no major problems understanding modern French, however Francophones can only read the other language.

• Indic
  • Punjabi, Seraiki, Hindko and Pahari-Pothohari/Mirpuri. Pothohari speakers seem to understand Punjabi easier than vice versa.
  • Hindustani with Hindi if Devanāgarī is used.
  • Hindustani with Urdu if Arabic script is used.
  • Nepali and Hindi use the same script, Devanāgarī, and a common vocabulary of Sanskrit-derived words. Exposure to Indian media is enough for most of the Nepalese people to learn Hindi

• Iranian
  • Persian, Dari and Tajik, besides being orally mutual intelligible, the writings are mutually intelligible only if Perso-Arabic script is used, as Tajik is the only one that also uses Cyrillic.

• Celtic: Contrary to popular belief, all of the Celtic languages are too detached from each other to be classified as mutually intelligible anymore.
  • Irish and Scottish Gaelic used to form a dialect continuum, but as some dialects have died out and the two modern standard languages have developed in distinct ways they are not mutually intelligible for the average speaker. The orthographies of the written languages also differ to a significant degree.
  • Breton and Welsh are, against popular opinion, not mutually intelligible. Cornish strongly resembles Breton in orthography but is not comprehensible with it.

Look up Appendix:Afrikaans and Dutch Swadesh lists in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Flemish (Vlaams in Dutch), as the general adjective relating to Flanders, can refer to the speech of the Flemings, inhabitants of Flanders, though for the Flemish Community[1], Algemeen Nederlands (Common Dutch) is the official name of the standard language hence in English referred to as standard Dutch. ... Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic (Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois) is a group of Franconian varieties, spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border. ... Low German (also called Niederdeutsch, Plattdeutsch or Plattdüütsch) is a name for the regional language varieties of the West Germanic languages spoken mainly in Northern Germany where it is officially called Niederdeutsch (Low German), and in Eastern Netherlands where it is officially called Nedersaksisch (Low Saxon). Low refers to... Low Saxon (in Low Saxon, Nedersaksisch, Neddersassisch, Plattdüütsch or Nedderdüütsch) is any of a variety of Low German dialects spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands. ... Low Saxon (in Low Saxon, Nedersaksisch, Neddersassisch, Plattdüütsch or Nedderdüütsch) is any of a variety of Low German dialects spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands. ... Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic (Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois) is a group of Franconian varieties, spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border. ... Luxembourgish (Luxembourgish: , French: , German: , Walloon: ), also spelled Luxemburgish, is a West Germanic language spoken in Luxembourg. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... BokmÃ¥l (lit. ... The North Germanic languages (also Scandinavian languages or Nordic languages) is a branch of the Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia, parts of Finland and on the Faroe Islands and Iceland. ... Danish and Norwegian BokmÃ¥l (the most common standard form of Norwegian) are very similar languages, but differences between them do exist. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. ... This article or section should be merged with List of East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... Ruthenian was a historic East Slavic language, spoken in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and later in the East Slavic territories of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. ... Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... Look up pronunciation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. ... Pannonian Rusyn or simply Rusyn (Ruthenian) is a Slavic language or dialect spoken in north-western Serbia and eastern Croatia (therefore also called Yugoslavo-Ruthenian, Vojvodina-Ruthenian or Bačka-Ruthenian). ... A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... The Serbo-Croatian language or Croato-Serbian language (cрпскохрватски језик srpskohrvatski jezik), sometimes also called the Yugoslavian language or Yugoslav language (југословенски језик jugoslovenski jezik), is a South Slavic diasystem. ... Torlak[1] (Serbian: Торлачки говор or Torlački govor) is the name used for the Slavic dialects spoken in southern and eastern Serbia, northeast Republic of Macedonia (Kratovo-Kumanovo), northwest Bulgaria (Vidin-Bregovo), and further afield in the CaraÅŸ-Severin County in Romania. ... Anthem:  Serbia() on the European continent()  —  [] Capital (and largest city) Belgrade Official languages Serbian Recognised regional languages Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Croatian, Rusyn 1 Albanian 2 Demonym Serbian Government Parliamentary Democracy  -  President Boris Tadić  -  Prime Minister Vojislav KoÅ¡tunica    -  First state 7th century   -  Serbian Kingdom3 1217   -  Serbian Empire 1345   -  Independence lost... For an explanation of terms related to Macedonia, see Macedonia (terminology). ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... This article or section is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... The Serbo-Croatian language or Croato-Serbian language (cрпскохрватски језик srpskohrvatski jezik), sometimes also called the Yugoslavian language or Yugoslav language (југословенски језик jugoslovenski jezik), is a South Slavic diasystem. ... Kajkavian (kajkavski) dialect is one of the three dialects of Croatian language. ... Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-sÅ‚owiÅ„skô mòwa) is one of the Lechitic languages, which are a group of Slavic languages. ... The Sorbian languages are classified under the West Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Galician (Galician: galego, IPA: ) is a language of the Western Ibero-Romance branch, spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community with the constitutional status of historic nationality, located in northwestern Spain and small bordering zones in neighbouring autonomous communities of Asturias and Castilla y León. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... Occitan (IPA AmE: ), known also as Lenga dòc or Langue doc (native name: occitan [1], lenga dòc [2]; native nickname: la lenga nòstra [3] i. ... Public sentiment in favor of Corsu. ... The Tuscan dialect is a dialect spoken in Tuscany, Italy. ... Aromanian (also known as Macedo-Romanian, Arumanian or Vlach in most other countries; in Aromanian: limba armãneascã, armãneshce or armãneashti) is an Eastern Romance language spoken in Southeastern Europe. ... Megleno-Romanian (known as VlăheÅŸte by speakers and Moglenitic, Meglenitic or Megleno-Romanian by linguists) is a Romance language, similar to Aromanian, and Romanian spoken in the Moglená region of Greece, in a few villages in the Republic of Macedonia and also in a few villages in Romania. ... Motto: none Anthem: Limba noastră (Our Tongue) Capital ChiÅŸinău Largest city ChiÅŸinău Official language(s) Moldovan (Romanian) Government President Prime Minister Parliamentary Republic Vladimir Voronin Vasile Tarlev Independence  - Formation  - Independence August 27, 1991 August 2, 1940, August 27, 1991 Area  - Total  - Water (%)   33,843 km² (135th... In linguistics, declension is a feature of inflected languages: generally, the alteration of a noun to indicate its grammatical role. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... Jèrriais is the form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. ... Dgèrnésiais, also known as Guernésiais, Guernsey French, Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of Norman language spoken in Guernsey. ... Sercquiais also known as Sarkese or Sark-French is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Sark. ... The Indo-Aryan languages form a subgroup of the Indo-Iranian languages, thus belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. ... Punjabi redirects here. ... Siraiki (Urdu: سراییکی ) is a language mostly spoken in the provinces of Sindh and the Punjab in central Pakistan by about 1. ... Hindko (هندکو /HindkoÅ­/), also Hindku, Hinko,[2] or Lahnda[3] , لَیہندا) is an ancient Indo-Aryan language spoken in North Western Pakistan, especially in Hazara and Peshawar. ... The Pothwari or Pothohari language in Urdu otherwise known as Mirpuri or Potwari is an Indo-European language spoken from the Potwar district around Rawalpindi, Pakistan to the Cease-fire Line (LoC) of Indian administered Kashmir de-facto border in the Mirpur district of the Jammu area in Pakistan administered... Hindustani redirects here. ... -1... () is an abugida script used to write several Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati,Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Nepali, Newari, Tharu and sometimes Kashmiri and Romani. ... Hindustani redirects here. ... Urdu ( , , trans. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... Nepali (Khaskura) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in Nepal, Bhutan, and some parts of India and Myanmar (Burma). ... Hindi (हिन्दी) is a language spoken mainly in North and Central India. ... () is an abugida script used to write several Indo-Aryan languages, including Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati,Marathi, Sindhi, Bihari, Bhili, Marwari, Konkani, Bhojpuri, Pahari (Garhwali and Kumaoni), Santhali, Nepali, Newari, Tharu and sometimes Kashmiri and Romani. ... Sanskrit ( , for short ) is a classical language of India, a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism, and one of the 23 official languages of India. ... Farsi redirects here. ... Dari (Persian: ) is the official name for the Persian language in Afghanistan, popularly and locally known as Farsi. ... Tajik or Tadjik (тоҷикӣ, تاجیکی, tojikí) is a descendant of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... The Cyrillic alphabet (or azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is an alphabet used for several East and South Slavic languages; (Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian) and many other languages of the former Soviet Union, Asia and Eastern Europe. ... The Celtic languages are the languages descended from Proto-Celtic, or Common Celtic, a branch of the greater Indo-European language family. ... Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... Breton (Brezhoneg) is a Celtic language spoken by some of the inhabitants of Brittany (Breizh) in France. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... For the Cornish-English dialect, see West Country dialects. ...

