Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
johannes writes:
| Martin wrote:
|
| The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a certain
| extent and learnt it quickly.
|
| The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in school
| by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
| Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
| the Scandinavian family of languages.

Oh, really! Please do be a little less parochial.

I can make a fair amount of sense of Dutch and some of Danish, despite
never having learnt either language, because of the similarities in
the Germanic languages (including the Scandinavian ones). That is
little help with (say) Polish, none at all with Turkish - and, as for
African, American, Far-Eastern and Australian languages, please get real.

Then you must be a clever dick, of course you are... I have worked with
plenty of nationalities and found the Dutch incomprehensible. Apart from
the odd word which pop up, just like many words becomes americanised. But
the structure of the languages are completely different. Like the Danes,
the Dutch are good foreign language speakers, so you tend to fall into
English when speaking with them.

The whole of the Germanic family is very similar, and the separations
were less than two thousand years ago.

Depends what you mean by similar.

Martin wrote:

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:05:05 +0000, Johannes Andersen
wrote:

Friesland was part of Denmark at one time.

Not to my knowledge. When was that may I ask?

The 9th Century.

There was a map on a wall in Kronborg Castle, when I visited it in the 1970s
showing Friesland, as part of Denmark.

http://www.boudicca.de/frisian2.htm

"Viking raids and Danish rule (800 - 1014 A.D.)

In 807 A.D. a war starts between Charlemagne and the Danish king Godfried.
Godfried raids Friesland with a fleet of 200 ships, mocking the Frankish
defenses. Shortly after Godfried dies (810 A.D.). After Godfrieds death, the
Danish raids concentrate mostly on the British Isles and less upon Friesland.

After the death of the Frankish emperor Lewis the Pious in 840 A.D., the
Carolinian defense of Friesland had collapsed. Since there was no Frisian King
to organize a defensive force, the Danish raids on this Carolinian outpost
intensified. And in the rest of the 9th century the Frisians frequently lived
under Danish rule and had to pay taxes to the Danish feudal-tenants.
The Danes forced the weakened Carolinian Kings to give them Friesland as a
feudal estate.
Feudal tenants in Friesland we

* Harald (840 - 844 A.D.)
* Rorik and Godfried (844 - 857 A.D.)
* Rorik (a Christian) (862 -872 A.D.)
* Godfried (881 - 885 A.D.)

In 885 the last Scandinavian ruler of Friesland, Godfried the Norwegian, is
murdered and the ruling Danes are evicted from Friesland by the Frisians. The
great tidal waves of Heathenistic Viking raids (sometimes accompanied with
occupation) in Friesland, had come to an end. Smaller raids still took place
until 1014 A.D. when the Christian Knut the Great became king of Denmark, Norway
and England."


--

Martin

Well, it was a very short period then, when the Vikings roamed and terrorised
many countries. Perhaps we should claim that England is 'really' Danish...

In article ,
Martin writes:
|
| I'd say that the Danes I worked with must have been "clever dicks"

I know some of those, too. But obviously not all are.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Martin wrote:

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:35:47 +0000, johannes
wrote:



Martin wrote:

On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:05:05 +0000, Johannes Andersen
wrote:

Friesland was part of Denmark at one time.

Not to my knowledge. When was that may I ask?

The 9th Century.

There was a map on a wall in Kronborg Castle, when I visited it in the 1970s
showing Friesland, as part of Denmark.

http://www.boudicca.de/frisian2.htm

"Viking raids and Danish rule (800 - 1014 A.D.)

In 807 A.D. a war starts between Charlemagne and the Danish king Godfried.
Godfried raids Friesland with a fleet of 200 ships, mocking the Frankish
defenses. Shortly after Godfried dies (810 A.D.). After Godfrieds death, the
Danish raids concentrate mostly on the British Isles and less upon Friesland.

After the death of the Frankish emperor Lewis the Pious in 840 A.D., the
Carolinian defense of Friesland had collapsed. Since there was no Frisian King
to organize a defensive force, the Danish raids on this Carolinian outpost
intensified. And in the rest of the 9th century the Frisians frequently lived
under Danish rule and had to pay taxes to the Danish feudal-tenants.
The Danes forced the weakened Carolinian Kings to give them Friesland as a
feudal estate.
Feudal tenants in Friesland we

* Harald (840 - 844 A.D.)
* Rorik and Godfried (844 - 857 A.D.)
* Rorik (a Christian) (862 -872 A.D.)
* Godfried (881 - 885 A.D.)

