Edit: Playing round a bit more with the tool, Your point is proven. The distance between Dutch and Afrikaans is lower. Only 2. Yet that’s considered different languages.
That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a native Dutch speaker, I have little issue understanding Flemish. Afrikaans is clearly closely related too, but definitely harder to understand.
The tool measures distance with vocabulary. Afrikaans may be closer in vocabulary but pronounced very differently (since there’s way less cross talking since it’s so isolated), which would make it harder to understand to a Dutch speaker?
Partially, but even written Afrikaans has much more loanwords from African languages and English, and words that evolved independently, compared to Flemish.
That doesn’t make sense to me. I’m a native Dutch speaker, I have little issue understanding Flemish. Afrikaans is clearly closely related too, but definitely harder to understand.
The tool measures distance with vocabulary. Afrikaans may be closer in vocabulary but pronounced very differently (since there’s way less cross talking since it’s so isolated), which would make it harder to understand to a Dutch speaker?
Partially, but even written Afrikaans has much more loanwords from African languages and English, and words that evolved independently, compared to Flemish.