Danish belongs to the Scandinavian group of languages together with Swedish, Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese. Danish is an East Nordic language spoken by approximately six million people in Denmark, Greenland, Faroe islands, in the north of Schleswig-Holstein region in Germany, Norway and Sweden. It is also an official language of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council.
The standard language of Denmark is Rigsdansk (or Standard Danish). It is based on dialects spoken in and around Copenhagen and it is the language used in officialdom, media, administration etc.
In contrast with Swedish and Norwegian, Danish does not have many dialects. There are three main dialects in Denmark: østdansk (spoken in the eastern part of Denmark), ødansk (island Danish) and jysk (spoken in the Jutland Peninsula).
The Danish kingdom was founded by the Vikings in the 800s and it was the greatest ruling power in Scandinavia for many centuries. During the Danish rule in Norway, Danish was the official language; therefore today's written Danish is rather similar to the Norwegian Bokmål (literary Norwegian). Consequently, the speakers of these languages have no difficulties in understanding each other.
The first alphabet used by the Danes was runic. The oldest Danish records date back to 300-800 AD and are runic inscriptions carved in stone. The introduction of Christianity brought about the Latin alphabet which managed to fully replace the runes until the 13th century.
Comparable to all the other Germanic languages in both grammar and vocabulary, Danish has a particular sound system. The stød (thrust/push) is a characteristic of this language that refers to the assimilation or reduction of both consonants and vowels. This pronunciation particularity makes it easier for a foreigner to distinguish Danish from Swedish and Norwegian.
Over the centuries Danish has borrowed many words from foreign languages: from Lower German in the Middle Ages, from French in the 18th century and English words in the 20th century.
Ioana Mihailas is a linguist for Lingo24 language translations agencies London, a provider of high quality document translation services in UK
Source: www.articletrader.com
