Talk:Danish language/Archive 1

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Vocabulary

This section has a lot of errors, it should be rewritten. Some af the examples are not making sense: The word "æde" has not been replaced by "spise", both are common words but they are used in different contexts: "Løven æder sit bytte", "Bankdirektøren spiser frokost". The words "for" and "kat" are pronounced almost identically in English and Danish. --OlHen (talk) 22:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

The best thing to do is: Make the corrections yourself. Be sure to cite some sources. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 04:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

removed

Removed The toast skål has its origin in the English word 'skull' and was yelled out loud at Viking feasts when they drank from the skulls of their defeated enemies. This is not likely to be true. I believe it is more likely to come from the word for bowl. arj 10:07, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

Correct! The drinking-from-skulls tale began with a Latin mistranslation of a poetic kenning for drinking horns: the original Norse phrase was bjugviðum hausa "curved branches of skulls". Skål does mean "bowl" in all the continental Nordic languages, though. Its use as a toast probably comes from the medieval practice of having guests fill their cups from a common bowl; the host would remind people "help yourself from the bowl" before drinking in someone's honor. --ISNorden 00:44, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Diff. Norwegian and Danish

The article on Norwegian language say that the Norwegian Language Council regulates Norwegian language. The article on Danish says Danish isn't regulated. But we have Danish Language Council (http://(www.dsn.dk). What is the difference?--Wildt 17:21, 21 Jul fuck (UTC)

I don't know about Norwegian, but the Danish council in principle merely records the most common usage, and when asked advices others to follow the same usage.--Niels Ø 22:12, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know what's meant by "regulated" either, but Dansk Sprognævn does define the standards that are taught in school. They also publish guides about the standards considered "correct" by most -- notably "Retskrivningsordbogen", the dictionary of correct spelling. --Morten Sørensen 18:48, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Translation of 'rødgrød'

The former translation of 'rødgrød' was 'red pudding'. I changed this to the more accurate translation 'strawberry porridge'. --Peterih 15:52, 6 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Isn't it actually made of a purée of summer berries such as strawberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, raspberries and blackberries? So saying it's made purely of stawberries is inaccurate?

Anonymous User. Aug 19, 2004

I certainly never tried rødgrød made of strawberries. Calling it 'strawberry porridge' would be misleading. I can't find it on the page though.

Shawn Ogg, Aug 27, 2005

I've never tasted or heard of rødgrød made of anything but strawberries, strawberries are definetely the most common ingredient of rødgrød in Denmark. [[Magnuspharao 01:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)]]

I think the requirement just is that it's a red porridge made of berries. My mother used to make it of raspberries. --Morten Sørensen 18:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

In "frøken Jensens kogebog"Rødgrød is made of sticks of rhubarb, red currant, black currant, strawberries and raspberries...

I'm danish, and frankly, I have never tasted rødgrød. (Irnic.. I have "frøken Jensen's kogebog, and my last name used to be Jensen) I have always been of the conviction that rødgrød is rhubarb porridge. The direct translation of rødgrød, however, is red porridge. (if it is, in fact, rhubarb porridge, then ive had it loads of times, and its actually quite good!) -- Shae LeFay

I think most Danes would differ between strawberry porridge and "rødgrød" - I know I would. To me, rødgrød uses any other red berries than strawberries. --dllu 16:58, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Rødrød is a red fruit porridge made with a mixture of fruits, usually red currants, raspberries and black currants. I have never heard it used of porridge made with only one kind of fruit. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Klausok (talk • contribs) 11:16, 25 April 2007 (UTC).

According to my mother the reason strawberries are not traditionally used in rødgrød is that by the time currants and rasberries are ripe, strawberries would be long gone.--Klausok 09:27, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

How can /a/ be palatal?

How can /a/ be palatal? It's a vowel. -Branddobbe 22:33, Aug 8, 2004 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

Just out of curiosity: How do you get a figure of 10 million speakers for Danish? By counting the Norwegians too? Io 13:02, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Linguistically speaking, "Bokmål" is a Danish dialect - in writing. --dllu 17:11, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I beg to differ!!! It is an adaptation of the Danish written language to write Norwegian, and has little to do with spoken dialects. It is most certainly not a dialectal variation of Danish, seeing as it is pronounced totally different by the Norwegian users. The Danes don't even understand us, although we still understand them, which in itself is quite a feat! --Alexlykke (talk) 14:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

How does english get over a billion? You have to count second and third languages as well.83.91.26.168 (talk) 13:50, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Greenland having it's own dialect of Danish

I've seen vague references to Greenland having it's own dialect of Danish, but I've yet to find detailed information on this.Gringo300 12:44, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Greenland is pretty much a free-thinking country. Yes, it is owned by Denmark, but it has its own flag, own nationality.. and - dun dun dun - its own language!