Semitic

• Most varieties of Arabic are not mutually intelligible. However, there are four areas where the dialects are more similar, but the degree of intelligibility varies within each area: the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania, and Libya) the Levant (Syria-Palestine-Israel-Lebanon-Jordan, and to a lesser extent Iraq), the Nile Valley (Egypt and Sudan) and the Arabian Peninsula. The dialects of the Nile Valley and the Levant (excluding Iraq) are closer to one another than any other Vernacular Arabic subgroups, and can be seen as a dialect continuum with the geographical extremes being nearly unintelligible (e.g. Upper Egyptian and Eastern Syrian) while more central dialects (e.g. Beirut and Cairo) are essentially mutually intelligible, especially for purposes of daily conversation.

The Arabic language is classified as a Semitic language. ... This article is about the region. ... The Levant The Levant (IPA: ) is an imprecise geographical term historically referring to a large area in the Middle East south of the Taurus Mountains, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and by the northern Arabian Desert and Upper Mesopotamia to the east. ... A 2003 satellite image of the region. ... ... Arabia redirects here. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... Map of Upper and Lower Egypt Ancient Egypt was divided into two kingdoms, known as Upper and Lower Egypt. ...

Austronesian

• Malay and Indonesian (linguistically two slightly different variants of the same language, distinguished for political-cultural reasons). See also Differences between Malay and Indonesian
• There is a degree of mutual intelligibility among some of the Polynesian languages. For example, when James Cook visited New Zealand in the late 18th century, he was able to communicate with Māori people through a Tahitian chief named Tupaea who was travelling with him. Generally, Tupaea and the Māori were able to understand each other fairly well, but on some occasions even Tupaea was baffled.
• Tagalog, Ilokano, Cebuano, Waray, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan and Pangasinense, etc. Even though these are all dialects of the Philippines, when spoken between members of different groups, mutual intelligibility ranges from a small to a high degree depending on the language group. (Tagalog is an exception because it is the second tongue of majority of Filipinos, though many elders and illiterates from that region cannot understand it). For example, should an Ilokano converse with a Cebuano, there is a high chance that they will not understand each other because they belong to different subgroups.
• Filipino dialects and Malay. In this case, the situation varies, as Ilokano, Kapampangan and other surrounding dialects are much closer to Malay than Tagalog in some respects; for example, Ilokano and Malay words are related in terms of spelling and pronunciation, but Kapampangan is closer in sentence structure. However, Malay is not mutually intelligible with Tagalog at all.^{[citation needed]}

