Danish Voice Over Agency

Everything you never needed to know about speaking Danish

There’s more vowels than English
The Danish language has three more vowels than the English language that means it has eight vowels with sixteen pronunciations.

Danish People are trilingual
If you can speak Danish, then you will be able to speak and understand Norwegian and Swedish as they are interchangeable. That’s handy when you visit the neighbouring countries.

Denmark is a happy place
Denmark is always at the top or close to the top of the UN World Happiness Report. The report is published every year and began in 2012. Questions the poll asks include a person’s experience of their life being in balance and feeling at peace with life.

The Danes aren’t rude
The Danes aren’t being rude when they don’t say please. It’s because there isn’t a word in Danish for please so they don’t use it.

A Danish Pastry isn’t Danish
Just think when you’re tucking into your delicious Danish Pastry remember it actually comes from Vienna in Austria. It was brought over to Denmark by some Austrian bakers who were keen to share their delicious pastries with the Danes.

Lego is Danish
Lego was originally invented by the Danes. You can visit the original Legoland in Billund, Denmark. Lego is now a global brand and there are now ten Legoland parks in the world including Winsor in London and New York and Japan.

Be careful where you walk
They are very strict in Denmark about Jaywalking. You must always walk on the right, and you must use designated crosswalks. If you get caught there are fines of up to 700 kroner which is around £82.

Cosy contentment
If you read books about wellbeing then no doubt you’ve read about the concept of Hygge. Hygee comes from the Danes, and it is all about improving your wellbeing and enjoying the simple things in life like outdoor walks and time with the family.

Flat as a pancake
If you want mountains to climb, then Denmark isn’t the place for you. There are no mountains at all in Denmark. It is a flat country just above sea level. The highest spot in Denmark is 561 feet (171 metres) and that’s in Mollehaj which is close to Ejer Bavnehoj in Skanderborg. You will see it if you take a hiking trail called Sporet ved Ejer which stretches for 15 miles.

Hans Cristian Andersen was Danish
Hans Cristian Andersen wrote the famous ugly duckling story about an ugly bird who was cast out by his family and friends but who turns into a beautiful swan. The swan, as it happens is Denmark’s national bird.

A short history on the Danish language

Danish belongs to the East Scandinavian branch of the North Germanic family of languages. Danish, along with other Scandinavian languages, derives from Old Norse, which was spoken by the Germanic people who lived in Scandinavia during the Viking era.

Danish and Swedish derive from the East Norse dialect group, while Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese derive from West Norse. Today, spoken Danish is essentially mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish. These three languages are categorised as Mainland Scandinavian, while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as Insular Scandinavian.

Until the 12th century Danish and Swedish were roughly the same dialect, using the runic alphabet. In Sweden, Old East Norse is called Runic Swedish, while in Denmark it’s called Runic Danish.

Although most Danish vocabulary is derived from Old Norse, about 35-40% of Danish words came from Middle Low German in the late medieval era. Standard German and French were big influences on the development of the language in the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by English in the 20th century.

Which countries have Danish as a national language?

Danish is the national language of Denmark – although interestingly there is no actual law that makes it the country’s official language.

It is one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (along with Faroese), and is officially recognised as a minority language in the north German region of Southern Schleswig.

Until 2009, Danish was one of two official languages of Greenland (along with Greenlandic), where it is still widely spoken as a first or second language. It was also an official language in Iceland until 1944, and today continues to be widely taught as a foreign language in Icelandic schools.

Danish is one of the working languages of the Nordic Council, and an official language of the European Union.

How many people speak Danish as their first language?

Approximately 6 million speak Danish as their first language. Apart from Denmark, Germany, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, other countries with notable Danish-speaking populations include the United States, Canada and Argentina.

Did you know…

• The English language contains many words derived from Old East Norse, dating back to the colonisation of parts of country by Danish Vikings. These include anger, birth, crawl, husband, knife, meek, ransack, sky, slaughter, thrive, ugly and window.
• One of the two written varieties of Norwegian, Bokmål, is based on Danish, while the other, Nynorsk, is based on Norwegian dialects. Danish was the official language of Norway until 1814.
• Although Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are largely mutually intelligible, this does vary between the three countries – Norwegians generally understand Danes and Swedes (and vice versa) better then Danes and Swedes understand each other.
• The difference between spoken and written Danish is unusual, due to the level of reduction and assimilation of consonants and vowels in the spoken language.

The Danish economy

Denmark has a diverse economy and a comfortable standard of living, with extensive government welfare measures and a low level of income inequality.

The country depends heavily on foreign trade, and exports include industrial machinery, chemical products, pharmaceuticals and food products (Denmark has a high-tech agricultural industry).

Following the global economic crisis of 2008, Danish unemployment rose to around 6% – still lower than average EU unemployment levels.