136-487: Danes ( Danish : danskere , pronounced [ˈtænskɐɐ] ), or Danish people , are an ethnic group and nationality native to Denmark and a modern nation identified with the country of Denmark. This connection may be ancestral, legal, historical, or cultural. Danes generally regard themselves as a nationality and reserve the word "ethnic" for the description of recent immigrants , sometimes referred to as "new Danes". The contemporary Danish national identity
272-660: A maritime border , to the west and southwest across Nares Strait and Baffin Bay, as well as a shared land border on Hans Island ; and Iceland, southeast of Greenland in the Atlantic Ocean. Greenland also contains the world's largest national park , and it is the largest constituent country by area in the world, and is the fourth largest country subdivision in the world , after Sakha Republic in Russia, Australia's state of Western Australia , and Russia's Krasnoyarsk Krai , and
408-476: A series of expeditions to Greenland and Arctic waterways to locate the lost eastern Norse settlement and assert Danish-Norwegian sovereignty over Greenland. The expeditions were mostly unsuccessful, partly due to leaders who lacked experience with the difficult Arctic ice and weather conditions, and partly because the expedition leaders were given instructions to search for the Eastern Settlement on
544-429: A "difficult language to learn, acquire and understand", and some evidence shows that children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish compared with other languages. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns, adjectives, and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of
680-633: A Danish monk in the Order of St John Hospitallers . In the 17th century Denmark–Norway colonized Greenland . After a failed war with the Swedish Empire , the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658 removed the areas of the Scandinavian peninsula from Danish control, thus establishing the boundaries between Norway, Denmark, and Sweden that exist to this day. In the centuries after this loss of territory,
816-593: A considerable impact on Denmark. The Danish Reformation started in the mid-1520s. Some Danes wanted access to the Bible in their own language. In 1524, Hans Mikkelsen and Christiern Pedersen translated the New Testament into Danish ; it became an instant best-seller. Those who had traveled to Wittenberg in Saxony and come under the influence of the teachings of Luther and his associates included Hans Tausen ,
952-577: A former case system , particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its word order is V2 , with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch . Other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of
1088-532: A legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to a historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the Duchy of Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish nation-state . It describes people of Danish nationality , both in Denmark and elsewhere–most importantly, ethnic Danes in both Denmark proper and the former Danish Duchy of Schleswig . Excluded from this definition are people from
1224-526: A literary language. Also in this period, Danish began to take on the linguistic traits that differentiate it from Swedish and Norwegian, such as the stød , the voicing of many stop consonants, and the weakening of many final vowels to /e/. The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495, the Rimkrøniken ( Rhyming Chronicle ), a history book told in rhymed verses. The first complete translation of
1360-486: A number lost their cultural ties to Greenland. While the policies "succeeded" in the sense of shifting Greenlanders from being primarily subsistence hunters into being urbanized wage earners, the Greenlandic elite began to reassert a Greenlandic cultural identity. A movement developed in favour of independence, reaching its peak in the 1970s. As a consequence of political complications in relation to Denmark's entry into
1496-707: A number of Danes remained as a minority within German territories . After the occupation of Denmark by Germany in World War II, the 1948 orthography reform dropped the German-influenced rule of capitalizing nouns, and introduced the letter ⟨å⟩ . Three 20th-century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature : Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes V. Jensen (awarded 1944). With
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#17327578284171632-662: A personal union with Denmark in 1380, and from 1397 was a part of the Kalmar Union . The Norse settlements, such as Brattahlíð , thrived for centuries, before disappearing in the 15th century, perhaps at the onset of the Little Ice Age . Except some runic inscriptions, the only contemporary records or historiography that survives from the Norse settlements is of their contact with Iceland or Norway. Medieval Norwegian sagas and historical works mention Greenland's economy,
1768-494: A result of the COVID-19 pandemic ; one source describes it as being the "biggest economic victim of the coronavirus" (the overall economy did not suffer too severely as of mid-2020, thanks to the fisheries "and a hefty subsidy from Copenhagen"). Greenland's goal for returning tourism is to develop it "right" and to "build a more sustainable tourism for the long run". Greenland is the world's largest non-continental island and
1904-464: A sense of self-reliance through self-government and independent communication with the outside world. Despite this change, in 1946 a commission including the highest Greenlandic council, the Landsrådene , recommended patience and no radical reform of the system. Two years later, the first step towards a change of government was initiated when a grand commission was established. A final report (G-50)
2040-403: A separate people under international law . Denmark maintains control of foreign affairs and defence matters. Denmark upholds the annual block grant of 3.2 billion Danish kroner, but as Greenland begins to collect revenues of its natural resources, the grant will gradually be diminished. This is generally considered to be a step toward eventual full independence from Denmark. Greenlandic
2176-482: A similarity in pronunciation, combined with the long tradition of having Danish as a written language, which has led to similarities in vocabulary. Among younger Danes, Copenhageners are worse at understanding Swedish than Danes from the provinces. In general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as the young in Norway and Sweden. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided
2312-586: A so-called multiethnolect in the urban areas, an immigrant Danish variety (also known as Perkerdansk ), combining elements of different immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish, as well as English and Danish. Within the Danish Realm , Danish is the national language of Denmark and one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (alongside Faroese ). There is a Faroese variant of Danish known as Gøtudanskt . Until 2009, Danish
2448-625: A variant of Standard Danish, Southern Schleswig Danish , is spoken in the area. Since 2015, Schleswig-Holstein has officially recognized Danish as a regional language , just as German is north of the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , Danish-speaking citizens of
