Neighbour doesn’t speak English at home

Tbh I find the dialects of Norwegian most challenging!

What?

Didn’t appreciate the nasty jibe upthread either btw.
I’m Irish anyway but that sort of thing is an embarrassment! Cop yourself on.

Ask an academic and they'll probably say that the Scandinavian languages are mutually intelligible, but in reality there are so many dialects and differences in pronunciation that hinder this.

Danes from around Copenhagen and Swedes from the Malmö/Skåne area can understand each other as they are exposed to both languages on a daily basis being on either side of the Øresund Bridge, and people living along the Sweden/Norway border understand each other, but this is not universal in Scandinavia.

Even within countries people can have difficulty understanding each other. Older people from West Jutland in Denmark speak a completely different dialect to people from Copenhagen, with a different vocabulary and grammar. Throw a Bornholmer into the conversation with their own dialect and watch the fun!

Likewise, I'm friends with four Swedish families. Three are from Skåne in southern Sweden, but the fourth family comes from Kiruna in northern Sweden, which is 1,900km from Skåne. When the families speak in their local dialects they cannot understand each other. Fun fact - at 1,900km the distance from Ystad (Skåne) to Kiruna is further than from Ystad to Milan, Italy; and 600km further than Ystad - Paris.

My daughter spoke like that to our cat when she was little. I remember one day hearing her say to the cat "Charlie will you please come into my room" then a moment later "thank you"

Manx?

Just seen that it's Scotttish Gaelic, so I was close !

That's actually really sad! I'd never object to people speaking their mother tongue, especially if it's helping someone else, like this would.

I used to work with a young woman who was born in a different country (somewhere in Eastern Europe, although can't remember where now.) She overheard some customers complaining in the language of the country she was born in and replied to them, and they were surprised. She sounds like she was born in this part of the UK (at least the posh bit.)

Your neighbour sounds hilarious! Planning on moving anytime soon?

I do this with my daughters dog. I speak to it exactly like I speak to anyone. I was outside with him last week and said five more minutes then we are going inside to have lunch. Everyone was rolling around laughing.

Now I’m worried that my neighbours can hear me talking to my dog in a thick Australian accent…
She’s an Australian sheepdog (my dog, not my neighbour) and I swear she doesn’t listen to me if I don’t put the accent on.

ETA that I am aware they’re not actually Australian dogs, but talking to her in an American accent feels wrong.

Oh my god, from the title I absolutely thought this was going to be a horribly racist post about how 'bloody immigrants' had the audacity to speak their own language in their own home, and it's turned out to be the sweetest MN thread I've read in a while!

Thanks for getting me out of my misery 😁🙏🏼

I genuinely believed I was the only person daft enough to have learned some Polish because I imported a Polish cat. 8 years on, it's morphed into a strange mix of Polish & nonsense but everyone in the house understands it & speaks it. I'm probably the OP's neighbour.

She did, yesterday at 3.15 pm.
Her neighbour is speaking Scottish Gaelic to the cat.

I have a lot of visiting dogs here and DH insists on speaking to them in Russian. Only works when he's near the fridge.

There are many languages that are not French, German nor Spanish.

I can speak all 3 Scandinavian languages thanks to my heritage.

I’m just postmarking for when the OP comes with an answer.🙂

Im white british, home counties accent, but I speak fluent creole (french patois) because I spent my childhood abroad. It often startles people if I'm speaking it to a friend from that country. You don't expect that from my mouth 😂

Could it be Welsh?

@Hollyhobbi I normally would say “….speaking Irish….”

or
“…..ag caint as Gaeilge …..”

but because the neighbour was speaking Scottish Gaelic to the cat it was easier to differentiate by calling it Irish Gaelic for the majority who would be UK based readers of this thread.

Here we go, someone telling us about our language

I know I have committed the sin of not RTFT but I was going to say the same. When I lived alone I chatted away in Russian to my cats because it was my GM's mother tongue and I was learning it while at Uni.

A few years ago DH and I were working abroad and we picked up 2 street dogs (and brought them to the UK). One of my UK friends asked very seriously how they could understand us as we spoke English to them and they of course were Serbian. We thought she was joking, but she wasn't......

It would be rude to ask her - what she does in her own home is none of your business and it would be awful for her if she knew you were listening. When you have talked more, all sorts of subjects will come up and you'll find out eventually.

I’m Australian, but our cat only speaks Chinese. We’ve had to learn enough to converses with her. She was adopted, but it’s the least we can do, to keep her connected to her culture. 😀