IE and Substrates and Time

[Lars Henrik Mathiesen]

   From: JoatSimeon at aol.com
   Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 14:50:14 EST

   >mcv at wxs.nl writes:
   >Anything else to support your bizarre assertion that Old English and Old
   >Norse were as close as modern Danish and Swedish? >>

   -- speakers of those languages tell me that they can, with considerable
   difficulty, by concentrating hard and repeating often, understand basic
   phrases, but can't really carry on a conversation.  That seems to have been
   roughly the situation with OE and ON by the 11th century.

That probably depends on the speakers. People with some sort of higher
education may have an easier time of it, simply because they have been
exposed to foreign languages in general; but of course that would not
apply to 11th century Vikings and English farmers.

Anyway, I have had occasion to try this out in the course of my real
life as an IT consultant. For me it works reasonably well, even for
technical subjects, if I speak Danish to a single Swede or Norwegian,
and they reply in their own language. The `stress level' of doing that
is about the same as if both parties speak English.

It's doable, but more stressful, with three people; larger groups fall
back on English immediately. (Note: this is among IT specialists, who
all have English as their second language, and are good at it).

Lars Mathiesen (U of Copenhagen CS Dep) <thorinn at diku.dk> (Humour NOT marked)