The North Germanic languages
or Scandinavian languages are sometimes
referred to as the Nordic languages, a direct translation of the most common term
used among Danish, Swedish and Norwegian scholars and laypeople. Languages
belonging to the North Germanic language tree are also (to some extent) spoken on
Greenland and by immigrant groups mainly in North America and Australia.
Among North Germanic languages we find the following ones:
Icelandic
– the national language of Iceland;
Faroese
– a language spoken in the Faroe Islands and Denmark (the total
number of speakers is less than 70,000 people);
Norwegian
– de facto national language of Norway;
Danish
– de facto national language of Denmark; it has several dialects and sub
dialects;
Swedish
– the statutory national language of Sweden. Swedish is also spoken in
some parts of Finland. The language has several dialects and sub-dialects;
The West
Germanic languages
constitute the largest branch of the Germanic family of
languages.
Modern West Germanic languages include:
English
– native to Great Britain, Ireland, the USA, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, the South African Republic, and many other former British colonies. It has
several territorial varieties, many dialects and sub-dialects;
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Scots
– a language spoken in some parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland. Scots
is reportedly most similar to English and Frisian;
German
– a wide-spread language native to Germany, Austria, Luxemburg,
Liechtenstein, part of Switzerland. It has a lot of dialects and sub-dialects;
Dutch
– de
facto national language of the Netherlands. It is also spoken in Belgium, Suriname,
Aruba, Curacao, Sint Maarten and Caribbean Netherlands. Dialectal variations of
Dutch are insignificant;
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