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The Danish language belongs to the Germanic language group of the Indo-European family of languages. More specifically, Danish belongs to the Northern Germanic language sub-group of Germanic languages. Since Danish belongs to the Germanic group of languages, it has several similarities with English, Dutch and German. Other languages that are closely related to Danish are Swedish, Norwegian and Icelandic. It has been noted that there are more than 7 million Danish speakers in the world. Danish is the official language of Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Island. In Iceland and the Faroe Islands, Danish is a compulsory language taught in schools. Danish speaking populations can also be found in the US, Canada and Argentina. Dialects of Danish The Danish spoken in and around Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital city, has become the Standard Danish dialect because it is used in most Governmental departments and in major corporations operating in this area. Other dialects of Danish are classified into the: a) Eastern dialects b) Western dialects and c) Islandic dialects. Eastern dialects include the Scanian, Bornholmsk and Halland dialects. As far as the Scanian and Bornholmsk dialects are concerned, there are many discrepancies over whether these dialects should be considered Danish or Swedish. Scanian pronunciation of vowels and consonants is closer to Standard Danish than it is to Swedish. Unlike Scanian, the Bornholmsk dialect is used more in its spoken form than its written form. The Western dialects are also known as the Jutlandic Danish dialects. These dialects are mainly spoken in the Jutland peninsula region of Denmark. There are also Jutlandic Danish speaking populations in some parts of Germany. The Jutlandic dialects are further classified into western, eastern and southern Jutlandic dialects. The Islandic dialects of Danish are those spoken in the Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster and Mon areas of Denmark. These dialects are similar in many ways to Standard Danish. A Few Characteristics of Danish Foreigners consider Danish to be a difficult language because of its spelling and pronunciation. The reason behind this belief is that there is a vast difference between the way Danish words are pronounced and the way they are spelled. Another reason why the Danish language is considered difficult is because of the multiple types of vowels it uses. There are a total of 20-vowel phonemes in Standard Danish. Also, the use of the Danish glottal stop is difficult for foreigners to understand when spelling and pronunciation of Danish words. Nouns in Standard Danish only have two genders, namely, common noun and neuter. Neuter nouns are generally used for non-living objects, while most of the nouns in Standard Danish are common nouns. The verbs in Standard Danish end in a vowel and in the majority of cases, they end in an “e.” |