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There are similarities and we have history so danish is taught in school. I understand some things that are written but if they "the danish" are speaking to me in their language. No i wont understand anything. My danish is not that good.

Nope. Scandinavians understands each other (except for Danes, nobody understands what they say, only what they write).

Finnish and Icelandish are two completely different languages and we can only make out certain words.

But I wasn't asking about Finnish. I gather Islenska is as different from Dansk as from Nederlands, Svenska and Deutsch and between them?

Ah, so the writing is similar between Swedish, Danish and Icelandic?

I'm not really sure how different Nederlans and Deutsch is, but everyone in Scandinavia can pretty much understand each other and have normal conversations in our own languages. It's hard to understand what the Danes are saying because of their pronounciation but their words are almost the exact same words as in Norwegian. Swedish has more different words, but their pronounciation is easier to understand.

The Swedes has a harder time understanding Norwegians, but Norwegians can easily understand them. It stems from Swedes coming to Oslo to work mostly so Norwegians are used to working with Swedes.

I don't know a word of Icelandic though.

Interesting, so the way of speaking has changed for some reason. Wait, what? Norwegian? Aren't the "Norwegians", Danes?

Kind of but we broke free a long time ago. If thinking about it that way then we are all strictly speaking Africans.

That's way too far stretched.

Hmm. You can say the Danes are the beta version while Norwegians are the full release then

So which "dialect" is older? I'm guessing the Dane part of "Norwegian" evolved in one way or another?

Danish is older while Norwegian is a derivative. I don't really have as much knowledge on the subject as I should have, but I believe Danish is also older than Swedish.

Interesting about Danish-Swedish.

Well, the Danes, Norse, started from Denmark and went north I guess?

Which raises the question, which language actually changed, the original one or the one in the north called Norwegian?

I would believe so yeah. We also have a native people (sámi) but they come from Finland originally I think.

The original one changed. Back in the viking days we spoke old norse. Old norse then changed to Danish I think, and when the Norwegians broke free from Denmark we changed our language to Norwegian. Don't quote me on it though, because I'm really unsure if what I just said is correct.

Yeah, Sami are people of Lapland.

No, I meant, which changed, Danish or Norwegian?
It might be that Norse first changed to Icelandic or that is just another branch. No idea but that branch might be close to Norse?

Both of them changed. All of them derives from Old Norse.

Hrafna-Flóki Vilgerðarson (or Floki as named in Vikings) went to Iceland and established his own colony so their language then changed from Old Norse to Icelandic.

Danish and Norwegian are very intertwined, but Norwegian was developed under the union between Denmark and Norway.

Asking what language changed is a complex question as all languages derives from the North Germanic language Old norse, and all of them has undergone heavy change through the years.

Interesting how Icelandic appeared as derived from Old Norse since they didn't interact with anyone that much in the way assimilation and conquest went for the others.

Icelandic has changed the least as our own government strives to conserve our language. Icelandic and Norway were basically the same when the language was "Norse" but then Norway having more "friends" and us Icelanders being the isolationists the Norwegian language changed drastically. Icelanders however being the lonely little school girls kept diaries about poems and stories further conserving the language, which we still have access to and study in school, it is a little different than modern Icelandic but not to the point we don´t recognize it as Icelandic or are able to not understand it.
The way our government used to conserve our language is to rename anything inventions, food whatever "pizza" is "flatbaka" but everyone uses pizza since it wasnt caught on. Immigrants had to have an alternate Icelandic name, this law was discarded late 90´s i think.

As for Scandinavians understanding one another and being able to have a normal conversation is complete fiction. We may be able to pick up one word or two from short sentences, this ability to pick up a word is reduced if a dane is speaking "pronunciation". It is easier to pick apart something that is written but that still does not mean we understand all that much.

That's just silly renaming borrowed terms. That has nothing to do with conserving the language. When you refer to conserving a language you refer to its original words not borrowed ones or neologisms.
Wow, talk about delusional nationalism.
Thanks for the details! It made sense for Icelandic to be closer to Old Norse than the other Germanic languages.

Flat-Baka is just two words from icelandic means "flat baked" .
I might have dissed whats feelsgoodman said before about understanding each other, this is just from Icelanders perspective "or maybe just mine". The Swedes and Norwegians might be able to do exactly what he said "have a normal conversation". I dont know