Danish (
dansk) belongs
to 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 5.5 million people mainly in Denmark including some
50,000 people in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany,
where it holds the status of minority language. Danish also holds official
status and is a mandatory subject in school in the former Danish colonies
of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, that now enjoy limited autonomy. In
Iceland, which was a part of Denmark until 1944, Danish is still the second
foreign language taught in schools (although a few learn Swedish or Norwegian
instead).
The language started diverging from the common ancestor language Old
Norse sometime during the 13th century and became more distinct from
the other emerging Scandinavian national languages with the first bible
translation in 1550, establishing an orthography differing from that
of Swedish, though written Danish is usually far easier for Swedes to
understand than the spoken language. Modern spoken Danish is characterized
by a very strong tendency of reduction of many sounds making it particularly
difficult for foreigners to understand and properly master, not just
by reputation but by sheer phonetic reality.