2584-407: A very large vowel inventory consisting of 27 phonemically distinctive vowels , and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød , a kind of laryngeal phonation type . Due to the many pronunciation differences that set Danish apart from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be
2720-560: Is 2,166,086 km (836,330 sq mi) (including other offshore minor islands), of which the Greenland ice sheet covers 1,755,637 km (677,855 sq mi) (81%) and has a volume of approximately 2,850,000 km (680,000 cu mi). The highest point on Greenland is Gunnbjørn Fjeld at 3,700 m (12,100 ft) of the Watkins Range ( East Greenland mountain range ). The majority of Greenland, however,
2856-515: Is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark . Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland , the Faroe Islands , and the northern German region of Southern Schleswig , where it has minority language status. Minor Danish-speaking communities are also found in Norway , Sweden ,
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#17327578284172992-700: Is a West Germanic language descended from Old English. Old Norse exerted a strong influence on Old English in the early medieval period. The shared Germanic heritage of Danish and English is demonstrated with many common words that are very similar in the two languages. For example, when written, commonly used Danish verbs, nouns, and prepositions such as have , over , under , for , give , flag , salt , and arm are easily recognizable to English speakers. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scots equivalents, e.g. kirke (Scots kirk , i.e., 'church') or barn (Scots and northern English bairn , i.e. 'child'). In addition,
3128-588: Is based on the idea of "Danishness", which is founded on principles formed through historical cultural connections and is typically not based on ethnic heritage. Denmark has been inhabited by various Germanic peoples since ancient times, including the Angles , Cimbri , Jutes , Herules , Teutones and others. The first mention of Danes within Denmark is on the Jelling Rune Stone , which mentions
3264-432: Is concentrated mainly on the southwest coast, and the rest of the island is sparsely populated. Three-quarters of Greenland is covered by the only permanent ice sheet outside Antarctica . With a population of 56,583 (2022), Greenland is the least densely populated region in the world. Sixty-seven percent of its electricity production comes from renewable energy, mostly from hydropower . The early Norse settlers named
3400-430: Is its closest relative. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Approximately 2,000 uncompounded Danish words are derived from Old Norse and ultimately from Proto Indo-European . Of these 2,000, 1,200 are nouns, 500 are verbs and 180 are adjectives. Danish has also absorbed many loanwords , most of which were borrowed from Low German of
3536-461: Is less than 1,500 m (4,900 ft) in elevation. Below the ice there is a series of canyons, the biggest called Greenland’s Grand Canyon which was formed by flowing rivers of water from the repeated cycle of ice melting and new ice forming. Near the coast elevations rise suddenly and steeply. The ice flows generally to the coast from the centre of the island. A survey led by French scientist Paul-Emile Victor in 1951 concluded that, under
3672-782: Is low compared with other countries (over one million species have been described worldwide). The sea is rich in fish and invertebrates, especially in the milder West Greenland Current ; a large part of the Greenland fauna is associated with marine-based food chains, including large colonies of seabirds. The few native land mammals in Greenland include the polar bear , reindeer (introduced by Europeans), arctic fox , arctic hare , musk ox , collared lemming , ermine , and arctic wolf . The last four are found naturally only in East Greenland , having immigrated from Ellesmere Island . There are dozens of species of seals and whales along
3808-423: Is not part of any municipality, but it is the site of the world's largest national park, Northeast Greenland National Park . At least four scientific expedition stations and camps had been established on the ice sheet in the ice-covered central part of Greenland (indicated as pale blue in the adjacent map): Eismitte , North Ice , North GRIP Camp and The Raven Skiway. There is a year-round station Summit Camp on
3944-436: The skarre-R , the uvular R sound ( [ʁ] ), began spreading through Denmark, likely through influence from Parisian French and German. It affected all of the areas where Danish had been influential, including all of Denmark, Southern Sweden, and coastal southern Norway. In the 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask , who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote
4080-454: The Skrælings (Norse word for Inuit, meaning "wretches" ). Recent archeological studies somewhat challenge the general assumption that the Norse colonization had a dramatic negative environmental effect on the vegetation. Data support traces of a possible Norse soil amendment strategy. More recent evidence suggests that the Norse, who never numbered more than about 2,500, gradually abandoned
4216-579: The 2008 Greenlandic self-government referendum , Greenlanders voted for the Self-Government Act, which transferred more power from the Danish government to the local Naalakkersuisut (Greenlandic government). Under this structure, Greenland gradually assumed responsibility for a number of governmental services and areas of competence. The Danish government retains control of citizenship, monetary policy, and foreign affairs, including defence. Most residents of Greenland are Inuit. The population
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4352-662: The Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago . It is the world's largest island , and is the location of the northernmost point of land in the world – Kaffeklubben Island off the northern coast is the world's northernmost undisputed point of land , and Cape Morris Jesup on the mainland was thought to be so until the 1960s. Though a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe (specifically Norway and Denmark,
4488-522: The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation , or AMOC, by diluting key currents, slowing it down. Due to this meltwater input, the circulation may even collapse outright, with widespread detrimental effects, although research suggests this is only likely if highest possible warming is sustained for multiple centuries. Greenland ice sheet has a great volume of ~2,900,000 cubic kilometres (696,000 cu mi). This means that if it were all to melt,
4624-517: The Bible in Danish, the Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen , was published in 1550. Pedersen's orthographic choices set the de facto standard for subsequent writing in Danish. From around 1500, several printing presses were in operation in Denmark publishing in Danish and other languages. In the period after 1550, presses in Copenhagen dominated the publication of material in
4760-710: The European Economic Community (EEC) upon achieving self-rule, as it did not agree with the EEC's commercial fishing regulations and an EEC ban on seal skin products. Greenland voters approved a referendum on greater autonomy on 25 November 2008. According to one study, the 2008 vote created what "can be seen as a system between home rule and full independence". On 21 June 2009, Greenland gained self-rule with provisions for assuming responsibility for self-government of judicial affairs , policing, and natural resources . Also, Greenlanders were recognized as