In 885 the last Scandinavian ruler of Friesland, Godfried the Norwegian, is
murdered and the ruling Danes are evicted from Friesland by the Frisians. The
great tidal waves of Heathenistic Viking raids (sometimes accompanied with
occupation) in Friesland, had come to an end. Smaller raids still took place
until 1014 A.D. when the Christian Knut the Great became king of Denmark, Norway
and England."


--

Martin

Well, it was a very short period then, when the Vikings roamed and terrorised
many countries. Perhaps we should claim that England is 'really' Danish...

Nobody said that Friesland *is* Danish.

Odd that I know more about Danish history than you.

That was before my time. History was never a great subject for me.
All that tribal nonsense, see where it gets you. I'm citizen of the
planet. Next time I will just look it wikipedia.

In article ,
says...


Martin wrote:

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 09:21:22 +0100, "JennyC" wrote:


"johannes" wrote
The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a
certain
extent and learnt it quickly.

The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in
school
by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
the Scandinavian family of languages.

The Dutch learn English, French and German at school too and are also pretty
quick at picking up other languages.....

Dutch and German are indeed similar and Danish has a completely different
ring to it :!)

It sounds different, but has similar roots.

Similar in a sense that English and Spanish have similar roots.

Not as similar as the roots of English, Dutch, Danish, German and
Swedish. How much language history or linguistics do you know?
--
Linz
Wet Yorks

In article ,
says...


Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
johannes writes:
| Martin wrote:
|
| The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a certain
| extent and learnt it quickly.
|
| The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in school
| by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
| Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
| the Scandinavian family of languages.

Oh, really! Please do be a little less parochial.

I can make a fair amount of sense of Dutch and some of Danish, despite
never having learnt either language, because of the similarities in
the Germanic languages (including the Scandinavian ones). That is
little help with (say) Polish, none at all with Turkish - and, as for
African, American, Far-Eastern and Australian languages, please get real.

Then you must be a clever dick, of course you are... I have worked with
plenty of nationalities and found the Dutch incomprehensible. Apart from
the odd word which pop up, just like many words becomes americanised. But
the structure of the languages are completely different. Like the Danes,
the Dutch are good foreign language speakers, so you tend to fall into
English when speaking with them.

Nick might be a clever dick, but then again, you may not have much
aptitude for language.

The whole of the Germanic family is very similar, and the separations
were less than two thousand years ago.

Depends what you mean by similar.

Linguistically they're very similar.

Amethyst Deceiver wrote:

In article ,
says...


Nick Maclaren wrote:

In article ,
johannes writes:
| Martin wrote:
|
| The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a certain
| extent and learnt it quickly.
|
| The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in school
| by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
| Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
| the Scandinavian family of languages.

Oh, really! Please do be a little less parochial.

I can make a fair amount of sense of Dutch and some of Danish, despite
never having learnt either language, because of the similarities in
the Germanic languages (including the Scandinavian ones). That is
little help with (say) Polish, none at all with Turkish - and, as for
African, American, Far-Eastern and Australian languages, please get real.

Then you must be a clever dick, of course you are... I have worked with
plenty of nationalities and found the Dutch incomprehensible. Apart from
the odd word which pop up, just like many words becomes americanised. But
the structure of the languages are completely different. Like the Danes,
the Dutch are good foreign language speakers, so you tend to fall into
English when speaking with them.

Nick might be a clever dick, but then again, you may not have much
aptitude for language.

The whole of the Germanic family is very similar, and the separations
were less than two thousand years ago.

Depends what you mean by similar.

Linguistically they're very similar.

Depends what you mean by similar.

Amethyst Deceiver wrote:

In article ,
says...


Martin wrote:

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 09:21:22 +0100, "JennyC" wrote:


"johannes" wrote
The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a
certain
extent and learnt it quickly.

The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in
school
by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
the Scandinavian family of languages.

The Dutch learn English, French and German at school too and are also pretty
quick at picking up other languages.....

Dutch and German are indeed similar and Danish has a completely different
ring to it :!)

It sounds different, but has similar roots.

Similar in a sense that English and Spanish have similar roots.

Not as similar as the roots of English, Dutch, Danish, German and
Swedish. How much language history or linguistics do you know?

If you go to that extent, then all language have a common root. It is not
surprising that languages have some words in common, I know that the word
blomkål or blomkaal is the same in Danish and Dutch. However, the structure
of the languages are very different just like Danish and German are different.
The scandinavian languages are in the same family, hence I can understand
Norwegian and Swedish conversation, although I can't write them correctly.
It really sounds to me like you don't know very much, but never mind.

