Misplaced Pages

#575424

92-525: Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] ) 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 ,

184-799: A Danish minority population. As parliamentary representatives from Schleswig-Holstein, a member of the South Schleswig Voter Federation and a member of the Social Democrats with ties to the Danish minority were elected. The Sámi political structures long desired formal representation in the Nordic Council's structures, and were eventually granted observer status through the Sámi Parliamentary Council. In addition, representatives of

276-426: 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

368-623: A 1952 passport-free travel area, the Nordic Passport Union was created. These two measures helped ensure Nordic citizens' free movement around the area. A Nordic Convention on Social Security was implemented in 1955. There were also plans for a single market but they were abandoned in 1959 shortly before Denmark, Norway, and Sweden joined the European Free Trade Area (EFTA). Finland became an associated member of EFTA in 1961 and Denmark and Norway applied to join

460-778: A Native North American language, Navajo is sometimes described as fusional because of its complex and inseparable verb morphology. Some Amazonian languages such as Ayoreo have fusional morphology. The Fuegian language Selk'nam has fusional elements. For example, both evidentiality and gender agreement are coded with a single suffix on the verb: CERT:certainty (evidential):evidentiality Ya 1P k-tįmi REL -land x-įnn go- CERT . MASC nį-y PRES - MASC ya. 1P Ya k-tįmi x-įnn nį-y ya. 1P REL-land go-CERT.MASC PRES-MASC 1P 'I go to my land.' Some Nilo-Saharan languages such as Lugbara are also considered fusional. Fusional languages generally tend to lose their inflection over

552-576: 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

644-465: A gross domestic product of US$ 1.60   trillion, making it the twelfth largest economy in the world, larger than that of Australia, Spain, Mexico, or South Korea. Gunnar Wetterberg, a Swedish historian and economist, wrote a book entered into the Nordic Council's year book that proposes the creation of a Nordic Federation from the Council in a few decades. Fusional language For example,

736-753: A joint energy network was established. The Nordic Science Policy Council was set up in 1983 and, in 1984, representatives from Greenland were allowed to join the Danish delegation. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Nordic Council began to cooperate more with the Baltic states and new Baltic Sea organisations. Sweden and Finland joined the European Union (EU), the EEC's successor, in 1995. Norway had also applied, but once again voted against membership. However, Norway and Iceland did join

828-457: A people from sleep." N.F.S. Grundtvig , "Modersmaalet" Following the loss of Schleswig to Germany, a sharp influx of German speakers moved into 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

920-476: 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 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

1012-480: 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 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

SECTION 10

#1732765296576

1104-480: 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

1196-411: A specific theme. The council's official languages are Danish , Finnish , Icelandic , Norwegian , and Swedish , though it uses only the mutually intelligible Scandinavian languages —Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish—as its working languages . These three comprise the first language of around 80% of the region's population and are learned as a second or foreign language by the remaining 20%. In 1971,

1288-406: 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

1380-468: 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 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

1472-533: A word root is often placed into templates denoting its function in a sentence. Arabic is especially notable for this, with the common example being the root k-t-b being placed into multiple different patterns. Northeast Caucasian languages are weakly fusional. A limited degree of fusion is also found in many Uralic languages , like Hungarian , Estonian , Finnish , and the Sami languages , such as Skolt Sami , as they are primarily agglutinative . Unusual for

1564-699: 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,

1656-428: 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

1748-703: 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 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. Nordic Council 2 autonomous territories 1 autonomous region Chronological history The Nordic Council

1840-694: Is the official body for formal inter-parliamentary Nordic cooperation among the Nordic countries . Formed in 1952, it has 87 representatives from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden as well as from the autonomous areas of the Faroe Islands , Greenland , and Åland . The representatives are members of parliament in their respective countries or areas and are elected by those parliaments. The Council holds ordinary sessions each year in October/November and usually one extra session per year with

1932-600: 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 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

SECTION 20

#1732765296576

2024-762: The Digital Single Market , as well as discussing social matters, the Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union , the European migrant crisis and defense cooperation. Foreign relations in the wake of Russia's annexation of Crimea and the 2017 Turkish constitutional referendum were also on the agenda. Following the 2021 Scottish Parliament election , the Finnish member of Parliament Mikko Kärnä announced he would launch an initiative at

2116-597: The European Economic Area (EEA) which integrated them economically with the EU. The Nordic Passport Union was also subsumed into the EU's Schengen Area in 1996. The Nordic Council became more outward-looking, to the Arctic , Baltic, Europe, and Canada. The Øresund Bridge linking Sweden and Denmark led to a large amount of cross-border travel, which in turn led to further efforts to reduce barriers. However,

