# Languages That Are Mutually-Intelligible. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 14, 2018, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903 "2018-07-14T16:46:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/61 "2018-07-16T06:41:44Z")
> [@Johanna](#): > > One thing I learned from studying both Uyghur and Uzbek is the asymmetricality between them. They are very closely related languages that were both derived relatively recently from Chaghatai, the literary language of Central Asia until about a century ago. Wow, really interesting. I didn’t know that. Did a little more hunting on wiki to understand better. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/62 "2018-07-16T11:28:16Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which is impressive, considering that those two languages diverged that far in a single generation. That’s my take on it as well. It’s of course possible that elves are different from humans, or that humans would change their language over multiple thousands of years, but humans don’t tend to change their language much over a single lifetime. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/63 "2018-07-16T12:38:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Which is impressive, considering that those two languages diverged that far in a single generation. JRRT did write that elves were fascinated with words, and were always changing them, seeking to use _better_ terms for what they saw and did and thought. There’s also ambiguity in his writing as to how many generations did pass from the awakening at Cuivienen until Orome showed up to take them to Valinor. But yeah, you’d think the old timers would still remember the original words . . . ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/64 "2018-07-16T12:44:16Z")
> [@Jim\_B](#): > > Ironic too, is the fact that French and Spanish are considered derived from Latin. But if you speak one, you certainly can’t understand the other. You can, although not very well (\*), and if you can read one, you can read the other. In fact, if you can read either French or Spanish, you can read the other one much more easily than you can read Latin: the changes to grammar have been quite parallel. When I was 15yo, I went to Ireland as a group of Spanish teenagers to study English. There was a group of French students who attended the same school we did, and whose English was between “horrid” and “abysmal” except for three of them (and two of those refused to speak with anybody else :smack:). The first few days we just spoke slowly, making sure to separate words, and then someone hit on the idea of teaching the French to read French as if it was Spanish. That is, when there was a word we didn’t understand, they’d say it again “with all the letters”, and ta-da! It was understandable! And as one of the nicest French people pointed out “I’m now on my way to starting to learn Spanish, I already know how to read it! :D” - French people can understand careful Spanish pretty easily if the Hispanics make sure to pick synonyms that have Latin or Greek roots rather than their counterparts from other origins. Since this is the same “trick” we have to use to make it easier to communicate with anybody else who speaks a Romance language… well, the first time you find yourself in that situation you say “oh, so THIS is why we had to study the roots of Spanish in class!” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/65 "2018-07-16T13:39:00Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > You can, although not very well (\*), and if you can read one, you can read the other. In fact, if you can read either French or Spanish, you can read the other one much more easily than you can read Latin: the changes to grammar have been quite parallel. > > When I was 15yo, I went to Ireland as a group of Spanish teenagers to study English. There was a group of French students who attended the same school we did, and whose English was between “horrid” and “abysmal” except for three of them (and two of those refused to speak with anybody else :smack:). The first few days we just spoke slowly, making sure to separate words, and then someone hit on the idea of teaching the French to read French as if it was Spanish. That is, when there was a word we didn’t understand, they’d say it again “with all the letters”, and ta-da! It was understandable! And as one of the nicest French people pointed out “I’m now on my way to starting to learn Spanish, I already know how to read it! :D” > > - French people can understand careful Spanish pretty easily if the Hispanics make sure to pick synonyms that have Latin or Greek roots rather than their counterparts from other origins. Since this is the same “trick” we have to use to make it easier to communicate with anybody else who speaks a Romance language… well, the first time you find yourself in that situation you say “oh, so THIS is why we had to study the roots of Spanish in class!” I used to joke that when I wanted to speak French I just spoke Spanish, dropped off the last syllable of most words and then slurred the rest together. I was only half-joking. It helps, too, if you know how French vowels work. Italian is nice because you don’t have to do any of that. I had a somewhat similar experience when in France on business. I was traveling with a co-worker and we had some free time on the weekend to do some sight seeing. Touring one of the cathedrals (can’t remember which one), I started translating some of the inscriptions near the artwork. My co-worker said she didn’t know I spoke French, and I said I didn’t. Knowing that she had studied Spanish in school, too, I told her to not be intimidated by French and just read it as if it were Spanish. She started doing that and was just amazed that all this time she didn’t even try, assuming it would be a meaningless jumble of words. She didn’t understand it all, of course, be was shocked that she could get any of it. Of course it helps a lot that English has so many French loan words. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/66 "2018-07-16T13:48:13Z")
