120-565: The Danish West Indies ( Danish : Dansk Vestindien ) or Danish Virgin Islands ( Danish : Danske Jomfruøer ) or Danish Antilles were a Danish colony in the Caribbean , consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with 83 square kilometres (32 sq mi); Saint John ( Danish : St. Jan ) with 49 square kilometres (19 sq mi); and Saint Croix with 220 square kilometres (85 sq mi). The islands have belonged to
240-572: A Grammy Award for Songwriter of the Year, Non Classical at the 66th Annual Grammy Awards . Quadrille is the traditional folk dance of the Virgin Islands, and St. Thomas' variation is called the "Flat German Quadrille". The origin of this dance was in France in the 1700s. This dance was brought to the islands during their history under various nations, including France and England. Initially
360-429: 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
480-511: A British fleet captured St Thomas on 22 December and Saint Croix on 25 December. The Danes did not resist and the invasion was bloodless. This British occupation of the Danish West Indies lasted until 20 November 1815, when Britain returned the islands to Denmark. By the 1850s, the Danish West Indies had a total population of about 41,000 people. The government of the islands was under a governor-general, whose jurisdiction extended to
600-625: A West Indian trading company in 1622, but, by the time an eight-year monopoly on trade with the West Indies , Virginia , Brazil and Guinea was granted on 25 January 1625, the failure of the Danish East India and Iceland Companies and the beginning of Danish involvement in the Thirty Years' War dried up any interest in the idea. Prince Frederick organized a trading mission to Barbados in 1647 under Gabriel Gomez and
720-636: A base for pirates attacking ships in the vicinity and also for the Brandenburg African Company . Governor Lorentz raised enormous taxes upon them and seized warehouses and cargoes of tobacco, sugar, and slaves in 1689 only to have his actions repudiated by the authorities in Copenhagen; his hasty action to seize Crab Island prohibited the Brandenburgers from establishing their own Caribbean colony, however. Possession of
840-461: A better life, and therefore many slaves were converted. By 1900, with a population of 30,000, a fourth of the people were Catholics , while most of the rest were Anglicans , Moravians , or other Protestants . For decades, the Moravians had organized missions and also taken charge of the educational system. Chattel slavery was practiced in the Danish West Indies from at least the 1670s until
960-597: A constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincorporated territory of the United States . Along with surrounding minor islands, it is one of three county-equivalents in the USVI. Together with Saint John , it forms one of the districts of the USVI . The territorial capital and port of Charlotte Amalie is located on the island. Of the three islands, St. Thomas
1080-577: 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
1200-526: 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
1320-673: A loss of 32,000 rigsdaler . Two years later, a Danish flotilla was destroyed by a hurricane in August. Smit returned from his fourth expedition in 1663 and formally proposed the settlement of St. Thomas to the king in April 1665. After only three weeks' deliberation, the scheme was approved and Smit was named governor . Settlers departed aboard the Eendragt on 1 July, but the expedition was ill-starred: The ship hit two large storms and suffered from fire before reaching its destination, and then it
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#17327688663461440-958: A meaningful role in St. Croix. 2017 marked the 100th anniversary of the sale of the colony by Denmark to the United States. With this centennial, conversations on the legacy of Danish–Norwegian colonization and slavery were reignited in the Scandinavian mainstream. For example, the artists Jeannette Ehlers and La Vaughn Belle unveiled Denmark's first statue of a black woman, I Am Queen Mary, to memorialize Denmark's colonial impact. 18°19′30″N 64°50′06″W / 18.3250°N 64.8350°W / 18.3250; -64.8350 Danish language Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] )
1560-707: 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
1680-399: A second rebellion had formed and some fires had been set, and had notices disseminated to the other islands. General Buddhoe worked with the governor and other officials to end the riots and violence that had broken out on a few estates. In the aftermath, Buddhoe is said to have been jailed and exiled to Trinidad . Governor von Scholten also fared poorly. As governor, he did not actually have
1800-482: 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
1920-532: A slave rebellion, taking over Frederiksted , Saint Croix. That evening, hundreds of slaves gathered peaceably outside Fort Frederik refusing to work the next day and demanding freedom. By 10 a.m. the following morning, about 8,000 slaves had joined. On the afternoon of 3 July 1848 (now known as Emancipation Day ), Peter von Scholten, in order to end the rebellion and prevent bloodshed and damages, went to Frederiksted and announced an immediate and total emancipation of all slaves. He then went to Christiansted , where