2208-631: The European Economic Community (EEC). This move towards the EEC led to desire for a formal Nordic treaty. The Helsinki Treaty outlined the workings of the council and came into force on 24 March 1962. Further advancements on Nordic cooperation were made in the following years: a Nordic School of Public Health, a Nordic Cultural Fund, and Nordic House in Reykjavík were created. Danish Prime Minister Hilmar Baunsgaard proposed full economic cooperation (" Nordek ") in 1968. Nordek

2300-602: The Faroe Islands and Åland were allowed to take part in the Nordic Council as part of the Danish and Finnish delegations. Norway turned down EEC membership in 1972 while Denmark acted as a bridge builder between the EEC and the Nordics. Also in 1973, although it did not opt for full membership of the EEC, Finland negotiated a free trade treaty with the EEC that in practice removed customs duties from 1977 on, although there were transition periods up to 1985 for some products. Sweden did not apply due to its non-alliance policy, which

2392-569: 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)

2484-591: The Nordic Council of Ministers , an intergovernmental forum, was established to complement the council. The Council and the Council of Ministers are involved in various forms of cooperation with neighbouring areas in Northern Europe , including the German state of Schleswig-Holstein , the Benelux countries and the Baltic states . During World War II, Denmark and Norway were occupied by Germany; Finland

2576-520: 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

2668-569: The Romance languages and certain Germanic languages . Some languages shift over time from agglutinative to fusional. For example, most Uralic languages are predominantly agglutinative, but Estonian is markedly evolving in the direction of a fusional language. On the other hand, Finnish , its close relative, exhibits fewer fusional traits and thereby has stayed closer to the mainstream Uralic type. However, Sámi languages , while also part of

2760-519: 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 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

2852-611: The Spanish verb comer ("to eat") has the first-person singular preterite tense form comí ("I ate"); the single suffix -í represents both the features of first-person singular agreement and preterite tense, instead of having a separate affix for each feature. Another illustration of fusionality is the Latin word bonus ("good"). The ending -us denotes masculine gender , nominative case , and singular number . Changing any one of these features requires replacing

Danish language - Misplaced Pages Continue

2944-688: 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

3036-514: 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, 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

3128-401: 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

3220-443: The 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask , who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote 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

3312-458: The 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine . Further Nordic co-operation, such as an economic customs union, also failed. This led Danish Prime Minister Hans Hedtoft to propose, on 13 August 1951, a consultative interparliamentary body. This proposal was agreed by Denmark, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden during a meeting in Copenhagen on 15–16 March 1952. The council's first session was held in

3404-577: 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

3496-506: The Baltic states' application for formal observer status, the council nevertheless has extensive cooperation on different levels with all neighbouring countries, including the Baltic states and Germany, especially the state of Schleswig-Holstein. Representatives of Schleswig-Holstein were present as informal guests during a session for the first time in 2016. The state has historical ties to Denmark and cross-border cooperation with Denmark and has

3588-708: 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 , a number of Danes remained as a minority within German territories . After

3680-481: The Council emphasised that the secretariat must include personnel with comprehensive understanding of Finnish and Icelandic as well. The then-President of the Council Michael Tetzschner thought the compromise good but also expressed concern over the change's expenses and hoped they would not increase so much that there would be pressure to switch over to using English. The Nordic Council and

3772-599: The Council of Ministers also define Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Russia as "Adjacent Areas" and has formal cooperation with them under the Adjacent Areas policies framework. The Nordic Council had historically been a strong supporter of Baltic independence from the Soviet Union. During the move towards independence in the Baltic States in 1991, Denmark and Iceland pressed for the Observer Status in

Danish language - Misplaced Pages Continue

3864-526: The Danish Parliament on 13 February 1953 and it elected Hans Hedtoft as its president. When Finnish-Soviet relations thawed following the death of Joseph Stalin , Finland joined the council in 1955, following a voting in the Parliament of Finland on 28 October that year, effective from 23 December the same year. On 2 July 1954, the Nordic labour market was created and in 1958, building upon

3956-406: 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

4048-589: 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 , 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

4140-604: 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, the major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagen Standard, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of

4232-576: The Member States before they become members of the Union remain valid, even if they are contrary to the provisions of Union law. However, each Member State must take all necessary measures to eliminate any discrepancies as quickly as possible. Nordic co-operation can therefore in practice only be designed to the extent that it complies with Union law. The Nordic Council consists of 87 representatives, elected from its members' parliaments and reflecting

4324-476: The Nordic Council for the then-nonsovereign Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The move in 1991 was opposed by Norway and Finland. The move was heavily opposed by the Soviet Union , accusing the Nordic Council of getting involved in its internal affairs. In the same year, the Nordic Council refused to give observer status for the three, at the time nonsovereign, Baltic states. While the Nordic Council rejected

