Mutual Intelligibility Among Indo-European Languages

Introduction

            Language is something surrounding humanity by at all times and has been since the start of human existence. Mutual intelligibility is a concept found prevalent between many languages and language families, particularly in the region of Europe. Mutual intelligibility is the idea and practice of being able to understand another language that is not your own through similarities in lexical and phonetic structure. Europe is already a region of closely related and interacting peoples, with broad similarities being found throughout. Language is no different, as language families tend to inhabit smaller regions of any given continent. A language family is a group of languages with similarities in historical development, thereby making them have similar lexical and phonetic patterns.

         The research conducted will focus on the Slavic languages of Czech, Slovak, Polish, Croatian, Serbian, and Slovene, along with the Germanic languages of Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Afrikaans, Dutch, and Frisian. Other related languages within these families will also be touched on. These provide a total of four examples of mutual intelligibility between a variety of languages and cultures. All four are Indo-European languages, providing contrasting data relating to mutual intelligibility without being overwhelming and nonsensical.

The Slavic and Germanic Families

         Slavic languages can be divided into three groups, Eastern, Western, and Southern (Vsevolodovich, Wayles Slavic Languages, 2021). For the topic of mutual intelligibility, only Western and Southern Slavic languages will be investigated. The Western languages being focused on will be Czech, Slovak, and Polish, and the Southern languages being Croatian, Serbian, and Slovene. Slavic languages dominate Eastern Europe, prevalent from Poland, on eastward and as far north as Siberia, and south as the Balkan states. Despite being historically categorized together, these countries all have incredibly distinct cultures and ways of life, which history has shown. Even through cultural differences, these languages still contain mutual intelligibility between families.

         Germanic languages are also divided into three groups, Northern, Western, and Eastern. The Northern and Western families both have examples of mutual intelligibility, with Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish in the north and Afrikaans, Dutch, and Frisian in the west. Eastern Germanic language has become dead, with the only true member of the family being Gothic. An interesting point within the Western Germanic family is the development of the language of Afrikaans, which is primarily spoken in the country of South Africa. This is a contrast to the other eleven languages discussed, as they are primarily spoken in European countries. This is due to Europe’s historical influence on Africa, and more specifically Dutch Imperialism. The presence of the Dutch in region of Africa eventually lead to a new dialect of Dutch, which was more specific to the region and better accommodated the needs of the people. This is the primary reason for a non-European language being so Euro-centric. Both Northern and Western Germanic languages have their own root language, but the paths they took were entirely determined by history (Contribution, 2007). Besides the outlier of Afrikaans, these Germanic languages cover the Scandinavian and Northwestern regions of Europe, From Iceland to Sweden to England to Germany.

Western Slavic Mutual Intelligibility

         As far as subgroups go, Western Slavic can also be divided into smaller sections; Sorbian, Lechitic, and Czech-Slovak. Polish is a member of the Lechitic, or Northern family, whereas Czech and Slovak are parts of the self-titled Czech-Slovak family, which also goes by Southern. These subgroups further divide the initial family of Western Slavic, along with their linguistic patterns.

         Czech and Slovak have one of the highest overall mutual intelligibility rankings, as they understand each other almost symmetrically both in speaking and writing. Along with that, they have an above average understanding of each other without any knowledge of the other. Despite this, Slovak speakers do have the upper hand when communicating with Czech speakers, as they understand both written and spoken Czech better than Czechs understand either in Slovak (Kyjánek, Haviger, Measurement, 2019). That being said, Czechs do not fall too far behind in relation to other cases of mutual intelligibility.

         Polish speakers on the other hand, have the most troubles with both Czech and Slovak in this family. Polish speakers understand written Czech and Slovak better than either understands Polish, but spoken Polish is understood better by Czechs and Slovaks than vice versa (Measurement, 2019). Another study, done by Gooskens, van Heuven, Golubović, Schüppert, Swarte, and Voigt in 2018 found the same information to be true. As figure three shows, Polish intelligibility of Slovak and Czech far exceeds their intelligibility of Polish (Mutual, 2018). Polish is the main outlier in Western Slavic language intelligibility, whereas, Czech and Slovak speakers are able to understand each other with minimal issue.