Not to be confused with the Malayalam language, spoken in India. ... The differences between Malaysian (Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) are slightly greater than those between British English and American English. ... This article is about the British explorer. ... This article is about the Māori people of New Zealand. ... Tahitian could refer to the Tahitian language the native Tahitian people a resident of Tahiti or perhaps of French Polynesia This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... Tagalog (pronounced ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... To view the Ilokano edition of this Wikipedia article, select from the in other languages Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Cebuano, also known as Sinugboanon, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20,000,000 people (according to Ethnologue). ... Wáray-Wáray or Waráy (commonly spelled as Waray; also referred to as Winaray or L(in)eyte-Samarnon) is a language spoken in the provinces of Samar, Northern Samar, Eastern Samar, Leyte (eastern portion), and Biliran in the Philippines. ... Hiligaynon language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator Hiligaynon (or Ilonggo) is an Austronesian language spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Pangasinan language (Pangasinan: salitan Pangasinan; Spanish: idioma pangasinense) belongs to the Malayo-Polynesian languages branch of the Austronesian languages family. ... Look up Malay in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Sino-Tibetan

• Hokkien, Taiwanese, and Teochew, although all three may be considered dialects of Min Nan, a Chinese language. Although Hainanese is considered another dialect of Min Nan, it is mutually unintelligible with the other three dialects of Min Nan.[1]

Amoy (Xiamen) is a language/dialect which originally comes from Southern Fujian, in the area centered around the city of Xiamen. ... For other uses, see Formosan languages, Taiwanese Mandarin, and Languages of Taiwan. ... The Chaozhou language, also called Teochew, Teochiu, Tiuchiu, or Diojiu, is a dialect of the Chinese spoken variant of Min Nan (閩南/闽南), spoken in the Chaoshan (潮汕) region of eastern Guangdong (廣東/广东). It has low intelligibility with other Min Nan dialects, having fewer words in common than German has with English. ... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... Chinese (written) language (pinyin: zhōngw n) written in Chinese characters The Chinese language (汉语/漢語, 华语/華語, or 中文; Pinyin: H nyǔ, Hu yǔ, or Zhōngw n) is a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Hainanese (海南話) or Qiongwen (琼文片) is a variant of the Min Nan group of Chinese spoken in the southern Chinese island province of Hainan. ... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ...

Tai-Kadai

• Thai, Shan and Laotian
  • Laotian and the Isan Thai language. The two are extremely similar and may in fact be variants of one language.
• Zhuang and Bouyei

For other uses, see Shan (disambiguation). ... Lao (ພາສາລາວ phaasaa laao) is the official language of Laos. ... Lao (ພາສາລາວ phaasaa laao) is the official language of Laos. ... Isan (also Isaan or Esarn) is the language of the Isan region of Thailand. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Buyi or Bouyei people (Self called: Puyi, Puzhong, Burao, Puman; Chinese: 布依族; pinyin: bùyī zú) are an ethnic group living in southern Peoples Republic of China. ...

Turkic

Most Turkic language speakers belong to one of two groups, Oghuz and Kypchak. Languages belonging to the same group are mutually intelligible. Other languages, like Tatar and Bashkir, Uzbek and Uygur on the other side are mutually intelligible while sharing common features with both groups. The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110-130 million people (including second language speakers) in an area spanning from the Balkans to China. ... The Kypchak languages (also known as the Kipchak, Qypchaq, or Northeastern Turkic languages), are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China. ... The Tatar language (Tatar tele, Tatarça, Татар теле, Татарча) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars. ... The Bashkir language is a Turkic language. ... Uyghur (‎/Uyghurche//, or ‎/Uyghur tili//)[1] is a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang (also called East Turkestan or Uyghurstan), formerly also “Sinkiang” and “Chinese Turkestan,” a Central Asian region administered by China. ...

• Oghuz
  • Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz, and Salar
    • Qashqai: closely related to Azerbaijani

• Kypchak
  • Kazakh, Nogay , Karakalpak, Kyrgyz. Kyrgyz language holds special place in the group of Kypchak languages. It belongs to the Siberian Turkic languages and keeps grammar similarities with Altay language. It was strongly influenced by the Kypchak languages thus making the mutual understanding possible between Kyrgyz and Kypchak language speakers.

The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110-130 million people (including second language speakers) in an area spanning from the Balkans to China. ... Crimean Tatar language (Qırımtatar tili, Qırımtatarca), also known as Crimean (Qırım tili, Qırımca) and Crimean Turkish (Qırım Türkçesi) is the language of the Crimean Tatars. ... The Gagauz language (Gagauz dili) is a Turkic language, used by Gagauz people, official language of Gagauzia, Republic of Moldova. ... Salar is a Turkic language spoken by the Salar people, who mainly live in the provinces of Qinghai and Gansu in China, some also live in Ghulja, Xinjiang. ... Qashqai (also spelled Ghashghai, Qashqai, Qashqay, and Kashkai) is a Turkic language. ... The Kypchak languages (also known as the Kipchak, Qypchaq, or Northeastern Turkic languages), are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China. ... Kazakh (also Qazaq and variants[2], natively , , ‎; pronounced ) is a Turkic language closely related to Nogai and Karakalpak. ... Nogay, also Nogai, is generally classified into the Aralo-Caspian branch of Northwestern Turkic, or Kypchak languages. ... Karakalpak is a Turkic language mainly spoken by Karakalpaks in Karakalpakstan (Uzbekistan), as well as by Bashkirs and Nogay. ... Kyrgyz or Kirghiz (Kyrgyz tili, Кыргыз тили, قىرعىز ٴتىلى) is a Turkic language, and, together with Russian, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. ... The Kypchak languages (also known as the Kipchak, Qypchaq, or Northeastern Turkic languages), are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China. ... Altay is a language of the Turkic group of languages. ... The Kypchak languages (also known as the Kipchak, Qypchaq, or Northeastern Turkic languages), are a major branch of the Turkic language family spoken by more than 12 million people in an area spanning from Lithuania to China. ...

Finno-Ugric

• Finnish and Karelian. Meänkieli and Kven are mutually intelligible, Far Northern Finnish dialects that the respective states (Sweden and Norway) classify as distinct languages for political reasons.
• Estonian, Livonian and Votic.
• Finnish (especially south-western varieties) is also slightly intelligible to speakers of Estonian (especially northern coastal varieties). [2]

The Karelian language is a variety closely related to Finnish, with which it is not necessarily mutually intelligible. ... Meänkieli (lit. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Livonian (Līvõ kēļ) belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. ... Votic or Votian is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria. ...

