Danish has always been associated with the great conquests of the Vikings. The great cultural heritage of the country - this is the unspoken name it bears. A large number of dialects, as well as a discrepancy between oral and written speech, on the one hand, makes it difficult to learn, and on the other, attracts more and more people who want to learn Danish. Despite the fact that it sometimes sounds monotonous and slow, the Danes are proud of it and consider it very soft and sensual.
Origin story
The language of Denmark was assigned to the Germanic languages and is the official language in the kingdom. It began to develop in the Middle Ages. In the process of its development, it combined many Scandinavian languages, and also fell under the influence of Low German dialects. Starting from the 17th century, he began to absorb words from the French language, and a little later from English. Danish has a rich past. It is believed that the origin occurred in the III millennium BC, this is evidenced by the ancient runes found later on the territory of the country. Danish belongs to the Old Norse languages. In the era when the Viking migrations began, it was divided into two parts: East Scandinavian and West Scandinavian. From the first groupsubsequently Danish and Swedish were formed, and from the second - Icelandic and Norwegian.
Danish writing is based on Latin, from which the language has incorporated some letters. Before her, runes were used, which became the first written monuments of this country. The word "rune" in translation from Old Norse meant "secret knowledge". It seemed to the Danes that the transmission of information through symbols was in some ways similar to a magical rite. The priests were almost magicians, since only they knew how to use them. They used runes in predicting fate and performing rituals. This was possible because each rune had its own name, and a special meaning was assigned to it. Although linguists have a different opinion. They assume that this information was borrowed from Sanskrit.
Distribution area
The main distribution areas of Danish are Canada, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The language is native to more than 5 million people and is the second most common in the group of Scandinavian dialects. Until the mid-40s, it was official in Norway and Iceland. It is currently studied by Icelandic schoolchildren as the second compulsory. Anyone who knows a European language will find it much easier to learn Danish due to the huge influence of German dialects on it.
At the moment, Danish is under threat. Despite the fact that the Scandinavian languages are very popular and such a significant number of people speak them,English speech makes serious changes in their structure. As for Denmark, the fact is that many books are printed here in English. Products are also advertised in this language. Lessons in schools prefer to be taught on it, and they also write scientific dissertations. On the territory of Denmark there is a Danish Language Council, whose members are sounding the alarm. If no action is taken, Danish will simply disappear in a couple of decades.
General characteristics of the language
The Scandinavian group of languages includes Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. The latter is more prone to change than the others. It is because of this phenomenon that Danish is difficult to understand and learn. It is very easy for Norwegians, Swedes and Danes to understand each other because of the common parent language. Many words in the speech of these peoples are similar, and many are repeated without changing their meaning. By simplifying the morphology of Danish, its structure has become similar to the structure of the English language.
Dialects
About the year 1000, this dialect has some deviations from the norm accepted at that time, and it was divided into three branches: Skoyan, Zeelandic and Jutlandic. The Danish language is a multi-dialect language. Danish combines a large number of insular (Zelandic, Fynian), Jutlandic (northeastern, southwestern) dialects. Despite the rich history, the literary language was formed here only by the end of the 18th century. It is based on the Zeelandic dialect. Dialects are spoken by people who mostly live in rural areas.terrain. All adverbs differ both in the vocabulary used and grammatically. Many words spoken in dialects are unknown to people who have long been accustomed to the usual literary norm.
Alphabet
The Danish alphabet consists of 29 letters, many of them are not found in Russian, so their pronunciation requires some preparation.
| Capital | Small | Transcription | How to read |
| A | a | a | hey |
| B | b | be | bi |
| C | c | se | si |
| D | d | de | di |
| E | e | e | and |
| F | f | æf | ef |
| G | g | ge | ge |
| H | h | hå | xy |
| I | i | i | and |
| J | j | jåd | yol |
| K | k | kå | ku (aspirated) |
| L | l | æl | |
| M | m | æm | um |
| N | æn | en | |
| O | o | o | o |
| P | p | pe | pi |
| Q | q | ku | ku |
|
R |
r | ær | er (p is barely pronounced) |
| S | s | æs | es |
| T | t | te | tee |
| U | u | u | y |
| V | v | ve | vi |
| W | w | dobbelt-ve | double V |
| X | x | æks | ex |
| Y | y | y | yu (something between u and u) |
| Z | z | sæt | set |
| Æ | æ | æ | e |
| Ø | ø | ø | yo (something between o and yo) |
| Å | å | å | o (somewhere between o and y) |
Pronunciation
The Danes call it "the most melodic language". Danish is notorious for its difficult sound due to the large number of soft vowels that are sometimes pronounced too hard. As a result, the words sound completely different from how they are written. Not everyone can hear the difference between vowels. They can be long, short, open or closed. "Push" is a very important feature that characterizes this language. Danish may not seem entirely logical because of this phenomenon. The fact is that the push is missing in most languages. It is characterized by a short interruption of the air stream during the pronunciation of a word. It is not marked on the letter. In Russian, this phenomenon can be seen when pronouncing the word "not-a". The Danes themselves do not always use it correctly, and this makes the Danish language even more confusing.
Grammar
Not every nation can boast that it has a rich history. The structure of some modern languages was imprinted by the great Scandinavian language. The Danish language has articles in the structure of its sentences. Many nouns can belong to two genders at once, and their structure is completely unchanged. Adjectives agree with nouns in number and gender. Offers are usually two-part. Word order in a sentence can be either direct or reverse. Direct word order is used in declarative sentences, interrogative, where the interrogative word acts instead of the subject. The reverse word order can be used both in declarative sentences, and in interrogative and incentive sentences.
Morphology
Nouns in Danish have gender, number and case, and an article. The latter identifies the number and gender of the noun. It has a plural and a singular, and the gender can be common and neuter. An adjective can be definite or indefinite. If the adjective is indefinite, it agrees with the noun in number and gender. The verb has tense, voice and mood. In total, there are 8 tense categories in Danish, 2 of which are responsible for the future tense, 2 - for the future in the past, present, present complete, past and long past.
The endings and changing root vowels participate in the word formation of nouns. Composition is the most common way of word formation. Still it canoccur by adding suffixes to the root, removing suffixes or converting. It's easy to form new concepts in Danish.
