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Comment by vidarh

7 hours ago

Yeah, as a Norwegian, I can sometimes somewhat read Icelandic, but it takes a lot of effort, and it sounds familiar but not enough for me to remotely reliably transcribe.

As a Swede, Icelandic is a foreign to me as Finnish, meaning I don't understand it at all, in any way. Some words could be guessed, but that's the same for German too for most of us. Danish and Norwegian people I have no problem talking with though.

  • I might be biased with some exposure to Norse and Old English too, so I don't know whether Norwegians without that would recognise nearly as much (or little) Icelandic given how much Icelandic still takes from Norse.

    • I understand the western Norwegian dialects (/ nynorsk) have a much stronger old / west norse influence so are closer to Icelandic, maybe you are from those regions or are familiar with these dialects?

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