2040-586: 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
2160-404: A source of entertainment on sugar plantations, it has evolved into a cultural emblem, primarily reserved for local holidays celebrating the Virgin Islands heritage. Originally performed by two couples, it has since expanded to involve four couples arranged in a square formation. The most notable clothing in St.Thomas, and the rest of the Virgin Islands is called the traditional V.I. Madras. Madras
2280-625: 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
2400-407: 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
2520-571: 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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#17327688663462640-700: 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,
2760-469: Is a striped pattern that can be found on any piece of clothing with various different colors such as turquoise, royal blue, pink, white, yellow, green, and red. The four stripes seen on this pattern each represents one of the main U.S. Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, St. John , and St. Croix . The fourth stripe represents the unity between them. The U.S. Virgin Islands has a number of cultural events that engage both residents and visitors all year-round. Each of
2880-508: Is an unofficial "town" located on the East End subdistrict. Saint Thomas has a tropical savanna climate ( Aw according to the Köppen climate classification ) with a drier season and a wetter season. The temperature is warm year-round, with January and February, the coolest months, having average highs of 29.5 °C (85.1 °F) and average lows of 22.4 °C (72.3 °F). August has
3000-430: 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
3120-628: Is serviced by the Cyril E. King International Airport . Passenger and limited car-ferry services to neighboring islands such as Water Island, Saint John, Saint Croix, and the British Virgin Islands run regularly out of the Red Hook Terminal, Charlotte Amalie Terminal, and Crown Bay Marina. There are safaris, which are open air taxis, mounted onto the back of a pickup truck. The fare is typically $ 1 to $ 2 to go from one end of
3240-588: Is the second-largest, with St. Croix being the largest, and St. John , the smallest. As of the 2010 census , the population of Saint Thomas was 51,634, about 48.5% of the total population of the United States Virgin Islands. Crown Mountain is the highest point in Saint Thomas and in the entire United States Virgin Islands . Hence, it is called "Rock City". The island has a land area of 32 square miles (83 km ). The island
3360-417: Is the wettest time of year because of tropical cyclones . November is the wettest month, receiving 152 millimeters (6.0 in) of rain on average over 17.8 precipitation days, the most of any month. March is the driest month, receiving 27 millimeters (1.1 in) of rainfall over 8.1 precipitation days, the least of any month. Saint Thomas is divided into the following subdistricts (with population as per
3480-436: 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
3600-716: The 2020 U.S. Census ): From 1796 a small Jewish community developed in Charlotte Amalie . It established the Beracha Veshalom Vegmiluth Hasadim , the second oldest synagogue in the United States. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries a group of French Catholic immigrants known as the Chacas came to St. Thomas from the St. Barthélemy islands to the east, forming one community of fishermen and one of farmers. The island
3720-564: 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
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3840-636: The First World War . The transfer occurred on March 31, 1917. At the time of the US purchase in 1917, the colony did not include Water Island ; Water Island had been sold by Denmark to the East Asiatic Company , a private shipping company, in 1905. The company eventually sold the island to the United States in 1944, during the German occupation of Denmark . The federal government then used
3960-570: 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)
4080-523: 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
4200-417: The St. Thomas-St.John School District : Private schools: Parochial schools: There is one University in the U.S. Virgin Islands (HBCU) with two campuses, one in each district: " St. Thomas " is among the most recognisable instrumentals in the repertoire of American jazz tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins based on a traditional calypso sung to him by his mother, Valborg Solomon Rollins, who
4320-475: The United States as the Virgin Islands since they were purchased in 1917. Water Island was part of the Danish West Indies until 1905, when the Danish state sold it to the East Asiatic Company , a private shipping company. The Danish West India-Guinea Company annexed uninhabited St. Thomas in 1672; annexed St. John in 1718; and bought St. Croix from France ( King Louis XV ) on 28 June 1733. When
4440-1029: 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
4560-544: 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