Niger-Congo

• Bantu
  • Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, and Northern Ndebele (Nguni languages)
  • Bukusu and Masaaba
  • Tswana, Pedi and Sotho
  • Nyoro and Tooro
  • Beti, Bulu, Ewondo and Fang (Beti languages)
  • Kwanyama, Ndonga, and Kwambi (Oshiwambo group)
• Mande
  • Bamanankan or Bambara, Jula or Dyula, Mandinka or Mandingo, Maninka or Malinké, and others (Manding languages)

The Niger-Congo languages constitute one of the worlds major language families, and Africas largest in terms of geographical area, number of speakers, and number of distinct languages. ... Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu vs. ... Zulu (called isiZulu in Zulu), is a language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of whom live in South Africa. ... For the Xhosa people, see Xhosa. ... Swati (siSwati in the language itself; Swazi in Zulu) is a Bantu language of the Nguni group spoken in Swaziland and South Africa. ... The Northern Ndebele language, or isiNdebele, or Sindebele, is an African language belonging to the Nguni group of Bantu languages, and spoken by the Ndebele or Matabele people of Zimbabwe. ... Nguni is a group of languages spoken in southern Africa including isiZulu, isiXhosa, siSwati, and isiNdebele. ... Bukusu (or LuBukusu) is the Bantu language of the Bukusu people of western Kenya. ... The introduction of this article does not provide enough context for readers unfamiliar with the subject. ... Tswana (Setswana), is a Bantu language. ... Northern Sotho, or Sesotho sa Leboa, is one of the official languages of South Africa, and is spoken by 4,208,980 people (2001 Census Data), mostly in the provinces of Gauteng, Limpopo Province and Mpumalanga. ... Sesotho (Sotho, Southern Sotho or Southern Sesotho[1]) is a Bantu language spoken primarily in South Africa, where it is one of the 11 official languages, and in Lesotho, where it is the national language. ... Nyoro language (technically Runyoro) is a local language of Nyoro, belongs to the Niger-Kongo family, Benue-Kongo subgroup, Bantu branch (Nyoro-Ganda group). ... Bulu is the language of the Bulu people of Cameroon. ... Ewondo is the language of the Ewondo people of Cameroon. ... ... Kwanyama is a Bantu language mainly spoken in Angola and some parts of Namibia (together with Ndonga). ... Ndonga (also called Oshiwambo, Otjiwambo, or Owambo) is a Bantu language spoken in Namibia and some parts of Angola. ... Oshiwambo or Oshivambo is a cluster of several very closely related languages in Angola and Namibia, notably Kwanyama (or Oshikwanyama) and Ndonga. ... Mandé is the name of an ethnic group or nation, as well as a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka, Soninke, Bambara, Dioula, Kagoro, Bozo, Mendé, Yacouba, and Vai. ... Bambara, also known as Bamanankan in the language itself, is a language spoken in Mali by as many as six million people (including second language users). ... Dioula (Jula) is a language spoken in Burkina Faso and Côte dIvoire. ... The Mandinka language, sometimes referred to as Mandingo, is a Mandé language spoken by some 1. ... Maninka is a Niger-Congo; Mande language spoken by 3,300,000 (including all varieties) in Guinea and Mali where it is the official langauge and also in Liberia, Senegal, and Sierra Leone where it has no official status. ... Mande (or Manding) is the name of a group of languages which are spoken in several countries in West Africa, including Mandinka and Bambara. ...

Afro-Asiatic

• Many Berber variants, especially Northern Berber variants (sometimes known collectively as Tamazight)

Afro-Asiatic - Berber The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ... The Northern Berber languages are a dialect continuum across the Maghreb that form a sub-family within the Berber languages. ... Afro-Asiatic - Berber The Berber languages (or Tamazight) are a group of closely related languages mainly spoken in Morocco and Algeria. ...

English Creole

• Manglish and Singlish.

Manglish (or sometimes Malglish or Mangled English) is the colloquial version of the English language as spoken in Malaysia and it is a portmanteau of the word Malay and English (also possibly Mandarin and English). ... Singlish is an English-based creole language native to Singapore. ...

Constructed languages

Esperanto and Ido are to a degree mutually intelligible. This article is about the language. ... Ido (pronounced ) is a constructed language created with the goal of becoming a universal second language for speakers of different linguistic backgrounds as a language easier to learn than ethnic languages. ...

• Main article: Esperanto and Ido compared

This article attempts to highlight the main differences between Esperanto and Ido, two constructed languages that have a related past but have since parted ways. ...

Across language families

• Interlingua (auxiliary language), Catalan, Occitan, standard Italian, Spanish, Ladino, Portuguese, Corsican and Galician (Romance languages) are mutually intelligible to some degree, as are Interlingua, English, and Danish (Germanic languages).^[1]

This article is about the auxiliary language created by the International Auxiliary Language Association. ...

Spoken form only

Indo-European

• Indo-Iranian
  • Hindi and Urdu (see also Hindustani language), and also Punjabi to a certain degree. However literary Urdu is far closer to Persian and may be unintelligible to a Hindi speaker, in the same manner, Hindi has an increasing number of Sanskrit words, which make it difficult for Urdu speakers to comprehend. This is especially true in Pakistan, where the Persianised Urdu is preferred, and the local population are not as exposed to Sansikritized Hindi as in India. Still in every day speech most Pakistanis are able to converse with most Indians in Urdu easily enough.
  • Bengali, Oriya and Assamese in the standard spoken forms. Not all dialects may be mutually intelligible.
• Slavic languages - most neighboring languages are mutually intelligible
  • Belarusian and Ukrainian with Russian and, to a more limited degree, with Polish
  • Serbo-Croatian, Croatian, Bosnian or Serbian (which are usually all considered the same language) show a limited degree of asymmetrical mutual intelligibility with Polish: speakers of these languages seem to understand Polish more easily than the other way round.^{[citation needed]}
  • It is said that Slovak is the most easily understood by other Slavs of all Slavic languages, due to its central location and grammar. [3]
• Germanic
  • German and Yiddish.
• Romance
  • Speakers of Portuguese can usually understand Spanish better than Spanish speakers can understand Portuguese because of dramatic differences in pronunciation of words that are written almost the same (i.e cachorro is pronounced "kah-SHOH-ho" in Portuguese, unlike Spanish Ka-CHO-rroh). Spanish speakers have the most difficulty understanding Brazilian Portuguese.
  • Rioplatense Spanish speakers can reportedly understand Italian better than other Spanish speakers.
  • Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, especially those of the South and South-East can reportedly understand spoken Standard Italian quite well.