French is, however, more different than most of the Romance languages. I can think of several words where the translations into all other Romance languages are cognate, but not in French. **John Mace** , back when I was in 8th grade, we were doing _The Sound of Music_ as our school play, which meant that a lot of the girls playing nuns were wondering about the Latin they were singing in some scenes. I was able to translate it all for them, using a combination of my knowledge of word roots used in English and my exposure to the vestigial level of Latin still used in church. This, of course, before I had taken any Latin classes (I had had some middle-school-level French, but I doubt that helped much). ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2018, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/67 "2018-07-16T19:51:41Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > French is, however, more different than most of the Romance languages. I can think of several words where the translations into all other Romance languages are cognate, but not in French. Don’t forget Romanian. Lots of Slavic influence there. > [@](#): > > **John Mace** , back when I was in 8th grade, we were doing _The Sound of Music_ as our school play, which meant that a lot of the girls playing nuns were wondering about the Latin they were singing in some scenes. I was able to translate it all for them, using a combination of my knowledge of word roots used in English and my exposure to the vestigial level of Latin still used in church. This, of course, before I had taken any Latin classes (I had had some middle-school-level French, but I doubt that helped much). I was an alter boy just before Vatican II, and we had to read the responses in Latin. I was about 9 at the time, and had very little idea what I was saying. But the phrases were etched into my brain and when I started taking Spanish in 8th grade there were several moments when: Oh, that’s what that stuff means!! ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/68 "2018-07-17T02:37:08Z")
A video about this subject: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/E042GHlUgoQ/maxresdefault.jpg "Why some speakers can't understand speakers who understand them - Asymmetric Intelligibility") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E042GHlUgoQ) ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/69 "2018-07-17T13:47:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I was an alter boy just before Vatican II You came out if one of the regular altar boys took sick or something? ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/70 "2018-07-17T17:05:17Z")
My standard anecdote regarding this is when my wife and I took a honeymoon in Italy. My wife speaks English and Spanish fluently, and a smattering of other languages including Italian. We reached our first test at a bus kiosk and my wife’s rudimentary attempts to speak Italian were met with shrugs. She kept trying and remained frustrated in her attempts. Finally she started speaking Spanish with an Italian accent and we finally got places. For the rest of the trip, that was how she spoke and it worked probably 90% of the time. Sometimes she’s have to toss out a few synonyms to find a mutually intelligible one (cup, mug, glass…) but her accented Spanish gambit is what got us through the trip. I’m sure some of the people she spoke with were wondering “What’s up with this woman?” but it was better than the blank stares her attempted Italian drew. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/71 "2018-07-17T21:03:28Z")
Heck, even between English and Spanish: One of my friends in grad school was from Ecuador. His English was good, but occasionally he’d come to a word that he didn’t know how to say in English, and would stop talking while he tried to figure it out. I’d always just ask him for the Spanish word, then chop off an “-io” from the end of it, and hand it back to him. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2018, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/72 "2018-07-17T21:10:33Z")
> [@Jophiel](#): > > My standard anecdote regarding this is when my wife and I took a honeymoon in Italy. My wife speaks English and Spanish fluently, and a smattering of other languages including Italian. We reached our first test at a bus kiosk and my wife’s rudimentary attempts to speak Italian were met with shrugs. She kept trying and remained frustrated in her attempts. Finally she started speaking Spanish with an Italian accent and we finally got places. > > For the rest of the trip, that was how she spoke and it worked probably 90% of the time. Sometimes she’s have to toss out a few synonyms to find a mutually intelligible one (cup, mug, glass…) but her accented Spanish gambit is what got us through the trip. I’m sure some of the people she spoke with were wondering “What’s up with this woman?” but it was better than the blank stares her attempted Italian drew. I would not be surprised if that worked almost as well speaking straight Latin as long as one made sure to use an Italian accent. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Zox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Mr\_Zox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Zox)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/73 "2018-07-18T00:57:37Z")
The varieties of Arabic are considered by some to be separate languages. While this might be arguable for the spoken forms (though different dialects is more reasonable), the written forms are in no way distinct enough to be called different languages. Indeed 90%+ of the differences are in vocabulary. This means that when native Arabic speakers from widely separate locations meet, if they are litterate, they most easily communicate by writting, even if they are seated next to each other. Different volcabulary is worked out by using synonyms until an “ah ha!” moment occurs. ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/74 "2018-07-18T02:18:33Z")
Just s bit of a inside info from another side. As a Slavic mother tongue speaker (Slovene) who is reasonably fluent in one Germanic language and one (somewhat bit less) Romanic linguatic expression system (Italian), can throw in my 5c. Serbian and Croatian are less apart than native suburban Boston and rural Georgian English speakers. To me they both sound like angry drunk Scotsman without teeth would probably sound to typical Texan. But it can be grasped pretty much quickly. West Slavic languages sound familiar but it is mostly childish Sims gibberish. Russian sounds like swearing but that is because they do swear a lot. 80% of all strong words in Slavic are common to all subgroups. We can build on that. Can grasp some Spanish through Italian, but not Dutch or even German through English. ---