4680-1037: The abolition of slavery in 1848. Most slaves worked on plantations, particularly in sugar production , though some also worked at the harbors. Slaves outnumbered Europeans on all islands, often by large margins. On Saint Thomas, population expansion was recorded as 422 Africans and 317 Europeans in 1688, 555 Africans and 383 Europeans in 1699, and 3,042 Africans and 547 Europeans in 1715 (a ratio of more than 5:1), and by 1755 slaves outnumbered Europeans 12:1. On Saint John, there were 677 Africans and 123 Europeans in 1728, 1086 Africans and 208 Europeans in 1733 (a ratio of more than 5:1), and by 1770 slaves outnumbered Europeans 19:1. On Saint Croix in 1797, there were 25,452 slaves and 2,223 Europeans (a ratio of more than 11:1) as well as 1,164 freedmen, and in 1815 there were 24,330 slaves and 180 Europeans (a ratio of more than 135:1) as well as 2,480 freedmen. At that time, freedmen (many of whom had purchased their freedom) also outnumbered Europeans on Saint Thomas and Saint John. Trading African slaves
4800-546: The de Casseres brothers, but it and a 1651 expedition of two ships were unsuccessful. It was not until Erik Smit 's private 1652 expedition aboard the Fortuna was successful that interest in the West Indies' trade grew into an interest in the creation of a new Danish colony. Smit's 1653 expedition and a separate expedition of five ships were quite successful, but Smit's third expedition found his two vessels captured for
4920-402: 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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5040-546: The local population approved the transfer in a plebiscite , but the US Senate never voted on the treaty and it expired. The Danish Parliament rejected both a convention and a treaty in 1902. The United States acted again in 1915 because of the islands' strategic position near the approach to the Panama Canal and because of a fear that Germany might seize them to use as U-boat bases during World War I. A referendum
5160-579: 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
5280-482: The African slave trade. Saint Thomas's fine natural harbor became known as "Taphus" for the drinking establishments located nearby. ("Tap Hus" translates as "rum shop" or "tap house" referring to the drinking establishments. ) In 1691, the primary settlement there was renamed Charlotte Amalia in honor of the wife of Denmark's King Christian V . It was later declared a free port by Frederick V . In December 1732,
5400-500: The Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. Caribbean colonies, in turn, exported sugar, rum and molasses to Denmark. The economy of the Danish West Indies depended on slavery. After a rebellion, slavery was officially abolished in 1848, leading to the near economic collapse of the plantations. In 1852, the Danish parliament first debated the sale of the increasingly unprofitable colony. Denmark tried several times to sell or exchange
5520-611: The Danish West India-Guinea Company went bankrupt in 1754, King Frederik V of Denmark–Norway assumed direct control of the three islands. Britain occupied the Danish West Indies in 1801–1802 and 1807–1815 during the Napoleonic Wars . Danish colonizers in the West Indies aimed to exploit the profitable triangular trade , involving the export of firearms and other manufactured goods to Africa in exchange for slaves , who were then transported to
5640-555: The Danish West Indies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: to the United States and to the German Empire , respectively. The islands were eventually sold to the United States for $ 25 million (equivalent to $ 594,550,000 in 2023) which took over the administration on 31 March 1917 and renamed the territory the United States Virgin Islands. Merchants in Copenhagen asked King Christian IV for permission to establish
5760-531: 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 ,
5880-517: 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
6000-495: The Danish leased part of the island to the Brandenburger Company , which was resold to the Danish in 1754, and was granted free port status in 1764. The land was divided into plantations and sugarcane production became the primary economic activity. As a result, the economies of Saint Thomas and the neighboring islands of Saint John and Saint Croix became highly dependent on enslaved African labor and
6120-407: 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
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#17327688663466240-575: The Dutch assisting their countrymen on Ter Tholen in stealing everything of value, particularly the remaining Danish guns and ammunition. The Danes formed a Board of Trade in 1668 and secured a commercial treaty with Britain, providing for the unmolested settlement of uninhabited islands, in July 1670. The Danish West India Company was organized in December and formally chartered by King Christian V
6360-511: The European population. One of the earliest colonial governors , Gabriel Milan , was a Sephardic Jew . In spite of a general tolerance for religion, many African religions were not recognized because they typically revolved around belief in animism and magic, beliefs that were consistently met with scorn, and were regarded as immoral and subservient. A widespread viewpoint was that if one could convert slaves to Christianity, they could have