4896-654: The Kingdom of Denmark . It is the larger of two autonomous territories within the Kingdom, the other being the Faroe Islands ; the citizens of both territories are full citizens of Denmark . As Greenland is one of the Overseas Countries and Territories of the European Union , citizens of Greenland are European Union citizens . The capital and largest city of Greenland is Nuuk . Greenland lies between
5032-570: The Late Middle Ages . Out of the 500 most frequently used Danish words, 100 are loans from Middle Low German; this is because Low German was the second official language of Denmark–Norway. In the 17th and 18th centuries, standard German and French superseded Low German influence, and in the 20th century, English became the main supplier of loanwords, especially after World War II . Although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, for example æde (to eat)
5168-523: The Old Norse language ; Danish and Swedish are also classified as East Scandinavian or East Nordic languages. Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum , where no sharp dividing lines are seen between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, and has been influenced by English since
5304-494: The Skaergaard intrusion . Notable rock provinces ( metamorphic igneous rocks, ultramafics, and anorthosites) are found on the southwest coast at Qeqertarsuatsiaat. East of Nuuk, the banded iron ore region of Isukasia, over three billion years old, contains the world's oldest rocks, such as greenlandite (a rock composed predominantly of hornblende and hyperthene), formed 3.8 billion years ago, and nuummite. In southern Greenland,
5440-1091: The United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during the Viking Era . Danish, together with Swedish, derives from the East Norse dialect group , while the Middle Norwegian language (before the influence of Danish) and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic . A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian , and Swedish as "mainland (or continental ) Scandinavian", while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as "insular Scandinavian". Although
5576-591: The Western Settlement , and the Middle Settlement —on fjords near the southwestern tip of the island. They shared the island with the late Dorset culture inhabitants, who occupied the northern and western parts, and later with those of the Thule culture, who entered from the north. Norse Greenlanders submitted to Norwegian rule in 1261 under the Kingdom of Norway . The Kingdom of Norway entered
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5712-798: The Western United States or the Midwestern United States . California has the largest population of people of Danish descent in the United States. Notable Danish communities in the United States are located in Solvang, California , and Racine, Wisconsin , but these populations are not considered to be Danes for official purposes by the Danish government , and heritage alone can not be used to claim Danish citizenship, as it can in some European nations. According to
5848-544: The Zealand dialect Introductio ad lingvam Danicam puta selandicam ; and in 1685 the first Danish grammar written in Danish, Den Danske Sprog-Kunst ("The Art of the Danish Language") by Peder Syv . Major authors from this period are Thomas Kingo , poet and psalmist, and Leonora Christina Ulfeldt , whose novel Jammersminde ( Remembered Woes ) is considered a literary masterpiece by scholars. Orthography
5984-402: The introduction of the printing press , a standard language was developed which was based on the educated dialect of Copenhagen and Malmö . It spread through use in the education system and administration, though German and Latin continued to be the most important written languages well into the 17th century. Following the loss of territory to Germany and Sweden, a nationalist movement adopted
6120-551: The 1830s, and after the European revolutions of 1848 Denmark became a constitutional monarchy on 5 June 1849. The growing bourgeoisie had demanded a share in government, and in an attempt to avert the sort of bloody revolution occurring elsewhere in Europe, Frederick VII gave in to the demands of the citizens. A new constitution emerged, separating the powers and granting the franchise to all adult males, as well as freedom of
6256-563: The 1920s suggest that the condition of human bones from this period indicates that the Norse population was malnourished, possibly because of soil erosion resulting from the Norsemen's destruction of natural vegetation in the course of farming, turf-cutting, and wood-cutting. Malnutrition may also have resulted from widespread deaths from pandemic plague; the decline in temperatures during the Little Ice Age; and armed conflicts with
6392-527: The 2006 Census, there were 200,035 Canadians with Danish background , 17,650 of whom were born in Denmark. Canada became an important destination for the Danes during the post war period. At one point, a Canadian immigration office was to be set up in Copenhagen . In Greenland , a self-governing territory under Danish sovereignty , there are approximately 6,348 Danish Greenlanders making up roughly 11% of
6528-486: The 2021 event, rain fell at Greenland's highest point for the first time in recorded history: an event so unexpected that the research station at the summit had no rain gauges for the occasion. As with the ice losses elsewhere, the melting of Greenland contributes to sea level rise. Between 2012 and 2017, this melting had added an average of 0.68 mm per year, which was equivalent to 37% of sea level rise from land ice sources (excluding thermal expansion of water from
6664-579: The 9th century with the younger futhark . Possibly as far back as the seventh century, the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, resulting in the appearance of two dialect areas, Old West Norse ( Norway and Iceland ) and Old East Norse ( Denmark and Sweden ). Most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse
6800-597: The Danish Viking expansion , which incorporated Norway and England into the Danish North Sea Empire . After the death of Canute the Great in 1035, England broke away from Danish control. Canute's nephew Sweyn Estridson (1020–74) re-established strong royal Danish authority and built a good relationship with the archbishop of Bremen , at that time the archbishop of all Scandinavia . Over
6936-531: The Danish language, and also started a period of homogenization, whereby the Copenhagen standard language gradually displaced the regional vernacular languages. Throughout the 19th century, Danes emigrated, establishing small expatriate communities in the Americas, particularly in the United States, Canada, and Argentina, where memory and some use of Danish remains today. After the Schleswig referendum in 1920 ,