-1... Urdu ( , , trans. ... Hindustani redirects here. ... Look up Persian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Bangla redirects here. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... Assamese ( ) (IPA: ) is a language spoken in the state of Assam in northeast India. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... Yiddish ( yidish or idish, literally: Jewish) is a non-territorial Germanic language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet. ... Main urban centers of Rioplatense Spanish. ... Brazilian Portuguese (português do Brasil in Portuguese) is a group of dialects of Portuguese written and spoken by virtually all the 190 million inhabitants of Brazil and by a couple of million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, United Kingdom, Portugal, Canada, Japan, and Paraguay. ... Italian ( , or lingua italiana) is a Romance language spoken by about 63 million people,[4] primarily in Italy. ...

Dravidian

• Tamil and Malayalam are mutually intelligible. Any Malayali in Tamil Nadu, and any Tamilian in Kerala or Lakshadweep understands the local language easily. This is due to the common origin of these languages.

Tamil ( ; IPA: ) is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people, originating on the Indian subcontinent. ... Malayalam ( ) is the language spoken predominantly in the state of Kerala, in southern India. ...

Turkic

• Uzbek and Uyghur of the Chagatay group
• Speakers of Azeri and Turkish can easily understand each other.

Uyghur (‎/Uyghurche//, or ‎/Uyghur tili//)[1] is a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang (also called East Turkestan or Uyghurstan), formerly also “Sinkiang” and “Chinese Turkestan,” a Central Asian region administered by China. ...

Semitic

• Modern Hebrew and Aramaic speakers can usually learn the other's language with minimum difficulty, and those who speak it can understand each other with moderate difficulty.

The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Aramaic is a Semitic language with a four-thousand year history. ...

Niger-Congo

• Ewe and other Gbe language speakers such as Gen, Mina, and Fon can usually learn the other's language with minimum difficulty, and those who speak it can understand each other with moderate difficulty.^{[citation needed]}

Look up ewe, Ewe in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Commanders Badge of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V. The Order includes five classes in civil and military divisions, in order of seniority: Knight or Dame Grand Cross... This article is about the Street Fighter character. ... Mina can refer to: // MiNa, the Microsystems and Nanotechnology Research Group at The University of British Columbia Mina, Gabon Mina, Greece Mina, Iloilo, in the Philippines. ... // FON Wireless Ltd. ...

Written form only

Semitic

• Maltese and Maghrebi Arabic especially Tunisian Arabic if written in the same script.
• Modern Hebrew speakers can generally read Biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew with little difficulty.

Maghrebi Arabic is a cover term for the dialects of Arabic spoken in the Maghreb, including Western Sahara, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. ... Tunisian Arabic is a Maghrebi dialect of the Arabic language, spoken by some 9 million people. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Categories: Language stubs | Judaism-related stubs | Canaanite languages | Hebrew language ... The Mishnaic Hebrew language or Rabbinic Hebrew language is the ancient descendant of Biblical Hebrew as preserved by the Jews after the Babylonian captivity, and definitively recorded by Jewish sages in writing the Mishnah and other contemporary documents. ...

Sino-Tibetan

• All Chinese languages share the same written standard. However, this is not the case if vernacularisms or direct representations of the spoken forms are used.
• Speakers of any modern Chinese dialects have little difficulty in reading post-Warring States classical Chinese literature usually upon completion of secondary education.

Spoken Chinese The Chinese spoken language(s) comprise(s) many regional variants. ... Various styles of Chinese calligraphy. ... Alternative meaning: Warring States Period (Japan) The Warring States Period (traditional Chinese: 戰國時代, simplified Chinese: 战国时代 pinyin Zhànguó Shídài) takes place from sometime in the 5th century BC to the unification of China by Qin in 221 BC. It is nominally considered to be the second part of the Eastern... Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of very old forms of Chinese , making it very different from any modern spoken form of Chinese. ... Secondary education - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

Across language families

• Written Chinese can be read to some degree by Koreans familiar with hanja, the style of Korean writing using Chinese characters.
• Written Chinese can usually be read to a limited degree by those proficient in Japanese; the reverse can be true to a lesser extent although the wide use of phonetic characters (kana) in written Japanese hinder this.
• Native speakers of Arabic can read a large number of words in Persian (Farsi) due to the large number of loan words that originated from Arabic and the use of the same alphabet, although not enough to follow the meaning of the whole text. The reverse is also true if the text is written in standard Arabic, but Iranians probably can't read anything written in one of the national dialects, and certainly not if the text is written in the Latin alphabet (an increasingly common practice among Arabs these days in internet chat rooms, email and txt messaging)

Korean writing systems Hangul Hanja Hyangchal Gugyeol Idu Mixed script Korean romanization Revised Romanization of Korean McCune-Reischauer Yale Romanization Hanja is the Korean name for Chinese characters. ... Japanese writing Kanji 漢字 Kana 仮名 Hiragana 平仮名 Katakana 片仮名 Manyogana 万葉仮名 Uses Furigana 振り仮名 Okurigana 送り仮名 Rōmaji ローマ字 For other meanings of Kana, see Kana (disambiguation). ... This article describes the modern writing system and its history. ...

