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Prime Minister of Denmark

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74-541: The prime minister of Denmark ( Danish : Danmarks statsminister , Faroese : Forsætisráðharri , Greenlandic : Ministeriuneq ) is the head of government in the Kingdom of Denmark comprising the three constituent countries : Denmark , Greenland and the Faroe Islands . Before the creation of the modern office, the kingdom did not initially have a head of government separate from its head of state, namely

148-461: A parliamentary system by creating a new bicameral parliament ( Rigsdagen ) and a Council Presidium, headed by a council president. The Council Presidium is regarded as the predecessor of the modern Prime Minister's Office . The first council president was Adam Wilhelm Moltke , who came to power on 22 March 1848. Molte and his next two successors also held the title of premierminister , which translates as "prime minister". From 1855 onwards

222-429: 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

296-577: 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

370-513: A government ministry known as the "Ministry of the State of Denmark" ( Statsministeriet ) or Prime Minister's Office. Atypical of a Danish ministry it does not have any councils, boards or committees associated with it and its near sole responsibility is to act as the secretariat of the prime minister. There is a small department under the ministry that takes care of special legal issues not covered under other ministries, among others Greenland 's and

444-526: 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

518-543: A majority for each piece of legislation. Although, as stated, the monarch formally appoints all ministers of the cabinet freely according to the constitution, in practice monarchs only conventionally select the prime minister after a leader has gathered support from a majority in the Folketing. This has been the case since parliamentarianism became the convention after the Easter Crisis in 1920. Parliamentarianism

592-399: A new coalition cabinet, which is the presented to the monarch. The government is allowed to take office without a vote of confidence, and is allowed to stay in office as long as it does not lose a vote of no confidence . The prime minister chairs the weekly meetings of the cabinet meetings and has the power to set the agenda of these meetings. The prime minister traditionally gathers together

666-707: 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

740-482: 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

814-586: 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

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888-625: 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

962-407: 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

1036-565: Is Mette Frederiksen , since 27 June 2019. Since 2022 her cabinet consists of the Social Democrats , Venstre , and the Moderates . From approximately 1699 to 1730, the highest-ranking non-monarchial government official was titled "Grand Chancellor" ( storkansler ) and from 1730 until 1848, this office was titled "Minister of State" ( Statsminister ). These titles foreshadowed the modern office of prime minister, however, unlike

1110-700: 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,

1184-640: Is determined by their support in the Folketing (the National Parliament). Since the beginning of the 20th century, no single party has held a majority in the Folketing so the prime minister must head a coalition of political parties, as well as their own party. Additionally, only four coalition governments since World War II have enjoyed a majority in the Folketing, so the coalitions (and the prime minister) must also gain loose support from other minor parties. The current prime minister of Denmark

1258-456: Is frequently used for governmental conferences and informal summits between the government, industry and organisations in Denmark. Danish language 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

1332-430: 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

1406-474: Is located inside Christiansborg Palace , along with the Folketing and the courts . The official summer residence of the prime minister is Marienborg , an eighteenth-century estate that was acquired by the state. It is situated on the shore of Lake Bagsværd in Kgs. Lyngby , 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north of Copenhagen . It has served as an official summer residence for ten prime ministers since 1960. Marienborg

1480-507: Is no clear leader, the monarch will hold a "king/queen's meeting" where, after a series of discussions and agreements, the leader of the largest alliance and the largest party within that alliance—usually the Social Democrats or Venstre- is appointed as prime minister- elect ( kongelig undersøger , "royal investigator/examiner"). The new prime minister-elect, together with the leaders of the junior parties, select ministers to form

1554-436: 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

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1628-568: 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

1702-506: The Conservative People's Party , Poul Schlüter , came to power as the head of a broad centre-right coalition in 1982. The centre-right coalition rule until 1993, lasting for eleven years, made it the longest centre-right government in Danish history since the 1920s. In November 2001 the left-wing coalition in the Folketing lost seats to the right-wing coalition led by Venstre , ending their eight years rule. Venstre became

1776-486: The Faroe Islands ' relation to the monarchy, the mass media's contact to the state, the number of ministers in the government, or Queen Margrethe II 's legal status as a civilian. The prime minister has the power to choose to dissolve the Folketing and call a new election (although this is formally undertaken by the monarch), which the prime minister is obligated to do within four years of the previous election. In spite of this,

1850-478: The Folketing (Parliament), so the government is always either a coalition or a one-party minority government. No Danish party has won a majority since 1901, and for much of that time there has not even been a majority coalition. Because of their limited powers, the prime minister is primus inter pares (first among equals). Additionally, unlike most of their counterparts, Danish prime ministers can never be certain that their agenda will pass, and must cobble together

1924-669: 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 , the United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Along with

1998-570: 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)

2072-523: 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

2146-471: The Social Democrats had become the largest party and Højre had disappeared. During the first years of Occupation of Denmark , the governments of prime ministers Vilhelm Buhl and then Erik Scavenius cooperated with the Nazi occupiers. On 29 August 1943, the Danish government resigned, refusing to grant further concessions to Nazi Germany. All government operations were assumed by the permanent secretaries of