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#17327578284177072-517: The Danish language. Herrer og Narre have frit Sprog . "Lords and jesters have free speech." Peder Syv , proverbs Following the first Bible translation, the development of Danish as a written language , as a language of religion, administration, and public discourse accelerated. In the second half of the 17th century, grammarians elaborated grammars of Danish, first among them Rasmus Bartholin 's 1657 Latin grammar De studio lingvæ danicæ ; then Laurids Olufsen Kock 's 1660 grammar of
7208-432: The Danish population, and in recent reactions in the Danish public to the increasing influence of immigration . The Danish diaspora consists of emigrants and their descendants, especially those who maintain some of the customs of their Danish culture. A minority of approximately fifty thousand Danish-identifying German citizens live in the former Danish territory of Southern Schleswig ( Sydslesvig) , now located within
7344-407: The Danish tongue." Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson By the eighth century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse . This language was generally called the "Danish tongue" ( Dǫnsk tunga ), or "Norse language" ( Norrœnt mál ). Norse was written in the runic alphabet , first with the elder futhark and from
7480-692: The European Common Market in 1972, Denmark began to seek a different status for Greenland, resulting in the Home Rule Act of 1979. This gave Greenland limited autonomy with its own legislature taking control of some internal policies, while the Parliament of Denmark maintained full control of external policies, security, and natural resources. The law came into effect on 1 May 1979. The King of Denmark , Frederik X , remains Greenland's head of state . In 1985, Greenland left
7616-447: The Greenland settlements over the 15th century as walrus ivory , the most valuable export from Greenland, decreased in price because of competition with other sources of higher-quality ivory, and that there was actually little evidence of starvation or difficulties. Other explanations of the disappearance of the Norse settlements have been proposed: The Thule people are the ancestors of the current Greenlandic population. No genes from
7752-727: The Illimaussaq alkaline complex consists of pegmatites such as nepheline, syenites (especially kakortokite or naujaite) and sodalite (sodalite-foya). In Ivittuut, where cryolite was formerly mined, there are fluoride -bearing pegmatites. To the north of Igaliku, there are the Gardar alkaline pegmatitic intrusions of augite syenite, gabbro, etc. To the west and southwest are Palaeozoic carbonatite complexes at Kangerlussuaq (Gardiner complex) and Safartoq, and basic and ultrabasic igneous rocks at Uiffaq on Disko Island, where there are masses of heavy native iron up to 25 t (28 short tons) in
7888-623: The Inuit. It is republished in The Norse Atlantic Sagas , by Gwyn Jones. Jones reports that there is also an account of perhaps the same incident, of more doubtful provenance, told by the Norse side. In 1500, King Manuel I of Portugal sent Gaspar Corte-Real to Greenland in search of a Northwest Passage to Asia which, according to the Treaty of Tordesillas , was part of Portugal's sphere of influence. In 1501, Corte-Real returned with his brother, Miguel Corte-Real . Finding
8024-523: The Little Ice Age showed a significant decrease in maximum summer temperatures beginning about the turn of the 14th century—as much as 6 to 8 °C (11 to 14 °F) lower than modern summer temperatures. The study also found that the lowest winter temperatures of the last 2,000 years occurred in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The Eastern Settlement was probably abandoned in the early to mid-15th century, during this cold period . Theories drawn from archeological excavations at Herjolfsnes in
8160-444: The Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Greenland Greenland ( Greenlandic : Kalaallit Nunaat , pronounced [kalaːɬːit nʉnaːt] ; Danish : Grønland , pronounced [ˈkʁɶnˌlænˀ] ) is a North American island autonomous territory of
8296-547: The Norse. When it re-established contact with Greenland in the early 17th century, Denmark-Norway asserted its sovereignty over the island. In 1721 a joint mercantile and clerical expedition led by Dano-Norwegian missionary Hans Egede was sent to Greenland, not knowing whether a Norse civilization remained there. This expedition is part of the Dano-Norwegian colonization of the Americas . After 15 years in Greenland, Hans Egede left his son Paul Egede in charge of
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#17327578284178432-710: The Old Norse word for "island". This monophthongization started in Jutland and spread eastward, having spread throughout Denmark and most of Sweden by 1100. Through Danish conquest, Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England . Many words derived from Norse, such as "gate" ( gade ) for street, still survive in Yorkshire , the East Midlands and East Anglia, and parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings . The city of York
8568-462: The Paleo-Inuit have been found in the present population of Greenland. The Thule culture migrated eastward from what is now known as Alaska around 1000 AD, reaching Greenland around 1300. The Thule culture was the first to introduce to Greenland such technological innovations as dog sleds and toggling harpoons . There is an account of contact and conflict with the Norse population, as told by
8704-431: The United States developed a geopolitical interest in Greenland and in 1946 offered to buy the island from Denmark for $ 100,000,000; the Danish rejected the offer. In the 21st century, the United States remains interested in investing in the resource base of Greenland and in tapping hydrocarbons off the Greenlandic coast. In August 2019, the US again proposed to buy the country, prompting premier Kim Kielsen to issue
8840-600: The area, eventually outnumbering the Danish speakers. The political loss of territory sparked a period of intense nationalism in Denmark, coinciding with the so-called " Golden Age " of Danish culture. Authors such as N.F.S. Grundtvig emphasized the role of language in creating national belonging. Some of the most cherished Danish-language authors of this period are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen . The influence of popular literary role models, together with increased requirements of education did much to strengthen
8976-448: The atlas's editor, commented: In the last two or three decades, global warming has reduced the size of glaciers throughout the Arctic and earlier this year, news sources confirmed what climate scientists already knew: water, not rock, lay beneath this ice bridge on the east coast of Greenland. More islets are likely to appear as the sheet of frozen water covering the world's largest island continues to melt. Some controversy surrounds
9112-473: The basalts. The paleontology of East Greenland is specially rich, with some of the early tetrapods such as the Devonian Acanthostega and Ichthyostega , and unique triassic animals such as the phytosaur Mystriosuchus alleroq and the dinosaurs Issi saaneq and tracks. Greenland is home to two ecoregions: Kalaallit Nunaat high arctic tundra and Kalaallit Nunaat low arctic tundra . There are approximately 700 known species of insects in Greenland, which
9248-493: The bishops of Gardar , and the collection of tithes. A chapter in the Konungs skuggsjá ( The King's Mirror ) describes Norse Greenland 's exports, imports, and grain cultivation. Icelandic saga accounts of life in Greenland were composed in the 13th century and later, and are not primary sources for the history of early Norse Greenland. Those accounts are closer to primary for more contemporaneous accounts of late Norse Greenland. Modern understanding therefore mostly depends on