6480-543: 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. Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands Saint Thomas ( Danish : Sankt Thomas , Spanish : Santo Tomás , French : Saint-Thomas ) is one of the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Sea , and
6600-710: 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
6720-455: The US removing its objections to Denmark taking control of the whole of Greenland . Danish administration ended on 31 March 1917 , when the United States took formal possession of the territory and renamed it the United States Virgin Islands . Rear Admiral James H. Oliver was the first American governor of the Danish West Indies. At the time of the U.S. purchase of the Danish West Indies in 1917,
6840-474: The US to purchase the islands of Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix. The islands now have an annual celebration in November to honor the legacy of David Hamilton Jackson. In 1917, Saint Thomas was purchased (along with Saint Croix and Saint John) by the United States for $ 25 million in gold ($ 595 million today), as part of a strategy to maintain control over the Caribbean and the Panama Canal during
6960-590: The West End to the East End, and in recent years, Saint Thomas has become a busy cruise ship port and vacation venue. The island has a number of natural bays and harbors including Magens Bay, Great Bay, Jersey Bay, Long Bay, Fortuna Bay, and Hendrik Bay. Passenger ships dock and anchor in Long Bay and Crown Bay, near Charlotte Amalie. Ships dock at West Indian Company Dock and Austin Monsanto Dock. Red Hook
7080-600: 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
7200-442: The authority to end slavery, but had found himself in a situation where he needed to take immediate action that could not wait for communicating with Denmark. For his actions, he was called back to Denmark to face a trial for treason. He was first denied his pension, but later cleared of the charges. When Denmark abolished slavery in 1848, many plantation owners wanted full reimbursement on the grounds that their assets were damaged by
7320-453: The church worked closely together to maintain law and order; the church was responsible for people's moral upbringing, and the king led the civil order. There was no state-sponsored religion in Denmark until 1849, but in the Danish West Indies there had always been a great deal of religious freedom. Danish authorities tended to be lenient towards religious beliefs, but required that all citizens had to observe Danish holidays . Freedom of religion
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#17327688663467440-523: The colony did not include Water Island , which had been sold by Denmark to the East Asiatic Company , a private shipping company, in 1905. The company eventually sold the island to the United States in 1944, during the German occupation of Denmark . St Thomas was a hub of the West Indies packet trade from 1851 to 1885. Denmark issued stamps for the Danish West Indies from 1856 onward. The Danish West Indies were inhabited by many different cultures, and each had its own traditions and religions. The king and
7560-558: The colony, on grounds that it was more disadvantageous than advantageous. The 1733 slave insurrection on St. John, which lasted from November 1733 until August 1734, was one of the earliest and longest slave rebellions in the Americas . The insurrection started on 23 November 1733, when 150 slaves, primarily Akwamus , revolted against plantation owners and managers. The slaves captured the fort in Coral Bay and took control of most of
7680-556: The colony. In 1675, Iversen claimed St. John and placed two men there; in 1684, Governor Esmit granted it to two English merchants from Barbados but their men were chased off the island by two British sloops sent by Governor Stapleton of the British Leeward Islands . Further instructions in 1688 to establish a settlement on St. John seem not to have been acted on until Governor Bredal made an official establishment on 25 March 1718. The islands quickly became
7800-411: The end of March 1801 a British fleet arrived at St Thomas. The Danes accepted the Articles of Capitulation the British proposed and the British occupied the islands without a shot being fired. The British occupation lasted until April 1802, when the British returned the islands to Denmark. The second British invasion of the Danish West Indies took place during the Napoleonic Wars in December 1807 when
7920-431: 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,
8040-451: 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
8160-493: The first two of many Moravian Brethren missionaries came from Herrnhut Saxony in present-day Germany to minister to them. Distrusted at first by the white masters, they lived among the slaves and soon won their confidence. The first British invasion and occupation of the island occurred in 1801. The islands were returned to Denmark in 1802, under the terms of the Treaty of Amiens . Fire destroyed hundreds of homes in Charlotte Amalie in 1804. The second British occupation of
