For individuals to achieve moderate proficiency or understanding in a language (called L2) other than their Mother Tongue or First Language (L1) typically requires considerable time and effort through Study and/or Practical Application . However, for those many groups of languages displaying mutual intelligibility, namely, those, usually Genetically Related languages, similar to each other in Grammar , Vocabulary , Pronunciation , or other features, speakers of one language usually find it relatively easy to achieve some degree of understanding in the related language(s). Languages mutually intelligible but not genetically related may be creoles and parent languages, or geographically adjacent variants of two unrelated languages.
However, intelligibility among languages can vary between individuals or groups within a language population, according to their knowledge of various registers and vocabulary in their own language, their interest in or familiarity with other cultures, Psycho - Cognitive traits, and other factors.
Asymmetries often exist in the natural mutual intelligibility between languages. For example, in the case of speakers of Spanish and Portuguese , Spanish-speakers almost universally report substantially greater difficulty in attempting to understand Portuguese (especially in spoken form) than is true of Portuguese-speakers attempting to understand Spanish.
Or to take another example: Icelandic speakers understand Swedish Language much more easily than the other way round, because Icelandic has preserved several archaic features of Scandinavian languages that the other ones have lost.
According to some definitions, two or more languages that demonstrate a sufficiently high degree of mutual intelligibility should properly not be considered two distinct languages but, in fact, multiple Variants of the same language. Conversely, it is sometimes the case that different varieties of what is considered the same language—according to popular belief, governmental stance, or historical convention—are ''not'', in fact, mutually intelligible in practice. (For more on this, see Dialect , and Dialect Continuum —as well as Diasystem and Diglossia for two closely related but distinct language forms.)
- Germanic
- --- Afrikaans , Dutch ,and Low German (Plattdutsch). In some places a dialect continuum still exists between Low German (in Germany) and Dutch (in the Netherlands).
- --- German , Yiddish and Luxembourgish all rooted in mainly German vocabulary
- --- Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . The three are considered to comprise the ''Mainland Scandinavian'' group. Written Danish and the Bokmål form of Norwegian are particularly close, though the phonology and prosody of all three languages differ somewhat. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the others, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand any of the other languages. See also '' Scandinavia#Languages ''.
- --- English and Lowland Scots ("Doric")
- Slavic
- --- Belarusian , Russian , Rusyn and Ukrainian - the East Slavic branch
- --- Bulgarian and Macedonian - the eastern group of the South Slavic branch
- --- Croatian , Bosnian and Serbian (also previously classified as one language, Serbo-Croatian ) in the western group of the South Slavic branch. There is a Dialect Continuum with Slovenian in the West, and Macedonian and Bulgarian in the South and East.
- --- Polish , Slovak , Czech , and Sorbian ethnically and politically close - all of them of the West Slavic branch (note: no combination of these languages is truly ''fully'' mutually intelligible, especially not all dialects)
- ---All Slavic languages are mutually intelligible up to a small degree in spoken and/or written form.
- Romance
- --- Aromanian and Megleno-Romanian
- --- Catalan and Occitan .
- --- French , Walloon , Romansh , and Occitan
- --- French and its Norman -descended cousins the Channel Island languages of Sercquiais (Sarkese), Dgèrnésiais , and Jèrriais
- --- Italian (Standard) and various regional languages/dialects of Italy
-- Sicilian and Italian (Sicilian has no official recognition as a separate language)
-- Sardinian and Italian
- --- Occitan and northern Italian dialects
- --- Portuguese , Galician to a large degree with Spanish .
- --- Portuguese and modern Galician self-defined as separate languages. Portuguese evolved out of Galician (Galego).
- --- Portuguese , Spanish , Italian are to some degree mutually intelligible. ''Note: of the three, and '''Italian''' are the most mutually intelligible when spoken, since the differences in pronunciation between '''Portuguese''' and the other two are too great. In their written forms however, all three languages are generally highly mutually intelligible.''
- --- Romanian and Italian show a limited degree of asymmetrical mutual intelligibility: speakers of Romanian seem to understand Italian more easily than the other way round.
- --- Romanian and Moldovan , which are actually the same language differentiated due to political reasons.
- --- Romanian and Aromanian
- Tamil , Malayalam and Kannada (These languages belong to the subgroup of Southern Dravidian. The only other major Dravidian language is Telugu, but it comes under Central Dravidian subgroup and is heavily sanskritized. Please note that though Malayalam is also sanskritized to a large extent, it retains its Dravidian roots in its classical form)
- Many Germanic Languages , though related, are generally not mutually intelligible.
- --- English and Low Germanic Languages including Dutch
- Levantine Arabic and Maghreb Arabic
- Swedes, Norwegians, and Danes have difficulty understanding Icelandic
- Many dialects of Chinese are not mutually intelligible, for example spoken Mandarin and spoken Cantonese
- Bahasa Malaysia and Bahasa Indonesia are not mutually intelligible with Tagalog .
- Romance Languages :
- --- French is not mutually intelligible with Italian , Spanish , Portuguese or Romanian .
- --- Romanian is not mutually intelligible with Spanish, Portuguese or French.
- Slavic Languages , are related and to various degrees mutually intelligible. Asymmetrical mutual intelligibility exists between Bulgarian and Macedonian on one hand and the other Slavic languages on the other. That is because Bulgarian and Macedonian have distinctly different grammar. Bulgarian speakers understand other Slavs easier than the other way round.
- --- Russian and Polish are largely not mutually intelligible but Ukrainian is mutually intelligible to some degree to both, being believed by many to be an intermediary form in the Dialect Continuum .
- Finnish and Estonian , have almost no mutual intelligibility, although Estonian speakers can understand some Finnish with difficulty.
- or Estonian are not mutually intelligible to any extent.
- Latvian and Lithuanian , the two biggest surviving Baltic Languages are not mutually intelligible, despite having similar grammar.
- Greek is generally not mutually intelligible with most of its Dialects , especially those developed in isolated communities such as Griko , Cypriot Greek and Pontiac Greek .
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