9384-627: The borders of Germany, forming around ten percent of the local population. In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as "Danes south of the border" ( De danske syd for grænsen ), the "Danish-minded" ( de dansksindede ), or simply "South Schleswigers". Due to immigration there are considerable populations with Danish roots outside Denmark in countries such as the United States, Brazil , Canada , Greenland and Argentina . Danish Americans ( Dansk-amerikanere ) are Americans of Danish descent. There are approximately 1,500,000 Americans of Danish origin or descent. Most Danish-Americans live in
9520-414: The colonial powers) for more than a millennium, beginning in 986. Greenland has been inhabited at intervals over at least the last 4,500 years by circumpolar peoples whose forebears migrated there from what is now Canada. Norsemen settled the uninhabited southern part of Greenland beginning in the 10th century (having previously settled Iceland ), and the 13th century saw the arrival of Inuit . In
9656-552: The continual increase in the ocean heat content ). By the end of the century, the melting of Greenland alone would add between ~ 6 cm ( 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 in) if the temperatures are kept below 2 °C (3.6 °F), to around 13 cm (5 in) if the most intense climate change scenario with ever-increasing greenhouse gas emissions is followed. Under this scenario, the worst case for Greenland melting could reach 33 cm (13 in) of sea level rise equivalent. The large quantities of fresh meltwater also affect
9792-645: The control of the Danish monarch. Norway occupied then-uninhabited eastern Greenland as Erik the Red's Land in July 1931, claiming that it constituted terra nullius . Norway and Denmark agreed to submit the matter in 1933 to the Permanent Court of International Justice , which decided against Norway. Greenland's connection to Denmark was severed on 9 April 1940, early in World War ;II , after Denmark
9928-431: The conversion of the Danes to Christianity by Harald Bluetooth in the 10th century. Between c. 960 and the early 980s, Bluetooth established a kingdom in the lands of the Danes, stretching from Jutland to Scania. Around the same time, he received a visit from a German missionary who, by surviving an ordeal by fire according to legend, convinced Harold to convert to Christianity . The following years saw
10064-653: The dismantling of the Kalmar Union and the establishment of Denmark–Norway . Denmark–Norway grew wealthy during the 16th century, largely because of the increased traffic through the Øresund . The Crown of Denmark could tax the traffic, because it controlled both sides of the Sound at the time. The Reformation , which originated in the German lands in the early 16th century from the ideas of Martin Luther (1483–1546), had
10200-462: The early 17th century, Dano-Norwegian explorers reached Greenland again. When Denmark and Norway separated in 1814, Greenland was transferred to the Danish crown, and was fully integrated in the Danish state in 1953 under the Constitution of Denmark , which made the people in Greenland citizens of Denmark. In the 1979 Greenlandic home rule referendum , Denmark granted home rule to Greenland; in
10336-474: The east coast of Greenland just north of Cape Farewell , which is almost inaccessible due to southward drifting ice . The pilot on all three trips was English explorer James Hall . After the Norse settlements died off, Greenland came under the de facto control of various Inuit groups, but the Dano-Norwegian government never forgot or relinquished the claims to Greenland that it had inherited from
10472-508: The exclusive use of rigsdansk , the High Copenhagen Standard, in national broadcasting, the traditional dialects came under increased pressure. In the 20th century, they have all but disappeared, and the standard language has extended throughout the country. Minor regional pronunciation variation of the standard language, sometimes called regionssprog ("regional languages") remain, and are in some cases vital. Today,
10608-582: The existence of a new island was announced. Named " Uunartoq Qeqertaq " (English: Warming Island ), this island has always been present off the coast of Greenland, but was covered by a glacier. This glacier was discovered in 2002 to be shrinking rapidly, and by 2007 had completely melted away, leaving the exposed island. The island was named Place of the Year by the Oxford Atlas of the World in 2007. Ben Keene,
10744-623: The facilities. After the collapse of the Third Reich, Albert Speer briefly considered escaping in a small aeroplane to hide out in Greenland, but changed his mind and decided to surrender to the United States Armed Forces . Greenland had been a protected and very isolated society until 1940. The Danish government had maintained a strict monopoly of Greenlandic trade , allowing no more than small scale barter trading with British whalers. In wartime Greenland developed
10880-451: The first English-language grammar of Danish. Literary Danish continued to develop with the works of Ludvig Holberg , whose plays and historical and scientific works laid the foundation for the Danish literary canon. With the Danish colonization of Greenland by Hans Egede , Danish became the administrative and religious language there, while Iceland and the Faroe Islands had the status of Danish colonies with Danish as an official language until
11016-417: The formerly Norway, Faroe Islands , and Greenland ; members of the German minority; and members of other ethnic minorities. Importantly, since its formulation, Danish identity has not been linked to a particular racial or biological heritage, as many other ethno-national identities have. N. F. S. Grundtvig , for example, emphasized the Danish language and the emotional relation to and identification with
11152-447: The global sea levels would increase by ~7.4 m (24 ft) from that alone. However, it also means that it will take at least 1,000 years for the ice sheet to disappear even with very high warming, and in around 10,000 years under lower warming which still crosses the threshold for the ice sheet's disappearance. This threshold likely lies for the global warming between 1.7 °C (3.1 °F) and 2.3 °C (4.1 °F). Reducing
11288-426: The history of Danish into a period from 800 AD to 1525 to be "Old Danish", which he subdivided into "Runic Danish" (800–1100), Early Middle Danish (1100–1350) and Late Middle Danish (1350–1525). Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu . " Dyggvi 's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg 's son, who was the first to be called king in
11424-405: The history of the island, specifically over whether the island might have been revealed during a brief warm period in Greenland during the mid-20th century. Greenland ice sheet always loses some mass from ice calving at its coasts, but it used to gain more ice on average due to the accumulation of snowfall. Yet, Greenland has been warming starting from around 1900, and starting from 1980s,
