So Danish and Swedish are an example of languages that are mutually intelligible, apparently, yet if thats the case, how are they not considered the same language? If a Danish speaker can understand a Swedish speaker, then what makes the two separate languages and not just like… really distant dialects (like a Scottish accent + slang vs an English accent + slang)?
I’m very confused!
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It’s an interesting question. Language classification is really more like taxonomical classification, in the sense that although it seems like there are discrete groups, there really are related categories.
Let’s take an example language group A speakers. They can talk with the people the next town over just fine, even though the next town speaks language group B. The next town after them speaks language group C and can communicate well with B. And C can also communicate well with language group D. However, speakers of language group D can’t understand speakers of language group A at all.
So where do we separate these groups into separate languages? It’s clear that D and A belong to separate languages, because they can’t communicate, right? But they can communicate with speakers of B and C to different degrees. So where is the line drawn?
In the end, what distinguishes a language from a dialect is not often a scientific question. Often culture and politics play a big role in defining what is and isn’t a language.
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