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In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a property exhibited by two or more distinct languages when speakers of one or more of the languages can readily understand at least one or more of the other language(s) without intentional study or extraordinary effort. Mutually intelligibility can be asymmetric between the languages, with speakers of one understanding more of the other than speakers of the other understand of the first. It exists in differing degrees among many related or geographically proximate languages of the world, often in the context of a dialect continuum.
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.
However, 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.
Asymmetry
Asymmetries often exist in the natural mutual intelligibility between languages. For example, in the case of speakers of Spanish and Portuguese, Spanish-speakers almost universally report substantially greater difficulty in attempting to understand Portuguese (especially in spoken form) than is true of Portuguese-speakers attempting to understand Spanish.
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.)
Selected list of mutually intelligible languages
Written and spoken forms
Indo-European
- Romance
- Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian
- Catalan, Occitan,self-defined as separate languages only since 1934, and Friulian
- French, Walloon, Romansh, and Occitan
- French and its Norman-descended cousins the Channel Island languages of Sercquiais (Sarkese), Dgèrnésiais, and Jèrriais
- Italian (Standard) and various regional languages/dialects of Italy
- Sicilian (Sicilian has no officially political recognition as a separate language from Italian) and Italian
- Sardinian and Italian
- Occitan and northern Italian dialects
- Portuguese, Galician to a large degree with Spanish.
- Portuguese and Galician self-defined as separate languages. Portuguese evolved out of Galician (Gallego).
- Portuguese, Spanish, Italian are to some degree mutually intelligible.
- Romanian and Moldovan, which are actually the same language differentiated due to political reasons.
- Romanian and Aromanian
Austronesian
Tai-Kadai
Turkic
Finno-Ugric
Bantu
Spoken form only
Written form only
- All dialects under the Han Language of Chinese, for example, Mandarin and Cantonese. However, it is not the case if vernaculars or direct transliteration of the dialect is used.
- Written Chinese can usually be read to a limited degree by those proficient Japanese; the reverse is also true but to a less-extensive degree because of the wide use of graphs in Japanese that have no easily discernable relation, if any, to those used in Chinese.
- Those proficient in Icelandic can read Old Norse with little difficulty.
- College-educated Modern Greeks can read Classical Greek with little difficulty.
- Scottish Gaelic and Irish, sister variants of the Goidelic Celtic branch
Selected list of related languages not mutually intelligible
- Many Germanic languages, though related, are generally not mutually intelligible.
- Levantine Arabic and Maghreb Arabic
- Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes have difficulty understanding Icelandic
- Spoken Mandarin and spoken Cantonese
- Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are not mutually intelligible with Tagalog.
- Romance languages:
- 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. That is because Bulgarian and Macedonian have distinctly different grammar. Bulgarian speakers understand other Slavs easier than the other way round.
- Russian and Polish are largely not mutually intelligible but Ukrainian is mutually intelligible to some degree to both, being believed by many to be an intermediary form in the dialect continuum.
- Finnish and Estonian, have almost no mutual intelligibility, although Estonian speakers can understand some Finnish with difficulty.
Selected list of mutually intelligible languages now extinct
See also
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