11560-614: The hope that the pleasant name would attract settlers. The Saga of Erik the Red states: "In the summer, Erik left to settle in the country he had found, which he called Greenland, as he said people would be attracted there if it had a favorable name." The name of the territory in the Greenlandic language is Kalaallit Nunaat ' land of the Kalaallit ' . The Kalaallit are the Greenlandic Inuit who inhabit
11696-422: The ice sheet, Greenland is composed of three large islands. This is disputed, but if it is so, they would be separated by narrow straits, reaching the sea at Ilulissat Icefjord , at Greenland's Grand Canyon and south of Nordostrundingen . All towns and settlements of Greenland are situated along the ice-free coast, with the population being concentrated along the west coast. The northeastern part of Greenland
11832-402: The ice sheet, established in 1989. The radio station Jørgen Brønlund Fjord was, until 1950, the northernmost permanent outpost in the world. The extreme north of Greenland, Peary Land , is not covered by an ice sheet, because the air there is too dry to produce snow, which is essential in the production and maintenance of an ice sheet. If the Greenland ice sheet were to melt away completely,
11968-545: The island Greenland . In the Icelandic sagas , the Norwegian Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland with his father, Thorvald, who had committed manslaughter. With his extended family and his thralls ( slaves or serfs ) , he set out in ships to explore an icy land known to lie to the northwest. After finding a habitable area and settling there, he named it Grœnland (translated as "Greenland"), supposedly in
12104-424: The language as a token of Danish identity, and the language experienced a strong surge in use and popularity, with major works of literature produced in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though regional variants of the standard language exist. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative. Danish has
12240-547: The language of the courts. Since 1997, public authorities have been obliged to follow the official spelling system laid out in the Orthography Law. In the 21st century, discussions have been held with a view to create a law that would make Danish the official language of Denmark. In addition, a noticeable community of Danish speakers is in Southern Schleswig , the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, and
12376-608: The largest in North America. The lowest temperature ever recorded in the Northern Hemisphere was recorded in Greenland, near the topographic summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet , on 22 December 1991, when the temperature reached −69.6 °C (−93.3 °F). In Nuuk, the average daily temperature varies over the seasons from −5.1 to 9.9 °C (22.8 to 49.8 °F). The total area of Greenland
12512-479: The losses became larger than the gains. After 1996, Greenland has not had a single year when it did not lose mass on average. In 2010s, Greenland ice sheet had been melting at its fastest rate over at least the past 12,000 years, and on track to exceed that later in the century. In 2012, 2019 and 2021, so-called "massive melting events" had occurred, when practically the entire surface of the ice sheet had been melting and no accumulation had been taking place. During
12648-407: The major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagen Standard, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of the capital, and low Copenhagen speech traditionally associated with the working class, but today adopted as the prestige variety of the younger generations. Also, in the 21st century, the influence of immigration has had linguistic consequences, such as the emergence of
12784-422: The mid-20th century. Moders navn er vort Hjertesprog, kun løs er al fremmed Tale. Det alene i mund og bog, kan vække et folk af dvale. "Mother's name is our hearts' tongue, only idle is all foreign speech It alone, in mouth or in book, can rouse a people from sleep." N.F.S. Grundtvig , "Modersmaalet" Following the loss of Schleswig to Germany, a sharp influx of German speakers moved into
12920-417: The mission there and returned to Denmark, where he established a Greenland Seminary. This new colony was centred at Godthåb ("Good Hope") on the southwest coast. Gradually, Greenland was opened up to Danish merchants, but closed to those from other countries. When the union between the crowns of Denmark and Norway was dissolved in 1814, the Treaty of Kiel severed Norway's former colonies and left them under
13056-560: The most important cultural practices and values were shared. This inclusive ethnicity has in turn been described as the background for the relative lack of virulent antisemitism in Denmark and the rescue of the Danish Jews , saving 99% of Denmark's Jewish population from the Holocaust . Modern Danish cultural identity is rooted in the birth of the Danish national state during the 19th century. In this regard, Danish national identity
13192-406: The nation of Denmark as the defining criteria of Danishness. This cultural definition of ethnicity has been suggested to be one of the reasons that Denmark was able to integrate their earliest ethnic minorities of Jewish and Polish origins into the Danish ethnic group with much more success than neighboring Germany. Jewishness was not seen as being incompatible with a Danish ethnic identity, as long as
13328-463: The next centuries, the Danish empire expanded throughout the southern Baltic coast. Under the 14th century king Olaf II , Denmark acquired control of the Kingdom of Norway , which included the territories of Norway , Iceland and the Faroese Islands . Olaf's mother, Margrethe I , united Norway, Sweden and Denmark into the Kalmar Union . In 1523, Sweden won its independence, leading to
13464-551: The past 100,000 years. Similarly the Icelandic Book of Settlements records famines during the winters, in which "the old and helpless were killed and thrown over cliffs". These Norse settlements vanished during the 14th and early 15th centuries. The demise of the Western Settlement coincides with a decrease in summer and winter temperatures. A study of North Atlantic seasonal temperature variability during
13600-557: The physical data from archeological sites. Interpretation of ice-core and clam-shell data suggests that between AD 800 and 1300 the regions around the fjords of southern Greenland had a relatively mild climate, several degrees Celsius warmer than usual in the North Atlantic with trees and herbaceous plants growing and livestock being farmed. Barley was grown as a crop up to the 70th parallel. The ice cores show that Greenland has had dramatic temperature shifts many times in
13736-703: The populations of the Scanian lands , who had previously been considered Danish, came to be fully integrated as Swedes . In the early 19th century, Denmark suffered a defeat in the Napoleonic Wars ; Denmark lost control over Norway and territories in what is now northern Germany . The political and economic defeat ironically sparked what is known as the Danish Golden Age during which a Danish national identity first came to be fully formed. The Danish liberal and national movements gained momentum in
13872-427: The press, religion, and association. The king became head of the executive branch . Danishness ( danskhed ) is the concept on which contemporary Danish national and ethnic identity is based. It is a set of values formed through the historic trajectory of the formation of the Danish nation. The ideology of Danishness emphasizes the notion of historical connection between the population and the territory of Denmark and
