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Danish is one of the Scandinavian
languages, a sub-group of the Germanic group of the Indo-European language family.
History
Most Danish words are derived from the Old Norse language,
with new words formed by compounding. A large percentage of Danish words, however, hails from Low German (e.g., betale = to pay, måske = maybe). Later on, High German and French and now English have superseded Low German influence. Because English and Danish
are related languages, many common words are very similar in the two languages. For example, the following Danish words are
easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers: have, over, under, for,
kat. When pronounced, these words sound quite different from their English equivalents, however. In addition, the suffix
by, meaning "town", occurs in several English placenames, such as Whitby and Selby, as remnants of the
Viking occupation. The rules of Danish pronunciation are challenging for English
speakers to learn; the written forms of words sometimes do not correspond to modern pronunciation.
Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th-century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize
laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944).
The first translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.
Classification
The closest relatives of Danish are the other North Germanic languages of Scandinavia: Norwegian and Swedish. Written Danish and Norwegian are particularly close, though the
pronunciation of all three languages differs significantly. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the
others. The similarity between the three languages are so large that international linguists classify them as a single
language.
Geographic distribution
Spoken in Denmark, Greenland, the
Faroe Islands and Schleswig in Germany.
Official status
Danish is the official language of Denmark, one of two official languages of
Greenland (the other is Greenlandic), and one of two official languages of the Faeroes (the other is Faeroese). In addition,
there is a small community of Danish speakers in the portion of Germany bordering
Denmark.
Dialects
The main dialect groups are divided by the largest islands/peninsulas:
- Sjællandsk Zealand (Central-Eastern Danish)
- Jydsk Jutland (Western Danish)
- Bornholmsk Bornholm (Eastern Danish)
- Fynsk Funen (Central Danish)
Countless other dialects exist for smaller island or community within each area. Some dialects are similar, some are virtually
incomprehensible to anyone living more than 50km away. 'Rigsdansk' is the official Danish language taught in school. It is a
'neutral' form and spoken in the big cities. The dialects are still spoken by people, young and old, in more rural areas of which
there are plenty.
Pronunciation
Danish is notoriously difficult to pronounce correctly. It is flat (like the country) and monotone compared to Norwegian or
Swedish where the tone goes up and down with every word (like the many mountains and valleys in those countries). The 'r' is very
deep and throaty, but not at all rolling as in Roman languages.
The pronunciation of the common letters æ, ø and å are also unique to Scandinavian languages. A common Danish phrase told to
foreigners is 'rødgrød med fløde' (red pudding with cream), a Danish speciality and a line very difficult for foreigners to say
due to the abundance of 'ø's, the initial throaty 'r', the rough 'gr' sound and the soft 'd's.
Because of the difficulty experienced by foreigners in pronouncing Danish correctly, a joke often told by Danes themselves of
their own language is that "Danish is not so much a language, as a throat disease".
Grammar
The infinitive forms of Danish verbs end in a vowel, which in almost all cases is the letter e. Verbs are conjugated
according to tense, but otherwise do not vary according to
person or number. For example the present tense form of the Danish infinitive verb spise ("to eat") is
spiser; this form is the same regardless of whether the subject is in the first, second, or third person, or whether it
is singular or plural. This extreme ease of conjugating verbs is made up for by the many irregular verbs in the language. However, the latest official reform of Danish permits many previously
irregular verbs to be conjugated regularly, and for some nouns to be spelled as they are pronounced.
Danish nouns fall into two grammatical genders: common and neuter. While the majority of nouns have the
common gender and neuter is often used for inanimate objects, the genders of nouns are not generally
predictable and must in most cases be memorized. A distinctive feature of the Scandinavian languages, including Danish, is an
enclitic definite article. To demonstrate: The common gender word "a man" (indefinite) is en mand but "the man"
(definite) is manden. In both cases the article is en. (However, Danish uses a separate word for the definite
article when an adjective is employed: "the big man", den store mand). The neuter equivalent would be "a house"
(indefinite) et hus, "the house" (definite) huset and "the big house", det store hus.
Vocabulary
The numbers from one to twenty in Danish are: en, to, tre, fire, fem,
seks, syv, otte, ni, ti, elleve, tolv, tretten,
fjorten, femten, seksten, sytten, atten, nitten and tyve. Counting
above forty is in part based on a base 20 number system, see vigesimal.
Writing system
Danish is written using the Roman alphabet, with three additional
letters: Æ / æ, Ø / ø, and
Å / å, which come at the end of the Danish alphabet, in that order. Before an orthography
reform in 1948, aa was used instead of å; the old usage still occurs in
names and old documents. Aa is treated just like å in alphabetical sorting, even though it looks like two
letters.
Modern Danish and modern Norwegian use an identical alphabet, although pronunciation varies considerably.
Examples
- Danish: dansk /dansk/ (Note: /a/ is palatal)
- hello: hej /hAj/
- good-bye: farvel /fA:vEl/
- please: (No direct English translation. Vær venlig)
- thank you: tak /tAg/ (note: /b d g/ are voiceless)
- this one: denne /'dEn@/
- how much?: hvor meget koster det? /vO: 'MAj@d/
- English: engelsk /'EN@lsk/
- yes: ja /ja/
- no: nej /nAj/
- can I take your picture?: Må jeg tage et billede af dig?
- Where is the bathroom?: Hvor er der et toilet? /toa'lEd/
- where do you come from?: Hvor kommer du fra?
- do you speak English?: Taler du engelsk? /ka du 'tal@ 'EN@lsk/
- generic toast: skål /skOl/
See also
External links
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