**Author:** ![polar\_bear](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ec9cab/32.png) [@polar\_bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/polar_bear)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/75 "2018-07-18T09:54:17Z")
Referring to one of the posts above… I’m Dutch and I would think it impossible to live here without being in contact with English all the time. Pretty much all entertainment is in English with subtitles (cartoons are often available in two versions: original with subtitles or dubbed in Dutch). Personally I believe this has played the biggest role in the development of my English language skills. yo han go, I’d say somethinig similar might be true for Slovenian and Serbo- Croatian (yeah I know, two different languages now). I think a large aspect of Slovenians understanding that language is history and society. Anyone over 50 (or 40 even) probably had Serbo- Croatian in school and pretty much every Slovenian spends some time in Croatia in the summer of most years. Maybe this is becoming less standard, but for decades Slovenes have spent their holidays there (from the days of Yugoslavia, til nowadays). I happen to have some Slovenian family and even the kids have spent summers in holiday camps in Croatia or Serbia. When seeing if anything is on TV, HTV is just as valid an option as the Slovenian TV channels (in my experience). All my family members that are native Slovenian speakers have no trouble speaking Croatian, probably not perfectly, but they definitely don’t just speak slovene. As someone who just speaks conversational Slovenian (with a fairly small vocab an little to no formal education), I can follow subtitles and news to some extent… but really struggle to converse (read “fail”) when in Croatia. And the farther south it gets, the more trouble I have in understanding what is going on. I always have the feeling Slovenes understand Croatians a lot better than the other way around. Funnily enough, just a couple of days ago I had a German guy say the same thing to me about German and Dutch. Again, most probably because the Dutch spend a lot more time in German speaking countries than the other way around. It does seem to be true though, even Dutch people that speak no real German (I know because I can see them try), seem to be able to converse with something that resembles German… Whenever mutual intelligibility is discussed, I think this kind of context plays a big role. Just like other languages you know. For instance, I have a lot of conversations in Romanian nowadays (even though I would never claim to speak it at all) and speaking Slovene helps a lot in dealing with the vocab that has a slavic origin… as does my high school French (which I’ve never been able to use efficiently). Add knowing a handfull of verbs and a specific context for the conversations… and suddenly you’re able to have conversations (sometimes quite lengthy). ---
**Author:** ![yo\_han\_go](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yo_han_go/32/130_2.png) [@yo\_han\_go](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yo_han_go)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/76 "2018-07-18T10:43:19Z")
Sounds about right. I understand Serbo-Croatian with all the usual accents as much as I do English (can distinguish well among basic USA different English accents, English English, Australian English, etc). But I talk English slightly better. (first 20y of mi life a used SC a bit more - it was/is exactly as polar bear said, then English a lot more). But here is the catch. They (S-C sub-sub group) will understand me about 70-80% too even if they can’t talk shit in Slovenian. Russian OTOH is more like Swedish to English. And Swedes will still understand English a lot more English than vice versa. But not without dangers of serious misinterpretation. It is all about environment. Having 3m speakers for first language helps to some point to overcome some intelligibility problems. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/77 "2018-07-18T12:32:04Z")
I visited the Netherlands (Amsterdam and the Hague) a few years ago. When the Dutch speak English, it sounds kind of German to my ears. But when they speak their own language, it sounds like German words with an American accent. Given their history with New York, it’s not hard to imagine that their influence on American English is pretty damned profound. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/78 "2018-07-18T12:39:06Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I would not be surprised if that worked almost as well speaking straight Latin as long as one made sure to use an Italian accent. No, because word order in Latin is very different - at least, in Classical or Ecclesiastical Latin. Word order in Spanish, Italian, French, Portuguese, Catalan… is very, very similar. If you could speak, say, 7th-century vulgar Latin, I suspect that one _would_ be intelligible without having to play word-order-Tetris. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/79 "2018-07-18T13:07:18Z")
Intelligibility might be greater the other way, then, because while Latin usually follows subject-object-verb and noun-adjective, the range of allowed word orders is very fluid, and matters mostly only for emphasis. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/80 "2018-07-18T13:21:56Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > I visited the Netherlands (Amsterdam and the Hague) a few years ago. When the Dutch speak English, it sounds kind of German to my ears. But when they speak their own language, it sounds like German words with an American accent. Given their history with New York, it’s not hard to imagine that their influence on American English is pretty damned profound. It’s pretty easy for me to imagine that it wasn’t terribly profound. Relatively few Dutch came to the US compared to people from England,Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe and other places, including Africa (mostly involuntarily). So you get relatively few people in a fairly small area. English does contain quite a few Dutch loan words, but most of them came into England first, not America. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903.md?page=5)