OSDev.org

Wikipedia:

Early years
Linus Torvalds was born in Helsinki, Finland, the son of journalists Anna and Nils Torvalds,[1] and the grandson of poet Ole Torvalds. His family belongs to the Swedish-speaking minority (5.5%) of Finland's population.

So his first language is Swedish... Does anyone here have something to do with Swedish?
*asking just of pure interest

IIRC, bubach is Swedish, but he hasn't been here for years. As for languages known by the members of this forum, English is the most known, obviously, followed by Dutch in second. After that, German and French are probably third and forth, although that's only a guess.

To my knowledge pretty much all Finnish schoolkids are taught Swedish these days. Then there's the swedes themselves. There would probably be a few on these boards. Danes and Norwegians understand most Swedish. I would think Norwegians are a bit better at understanding it.

DevL is swedish, but he isn't a regular visitor here either. I could easily contact him if you have any actual questions.

I do.

thomasloven wrote:I do.

Great! Vad trevligt att höra det! I've learned a little of Swedish. Actually, my password on this forum is a long Swedish word =)

Laksen wrote:Danes and Norwegians understand most Swedish.

It's a pity that generally Swedes don't understand spoken Danish very easily, as far as I know.

CmpXchg wrote:

thomasloven wrote:Actually, my password on this forum is a long Swedish word =)

Systembolaget?

Solar wrote:Systembolaget?

nagellackborttagningsmedlet, though Systembolaget is a good candidate

*Laughs at the thought of several hundred people attempting to login to CmpXchg's account now*

CmpXchg wrote:

Laksen wrote:Danes and Norwegians understand most Swedish.

It's a pity that generally Swedes don't understand spoken Danish very easily, as far as I know.

Perhaps I should have said, that some Danes and Norwegians understand some Swedish, instead. I don't understand spoken swedish either

I know my dad learnt swedish for work. The thing is, danish looks like swedish in writing, and he can understand most of that. However, pronounciation is completely different.

So ask your dane/swede across that bridge to write down what he means
Or speak english

what's crazy is for me that could never happen. I live near the borders of two different states and of course we all speak english, but on the other side of the great divide, you could live on the border and speak two different languages.... to me that's weird.

I wouldn't equate Alabama English with California English with Florida English or any other flavor of english, such as British English.

You use the same words. These guys do too, they just pronounce them so differently and write them a slight bit differently that they can't make out what the others are saying, hence a different language.

I can't imagine driving for 5000 kilometers and having everybody speak english to me. Nor can I imagine driving for a long while passing through one and the same country, with very different laws applying every time I cross an arbitrary border.

I am Norwegian... I think every Norwegian understands Swedish.
Could be because we have lots of Swedish TV-channels or something...

Danish is almost the same as Norwegian (in fact, Norwegians spoke Danish at
one point, after being in union with Denmark). We understand most of Danish,
but not their very awkward numeric system...

Alboin wrote:IIRC, bubach is Swedish, but he hasn't been here for years. As for languages known by the members of this forum, English is the most known, obviously, followed by Dutch in second. After that, German and French are probably third and forth, although that's only a guess.

I visit from time to time..