Indo-European

• Germanic
  • Those proficient in Icelandic can read Old Norse with little difficulty, about as easily as Shakespeare for modern English speakers. [4]
  • Icelandic and Faroese. Icelanders can read Faroese without much difficulty.
  • Those proficient in Swedish, Norwegian or Danish can understand at least simpler things in written Dutch
• Celtic
  • Scottish Gaelic and Irish, sister variants of the Goidelic Celtic branch, see the Differences between Scottish Gaelic and Irish
  • Cornish and some southern Welsh dialects, sister languages of the Brythonic Celtic branch
• Romance
  • Though their degrees of mutual intelligibility vary in spoken form, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Catalan and Interlingua are highly mutually intelligible in written form. Romanian, despite being very phonetic, is more difficult for other Romance speakers but still readable to a wide extent, especially if Franco-Italian words are used rather than Slavic words. French is even harder for other Romance speakers beacause it is a largely aphonetic language.
  • Native Portuguese speakers usually read Spanish seamlessly, with the help of a dictionary for less common words or words derived from archaic (for Portuguese) root forms.
  • Most written Romance languages are moderately intelligible to English speakers (mostly words, not sentences), because of the presence of thousands of Romance words in the English language. See Norman Conquest.
• Slavic languages written in Cyrillic alphabet are intelligible to a medium degree. It affects relation between East Slavic languages (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Rusyn) and South Slavic languages (Serbian, Bosnian, Macedonian and Bulgarian).
• Educated speakers of Modern Greek can read Classical Greek with little difficulty,^{[dubious – discuss]} though even natural speakers of Greek will have much more difficulties reading Classical Greek if they didn't attend a Greek school or were otherwise educated in the language. (For instance, children of Greek parents living in a foreign country) This is mainly due to the great changes in vocabulary: Someone who was raised in Greece will easily understand the Classical Greek word "oikos", meaning "house", unlike a Greek native speaker who was raised in another country, because the Modern Greek word for "house" is "spiti".

Old Norse is the Germanic language spoken by the inhabitants of Scandinavia and their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300. ... Shakespeare redirects here. ... // Scottish Gaelic (Gàidhlig) is a member of the Goidelic branch of Celtic languages. ... The Goidelic languages (also sometimes called, particularly in colloquial situations, the Gaelic languages or collectively Gaelic) have historically been part of a dialect continuum stretching from the south of Ireland, the Isle of Man, to the north of Scotland. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... For the Cornish-English dialect, see West Country dialects. ... Welsh redirects here, and this article describes the Welsh language. ... The Brythonic languages (or Brittonic languages) form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family. ... Catalan IPA: (català IPA: or []) is a Romance language, the national language of Andorra, and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Balearic Islands, Catalonia and Valencia, and in the city of LAlguer in the Italian island of Sardinia. ... This article is about the auxiliary language created by the International Auxiliary Language Association. ... For other uses, see Dictionary (disambiguation). ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Bayeux Tapestry depicting events leading to the Battle of Hastings The Norman Conquest of England was the conquest of the Kingdom of England by William the Conqueror (Duke of Normandy), in 1066 at the Battle of Hastings and the subsequent Norman control of England. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... The Cyrillic alphabet (pronounced also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters) is actually a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by certain Slavic languages — Belarusian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, and Ukrainian—as well as many other languages of the former Soviet Union... This article or section should be merged with List of East Slavic languages The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. ... Rusyn is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. ... South Slavic languages comprise one of the three groups of Slavic languages (besides West and East Slavic). ... Serbian (; ) is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. ... Main article: Greek language Modern Greek (Νέα Ελληνικά or Νεοελληνική, lit. ... The History of Greece extends back to the arrival of the Greeks in Europe some time before 1500 BC, even though there has only been an independent state called Greece since Turkey, Italy and Libya. ...

Sign languages

• British Sign Language, Auslan and New Zealand Sign Language are mutually intelligible to some degree.
• Catalan Sign Language, Valencian Sign Language and Spanish Sign Language are mutually intelligible to a very basic degree.

British Sign Language (BSL) is the sign language used in the United Kingdom (UK), and is the first or preferred language of an unknown number of Deaf people in the UK (published estimates range from 30,000 to 250,000 but it is likely that the lower figures are more... Auslan is the sign language used by the Australian Deaf community. ... New Zealand Sign Language or NZSL is the main language of the deaf community in New Zealand. ... Llengua de Signes Catalana in Catalan, Lengua de señas o signos catalana in Spanish, Catalan Sign Language, Catalonian Sign language or LSC is a Sign language used by 32,000 signers (7000 deaf) in Catalonia. ... Valencian Sign Language (LSCV or LSPV) is a sign language used by people with hearing impairments in Valencia. ... Spanish Sign language (Lengua de signos o señas española)is a language used mainly by deaf-mute people in Spain and the people who live with them. ...

