How to Learn Any Language 51
Swedish, Danish, Norwegian
The Scandinavian languages are lumped together because of their similarity and the reliability with which natives of one Scandinavian country can deal with the languages of the others. That similarity is something for you to know and enjoy, not something for you to mention to the Scandinavians themselves. They’re horrified when outsiders say, “Gee, Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are all alike!” They prefer to dwell upon the differences. There was a popular movement in Norwegian early in the twentieth century to change the language for no apparent reason other than to make it less like Danish.
If your aim is to communicate in all three countries, learn Norwegian first. It’s the linguistic centre of Scandinavia. A Dane can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Swedish. A Swede can deal comfortably with Norwegian, but much less so with Danish. A Norwegian can deal comfortably with both Swedish and Danish.
The Scandinavian languages are relatively easy for Americans to learn. They’re Germanic languages, related to English, but vastly easier to learn than German. The verbs don’t change for person and number, and only slightly for tense. The word order follows English obligingly most of the way. Like Dutch, the Scandinavian languages have two genders – common and neuter – and the definite article follows the noun and becomes one word. (For example, “a pen” in Norwegian is en penn, “the pen” is pennen.)
Holland is said to be the non-English speaking country with the highest percentage of people fluent in English. The three Scandinavian countries are close behind. You may never need their language no matter where you go or who you deal with in Scandinavia, but Scandinavians are among the most appreciative people on earth if you know their language anyhow.
Polish, Croatian, Czech, Slovak, Slovenian
These western Slavic languages use the Roman alphabet. The eastern Slavic languages use the Cyrillic (sometimes mistakenly called the Russian) alphabet. Don’t suggest it after a few drinks in Warsaw, but Polish might be better off using the Cyrillic alphabet. A Polish sound resembling the sh combined with the following ch in push charlie is spelled szcz in Polish. That sound, which requires four letters in the Roman alphabet, needs only one in the Cyrillic! Romanising Slavic languages leads to orthographical madness. A newspaper reporter in a small Southern town went into his editor’s office and said, “There’s been an earthquake in the Polish city of Pszczyna.” He showed the editor the story off the wire. After a momentary frown the editor looked up and said, “Find out what the name of the place was before the earthquake!”
Except for Polish, none of these languages has much bounce beyond its borders, but if your reason for wanting to learn them involves family, love, or business, that won’t matter. All Slavic languages are grammatically complex. Verbs change for reasons that leave even those who speak Romance languages weeping over their wine and wondering why. There are at least six noun cases in every Slavic language, sometimes seven.
The big payoff in learning any of these Slavic languages is the automatic down payment you’re making on Russian itself. Russian will be a breeze if you already know another Slavic language, and conversely, the other Slavic languages will come more easily if you already know Russian.
Serbian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Ukranian,
Byelorussian
Everything stated above about the western Slavic languages applies to these eastern Slavic languages with one exception – they use the Cyrillic alphabet, with slight variations from language to language.
The similarities between Serbian and Croatian, the main languages of Yugoslavia, are so striking the languages are usually lumped together as Serbo-Croatian.
If you know any two Slavic languages, you can make yourself understood in any of the other Slavic languages. That may be challenged by Slavic scholars, but it works well in real life between the western border of Poland and the Ural Mountains and from the arctic tip of Russia to the Black Sea beaches of Bulgaria.