4416-548: The Nordic Council has not been involved in any military cooperation. The original Nordic Council concentrates on inter-parliamentary cooperation. The Nordic Council of Ministers , founded in 1971, is responsible for intergovernmental cooperation. Prime Ministers have ultimate responsibility but this is usually delegated to the Minister for Nordic Cooperation and the Nordic Committee for Co-operation, which coordinates

4508-839: The Nordic Council of Ministers have a particular focus on strengthening the Nordic language community; the main focus of their work to promote language understanding in the Nordic countries is on children and young people's understanding of written and oral Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, the three mutually intelligible Scandinavian languages . The Nordic Council and the Council of Ministers have their headquarters in Copenhagen and various installations in each separate country, as well as many offices in neighbouring countries. The headquarters are located at Ved Stranden No. 18, close to Slotsholmen . The Nordic Council has five full members (which are sovereign states) and three associate members (which are self-governing regions of full member states). As of December 2021 The Nordic Council comprises

4600-503: The Nordic Region : In Estonia , Latvia , Lithuania and the German state of Schleswig-Holstein . The offices form part of the secretariat of the Nordic Council of Ministers; according to the Council of Ministers their primary mission is to promote cooperation between the Nordic countries and the Baltic states and to promote the Nordic countries in cooperation with their embassies within the Baltic states. The Nordic Council and

4692-453: The Nordic council to grant Scotland observer status. Scotland's relationship with the Nordics has also been explored by Scottish journalist Anthony Heron, who would go on to interview Bertel Haarder on the topic. Some desire the Nordic Council's promotion of Nordic cooperation to go much further than at present. If the states of Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland were to merge in such an integration as some desire, it would command

SECTION 50

#1732765296576

4784-709: 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

4876-720: The Scandinavian languages). The council also publishes material in English for information purposes. The Council refers to Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish collectively as Scandinavian and considers them to be different forms of the same language forming a common language community. Since 1987, under the Nordic Language Convention , citizens of the Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any interpretation or translation costs. The Convention covers visits to hospitals, job centres,

4968-521: The Sámi people are de facto included in activities touching upon their interests. In addition, the Faroe Islands have expressed their wishes for full membership in the Nordic Council instead of the current associate membership. Three of the members of the Nordic Council (Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, all EU member states ), the Baltic Assembly , and the Benelux sought intensifying cooperation in

5060-558: The Uralic family, have gained more fusionality than Finnish and Estonian since they involve consonant gradation but also vowel apophony . Inflections in fusional languages tend to fall in two patterns, based on which part of speech they modify: declensions for nouns and adjectives, and conjugations for verbs. One feature of many fusional languages is their systems of declensions in which nouns and adjectives have an affix attached to them that specifies grammatical case (their uses in

5152-428: 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 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

5244-514: 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 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

5336-411: The centuries, some much more quickly than others. Proto-Indo-European was fusional, but some of its descendants have shifted to a more analytic structure such as Modern English , Danish and Afrikaans or to agglutinative such as Persian and Armenian . Other descendants remain fusional, including Sanskrit , Ancient Greek , Lithuanian , Latvian , Slavic languages , as well as Latin and

5428-630: The clause), number and grammatical gender . Pronouns may also alter their forms entirely to encode that information. Within a fusional language, there are usually more than one declension; Latin and Greek have five, and the Slavic languages have anywhere between three and seven. German has multiple declensions based on the vowel or consonant ending the word, though they tend to be more unpredictable. However, many descendants of fusional languages tend to lose their case marking. In most Romance and Germanic languages , including Modern English (with

5520-549: The council, "within the last couple of years, guests from other international and Nordic organisations have been able to take part in the debates at the Sessions. Visitors from the Baltic States and Northwest Russia are those who mostly take up this opportunity. Guests who have a connection to the theme under discussion are invited to the Theme Session." The Nordic Council of Ministers has established four Offices outside

5612-401: The day-to-day work. The autonomous territories have the same representation as states. The Nordic Council of Ministers has offices in the Baltic countries. The Nordic Council uses the three Continental Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish) as its official working languages, while interpretation and translation service is arranged for Finnish and Icelandic (but never between

SECTION 60

#1732765296576

5704-598: The event of a conflict and not ally with NATO , which some were planning at the time. The United States, keen on getting access to bases in Scandinavia and believing the Nordic countries incapable of defending themselves, stated it would not ensure military support for Scandinavia if they did not join NATO. As Denmark and Norway sought US aid for their post-war reconstruction, the project collapsed, with Denmark, Norway and Iceland joining NATO as founding members. Finland and Sweden joined NATO in 2023 and 2024, respectively, following

5796-513: 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 the Zealand dialect Introductio ad lingvam Danicam puta selandicam ; and in 1685