8280-554: The highest average high of 32.3 °C (90.1 °F), with July, August and September all having the highest average low at 25.6 °C (78.1 °F). The highest temperature ever recorded was 37.2 °C (99.0 °F) on August 4, 1994, and June 23, 1996, which is the highest temperature to have ever been recorded in the United States Virgin Islands. The lowest recorded temperature was 11 °C (52 °F) in November. Saint Thomas receives 989 millimeters (38.9 in) of precipitation annually over 163.6 precipitation days. Autumn
8400-426: 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
8520-450: The island for military purposes until 1950 before finally transferring it to the territorial government in 1996. The United States granted citizenship to residents of the Virgin Islands in 1927. The U.S. Department of the Interior took over administrative duties in 1931. American forces were based on the island during the Second World War . In 1954, passage of the U.S. Virgin Islands Organic Act officially granted territorial status to
8640-557: The island occurred from 1807 to 1815, after the Invasion of the Danish West Indies (1807) , during which they built Fort Cowell on Hassel Island . While the sugar trade had brought prosperity to the island's free citizens, by the early 19th century Saint Thomas was in decline. The continued export of sugar was threatened by hurricanes, drought, and American competition. Following the Danish Revolution of 1848 , slavery
8760-467: The island of Saint Croix and then made his way to the other islands nearby at the start of the Lesser Antilles , and named them "Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Virgenes", after the legend of Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins. It was later shortened to " Las Virgenes", which means, "The Virgins". The Dutch West India Company established a post on Saint Thomas in 1657. The first congregation
8880-481: The island to the other. The Virgin Islands also has a public transit system called the Virgin Islands Transit, or VITRAN, which services a fare of $ 1. These buses are discounted for both senior citizens and students with valid ID's. The United States Virgin Islands is the only place under United States jurisdiction where the rule of the road is to drive on the left . This was inherited from what
9000-666: The island was subsequently disputed with the Scottish in 1698 and fully lost to the Spanish in 1811. St. Croix was purchased from the French West India Company in 1733. In 1754, the islands were sold to king Frederick V , becoming royal Danish-Norwegian colonies. The first British invasion and occupation of the Danish West Indies occurred during the French Revolutionary Wars , when at
9120-530: The island. Planters regained control by the end of May 1734, after the Akwamu were defeated by several hundred better-armed French and Swiss troops sent in April from Martinique , a French colony. Colony militia continued to hunt down maroons and finally declared the rebellion at an end in late August 1734. By the 1830s and 1840s, the sugar beet industry had reduced the profitability of sugarcane. The British Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 emancipated slaves in
9240-516: The islands. There is a hip hop duo group called R. City , featuring brothers, Theron Thomas and Timothy Thomas . These brothers were born on the island of St. Thomas, and after graduating from high school on the island, they moved to the U.S. mainland to pursue their music careers. Their most notable song is " Locked Away ", featuring Adam Levine . R. City has collaborated with other artists, such as Rihanna , Miley Cyrus , Drake , Nicki Minaj , and many more. In February 2024, Theron Thomas won
9360-424: 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
9480-547: 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
9600-516: The largest labor revolt in Danish colonial history, took place on 1 October 1878. The revolt began because the formerly enslaved continued to live and work in slave-like conditions even though three decades had passed since the abolition of slavery. Mary Leticia Thomas , today referred to as Queen Mary of St. Croix, spearheaded the revolt alongside three other women: Axeline ‘Agnes’ Elizabeth Salomon, Matilde McBean and Susanna ‘Bottom Belly’ Abrahamsson. The Fireburn uprising and its leaders continue to have
9720-445: The loss of the slaves, and by the fact that they would have to pay for labor in the future. The Danish government paid fifty dollars for every slave the plantation owners had owned and recognized that the slaves' release had caused a financial loss for the owners. The lives of the formerly enslaved people changed very little because many continued to be bound to the plantation system through contractual servitude. Most were bound to serve
9840-407: 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
9960-422: 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
10080-562: The neighboring British West Indies , fully effective as of 1840. Abolition in the Danish West Indies was discussed, with Governor von Scholten , who had been seeking reforms since 1830, in favor of emancipation . Scholarly consensus suggests von Scholten's views were influenced by his free-colored mistress Anna Heegaard. King Christian VIII supported the gradual abolition of slavery and ruled in 1847 that every child born of an unfree woman should be free from birth, and that slavery would end entirely after 12 years. That ruling satisfied neither