14008-443: The relation between the thousand-year-old Danish monarchy and the modern Danish state, the 19th-century national romantic idea of "the people" ( folk ), a view of Danish society as homogeneous and socially egalitarian as well as strong cultural ties to other Scandinavian nations. As a concept, det danske folk (the Danish people) played an important role in 19th-century ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than
14144-577: The sea frozen, they headed south and arrived in Labrador and Newfoundland . Upon the brothers' return to Portugal, the cartographic information supplied by Corte-Real was incorporated into a new map of the world which was presented to Ercole I d'Este , Duke of Ferrara , by Alberto Cantino in 1502. The Cantino planisphere , made in Lisbon, accurately depicts the southern coastline of Greenland. In 1605–1607, King Christian IV of Denmark and Norway sent
14280-472: The shared written standard language remained). With the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the Danish state was further integrated, and the language of the Danish chancellery, a Zealandic variety with German and French influence, became the de facto official standard language , especially in writing—this was the original so-called rigsdansk ("Danish of the Realm"). Also, beginning in the mid-18th century,
14416-677: The site of Saqqaq, for which the culture is named. From 2400 BC to 1300 BC, the Independence I culture existed in northern Greenland. It was a part of the Arctic small-tool tradition . Towns, including Deltaterrasserne , appeared. About 800 BC, the Saqqaq culture disappeared and the Early Dorset culture emerged in western Greenland and the Independence II culture in northern Greenland. The Dorset culture
14552-490: The statement, "Greenland is not for sale and cannot be sold, but Greenland is open for trade and cooperation with other countries—including the United States." In 1950, Denmark agreed to allow the US to regain the use of Thule Air Base ; it was greatly expanded between 1951 and 1953 as part of a unified NATO Cold War defence strategy. The local population of three nearby villages was moved more than 100 km (62 miles) away in
14688-451: The system of government changed: Governor Eske Brun ruled the island under a law of 1925 that allowed governors to take control under extreme circumstances; Governor Aksel Svane was transferred to the United States to lead the commission to supply Greenland. The Danish Sirius Patrol guarded the northeastern shores of Greenland in 1942 using dog sleds. They detected several German weather stations and alerted American troops, who destroyed
14824-423: The territory's population. The most common Y-DNA haplogroups among Danes are R1b (37.3 %) and I1 (32.8 %). [REDACTED] Media related to Danes at Wikimedia Commons Danish language Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] )
14960-507: The territory's western region. In prehistoric times, Greenland was home to several successive Paleo-Inuit cultures known primarily through archaeological finds. The earliest entry of the Paleo-Inuit into Greenland is thought to have occurred about 2500 BC. From about 2500 BC to 800 BC, southern and western Greenland was inhabited by the Saqqaq culture . Most finds of remains from that period have been around Disko Bay , including
15096-787: The third largest area in North America after Canada and the United States. It is between latitudes 59° and 83°N , and longitudes 11° and 74°W . Greenland is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Greenland Sea to the east, the North Atlantic Ocean to the southeast, the Davis Strait to the southwest, Baffin Bay to the west, the Nares Strait and Lincoln Sea to the northwest. The nearest countries to Greenland are Canada, with which it shares
15232-486: The three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that the mutual intelligibility is asymmetric: Norwegian speakers generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Concomitantly, Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. Norwegian occupies the middle position in terms of intelligibility because of its shared border with Sweden, resulting in
15368-445: The turn of the 20th century. Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas: Jutlandic (West Danish), Insular Danish (including the standard variety), and East Danish (including Bornholmian and Scanian ). According to the view that Scandinavian is a dialect continuum, East Danish can be considered intermediary between Danish and Swedish, while Scanian can be considered a Swedified East Danish dialect, and Bornholmian
15504-411: The vernacular language to be accessible also to those who were not Latinate. The Jutlandic Law and Scanian Law were written in vernacular Danish in the early 13th century. Beginning in 1350, Danish began to be used as a language of administration, and new types of literature began to be written in the language, such as royal letters and testaments. The orthography in this period was not standardized nor
15640-469: The vernacular, such as the plural form of verbs, should be conserved in writing (i.e. han er "he is" vs. de ere "they are"). The East Danish provinces were lost to Sweden after the Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645) after which they were gradually Swedified; just as Norway was politically severed from Denmark, beginning also a gradual end of Danish influence on Norwegian (influence through
15776-411: The warming back to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) above preindustrial levels or lower (such as through large-scale carbon dioxide removal ) would arrest the losses, but still cause greater ultimate sea level rise than if the threshold had never been exceeded. Further, 1.5 °C (2.7 °F) itself appears to commit the ice sheet to 1.4 m ( 4 + 1 ⁄ 2 ft) of sea level rise. The island
15912-516: The whore-bed with another man's wife and he comes away alive..." Jutlandic Law, 1241 In the medieval period, Danish emerged as a separate language from Swedish. The main written language was Latin, and the few Danish-language texts preserved from this period are written in the Latin alphabet, although the runic alphabet seems to have lingered in popular usage in some areas. The main text types written in this period are laws, which were formulated in
16048-468: The winter. The United States tried to construct a subterranean network of secret nuclear missile launch sites in the Greenlandic ice cap, named Project Iceworm . According to documents declassified in 1996, this project was managed from Camp Century from 1960 to 1966 before abandonment as unworkable. The missiles were never fielded, and necessary consent from the Danish Government to do so
16184-492: The word by , meaning ‘village’ or ‘town’, occurs in many English place-names, such as Whitby and Selby , as remnants of the Viking occupation . During that period English adopted ‘are’, the third person plural form of the verb ‘to be’, as well as the personal pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ from contemporary Old Norse. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish . A proficient speaker of any of