Greenland does not have its own dialect of Danish, it might just sound a bit funny cause its not their native tongue! -- Shae LeFay

Exactly. "Greenland-Danish" isn't a dialect, it's Danish spoken with an accent. The same goes for "Faroese-Danish". --dllu 17:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Category:Danish language

There is no category Danish language. Can this be changed ? Sarcelles 18:42, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

'Open g'

I have a teach yourself Danish book at home (published in 1973). Does the Danish language still use the 'open g' or voiced velar fricative [ɣ]?
For example in the pronunciation of the word vælge [vɛlɣə] 'select' (pronunciation from book). – AxSkov (T) 09:25, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not Danish, but I'm pretty sure that velar fricatives aren't present anymore. At least it sounds intuitively un-Danish to me. I think the fricative realizations of "g" turned into [j] about the same time as in Swedish.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:07, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

The 1950s edition of the Danish book I learned from still refers to the open g-sound [ɣ]; I was surprised to hear younger speakers replacing it with [j], [w] or no sound at all (depending on the phonetic environment). Hearing my literature professor pronounce my name ['eŋəbɔɐɣ] definitely gave me an idea of his age.... --ISNorden 00:53, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not used anymore (except for some really old speakers). It was replaced by j after front vowels and w after back vowels. --Twid 09:09, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

When did this occur in Swedish (30, 50 or 100 years ago)?
I've also found some other more modern books on Danish, that says [ɣ] has become a briefly pronounced [j]. – AxSkov (T) 12:37, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The brief j pronounciation is the most common, I think. In some dia- or sociolects, especially upper class north of Copenhagen, the old "soft g" is still used by some, though. This is perceived as an affectation by many others. --Morten Sørensen 18:58, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Danish and Swedish are considered to be separate languages

I've removed the comments of "Danish dialects in Sweden". Please read Swedish language#Classification and related languages for an explanation for why it's inappropriate to start dividing the three national Mainland Scandinavian languages into further minor languages.

Furthermore, Scanian is definetly not a seperate language, and calling it a Danish dialect is really misleading, since Scanian is not more similar to Danish than most Central Swedish dialects. While it might have originally been a Danish dialect, it has for the past 400 years been heavily influenced by what has evolved into Standard Swedish and grammar, vocabulary and phonology are virtually identical. The difference is basically not greater than between Southern American English or West Coast American English. Please read the article Scanian (linguistics) (moved from Scanian language and the discussion page for further explanations.

Peter ^Isotalo 18:57, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

Scanian is not even close to be a Swedish dialect. Scanian is extremely close to Danish while quite far away from Swedish (as far as it can get in North Germanic languages(/dialects). 83.92.119.42 22:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I think this is absolutely correct. The only way to make Scanian a Danish dialect is to consider all three languages one and the same - not a completely crazy idea, but especially after the move towards standard national languages during last century or two (with a significant decline in the use of heavy dialects), a rather unorthodox idea. So, a couple of hundred years ago the identification of three separate scandinavian languages, and the classification of all dialects as belonging with 100% certainty to one and only one of the three, may have been a fiction inspired by nationalism. But today, it is real.--Niels Ø 08:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I reintroduced Skåne, Sweden as a place where danish is spoken. This doesn't have anything to do with Scanian, but is simply a consequence of the many danes moving to sweden after the opening of Øresundsbron. Danes in skåne now number above throusand. Maunus 16:06, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Scanian is of course a Swedish dialect, but i's definitely much closer to Danish than the Swedish spoken in Svealand or further north - and easier to understand for most Danes. And if you have ever heard the local dialect(s) of Bornholm, they are sometimes closer to Swedish than Danish. That's why there is a category called "East Danish" - it makes sense. --dllu 17:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Scanian is of course a Danish dialect. It doesn't matter that Scania, Halland and Blekinge is a part of Sweden. It is still a Danish dialect in the sense a dialect of the Danish language. If you mean Danish dialect as a dialect inside Denmark then of course Scanian isn't a Danish dialect. But such an interpretion would be most rare and incorrect. Scanian is a dialect belonging to the Danish language and as such a Danish dialect. Claiming otherwise is silly and completely unfounded. It can best be described at politically motivate history revision. 83.92.119.42 22:04, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

LOL, like little children... but a nice rhetorical excercise... If you looked e.g. at the Nynorsk article, you would find this beautiful sentence: Norwegian, Swedish and Danish form a continuum of mutually intelligible dialects (...), which explains why arguing about whose dialect it is, is completely meaningless. --78.99.113.123 (talk) 06:29, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Pharyngeal??