List of selected related languages not mutually intelligible

Indo-European

• Many Germanic languages, though related, are generally not mutually intelligible.
  • The Frisian languages are the closest living indisputably separate languages to English (though Scots and English, descendants of Old English, are of course even closer to each other), both being descended from the Anglo-Frisian group. The two languages are not mutually intelligible, but there is some evidence that Northumbrian and Frisian sailors could partly understand each other until recent times. West Frisian is mutually intelligible with Dutch to a certain extent.
  • Due to geographical isolation and extensive French and Latin vocabulary, English is not mutually intelligible with any other Germanic language (unless Scots is considered a language rather than a dialect of English).
  • Swedish-, Norwegian-, and Danish-speakers have difficulty understanding Icelandic and Faroese, especially in speech.
  • Faroese-speakers too have difficulties understanding Icelandic and vice versa, despite the similarities in grammar and vocabulary. (However, the phonetic differences are fairly extreme.)
  • Old English is mostly unintelligible to speakers of Modern English, due in part to the loss of inflection in Middle English and to the highly variable spelling which is often quite different from Modern English, not to mention three extra letters in the alphabet not present in Modern English. However, George Saintsbury, assistant translator of Oxen in the Sun, is known for his belief that "any intelligent person ought to be able to read and understand Old English without recourse to dictionaries or other handbooks." ^[5].Middle English is intelligible to Modern English speakers in its written form, but not its spoken form.
• Romance languages:
  • French is not mutually intelligible with other Romance languages, due to its uniquely divergent characteristics in phonology.
  • Romanian is typically not mutually intelligible with Spanish, Portuguese or French, though Romanian speakers seem to understand these spoken languages to a certain degree.
• Latvian and Lithuanian, the two biggest surviving Baltic languages, are not mutually intelligible, despite having similar grammar. Lithuanian can be intelligible to a Latvian speaker to some degree but not vice versa.
• Standard Greek is generally not mutually intelligible with dialects that developed in isolated communities, such as Griko and Pontic Greek.
• Slavic languages are related and to various degrees mutually intelligible. Asymmetrical mutual intelligibility exists between Bulgarian and Macedonian on one hand and the other Slavic languages on the other. This is because Bbulgarian and Macedonian abolished the noun cases.
  • Slovene is fairly mutually intelligble with Serbo-Croatian and Macedonian to some degree, but not so much so with most of the other Slavic languages due to a large number of Italian loanwords.^{[citation needed]}
  • Russian and Polish are largely not mutually intelligible. Although their grammar and basic words (pronouns, common nouns, etc.) are very close if not identical, more complex words are often quite different. Ukrainian is mutually intelligible to some degree to both but mostly to Russian, being believed by many to be an intermediary form in the dialect continuum.

The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... This article is about the Frisian languages, as spoken in the north of the Netherlands and Germany. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article is about the Anglic language of Scotland. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... The Anglo-Frisian languages (also known as Ingvaeonic languages or North Sea Germanic languages) are a group of West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants. ... The West Frisian language (Frysk) is a language spoken mostly in the province of Fryslân in the north of the Netherlands. ... This article is about the Anglic language of Scotland. ... Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon[1], Old English: ) is an early form of the English language that was spoken in parts of what is now England and southern Scotland between the mid-fifth century and the mid-twelfth century. ... Inflection of the Spanish lexeme for cat, with blue representing the masculine gender, pink representing the feminine gender, grey representing the form used for mixed-gender, and green representing the plural number. ... The Romance languages (sometimes referred to as Romanic languages) are a branch of the Indo-European language family that comprises all the languages that descend from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... The Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. ... The linguistic varieties of Modern Greek can be classified along two principal dimensions. ... Location map of the Griko-speaking areas in Salento and Calabria Griko, sometimes spelled Grico, is a language combining ancient Greek, Byzantine Greek and Italian elements. ... Pontic Greek is a Greek language which was originally spoken on the shores of the Black Sea (Pontus). Pontics linguistic lineage stems from Attic Greek, and contains influences from Byzantine Greek, Turkish influence and some Persian and Caucasian borrowings. ...  Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language  Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language  Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ...

Other language groups

• Many spoken languages and dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, Min, Wu, Xiang and Gan.
• Old Chinese and Middle Chinese are not mutually intelligible with modern Mandarin due to the changes in pronunciation of many words, and the change in grammar and usage.
• In addition, various groups of Min dialects (or languages), for example Min Nan and Min Dong, are not mutually intelligible.
• Malay and Indonesian are not mutually intelligible with Tagalog or Cebuano.
• Most languages of the Philippines such as Tagalog, Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Bikolano and Ilokano are not mutually intelligible with each other, despite the fact they are more closely related compared to other Austronesian Languages, such as Malay and Indonesian.
• Hungarian and Finnish or Estonian are not mutually intelligible to any extent. They are also not mutually intelligible with the Uralic languages spoken in Russia. The two exceptions are Finnish-Karelian and Estonian-Votic mutual intelligibilities. With effort, Estonian speakers can learn to understand Finnish (and vice versa) rather quickly, but this is not to be confused with true mutual intelligibility, the ability to understand without special effort. In terms of time since the split of the common proto-language, the distance between the languages is approximately similar to the distance between German and English for Finnish with Estonian, and English-Hindi for the distance between Finnish and Hungarian.
• Modern Hebrew and Arabic are historically related and share many grammatical roots, forms and items of vocabulary, but are not mutually intelligible. The similarity is sufficient, however, to make learning Hebrew easier for Arabic speakers and vice-versa.
• Many Nahuan dialects are neither intelligible with one another nor their ancestor language, Classical Nahuatl, even though all such dialects (including Classical Nahuatl) are commonly treated as a single Nahuatl language.