10200-472: The next year on 11 March 1671. Jørgen Iversen Dyppel , a successful trader on Saint Christopher , was made governor and the king provided convicts from his jails and two vessels for the establishment of the colony, the yacht Den forgyldte Krone and the frigate Færøe . Den forgyldte Krone was ordered to run ahead and wait but ended up returning to Denmark after the Færøe under Capt. Zacharias Hansen Bang
10320-419: The other Danish colonies of the group. However, because the islands formerly belonged to Great Britain, the inhabitants were English in customs and in language. The islands of that period consisted of: The United States had been interested in the islands since at least the 1860s when President Andrew Johnson came close to obtaining St. Thomas and St. John, as Denmark agreed to sell in 1867 for $ 7.5 million and
10440-433: The plantations where they had previously been enslaved. As employees, former slaves were not the plantation owners' responsibility and did not receive food or care from their employers. As part of a sharecropping system, some formerly enslaved people received a small hut, a little land, and some money; however, this one-time compensation did not change the harsh working conditions. The Fireburn labor riot , considered to be
10560-481: The sale as did the inhabitants of the islands in a vote of 1,244 to 22. However, the proponents of the purchase in the United States failed to gain enough support to ratify the treaty. In 1915, David Hamilton Jackson traveled to Denmark and convinced the King of Denmark to allow freedom of the press in Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix. He began the first newspaper in the islands, known as The Herald . Jackson
10680-472: 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,
10800-487: The slaves nor the plantation owners. Meanwhile, on 27 April 1848, France signed a law to abolish slavery in their colonies within two months, but a slave insurrection on Martinique led to immediate abolition on Martinique on 22 May and Guadeloupe on 27 May. The slaves in the Danish West Indies did not want to wait for their freedom, either. On 2 July 1848, freedman John Gottlieb (also known as "Moses Gottlieb" or "General Buddhoe") and Admiral Martin King (among others) led
10920-414: The three islands have different celebrations at different times of the year. Carnival Each year, the carnival on St. Thomas spans a month, kicking off with queen, prince, and princess shows, Calypso shows, Pan-O-Ramas, and J'ouvert . These events are typically held in April, then sometimes extends into the first week of May. The highlight of the carnival includes vibrant parades. The Children's Parade
11040-506: The three islands, allowing for the formation of a local senate. Full home rule was achieved in 1970. The post-war era also saw the rise of tourism on the island. With relatively cheap air travel and the American embargo on Cuba , the numbers of visitors greatly increased. Despite natural disasters such as Hurricane Hugo (1989), Hurricanes Luis and Marilyn (1995), and Hurricanes Irma and Maria (2017). Hotels have been built from
11160-486: 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
11280-479: The trade of slaves came into effect. Laws and regulations in the Danish West Indies were based on Denmark's laws, but the local government was allowed to adapt them to match local conditions. For example, things like animals, land, and buildings were regulated according to Danish law, but Danish law did not regulate slavery. Slaves were treated as common property, and therefore did not necessitate specific laws. In 1733, differentiation between slaves and other property
11400-445: 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
11520-411: 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
11640-469: 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
11760-516: 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
11880-492: 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
12000-489: 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
12120-492: 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
12240-529: Was abolished and the resulting rise in labor costs further weakened the position of Saint Thomas's sugar producers. Given its harbors and fortifications, Saint Thomas still retained a strategic importance, and thus, in the 1860s, during the American Civil War and its aftermath, the United States government considered entering into a treaty with Denmark to buy the island and its neighbors from Denmark for $ 7.5 million. The Danish Landstinget agreed to
12360-457: 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
12480-432: Was born on Saint Thomas. The traditional music of the Virgin Islands is called quelbe , also known as scratch or fungi. This music style is performed using instruments made from gourds and everyday objects, with bands typically incorporating banjos, conga drums, washboards, triangles, saxophones, and flutes. In addition to quelbe, other music styles such as calypso , reggae , soca , and hip hop are also popular among
