Danish language

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 Later on, High German and French and now English have superseded Low German influence.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 some international linguists classify them as dialects of a single language.

Distribution & 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 Schleswig, the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, where it is an officially recognized and protected minority language.

Dialects

The main dialect groups are divided by the largest islands/peninsulas:

• Sjællandsk Zealand (Central-Eastern Danish)
• Jysk Jutland (Western Danish)
• Bornholmsk Bornholm (Eastern Danish)
• Fynsk Funen (Central Danish)

'Rigsdansk' is the official Danish language taught in school. It is a 'neutral' form and is spoken in the big cities.

Countless other dialects exist for smaller islands or communities within each area. Some dialects are similar, while others are virtually incomprehensible to anyone living more than 50km away from the area they are mainly spoken in. These dialects are still spoken by people, young and old, in the more rural areas of Denmark, 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, not at all rolling as in Romance languages.

The pronunciation of the Scandinavian letters æ, ø and å also often pose a problem to non-native speakers. A common Danish phrase told to foreigners is 'rødgrød med fløde' (mixed berry purée 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.

Æ is pronounced a little like the Canadian word: "Eh?"
Ø is particularly difficult for English-speakers. It is somewhat like the i in "sir", only with more rounded lips - like the sound in French "fleur".
Å is pronounced like the O on "Oh!".

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.

Numbers

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.

Twenty (tyve) is used as a base number in the Danish language: Tres (short for tresindstyve) means 3 times 20, i.e. 60; firs (short for firsindstyve) means 4 times 20 i.e. 80. halvtreds means (3 - 1/2) times 20, i.e. 50; halvfjerds means (4 - 1/2) times 20, i.e. 70; and halvfems means (5 - 1/2) times 20, i.e. 90.

This is unlike Swedish and Norwegian, which both uses a decimal number system.

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: Vær venlig (No direct English translation - "Vær venlig" literally means "Be kind".)
• thank you: tak /tAg/ (note: /b d g/ are voiceless)
• this one: denne /'dEn@/
• how much?: hvor meget? /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 toilettet? /toa'lEd/
• where do you come from?: Hvor kommer du fra?
• do you speak English?: Taler du engelsk? /'tal@ du 'EN@lsk/
• generic toast: skål /skOl/

See also

• Common phrases in different languages

External links

• Ethnologue report for Danish (http://www.ethnologue.org/show_language.asp?code=DNS)
• Information on the Danish language (http://www.dsn.dk/omdsn_en.htm)
• Danish-English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Danish-english/) (from Webster's Online Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org))
• DANISH GRAMMAR (http://hjem.tele2adsl.dk/johnmadsen/Danish/danish.html)

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