5888-556: 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 was still not standardized and the principles for doing so were vigorously discussed among Danish philologists. The grammar of Jens Pedersen Høysgaard

5980-725: The following party groups: In accordance with § 13 of the Rules of Procedure for the Nordic Council the Sámi Parliamentary Council is the only institution with observer status with the Nordic Council. In accordance with § 14, the Nordic Youth Council has the status of "guest" on a permanent basis, and the Presidium "may invite representatives of popularly elected bodies and other persons to a session and grant them speaking rights" as guests. According to

6072-425: 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

6164-544: The initially envisioned tasks and functions of the Nordic Council have become partially dormant due to the significant overlap with the EU and EEA. In 2008 Iceland began EU membership talks , but decided to annul these in 2015. Unlike the Benelux , there is no explicit provision in the Treaty on European Union that takes into account Nordic co-operation. However, the Treaties provide that international agreements concluded by

6256-424: 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

6348-434: 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 the Bible in Danish, the Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen ,

6440-457: The notable exceptions of German, Icelandic and Faroese), encoding for case is merely vestigial because it no longer encompasses nouns and adjectives but only pronouns. Compare the Italian egli (masculine singular nominative ), gli (masculine singular dative , or indirect object), lo (masculine singular accusative ) and lui (also masculine singular accusative but emphatic and indirect case to be used with prepositions), corresponding to

6532-427: 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 the exclusive use of rigsdansk ,

6624-402: The police, and social security offices. The languages included are Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish. On 31 October 2018, the council established it has five official languages, giving Finnish and Icelandic equal status with Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish from 1 January 2020 onward. While the working languages of the council's secretariat remain the three Scandinavian languages,

6716-578: The relative representation of the political parties in those parliaments. It holds its main session in the autumn, while a so-called "theme session" is arranged in the spring. Each of the national delegations has its own secretariat in the national parliament. The autonomous territories – Greenland, the Faroe Islands, and Åland – also have Nordic secretariats. The Council does not have any formal power on its own, but each government has to implement any decisions through its national legislature. With all countries being members of NATO,

6808-424: 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 the Danish language, and also started a period of homogenization, whereby

6900-451: The single vestigial trio he, him, his in English. Conjugation is the alteration of the form of a verb to encode information about some or all of grammatical mood , voice , tense , aspect , person , grammatical gender and number . In a fusional language, two or more of those pieces of information may be conveyed in a single morpheme, typically a suffix. For example, in French ,

6992-496: The suffix -us with a different one. In the form bonum , the ending -um denotes masculine accusative singular, neuter accusative singular, or neuter nominative singular. Many Indo-European languages feature fusional morphology, including: Another notable group of fusional languages is the Semitic languages , including Hebrew , Arabic , and Amharic . These also often involve nonconcatenative morphology , in which

7084-485: 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

7176-444: 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

7268-510: The verbal suffix depends on the mood, tense and aspect of the verb, as well as on the person and number (but not the gender) of its subject. That gives rise to typically 45 different single-word forms of the verb, each of which conveys some or all of the following: Changing any one of those pieces of information without changing the others requires the use of a different suffix, the key characteristic of fusionality. English has two examples of conjugational fusion. The verbal suffix -s indicates

7360-411: 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

7452-515: 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

7544-492: 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

7636-489: 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

7728-513: Was under assault by the Soviet Union ; while Sweden, though neutral, still felt the war's effects. Following the war, the Nordic countries pursued the idea of a Scandinavian defence union to ensure their mutual defence. However, Finland, due to its Paasikivi–Kekkonen policy of neutrality and FCMA treaty with the USSR, could not participate. It was proposed that the Nordic countries would unify their foreign policy and defence, remain neutral in

7820-407: Was agreed in 1970, but Finland then backtracked, stating that its ties with the Soviet Union meant it could not form close economic ties with potential members of the EEC (Denmark and Norway). Nordek was then abandoned. As a consequence, Denmark and Norway applied to join the EEC and the Nordic Council of Ministers was set up in 1971 to ensure continued Nordic cooperation. In 1970 representatives of

7912-682: Was aimed at preserving neutrality. Greenland subsequently left the EEC and has since sought a more active role in circumpolar affairs. In the 1970s, the Nordic Council founded the Nordic Industrial Fund , Nordtest and the Nordic Investment Bank . The council's remit was also expanded to include environmental protection and, in order to clean up the pollution in the Baltic Sea and the North Atlantic ,

8004-487: 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

8096-626: 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

8188-463: 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 the Danish language. Herrer og Narre have frit Sprog . "Lords and jesters have free speech." Peder Syv , proverbs Following

8280-469: 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

8372-500: 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 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

8464-538: 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 a literary language. Also in this period, Danish began to take on

#575424