2220-544: 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

2294-402: 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

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2368-417: The monarch , in whom the executive authority was vested. The Constitution of 1849 established a constitutional monarchy by limiting the powers of the monarch and creating the office of premierminister . The inaugural holder of the office was Adam Wilhelm Moltke . The prime minister presides over a cabinet that is formally appointed by the monarch. In practice, the appointment of the prime minister

2442-579: 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

2516-594: 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 ,

2590-517: 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

2664-407: 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

2738-546: 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. 1924 Danish Folketing election Folketing elections were held in Denmark on 11 April 1924. The result was a victory for the Social Democratic Party led by Thorvald Stauning , which won 55 of

2812-710: 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

2886-600: 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

2960-465: The case of appointing ministers, it is the signature of the prime minister. This means that the power to appoint ministers practically lies entirely with the prime minister and not the monarch. Although the country's leading politician, the prime minister is not nearly as powerful as other prime ministers in Europe. This is mainly because it is nearly impossible for one party to get a majority of seats in

3034-508: The current office, the grand chancellor and state minister were not formal heads of government. The king held executive authority as absolute ruler from 1661 until the enactment of a liberal Constitution in the early nineteenth century. The office of prime minister was introduced as a part of the constitutional monarchy outlined in 1848 and signed as the Danish Constitution on 5 June 1849 . The new Constitution established

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3108-470: The entire cabinet or call a new election. Whenever a prime minister resigns, dies, or is forced from office, the monarch asks them (or, in the case of death, the next available leader in a coalition) to keep the government as a caretaker government until a successor has been elected. The government offices, including the Ministry of the State of Denmark ( Statsministeriet ; The Prime Minister's Office),

3182-508: 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,

3256-451: 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

3330-426: 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

3404-524: The individual departments, and this arrangement lasted until the Liberation of Denmark on 5 May 1945. Since King Christian X never accepted the resignation of the government, it existed de jure until a new cabinet was formed on 5 May 1945. The twentieth century was dominated by Social Democratic prime ministers leading left-wing coalitions; Social Democratic prime ministers were in power nearly continuously from 1924 until 1982. The first prime minister from

3478-424: 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

3552-547: 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

3626-561: The largest party since 1924. Anders Fogh Rasmussen , leader of Venstre , served as the prime minister from 2001 to April 2009. His coalition government consisted of Venstre and the Conservative People's Party, with parliamentary support from the national-conservative Danish People's Party ( Dansk Folkeparti ). On 5 April 2009, Rasmussen resigned to become Secretary General of NATO , leaving minister of finance and vice president of Venstre Lars Løkke Rasmussen to be

3700-407: 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

3774-422: 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

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3848-486: The modern role of the Monarch is symbolic only. The monarch formally appoints and dismisses ministers, including the prime minister. However, any action of the monarch requires a countersignature from a minister. It is also a principle in Danish constitutional literature that "the power follows the responsibility" ( magten følger ansvaret ), and the monarch being free from responsibility means they have no genuine power. In

3922-957: 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

3996-482: The prime minister has no say with respect to Denmark's autonomous regions, the Faroe Islands and Greenland , while the Folketing on the other hand does, as all laws passed by the Faroese and Greenlandic parliaments must be ratified by the Folketing. There are checks on the prime minister's power. If the Folketing revokes its confidence in an incumbent prime minister, the prime minister must either resign along with

4070-579: The prime minister was known simply as the "council president" ( Konseilspræsident ). Carl Christian Hall became the first prime minister/council president to lead a political party (the National Liberal Party ). The modern Prime Minister's Office was founded on 1 January 1914, when the Council Presidium was established as a department under the prime minister, when it had previously existed as an informal council gathered by

4144-689: The prime minister. Following the September 2011 election the right-wing lost by a small margin to the opposing centre-left coalition, led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt who on 3 October 2011 formed a new government initially consisting of the Social Democrats , the Danish Social Liberal Party and the Socialist People's Party . Following a general election defeat , in June 2015 Thorning-Schmidt resigned as Prime Minister and

4218-439: The prime minister. The title of the prime minister changed again in 1918 under the premiership of Carl Theodor Zahle , becoming titled "Minister of State" (in-line with its Scandinavian neighbours, Norway and Sweden), which it remains to this day. By the mid-nineteenth century a strong party-system had developed, with most prime ministers being the leader of either Venstre ( left ) or Højre ( right ). However, by 1924

4292-472: 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,

4366-486: 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

4440-445: 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

4514-411: 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

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4588-469: 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

4662-516: 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

4736-492: 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

4810-489: 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

4884-492: 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

4958-461: Was added to the constitution in 1953 with section 15. Today, it means that the monarch on the responsibility of the resigning prime minister cannot appoint a new prime minister which they expect will be met with a successful vote of no confidence. With no party having held a majority in over a century, parties form alliances. Usually, the Social Democrats join with centre-left parties, and Venstre with centre-right parties. Following elections when there

5032-457: 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

5106-488: 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

5180-627: 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

5254-463: 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

5328-418: Was succeeded by Lars Løkke Rasmussen, who headed a minority government consisting entirely of ministers from Venstre . The Social Democrats returned to power after the 2019 election , with Mette Frederiksen assuming the role of prime minister. The Constitution of Denmark states that the monarch , who is the head of state , has supreme authority and acts out this power through their ministers. However,

5402-469: 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

5476-474: 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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