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DANISH LANGUAGE(dansk)
Danish (dansk) is one of the North Germanic languages (also called Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany where it holds the status of minority language. Danish is a mandatory subject in school in the Danish territories of the Faroe Islands (where it is also an official language) and Greenland, as well as the former crown holding of Iceland. There are also Danish language communities in Argentina, the U.S. and Canada.
Danish is not exactly known as one of the most beautiful languages in the world. Actually, the sound of Danish always seems to amuse foreigners which gives the language a certain entertainment value. Foreigners often characterize Danish as a monotone-like drawl, and many people say that Danes speak like they have a hot potato in their mouth. Of course, the Danes themselves find their language both charming and pretty though they are aware of the fact that Danish can be difficult to learn for people from other countries. Because of that, most Danes find it amusing to test foreigners with the sentence Rødgrød med fløde (A Danish dessert), because they know that foreigners are unable to pronounce it. So if you ever visit Denmark you can be sure that several Danes will test you on that one.
Danish is characterized as a very flat language. It is said that people in flat countries speak with flat accents. As to Denmark this could be true, because Denmark is indeed a very flat country with its highest point only 147 m or 482.28 feet.
The written Danish is characterized by a very strict norm, but the spoken language may vary considerably in pronunciation. The Danish language has several dialects even though Denmark is a small country. The standard language that is called Rigsdansk originated around Copenhagen, and was originally based on the sociolect of the upper class of Copenhagen. Almost every island has its own dialect, which can be difficult to understand for Danes in other parts of the country. However, the vast majority of the population speak either standard Danish or a social variation of it.
The Danish vocabulary is not based upon an enormous amount of words but it is in principle unlimited, as new words can freely be formed by means of compounding or deriving eg. Langtidsplanlægge (Created of three existing words lang, tid, planlægge, means to plan long-term). Existing words are simply used to create new words and as a result of this, the largest Danish dictionaries contain more than 200,000 words.
The Danish alphabet
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z Æ Ø Å
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z æ ø å
The Danish alphabet has a total of 29 letters:
9 vowels (a,e,i,o,u,y,æ,ø,å) and
20 consonants
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