Inlinguistics,mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but relatedlanguage varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelligibility is sometimes used to distinguish languages fromdialects, althoughsociolinguistic factors are often also used.
Both Czech and Slovak have a long history of interaction and share vocabulary, grammatical and orthographic features.
Intelligibility between varieties can be asymmetric; that is, speakers of one variety may be able to better understand another than vice versa. An example of this is the case betweenAfrikaans andDutch. It is generally easier for Dutch speakers to understand Afrikaans than for Afrikaans speakers to understand Dutch. (SeeAfrikaans § Mutual intelligibility with Dutch.)
In adialect continuum, neighbouring varieties are mutually intelligible, but differences mount with distance, so that more widely separated varieties may not be mutually intelligible. Intelligibility can be partial, as is the case withAzerbaijani andTurkish, or significant, as is the case withBulgarian andMacedonian.
Asymmetric intelligibility refers to two languages that are considered partially mutually intelligible, but for various reasons, one group of speakers has more difficulty understanding the other language than the other way around. For example, if one language is related to another but has simplified itsgrammar, the speakers of the original language may understand the simplified language, but not vice versa. To illustrate,Dutch speakers tend to find it easier to understandAfrikaans as a result of Afrikaans's simplified grammar.[1]
Sign languages are not universal and usually not mutually intelligible,[2] although there are also similarities among different sign languages. Sign languages are independent ofspoken languages and follow their own linguistic development. For example,British Sign Language andAmerican Sign Language (ASL) are quite different linguistically and mutually unintelligible. The grammar of sign languages does not usually resemble that of the spoken languages used in the same geographical area. To illustrate, in terms ofsyntax, ASL shares more in common with spokenJapanese than withEnglish.[3]
Some linguists use mutual intelligibility as the primarylinguistic criterion for determining whether two speech varieties represent the same or different languages.[4][5][6]
A primary challenge to this position is that speakers of closely related languages can often communicate with each other effectively if they choose to do so. In the case of transparently cognate languages recognized as distinct such as Spanish and Italian, mutual intelligibility is in principle and in practice not binary (simply yes or no), but occurs in varying degrees, subject to numerous variables specific to individual speakers in the context of the communication.
Classifications may also shift for reasons external to the languages themselves. As an example, in the case of a lineardialect continuum, the central varieties maybecome extinct, leaving only the varieties at both ends. Consequently, these end varieties may be reclassified as two languages, even though no significant linguistic change has occurred within the two extremes during the extinction of the central varieties.
Furthermore, political and social conventions often override considerations of mutual intelligibility. For example, thevarieties of Chinese are often considered a single language, even though there is usually no mutual intelligibility between geographically separated varieties. This is similarly the case among thevarieties of Arabic, which also share a singleprestige variety inModern Standard Arabic. In contrast, there is often significant intelligibility between differentNorth Germanic languages. However, because there are variousstandard forms of the North Germanic languages, they are classified as separate languages.[7]
Adialect continuum or dialect chain is a series oflanguage varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be.[8] This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently. Some prominent examples include theIndo-Aryan languages across large parts ofIndia,varieties of Arabic across north Africa and southwest Asia, theTurkic languages, thevarieties of Chinese, and parts of theRomance,Germanic andSlavic families in Europe. Terms used in older literature include dialect area (Leonard Bloomfield)[9] and L-complex (Charles F. Hockett).[10]
Dialect continua typically occur in long-settled agrarian populations, as innovations spread from their various points of origin aswaves. In this situation, hierarchical classifications of varieties are impractical. Instead,dialectologists map variation of various language features across a dialect continuum, drawing lines calledisoglosses between areas that differ with respect to some feature.[11]
Northern Germanic languages spoken in Scandinavia form adialect continuum where the two furthermost dialects have almost no mutual intelligibility. As such, spokenDanish andSwedish normally have low mutual intelligibility,[1] but Swedes in theÖresund region (includingMalmö andHelsingborg), across the strait from the Danish capitalCopenhagen, understand Danish somewhat better, largely due to the proximity of the region to Danish-speaking areas. While Norway was underDanish rule, theBokmål written standard of Norwegian developed fromDano-Norwegian, akoiné language that evolved among the urban elite in Norwegian cities during the later years of the union. Additionally, Norwegian assimilated a considerable amount of Danishvocabulary as well as traditional Danish expressions.[1] As a consequence, spoken mutual intelligibility is not reciprocal.[1]
Because of the difficulty of imposing boundaries on a continuum, various counts of theRomance languages are given. For example, inThe Linguasphere register of the world's languages and speech communities, David Dalby lists 23 languages based on mutual intelligibility:[12]
The non-standard vernacular dialects ofSerbo-Croatian (Kajkavian,Chakavian andTorlakian) diverge more significantly from all four normative varieties of Serbo-Croatian. Their mutual intelligibility varies greatly between the dialects themselves, with the standardShtokavian dialect, and with other languages. For example, Torlakian, which is considered a subdialect of SerbianOld Shtokavian, has significant mutual intelligibility withMacedonian andBulgarian.[13]
Spanish andJudaeo-Spanish (spoken or written in the Latin alphabet; Judaeo-Spanish may also be written in the Hebrew alphabet). Depending on dialect and the number of non-Spanish loanwords used.[28][29][30][31]
Catalan:Valencian – the standard forms are structurally the same language and share the vast majority of their vocabulary, and hence highly mutually intelligible. They are not considered separate languages and both names -Valencian and Catalan- are officially recognized.[50]
Malay:Indonesian (the standard regulated byIndonesia),[52]Brunei[53] andMalaysian (the standard used inMalaysia andSingapore). Both varieties are based on the same material basis and hence are generallymutually intelligible, despite the numerous lexical differences.[54] Certain linguistic sources also treat the two standards on equal standing as varieties of the same Malay language.[55] However, vernacular or less formal varieties spoken between these two countries share limited intelligibility, evidenced by Malaysians having difficulties understanding Indonesiansinetron (soap opera) aired on their TV stations (which actually uses a colloquial offshoot heavily influenced byBetawi vernacular ofJakarta[56] rather than the formal standard acquired in academical contexts) and vice versa.[57]
^Gröschel, Bernhard (2009).Das Serbokroatische zwischen Linguistik und Politik: mit einer Bibliographie zum postjugoslavischen Sprachenstreit [Serbo-Croatian Between Linguistics and Politics: With a Bibliography of the Post-Yugoslav Language Dispute]. Lincom Studies in Slavic Linguistics; vol 34 (in German). Munich: Lincom Europa. pp. 132–136.ISBN978-3-929075-79-3.LCCN2009473660.OCLC428012015.OL15295665W.
