Comments by "weetikissa" (@weetikissa) on "American Reacts to European Languages" video.

  1. It’s really a German dialect getting passed off as a national language. But hey, Scandinavian languages are virtually the same too.
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  2. ​ @alicemilne1444  I live in the Netherlands and speak fluent Dutch. I grew up speaking Swedish, and I speak German at home with my German fiancé. Trust me when I say that Norwegians don't even have to concentrate when I speak Swedish to them, because Norwegian and Swedish are different variants of the same Scandinavian language. This is just like my fiancé who does not struggle to understand Luxembourgish without prior exposure. The dialectal differences within Norway are greater than the difference between standard Bokmål Norwegian spoken in Oslo vs standard Swedish. Same thing with German and Luxembourgish: Bavarian is more distantly related to Rhineland German than Rhineland German is to their Luxembourgish neighbors. If you can understand one another without having to alter your speech or concentrating too much, in my book, you are speaking the same language, despite what 19th century nationalism is trying to tell you. A Dutchman and a northern German cannot have an effortless conversation without switching to English, making them more distinct languages.
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