# 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:** 5\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/81 "2018-07-18T22:01:21Z")
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**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/82 "2018-07-18T22:02:30Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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. The point is, that Americans have a Dutch accent (which I agree with). Not that they use Dutch loan words. > [@Jim\_B](#): > > Also, another interesting story. Polish was my mother’s first language. And she told me, one time when she was a young girl, she saw a movie in Russian. And she said she was surprised, she could almost understand much of it. This is ironic, because Polish and Russian are both Slavic. But they are slightly different branches of that tree, I believe. I had a co-worker who was translating for a non-english-speaking co-worker. I was surprised: I didn’t know he knwe /both/ Russian and Polish. He told me: “Maybe in Warsaw and Moscow they speak different languages, but in the country, on the border, they are the same language.” > [@Jim\_B](#): > > I know English has no such thing, i.e., a language that is mutually-intelligible. Kreol’s and Pidgens. I can understand tok Pison if you speak slowly and carefully. ---
**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, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/83 "2018-07-18T22:20:17Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > The point is, that Americans have a Dutch accent (which I agree with). Not that they use Dutch loan words. OK, still disagree. When I hear Dutch, it sounds a bit like Old English, which doesn’t sound much like Modern English at all. Many (most?) features of American accents trace back to regions in England where early settlers come from. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2018, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/84 "2018-07-18T22:34:25Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian are the obvious ones where things are mutually more or less understandable. I don’t know how easy or hard Faroese and Icelandic are for the other three. Faroese and Icelandic is incomprehensible to the average Scandinavian (in Scandinavian Scandinavia only includes Denmark, Norway and Sweden). It’s like reading Old English for the average Englishman, or, at best, like reading the oldest samples of Middle English. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2018, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903/85 "2018-07-20T00:24:51Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, still disagree. When I hear Dutch, it sounds a bit like Old English, which doesn’t sound much like Modern English at all. Many (most?) features of American accents trace back to regions in England where early settlers come from. 🙂 The Pilgrim Fathers came by way of living in Holland. 🙂 I don’t have any educated opinion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/languages-that-are-mutually-intelligible/817903.md?page=4)