This article is on all of the Northern and Southwestern Chinese dialects. ... This article is about all of the Cantonese (Yue) dialects. ... Hakka (Simplified Chinese: 客家话, Traditional Chinese: 客家話, Pronunciation in Hakka: Hak-ka-fa/-va, Pinyin: Kèjiāhuà) is a spoken variation of the Chinese language spoken predominantly in southern China by the Hakka ethnic group and descendants in diaspora throughout East and Southeast Asia and around the world. ... Min (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; POJ: Bân hong-giân; BUC: Mìng huŏng-ngiòng) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou... Wu (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; Chinese: ; pinyin: ) is one of the major divisions of the Chinese language. ... Xiang (湘語/湘语), also Hunan, Hunanese, or Hsiang, is a subdivision of spoken Chinese. ... Gàn (赣语) is one of the major divisions of spoken Chinese, a member of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages, concentrated in and typical of Jiangxi Province. ... The Seal script characters for harvest (later year) and person. ... Middle Chinese (traditional Chinese: ; pinyin: zhōnggÇ” HànyÇ”), or Ancient Chinese as used by linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties (6th century - 10th century). ... This article is on all of the Northern and Southwestern Chinese dialects. ... Min (Chinese: ; pinyin: ; POJ: Bân hong-giân; BUC: Mìng huŏng-ngiòng) is a general term for a group of dialects of the Chinese language spoken in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian as well as by migrants from this province in Guangdong (around Chaozhou-Swatou... Mǐn N n (Chinese: 閩南語), also spelt as Minnan or Min-nan; native name B ; literally means Southern Min or Southern Fujian and refers to the local language/dialect of southern Fujian province, China. ... Min Dong Language (or Eastern Min Language, Chinese: 閩東語, SLC: Mỉng Tòyng ngỹ) is the language mainly spoken in the eastern part of Fujian Province (Chinese: 福建, SLC: Huk Kyŏng). ... The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who are native to the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore and parts of Sumatra. ... Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia and a remarkable language in several ways. ... Tagalog (pronounced ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Cebuano, also known as Sinugboanon, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20,000,000 people (according to Ethnologue). ... Tagalog (pronounced ) is one of the major languages of the Republic of the Philippines. ... Cebuano, also known as Sinugboanon, is an Austronesian language spoken in the Philippines by about 20,000,000 people (according to Ethnologue). ... Hiligaynon language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator Hiligaynon (or Ilonggo) is an Austronesian language spoken in Western Visayas in the Philippines. ... Bicolano or Bikol is an Austronesian language used in the Philippines particularly on the Bicol Peninsula on the island of Luzon. ... To view the Ilokano edition of this Wikipedia article, select from the in other languages Ilokano (variants: Ilocano, Iluko, Iloco, and Iloko) is the third most-spoken language of the Republic of the Philippines. ... The Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. ... The Malay language, also known locally as Bahasa Melayu, is an Austronesian language spoken by the Malay people who are native to the Malay peninsula, southern Thailand, Singapore and parts of Sumatra. ... Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the official language of Indonesia and a remarkable language in several ways. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages  Yukaghir  Samoyedic  Ugric  Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... The Modern Hebrew language is a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Nahuatl dialects and and dialect groupings The Uto Aztecan Nahuatl language can be grouped into two rough dialect continua, labelled the central and the peripheral dialects. ... hello how are you This page is a candidate for speedy deletion. ... For the Spanish language as spoken in Mexico, see Mexican Spanish. ...

List of selected mutually intelligible languages now extinct

• Biblical Hebrew, Moabite, Edomite, Ammonite and Phoenician. The first four of these formed the closely-related South Canaanite language language group and are sometimes termed "Hebrew languages".
• Various Germanic languages in antiquity and the early Middle Ages, including Old Norse, Old English, Old Saxon, and the Gothic languages (Gothic, Burgundian, and Vandalic).
• Faroese (not extinct) and Norn
• Latin (nearly extinct) and Faliscan
• Dalmatian and eastern Italian variants may have had some intelligibility
• Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan

This article describes the Biblical dialects of Hebrew. ... The Moabite language is an extinct Hebrew Canaanite dialect, spoken in Moab (modern-day northwestern Jordan) in the early first millennium BC. Most of our knowledge about Moabite comes from the Mesha Stele, as well as the El-Kerak Stela; this is sufficient to show that it was extremely similar... The Edomite language is the extinct Hebrew Canaanite language of the Edomites in southwestern Jordan in the first millennium BC. It is known only from a very small corpus. ... The Ammonite language is the extinct Canaanite language of the Ammonite people mentioned in the Bible, who used to live in modern-day Jordan, and after whom its capital Amman is named. ... Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region of what is now Lebanon. ... The Germanic languages are a group of related languages constituting a branch of the Indo-European (IE) language family. ... Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, which begins roughly with the earliest-recorded Greek poetry of Homer (7th century BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity and the fall of the Western Roman Empire (5th century AD... Justinians wife Theodora and her retinue, in a 6th century mosaic from the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna. ... Old Norse or Danish tongue is the Germanic language once spoken by the inhabitants of the Nordic countries (for instance during the Viking Age). ... Old English redirects here. ... Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a Germanic language. ... The East Germanic languages are a group of extinct Indo-European languages in the Germanic family. ... Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. ... Burgundian is either of the following; An extinct language of the Germanic language group spoken by the Burgundians. ... Vandalic was a Germanic language probably closely related to the Gothic language. ... Norn is an extinct North Germanic language that was spoken on the Shetland Islands and Orkney Islands, off the coast of Scotland. ... For other uses, see Latins and Latin (disambiguation). ... Falisci, a tribe of Sabine origin or connections, but speaking a dialect closely akin to Latin, who inhabited the town of Falerii, as well as a considerable tract of the surrounding country, probably reaching as far south as to include the small town of Capena. ... Dalmatian is an extinct Romance language formerly spoken in the Dalmatia region of Croatia, and as far south as Kotor (Cattaro) in Montenegro. ... A variety of a language is a form that differs from other forms of the language systematically and coherently. ... Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, which are the earliest sacred texts of India,. The Vedas were first passed down orally and therefore have no known date. ... Yasna 28. ...

See also

• Lexical similarity
• Non-convergent discourse
• Multilingualism
• Identification of the varieties of Chinese
• Differences between Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish
• Differences between Scottish Gaelic and Irish
• Differences between Spanish and Portuguese
• Differences in standard Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian
• Differences between Malay and Indonesian
• Dialect continuum
• Dialect levelling

In linguistics, lexical similarity is a measure of the degree to which the word sets of two given languages are similar. ... A non-convergent discourse (NCD) is a discourse in which the participants do not accommodate on the language level, which results in the use of different languages. ... Bilingual redirects here. ... Chinese forms part of the Sino-Tibetan family of languages. ... Danish and Norwegian Bokmål (the most common standard form of Norwegian) are very similar languages, but differences between them do exist. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... The standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages differ in various aspects as outlined below. ... The differences between Malaysian (Bahasa Melayu or Bahasa Malaysia) and Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) are slightly greater than those between British English and American English. ... A dialect continuum is a range of dialects spoken across a large geographical area, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. ... There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ...

References