Danish Language History

Danish is part of the North Germanic language group and is spoken by about 6 million people. It is spoken in Denmark, the northern part of Germany, Iceland, The Faroe Islands and Greenland. There are also communities in the U.S., Argentina and Canada where people speak Danish.

Modern spoken Norwegian, Swedish and Danish are classified into a Mainland Scandinavian language group. Icelandic and Faroese are listed under an Insular Scandinavian group. Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible in spoken form. Speakers of any of the three languages can understand speakers of the other two. Studies have shown, however, that Norwegian speakers can understand Danish and Swedish speakers more clearly than Danish or Swedish speakers can understand each other. Norwegian and Danish even use the same alphabet.

The Early History of the Danish Language

Danish evolved from Old Norse in the 8th century. Old Norse split into Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden). Danish eventually evolved from Old East Norse. Old East Norse was called Runic Danish in Denmark (and Runic Swedish in Sweden) because it used the runic alphabet. The two dialects of Old East Norse were the same until the 12th century. The Danish Vikings spread Danish to the northeastern part of England, where today remnants of Danish still appear in English, like the words “knife”, “husband”, “egg” and “call”.

Danish in the Middle Ages and Beyond

Christians introduced the Latin alphabet to Denmark. By the High Middle Ages, the Latin alphabet had replaced the runic alphabet. Low German influenced Danish heavily during the Middle Ages. Also during this time, the masculine and feminine genders in the Danish language combined into a single common gender. The first book in Danish was printed in 1495. The Bible was first published in Danish in 1550.

Modern Danish

There is no official language in Denmark, so Danish is just the de facto language. However, the court system uses Danish, and Danish is widespread. English, German and French have greatly influenced Danish. Some written Danish words look very similar to written English words, like “have”, “over”, “for” and “give.” All the same, they sound very different in English and Danish when spoken aloud.

An extra letter “å” was added to the Danish alphabet in 1948. It replaced the letter “aa”. The Danish alphabet is similar to the English alphabet, though it includes three extra letters on the end: æ, ø, and å.

Modern Danish has three dialects: Island Danish, Eastern Danish and Jutlandic. The use of dialects has declined since the 1960’s, as a result of the further centralization of the country. Most people who speak a Danish dialect also understand standard Danish. More than 25% of Danes live in or around Copenhagen and speak Standard Danish.,. Many important governmental offices and companies are located in Copenhagen.

Modern Danish Speaking Countries

• Denmark
• Iceland
• Greenland
• Faroe Islands
• The northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, in Germany

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