12600-490: Was delayed for repairs in Bergen . The Færøe completed her mission alone, establishing a settlement on St. Thomas on 25 May 1672. From an original contingent of 190 – 12 officials, 116 company "employees" ( indentured servants ), and 62 felons and former prostitutes – only 104 remained, 9 having escaped and 77 having died in transit. Another 75 died within the first year, leaving only 29 to carry on
12720-455: Was held in Denmark itself on the future of the islands, which had become both a financial burden and a strategic concern. On 17 January 1917, according to the Treaty of the Danish West Indies , the Danish government sold the islands to the United States for $ 25 million ($ 595 million in current prices), when the United States and Denmark exchanged their respective treaty ratifications and with
12840-478: Was implied by a regulation that stated that slaves had their own will and thus could behave inappropriately or be disobedient. There was a general consensus that if the slaves were punished too hard or were malnourished, the slaves would start to rebel. This was borne out by the 1733 slave insurrection on St. John , where many plantation owners and their families were killed by the Akwamu , including Breffu , before it
12960-488: 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
13080-627: 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
13200-795: Was originally settled around 1500 BC by the Ciboney people. Ciboney sites have been uncovered in Krum Bay. The island was later inhabited by the Arawaks and then the Caribs . Arawak sites have been uncovered in Magens Bay and Botany Bay, and Carib sites have been uncovered in Magens Bay. Christopher Columbus sighted the island in 1493 on his second voyage to the New World . He landed on
13320-583: Was part of the transatlantic slave trade by Denmark–Norway around 1671, when the Danish West India Company was chartered, until 1 January 1803, when the 1792 law to abolish the slave trade came into effect. By 1778, it was estimated that the Danes were bringing about 3,000 Africans to the Danish West Indies yearly for enslavement. These transports continued until the end of 1802, when a 1792 law by Crown Prince Regent Frederik that banned
13440-467: Was partially granted to help settle the islands, as there was a shortage of willing settlers from Europe. This worked to an extent, seeing that a large proportion of settlers were in fact Dutch and British natives fleeing religious persecution. Jews began settling the colony in 1655, and by 1796 the first synagogue was inaugurated. In its heyday in the mid-19th century, the Jewish community made up half of
13560-630: Was raided by English privateers prosecuting the Second Anglo-Dutch War , in which Denmark was allied with the Netherlands. Smit died of illness, and a second band of privateers stole the ship and used it to trade with neighboring islands. Following a hurricane and a renewed outbreak of disease, the colony collapsed, with the English departing for the nearby French colony on Saint Croix , the Danes fleeing to Saint Christopher , and
13680-463: 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
13800-412: Was suppressed later the following year. In 1755 Frederick V of Denmark issued more new Regulations, in which slaves were guaranteed the right not to be separated from their children and the right to medical support during periods of illness or old age. However, the colonial government had the ability to amend laws and regulations according to local conditions, and thus the regulations were never enacted in
13920-556: Was the St. Thomas Reformed Church, which was established in 1660 and was associated with the Dutch Reformed Church . Denmark-Norway 's first attempt to settle the island in 1665 failed. However, the Danes did resettle St. Thomas in 1672, under the sponsorship of the Glueckstadt Co., later the Danish West India Company . The first slave ships arrived in 1673, and St. Thomas became a slave market . In 1685,
14040-469: 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
14160-467: Was the editor of The Herald , which had its office at 1B Kongens Gade in Christiansted . The newspaper's focus was civic and labor rights for local workers, and it published criticisms of the labor situation in the islands. After beginning The Herald, Jackson organized labor unions among the islanders for better working conditions. He was also instrumental in persuading the Danish to allow
14280-474: 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
14400-645: Was the then-current Danish practice at the time of the American acquisition in 1917. However, because the islands are a U.S. territory, most cars are imported from the mainland United States and therefore the steering column is located on the left side of the vehicle. The island has many regular private taxis from compact size to large vans, as well as open-air, covered trucks called "safaris" with bench seats. St. Thomas-St. John School District operates public schools. Elementary Schools: K-8 Schools : Lockhart K-8 School Junior High Schools: High Schools There are also several private and parochial schools in
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