^See e.g. P.H. Matthews,The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, OUP 2007, p. 103.; W. Abraham (ed.),Terminologie zur neueren Linguistik, Tübingen 1974, p. 411; T. Lewandowski,Linguistisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg/Wiesbaden (5th ed.) 1990, pp. 994–995; L. Campbell,Historical linguistics. An introduction, Edinburgh 1998, p. 165; G. Mounin,Schlüssel zur Linguistik, Hamburg, 1978, p. 55; U. Ammon, "Language – Variety/Standard Variety – Dialect", U. Ammon et al (ed.),Sociolinguistics / Soziolinguistik. An International Handbook of the Science of Language and Society / Ein internationales Handbuch zur Wissenschaft von Sprache und Gesellschaft, Berlin/New York 1987, p. 324; D. Crystal,A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics, Oxford (4th ed) 1997, 2003, p. 286.
^David Dalby, 1999/2000,The Linguasphere register of the world's languages and speech communities. Observatoire Linguistique, Linguasphere Press. Volume 2, p. 390-410 (zone 51). Oxford.[2]Archived 2014-08-27 at theWayback Machine
^Schenker, Alexander M. (1993). "Proto-Slavonic".The Slavonic Languages. Routledge. pp. 60–121. p. 60:[The] distinction between dialect and language being blurred, there can be no unanimity on this issue in all instances... Voegelin, C.F.; Voegelin, F.M. (1977).Classification and Index of the World's Languages. Elsevier. p. 311:In terms of immediate mutual intelligibility, the East Slavic zone is a single language. Comrie, Bernard (1981).The Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge. pp. 145–146:The three East Slavonic languages are very close to one another, with very high rates of mutual intelligibility... The separation of Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian as distinct languages is relatively recent... Many Ukrainians in fact speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian, finding it difficult to keep the two languages apart...
^abTrudgill, Peter (2004). "Glocalisation and the Ausbau sociolinguistics of modern Europe". In Duszak, Anna; Okulska, Urszula (eds.).Speaking from the Margin: Global English from a European Perspective. Polish Studies in English Language and Literature 11. Peter Lang.ISBN978-0-8204-7328-4.
^An example of equal treatment of Malaysian and Indonesian: thePusat Rujukan Persuratan Melayu database from theDewan Bahasa dan Pustaka has a "IstilahMABBIM" section dedicated to documenting Malaysian, Indonesian and Bruneian official terminologies:see example
^Bowden, John.Towards an account of information structure in Colloquial Jakarta Indonesian. Proceedings of the International Workshop on Information Structure of Austronesian Languages, 10 April 2014. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. p. 194.
^Mader Skender, Mia (2022). "Schlussbemerkung" [Summary].Die kroatische Standardsprache auf dem Weg zur Ausbausprache [The Croatian standard language on the way to ausbau language](PDF) (Dissertation). UZH Dissertations (in German). Zurich: University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts, Institute of Slavonic Studies. pp. 196–197.doi:10.5167/uzh-215815. Retrieved8 June 2022.Serben, Kroaten, Bosnier und Montenegriner immer noch auf ihren jeweiligen Nationalsprachen unterhalten und problemlos verständigen. Nur schon diese Tatsache zeigt, dass es sich immer noch um eine polyzentrische Sprache mit verschiedenen Varietäten handelt.
^Šipka, Danko (2019).Lexical layers of identity: words, meaning, and culture in the Slavic languages. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 166.doi:10.1017/9781108685795.ISBN978-953-313-086-6.LCCN2018048005.OCLC1061308790.S2CID150383965.lexical differences between the ethnic variants are extremely limited, even when compared with those between closely related Slavic languages (such as standard Czech and Slovak, Bulgarian and Macedonian), and grammatical differences are even less pronounced. More importantly, complete understanding between the ethnic variants of the standard language makes translation and second language teaching impossible