As previously discussed, Polish speakers have more complications, and vice versa. In 2015, Golubović and Gooskens did a study of Slavic language mutual intelligibility. This study looked into the written and spoken intelligibility between Croatian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Czech, Slovak, and Polish. In figure three of that study, there are the results of the written word test. This test looked into the lexical intelligibility between languages, and how well each language was able to interpret the other six. The points of Czech, Slovak, and Polish are all above the X axis, opposite those of Southern and Eastern Slavic languages. Czech and Slovak are incredibly close to each other, in fact the closest on the entire graph, whereas Polish veers to the right (Mutual, 2015). Figure four of the same study plots the points of understanding between languages on the spoken word test. This test looked into the phonetic similarities and intelligibility between the six languages. Again, Slovak and Czech are incredibly close to each other, with Polish to the right.

With all of this information in mind, it can be concluded that while there is mutual intelligibility between the three languages, it is strongest between Czech and Slovak. The asymmetry faced by Polish speakers does however make sense when looking at the further divisions of Western Slavic languages. Test after test, Slovak and Czech are depicted as having a high understanding of each other, both lexically and phonetically. Mutual intelligibility between the three languages is incredibly apparent.

Southern Slavic Mutual Intelligibility

         Southern Slavic is divided further into East and West subgroups The Eastern subgroup contains Macedonian and Bulgarian, and the Western one contains Slovene, Serbian and, Croatian. The ones of primary focus in relation to mutual intelligibility are Slovene, Serbian, and Croatian. These three will also be compared to the linguistic differences of Bulgarian, as shown in the case studies cited.

         Referring back to the Golubović and Gooskens study discussed with Western Slavic languages, the examples of Croatian and Slovene are explored. While they do not have the highest lexical or phonetic intelligibility, their points are plotted in the same quadrants in both figures three and four. This study also focuses on Bulgarian, and important comparison in the realm of mutual intelligibility. While it is a Southern Slavic language, there are great complications between the understanding of Bulgarian by Slovene and Croatian speakers and vice versa. The languages are in two different subgroups, as previously mentioned, causing major difficulty in interpretation. Despite being in the same family, Southwestern Slavic speakers have a higher understanding of Western Slavic languages than they do of Bulgarian (Mutual, 2015). A major reason for this would be the alphabets in each subgroup. The southeast uses the Cyrillic alphabet, traditionally associated with Eastern Slavic languages like Russian, whereas the Western subgroup uses the Roman alphabet. This also means letters are pronounced differently, giving each subgroup a different set of phonetic normality’s, therefore creating two distinctly separate themes.

         An interesting element in the relationship between Slovene and Croatian is the favoring it has towards Slovenians. Between the two languages, those who speak Slovene will better understand a Croatian than Croatians do Slovenian (Mutual, 2018). The same goes for Serbian speakers. Serbian and Croatian both have major influences on Slovene, as the two languages are a source of loan words in Slovenian (Mutual, 2018). This asymmetry can be found in every case of mutual intelligibility, as one language will always have the upper hand, but this is still a point of contention, as will be discussed later. Serbian and Croatian share many similarities in lexical and phonetic tendencies, as they are often grouped together.

         Overall, mutual intelligibility among South Slavic languages is most apparent between Serbian and Croatian. With that being said, the two languages have had major influence on the language of Slovene, making for a triangle of intelligibility. While it does favor Serbian and Croatian speakers, Slovenes are able to understand elements of each respective language. The biggest point of interest in Southern Slavic intelligibility is the difference between the East and West subgroups, as they barely recognize each other. Southern Slavic mutual intelligibility is certainly apparent in the west, even if it is not perfect.

Western Germanic Mutual Intelligibility

         Western Germanic can be divided into two sections, Anglo-Frisian, which contains Frisian and English; and Netherlandic-German, which contains Dutch, German, and Afrikaans. While they will not be discussed in this study of mutual intelligibility, English and German also share many similarities with the case study languages of Afrikaans, Dutch, and Frisian; in fact, Frisian is one of the easiest languages to learn as an English speaker because of the phonetic and lexical similarities between the two.  