Martin wrote:

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:00:06 +0000, johannes
wrote:



Amethyst Deceiver wrote:

In article ,
says...


Martin wrote:

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 09:21:22 +0100, "JennyC" wrote:


"johannes" wrote
The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a
certain
extent and learnt it quickly.

The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in
school
by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
the Scandinavian family of languages.

The Dutch learn English, French and German at school too and are also pretty
quick at picking up other languages.....

Dutch and German are indeed similar and Danish has a completely different
ring to it :!)

It sounds different, but has similar roots.

Similar in a sense that English and Spanish have similar roots.

Not as similar as the roots of English, Dutch, Danish, German and
Swedish. How much language history or linguistics do you know?

If you go to that extent, then all language have a common root. It is not
surprising that languages have some words in common, I know that the word
blomkål or blomkaal is the same in Danish and Dutch. However, the structure
of the languages are very different just like Danish and German are different.
The scandinavian languages are in the same family, hence I can understand
Norwegian and Swedish conversation, although I can't write them correctly.
It really sounds to me like you don't know very much, but never mind.

How about a change of subject. Where did you find the minted peas?
--

Martin

Yes, I should have stopped, but the line: "How much language history or
linguistics do you know?" got the better of me. I bet that I have been
exposed to many more languages.

Minted pees? It was in the 1980's. I like mint and I like peas, but in
different contexts.

Martin wrote:

On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:14:22 +0000, johannes
wrote:



Martin wrote:

How about a change of subject. Where did you find the minted peas?
--

Martin

Yes, I should have stopped, but the line: "How much language history or
linguistics do you know?" got the better of me. I bet that I have been
exposed to many more languages.

You certainly know at least one better than most other posters here.

It is quite odd to be bilingual. I know both languages to such an extent
that I don't have to think about constructing word and sentences, it
just comes out. Sometimes I don't even know which language I am
speaking, only discovering my mistake when looking at people's faces.
Then I have to say: "Sorry, wrong language..."

In article ,
Martin writes:
| On Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:52:04 +0000, johannes
| wrote:
|
| It is quite odd to be bilingual. I know both languages to such an extent
| that I don't have to think about constructing word and sentences, it
| just comes out. Sometimes I don't even know which language I am
| speaking, only discovering my mistake when looking at people's faces.
| Then I have to say: "Sorry, wrong language..."
|
| My wife has the same problem.

I do it with computer languages :-)


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
says...


Amethyst Deceiver wrote:

In article ,
says...


Martin wrote:

On Tue, 5 Feb 2008 09:21:22 +0100, "JennyC" wrote:


"johannes" wrote
The Danes that I have worked with in Holland could guess Dutch to a
certain
extent and learnt it quickly.

The only reason for this is that the Danes learn foreign languages in
school
by necessity of being a small country; English, German, French at least.
Dutch is as far away from Danish as German. The Danish language belongs to
the Scandinavian family of languages.

The Dutch learn English, French and German at school too and are also pretty
quick at picking up other languages.....

Dutch and German are indeed similar and Danish has a completely different
ring to it :!)

It sounds different, but has similar roots.

Similar in a sense that English and Spanish have similar roots.

Not as similar as the roots of English, Dutch, Danish, German and
Swedish. How much language history or linguistics do you know?

If you go to that extent, then all language have a common root. It is not

And this is the point where you're way off the mark. They don't.

surprising that languages have some words in common, I know that the word
blomkål or blomkaal is the same in Danish and Dutch. However, the structure
of the languages are very different just like Danish and German are different.

But they're not. Trust me, I did 5 years of this at university.

The scandinavian languages are in the same family, hence I can understand
Norwegian and Swedish conversation, although I can't write them correctly..
It really sounds to me like you don't know very much, but never mind.

Aw, bless. Just the two degrees, I admit. How many degrees do you have
in linguistic studies?

In article ,
says...


Martin wrote:

How about a change of subject. Where did you find the minted peas?
--

Martin

Yes, I should have stopped, but the line: "How much language history or
linguistics do you know?" got the better of me. I bet that I have been
exposed to many more languages.

Go on then. Try me. Apart from English:
Belgian French
Flemish
French
German
Swedish
Norwegian
Swahili

Two from childhood, two to O level standard, three at degree level. Plus
Old and Middle English, Old Swedish, and four years of historical
language studies.

Minted pees? It was in the 1980's. I like mint and I like peas, but in
different contexts.

That's fair enough. But they do go very nicely together, as do mint and
potatoes.