Danish

Danish belongs to the North (Scandinavian) group of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is spoken by 5 million people in Denmark. It is also spoken in Canada, Germany, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, United Arab Emirates, USA. The total number of speakers of Danish worldwide is estimated at around 6 million (Ethnologue).

It is thought that Danish started to split from the ancestral Old Norse some time in the 13th century. Written documents of the 16th century show it to be distinct from other Scandinavian languages.

Danish is the official language of Denmark. Danish also has official status and is a mandatory subject in school in the former Danish colonies of Greenland (along with Inuktitut) and the Faroe Islands (along with Faroese), that now enjoy limited autonomy from Denmark. In addition, there are about 50,000 speakers of Danish in northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, an area of Germany bordering on Denmark, where it is officially recognised and protected as a minority language.

Dialects
Danish is usually divided into three major dialect groups. However, since Denmark's territory consists of many islands and peninsulas, there are many other dialects, not all of them mutually intelligible.

•   Eastern Danish (Østdansk or Kobenhavnsk)
•   Island Danish (Odansk)
•   Jutlandish (Jysk)

Standard Danish is based on Eastern Danish spoken in and around the capital of Copenhagen. It is spoken in the big cities, taught in schools, and used in the media.

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