for those who find this hard to read, it’s like my dad. he grew up in peru but by the border between peru and brazil, so he picked up portuguese.
Hey, your question is kinda weird. And I mean it in a supportive way. Your understanding of borders and languages is wrong.
Country border aren’t language borders. If the local dialect is preserved, both sides of the border can probably communicate. If not, then it becomes a question of what dialect became the standard language? are a lot of people crossing the borders regularly? which side of the border has a higher interest learning the other language?.. And so much more.
I personally know a couple languages and some are from neighbors countries. I can cross the border in less than an hour. If I talk to someone from the other side in “our” dialects, we might experience the way the other person is talking as odd but we understand each other. But those who don’t know their local dialect, have a very hard time catching on, while tbh i don’t know why. Maybe because I know both languages, I see the similarities and they don’t and get confused by differences. On my side of the border, most natives speak the other country’s language fluently, for economical reasons. On the other side, it is unusual to find someone who can speak our language, and the local dialect.
In short, you will get a mixed bag of responses and there are patterns and reasons for it but you are kinda asking the wrong question to get a meaningful answer.
A practical example and the araising questions, in Belgium people speak a bunch of languages, french, German and Flemish(/dutch). Based on what I heard, the french part of the country doesn’t tend to speak Flemish and the Flemish part doesn’t speak french (or at least don’t want to). Does the french part speak the language of their neighbor, as they speak french, or not because it is also their own language? Is Flemish a language or just a dutch dialect? What about the German speaking part? If a Belgian learned french in school, while living in Flanders, would move to the french border, would that count as speaking their neighbors language? Or not?
I like your question but it is unfortunately one based in a flawed belief/thinking.
adding to this very good answer: especially in Europe legal, cultural and language borders can differ quite a bit due to history and geography. I’m from South Tyrol, an italian province at the Austrian border. The majority of people there speak a german dialect, we have german schools, public administration and everything, but are a language minority in Italy. The historic explanation is that after WW1 this region became part of Italy, taken fron Austria-Hungary.
Further there is a third official language in South Tyrol, basically only spoken in two valleys anymore, the “Ladin”. It’s a very old language, related to similar language island in adjacent italian provinces and Switzerland. Those languages basically just preserved themselves for geographic reasons (hard accessible valleys and mountains). for this reason those languages tend to differ already between to neighbouring valleys. I was tought, that most of South Tyrol spoke Ladin at some point, but after the Swiss turned Calvinistic, the catholic (and austrian) bishop of the region forced the south-tyroleans to speak german to distance them from the heretic Swiss.^^
During WW2 the fascists in Italy forced South Tyrol to speak italian and forbade everything german, including local, personal and family names; one reson certainly was to enforce this ideology of “one nation, one culture, one people”.
Returning to OPs question: In South Tyrol there are german schools, where you learn italian and english as mandatory second languages, analogously for italian schools. Both languages are valid for any official entity (in theory). In the valleys mentiined above, they also have ladin schools.
ohhh, makes sense. i meant for example, if a polish person who lived by the polish-german border ended up learning german to communicate with germans or not.
I understood and appreciate your question but my point is that it is very complicated. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of polish people who lived by the polish-german border would learn German (maybe even in school) but I would be surprised if many Germans living on the same border, learned polish.
i get it now :)
I know that “Araf” means “Slow” in Welsh due to the road markings.
Maybe not exactly what you’re asking but I grew up and live in Vancouver, Canada, which is really close to the US border. Obviously both sides speak English but I feel that the accents and slangs bleed across. I don’t really know if I’m considered to have a Canadian or American accent, or where the distinctions lie.
Yea, I grew up in America and ended up being fluent in Canadian as well. I ended up emigrating there even.
I’ve got a friend from Catalonia and he’s fluent in English, Spanish and Catalan… and can get by in French.
I grew up along the border with Idaho and still can’t understand them 20 or so years later.
Yes, I did.
What language was it?
Danish. (Not a very useful language, but quirky and quite charming.)
Kan du forstå meg? (Jeg skriver på norsk, min fars språk. jeg lærer fortsatt, men jeg har hørt at norsk og dansk er veldig like)
Jada, jeg har bodd og jobbet i Norge i et par år, så ingen problemer med å forstå norsk. 😉
It’s funny I understand all that when written but couldn’t understand a word when Scandinavians speak
Forbausende!
Yes. I learned Canadian eh?
I lived in an area that had more or less migrant workers depending on season. I did pick up some of the language as a kid, because I had friends who were part of that population, but honestly I can’t speak it now. Sometimes I can pick out the general meaning if I read it, but not often enough to be confident in my understanding.
I didn’t pick up the language of the country I grew up in, just the neighboring one’s. Have you ever heard of Trianon?
the people on the american side mostly didn’t; while a significant portion, but still a minority, of the people on the mexican side did not.
I’ve learned French in school for 5 years, but I only speak it on a relatively basic level, despite living very close to France and crossing the border quite often. Not too big of a deal though, as many people in Alsace also speak a German/Alemannic dialect.