16320-403: The world's sea level would rise by more than 7 m (23 ft). In 2003, a small island, 35 m × 15 m (115 ft × 49 ft) in length and width, was discovered by arctic explorer Dennis Schmitt and his team at the coordinates of 83-42 . Whether this island is permanent is not yet confirmed. If it is, it is the northernmost permanent known land on Earth. In 2007,
16456-489: The written languages are compatible, spoken Danish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either is variable between regions and speakers . Until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Southern Jutland and Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and
16592-492: Was a territory ruled by Denmark–Norway , one of whose official languages was Danish. Though Danish ceased to be an official language in Iceland in 1944, it is still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school, taught as a second foreign language after English. No law stipulates an official language for Denmark, making Danish the de facto official language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down Danish as
16728-400: Was also one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic ). Danish now acts as a lingua franca in Greenland, with a large percentage of native Greenlanders able to speak Danish as a second language (it was introduced into the education system as a compulsory language in 1928). About 10% of the population speaks Danish as their first language , due to immigration. Iceland
16864-489: Was built on a basis of peasant culture and Lutheran theology , with Grundtvig and his popular movement playing a prominent part in the process. Two defining cultural criteria of being Danish were speaking the Danish language and identifying Denmark as a homeland. The ideology of Danishness has been politically important in the formulation of Danish political relations with the EU , which has been met with considerable resistance in
17000-451: Was declared the sole official language of Greenland at the historic ceremony. Tourism increased significantly between 2015 and 2019, with the number of visitors increasing from 77,000 per year to 105,000. One source estimated that in 2019 the revenue from this aspect of the economy was about 450 million kroner (US$ 67 million). Like many aspects of the economy, this slowed dramatically in 2020 and into 2021, due to restrictions required as
17136-410: Was extended to Greenlanders. Danish policies toward Greenland consisted of a strategy of cultural assimilation — or de-Greenlandification. During this period, the Danish government promoted the exclusive use of the Danish language in official matters, and required Greenlanders to go to Denmark for their post-secondary education. Many Greenlandic children grew up in boarding schools in southern Denmark, and
17272-488: Was mostly supplanted by the Low German spise . As well as loanwords, new words can be freely formed by compounding existing words. In standard texts of contemporary Danish, Middle Low German loans account for about 16–17% of the vocabulary, Graeco-Latin loans 4–8%, French 2–4% and English about 1%. Danish and English are both Germanic languages. Danish is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse, and English
17408-429: Was never sought. The Danish government did not become aware of the programme's mission until 1997, when they discovered it while looking, in the declassified documents, for records related to the crash of a nuclear equipped B-52 bomber at Thule in 1968. With the 1953 Danish constitution, Greenland's colonial status ended as the island was incorporated into the Danish realm as an amt (county). Danish citizenship
17544-705: Was occupied by Nazi Germany . On 8 April 1941, the United States occupied Greenland to defend it against a possible invasion by Germany. The United States' occupation of Greenland continued until 1945. Greenland was able to buy goods from the United States and Canada by selling cryolite from the mine at Ivittuut . In World War II , the United States military used Bluie as a code name for Greenland, where they kept several bases named "Bluie (East or West) (sequential numeral)". The major air bases were Bluie West-1 at Narsarsuaq and Bluie West-8 at Søndre Strømfjord (Kangerlussuaq), both of which are still used as Greenland's major international airports. During this war,
17680-627: Was once the Viking settlement of Jorvik. Several other English words derive from Old East Norse, for example "knife" ( kniv ), "husband" ( husbond ), and "egg" ( æg ). The suffix "-by" for 'town' is common in place names in Yorkshire and the east Midlands, for example Selby, Whitby, Derby, and Grimsby. The word "dale" meaning valley is common in Yorkshire and Derbyshire placenames. Fangær man saar i hor seng mæth annæns mansz kunæ. oc kumær han burt liuænd... . "If one catches someone in
17816-666: Was part of the very ancient Precambrian continent of Laurentia , the eastern core of which forms the Greenland Shield, while the less exposed coastal strips become a plateau. On these ice-free coastal strips are sediments formed in the Precambrian , overprinted by metamorphism and now formed by glaciers, which continue into the Cenozoic and Mesozoic in parts of the island. In the east and west of Greenland there are remnants of flood basalts and igneous intrusions, such as
17952-604: Was presented in 1950, which recommended the introduction of a modern welfare state with Denmark's development as sponsor and model. In 1953, Greenland was made an equal part of the Danish Kingdom. Home rule was granted in 1979. In 1867, United States Secretary of State William H. Seward worked with former senator Robert J. Walker to explore the possibility of buying Greenland and, perhaps, Iceland . Opposition in Congress ended this project. Following World War II,
18088-463: Was still not standardized and the principles for doing so were vigorously discussed among Danish philologists. The grammar of Jens Pedersen Høysgaard was the first to give a detailed analysis of Danish phonology and prosody, including a description of the stød . In this period, scholars were also discussing whether it was best to "write as one speaks" or to "speak as one writes", including whether archaic grammatical forms that had fallen out of use in
18224-469: Was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei ) to the monophthong e , as in stæin to sten . This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . Also, a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr occurred. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey ) diphthong changed into ø , as well, as in
18360-668: Was the first culture to extend throughout the Greenlandic coastal areas, in the west and the east. It lasted until the total onset of the Thule culture , in AD ;1500. The people of the Dorset culture lived mainly by hunting whales and reindeer . From 986, the west coast was settled by Icelanders and Norwegians , through a contingent of 14 boats led by Erik the Red. They formed three settlements—the Eastern Settlement ,
18496-474: Was the spoken language, and the regional laws demonstrate the dialectal differences between the regions in which they were written. Throughout this period, Danish was in contact with Low German , and many Low German loan words were introduced in this period. With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Danish also became the language of religion, which sparked a new interest in using Danish as
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