The differences between Afrikaans, Dutch, and Frisian are primarily related to historical and geographic relationships (Contribution, 2007). Afrikaans is a direct dialect of Dutch, but since its introduction in the colonial age, culture has evolved and a need for a new tongue in both South Africa and the Netherlands was needed. This progressively set the two regions and languages apart from each other (Contribution, 2007). Friesland is within the Netherlands, meaning residents of each region in this study have most likely interacted with the other, whereas those in South Africa do not have that ability.

In 2007, a study was done by Gooskens, looking into the intelligibility between the three languages. One important thing to note is that Dutch speaking was not tested in Friesland. This is due to the high number of bilingual speakers in the area, who would know both Dutch and Frisian. In comparison, those living in the Netherlands would not necessarily need to know Frisian but have most likely been exposed to it at one point. Speakers of Afrikaans would have had minimal previous exposure to either language. Participants who spoke more than one of these languages were excluded from the experiment, thereby excluding all Frisians available from testing intelligibility with Dutch (Contribution, 2007). In general, according to table three, it appears that speakers of Frisian and Dutch has an easier time interpreting Afrikaans than vice versa. This is made even more clear in figure four of the same study, where Frisian understanding of Afrikaans and the Dutch understanding of Frisian above the average line, and both Afrikaans speaker tests being below the average.

The biggest influence on the asymmetries of these three languages is regional disposition. Frisians have the upper hand, as they have knowledge of both their native Frisian and secondary Dutch. This aids their interpretation of Afrikaans in a way that neither category is also helped. In contrast, speakers of Afrikaans in this study are all South African residents, removing them geographically from both the Netherlands and Friesland (Contribution, 2007).  This places Netherlands Dutch speakers in the middle, as they do not know Frisian fluently, but also may have some disposition to the language, which was simply not available to the speakers of Afrikaans, Between the three languages, asymmetries certainly exist. Despite that, the three languages still share numerous similarities, due to their common root in old and middle Dutch dialects.

Despite the issues this test faced, there are similarities between the languages written appearances. The words appear very similar, as they share a common root, but those who understand Dutch have an easier time dissecting the Afrikaans interpretation than vice versa (Mutual, 2006). This would be because they both come from a Dutch root and having an understanding of the original language will help out more than fluency in the daughter language. The vocabulary is heavily related, but the comprehension is varied.

The three languages face many difficulties when investigating mutual intelligibility, but still remain interpretable. Despite asymmetrically favoring the speakers of Frisian, Afrikaans and Dutch speakers still have the ability to understand the others.

Northern Germanic Mutual Intelligibility

         The Northern Germanic language family is also divided into two parts, East and West Scandinavian. Mutual intelligibility can be found between Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish; of which Norwegian is Western Scandinavian and Danish and Swedish are Eastern (Scandinavian Languages, 2011). Another Eastern Scandinavian language of note is Icelandic, which shares some similarities with the three aforementioned languages, yet contains major differences. Because of its geographic removal from all other Scandinavian countries, a new language developed. The original settlers of the region spoke dönsk tunga, or the Danish tongue, but this new removal from society gave reason for a different way of speaking, birthing the Icelandic tongue (Leonard, Relative, 2011). The language of Icelandic has its roots in the same place as old Danish but veered so far into left field since then that there is almost no intelligible communication between Icelandic and Norwegian, Danish, and/or Swedish.

One case of asymmetry faced within Northern Germanic language intelligibility is that between Danish and Swedish, as Danes understand Swedes better than vice versa (Mutual, 2015). The second notable case of asymmetry would be that between Norwegian and speakers of Danish and Swedish. In table three of Gooskens’ 2007 study, the extremity of both these asymmetries is shown, as Swedish speakers scored incredibly low in understanding Danish than vice versa. Along with that, Norwegian speakers scored noticeably higher in Danish and Swedish than the other way around (Contribution, 2007). In regard to high intelligibility, it is apparent that Swedish and Norwegian intelligibility is incredibly high. This is interesting to consider when remembering that they are parts of different Northern Germanic subgroups, but geographically it makes sense. Despite all that, speakers of Norwegian had the easiest time understanding others, as their scores were overall higher than either Danish or Swedish speaker’s understanding of Norwegian.

         Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish share many similarities in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. The three languages are dominant in one relatively small region of the world, making exposure to each other incredibly provable. There is some asymmetry between them, but as far as most cases go this is an excellent example of interpretability. These three languages share incredible similarities, both phonetically and lexically.

Linguistic Borrowing, Code Switching, and Mutual Intelligibility

         Linguistic borrowing is the idea that multilinguals will borrow words from, usually, their native tongue, most often when they cannot think of an accurate description in a secondary language (Analysis, 1950). This idea can be tied into mutual intelligibility, as one who can speak a language within one family could understand another member’s language switching. Language switching would be incredibly effective in any case of mutual intelligibility, as the vocabularies and methods of understanding are incredibly similar to one another.

Code switching is another way of understanding between languages. This is usually means being able to speak one language, of similar or the same language family, while also being able to speak a little of another. (Mutual, 2015). In this case, you would not be speaking to a native speaker of your language, but rather the one you know minimally, while being able to interject with your native tongue. This could allow for conversation to flow better between speakers than relying on one of the two languages exclusively. The hybrid of two native languages makes it so both people are at a similar disadvantage.

One example of useful code switching would be between Slovene and Croatian speakers. As was previously mentioned, Slovene speakers better understand Croatian than Croatians do Slovenian. This would mean a Slovenian would get more information from a conversation with a Croatian, in each speaker own native language, than vice versa, making it in both party’s best interest for the Slovene speaker to learn a bit of Croatian and code switch. While it would not necessarily be as natural as speaking a native language, through mutual intelligibility a Slovenian would pick up Croatian vocabulary far quicker than the other way around. This would allow for overall better understanding in conversation.

Reason for Asymmetry

         Asymmetrical mutual intelligibility can be caused by numerous factors, whether that be geographic location, education, culture, language sound, appearance or structure. This concept is at play in every case of mutual intelligibility, as one speaker always has the upper hand.

For example, culturally, when looking at intelligibility between any given language, which uses the Roman alphabet, and English, the other language will almost always understand more. This is due to the mass integration of the English language in the modern world. This means English speakers do not have to adapt and learn another language to be perceived as cultured, whereas schools in a place like Europe often teach English as a second language from a young age. This example was also seen between the case study speakers of Western Germanic languages. Dutch speakers had some predisposed knowledge of Frisian that Afrikaans speakers would not have had. Along with that, Frisian speakers already had enough knowledge of Dutch for it to be excluded from the studies done (Contribution, 2007). External surroundings will have some influence on mutual intelligibility.

         Despite external factors having an influence on intelligibility, a great deal of understanding is placed on the structure of the language itself, as often times one speaker has the upper hand in intelligibility. This happens to be the case with Croatian and Slovenian, as the aforementioned study conducted by Gooskens, van Heuven, Golubović, Schüppert, Swarte, and Voigt found that to be true. An initial look at the data provided would make one question if it was a matter of secondary language education, but upon further inspection, each language only had one educated in the opposing, thereby making the data not an outlier (Mutual, 2018). Structural patterns of language will favor intelligibility, as they evolve in different ways from the common ancestor. Overall, mutual intelligibility can be affected by many influences, whether they be external or rooted in the languages themselves.

Conclusion

         The idea of mutual intelligibility has been present in language since the formation of dialects. As humans evolved to need new vocabulary and developed new culture, language would also evolve. Geography and history have had major influences on the direction language takes, as regional disposition allows for similarity in setting and cultural interaction. This is explored deepest when looking at the Germanic languages. In the West Germanic languages, the impact of geographic separation is truly seen through the intelligibility of Afrikaans speakers, whereas in North Germanic language, the geographic connection between Norway and Sweden is clear through their mutual understanding. Mutual intelligibility is found throughout the world, with different disposition in affect, but in any case, it is incredible that two people of different background and linguistic expression are able to communicate.