Neighbour doesn’t speak English at home

[Identiy]

I know I am just being nosey, but my new neighbour chats away in English to me, I always assumed and she is English. But I hear her chatting to her dog (she lives alone) and I don’t recognise the language at all. I have a fairly good grasp of French and Spanish, recognise German and Italian and a few others. I am just intrigued as to what she is speaking because I don’t recognise it at all. Would I be rude to ask her? I don’t want her to think I am eavesdropping, but then it wouldn’t matter anyway!!

I am just really intrigued!

Some people can speak dog. I am fluent in cat.

This is so funny, because it's so spot-on! I've known a few Dutch people and they're all fluently multi-lingual.

Come out of the womb tri-lingual 😂

😅 Those are all Scandinavian languages. But the other poster said she speaks "Scandinavian" which is not a language. I wondered if she meant a particular language or an invented mashup of several.

Boudeledidge?

Gaelic Irish I would admire, but Gaelic Scottish, jeez, that's just so uncouth! ;)

Seriously, your neighbour & her dog sound very cool. You'll have to learn a few token Gaelic Scottish terms & phrases just to be neighbourly.

Or would that just be too 'Dutch'!? ;)

Haha! Dutch people living abroad are definitely the worst for this - I would know because I am one! Nearly everyone is expected to learn at least 1 foreign language in school (majority learn 2) because Dutch doesn't get you very far in the world. It's culturally expected that you should learn more than Dutch - otherwise you're deemed either a bit dim, or elderly.

In my experience they're not embarrassed to get it wrong, but they only know just about enough to pull it off. I speak Dutch and English fluently, but despite learning French, German and Spanish for 3-6 years in school, it's only enough for a holiday (ordering food, directions etc). Did a year or 2 of Latin and Ancient Greek too but let's not count those! I have done some casual courses/listened to a lot of Swedish, Italian, and Arabic, just for fun, plus a few words in Czech. I'm still shit at all of them!

So while I technically have some knowledge of 11ish languages, I only speak 2 fluently, 3 with hesitation, and 5+ barely.

Very pleased to hear to hear the dog speaks Scottish Gaelic - must try harder with my cats.

Clever cat

Apparently as part of her degree she did a placement and summer job working at a hotel on an island- the manager liked them to answer the phone in Gaelic to sound authentic to tourist, but after being caught out by a local who started chatting away after her enthusiastic greeting, she then started to learn the language.

Well they are mutually intelligible so basically if you speak one, you speak them all so why not combine them and call them Scandinavian?

This is actually more common than you’d think 😂

We fostered a husky/shepherd mix about 10 years ago. Shelter had said the owner who relinquished him had told them that the dog was trained in basic commands but they’d seen no evidence of it.
We later found out that the previous owner was Lithuanian. My exH googled the Lithuanian word for “sit” and as if by magic, the dog sat 😂😂😂
So for about 4 months, we were an English speaking family with a Lithuanian speaking dog 🤷🏻‍♀️😂

My friends and I sometimes speak something we call "general Slavic." As we all speak various Slavic languages, we can communicate because of all the shared root words.

BTW I noticed that you mentioned living in Finland. Finnish is a language I would love to learn, but it is quite daunting even though I love learning languages.

General Slavic - love it!

Finnish is pretty difficult to learn, as it's so different to other languages except Estonian. I'm not fluent but I manage fine with most conversations and reading.

If you're on otherwise friendly terms, then I'd say by all means ask!

Could it be something a bit more obscure like Farsi? I have an old university friend who looks as "English" as the next person, so I was surprised to hear her chatting away in a totally unfamiliar language on the phone one evening!

It's not rude to ask her in conversation, no. People ask me all the time and I dont fint it rude.

It's a dream of mine to learn Finnish. I love visiting Finland. But it definitely sounds like a difficult language to learn. Maybe someday. . .

Duolingo does have a Finnish course now, albeit very small, that can give a starting point.

Is it a Skye terrier?! As someone who's been trying unsuccessfully to learn Gaelic for years now, I take my bonaid off to her - it's not easy.

I have to say I wouldn't have guessed that one!

I used to look after a UK based cat who only understood Italian. 'Dov'è la pallina??' was the main one to know - he sure loved chasing a ball.

Scottish Gaelic is similar to to Irish Gaelic afaik.
There is a thread on here where Irish Mumsnetters write their posts in the Irish language or like me, try to.
It’s in Craicnet.

They are very closely related and largely mutually intelligible (especially written forms). Have you heard the saying, "A language is a dialect with an army and navy"? Some people think that applies for Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, and that they're only called languages for political reasons.

The term 'Scandinavian' can be used when speaking about the three languages together. Also, they're is some discussion as to whether 'Skandinaviska' exists - a hybrid of all three.
It's fascinating!

Haha, that's brilliant. I used to watch a show called "Person of Interest", which had a big German shepherd that would only respond to commands in (I think) Polish, for precisely this reason.

But not even the Danes understand Danish.

It's actually very common. Terriers always insist on being spoken to in the dialect of their breed. Apart from Jack Russells, but they require you to dress as a parson.

As a child, I used to speak to my dog in both English and the language of the country I was living in (+ my own invented Motherese).

My parents always emphasised the importance of multi-lingualism and I naturally thought this should apply to the most important member of the family.