I highly doubt that the Danish <r> is pharyngeal- the only IE languages with those are PIE itself, and Hittite. They never existed in Germanic, and they don't now. I would describe it as a uvular fricative, like the German or French <r>.

The /ʀ/ of the more prestigious variants of French and German are actually uvular trills, but like in other languages and dialects they are very often realized as the fricative [ʁ]. It all depends on the phonetic context. The comments about the Danish pharyngeal /ʁ/ seem fairly valid to me. The sound is described as "uvu-pharyngeal" by Danish phonetician Hans Basbøll. In general, pharyngealization seems to be a common aspect of Danish; more than half of the vowels are pharyngealized, for example.

Jaqcues Durand of the University of Toulouse has written a fairly comprehensive article on the vowel system of Danish that covers a lot of this and is well worth reading.

Peter ^Isotalo July 2, 2005 12:11 (UTC)

Tourist phrases aren't encyclopedic

Since Wikipedia is not a usage guide and since there is rather pointless to define exactly what a "Common phrase" is, I think we should skip the entire section. While certainly helpful to tourists, it gives little or no insight to either phonology or grammar of Danish, which is one of the objectives of this article.

The sound recordings are good, but to properly illustrate how Danish phonemes differ from one another and to describe their allophones, better examples are needed. To be really useful in this aspects the recordings need to be of minimal pairs. For example hunde and hynde or binde and pinde. The current phonology section needs a serious work-over, but I'm going to wait until I get a hold of Hans Basbøll's quite authoritive The Phonology of Danish, which should be a month at most, before taking on that section. I'm sure that it contains plenty of good examples of minimal pairs we can use to record sounds later on.

Peter ^Isotalo 7 July 2005 18:53 (UTC)

Mentioning of the Faroe Islands

The Faroe Islands have never been a Danish colony, and it's doubtful if Danish is official in the Faroe Islands, since it's neither mentioned in the Danish constitution nor in the Faroese Home Rule Act (though, it mentioned that Danish must be properly learnt, but this doesn't make it official)

In addition, the Faroe Islands have a very distinct way of pronuncing Danish, Gøtudanskt, which is Danish orthography pronunced phonetically (with a few exception): dag [da:g] etc.

If not a colony, what were the Faroe Islands before they became semi-autnonoums? The wording you mention about "must be properly learnt" sounds like a de-facto official status, which is not too uncommon.

-Peter ^Isotalo 10:53, 6 August 2005 (UTC)

In 1380 the Faroe Islands became a part of Denmark together with Norway. In 1948 they recived homerule. From about 2000 there has been negotiations about indepentance (without results)..

-Eva 15:20 29 August 2006

The Faroe Islands have never had colonial status, although in the 1700s they were treated pretty much as a colony. They were treated like a part of Denmark, being mostly a disadvantage to them because the government didn't want to acknowledge their special language and culture. So the answer is, before they became autonomous, they were a Danish county. They are still part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Autonomy is not mentioned in the Constitution but in a seperate law (devolution, similar to Scotland and Wales). Ever since 1948 about half of them wish to be fully independent, and half of them to remain under Danish rule. Nobody wants to return to being a mere Danish county, though.--Sasper 12:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Whether the Faroe Islands were officially a colony is a matter of discussion, but de facto they most certainly were, just like Greenland, Iceland etc. If this is an attempt at (misplaced) political correctness, I don't think any Faroese people will disagree that the Faroe Is. were in any meaningful sense of the word a colony.

As for Danish, it is a "necessary" language (so to speak) for the Faroese, because most of them come to Denmark to e.g. get a higher education. I for one have never met a single Faroese who didn't speak Danish fluently, in Denmark or elsewhere. In fact, because they speak what is called gøtudanskt, they often master Danish ortography better than many Danes. --dllu 17:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Danish vowels

The article claims that Danish has 12 vowels that also contrast in length for a total of 24 vowels, implying that all of Danish's twelve qualities have two quantities. It then presents a table of some sixteen vowels, including [ɶ], which (I'm lead to believe) does not occur as a phoneme in any language. I therefore come to the conclusion that the table is horribly wrong. Am I right? Could some who knows the topic fix it? (as well as the Danish phonology page, which is not a page on Danish phonology).

If it helps, the German and French Wikipedias, at least, seem to have something rather more useful available at de:Dänische Sprache, fr:Danois and fr:Prononciation du danois. I don't read German or French, though, so I can't much help any translation effort...

—Felix the Cassowary (ɑe hɪː jɐ) 13:59, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Some of the vowels in that table might be different in principle, but in practical use the difference is so small that most Danes would have trouble hearing the difference. I would say it is arguable if they really constitute distinctly different sounds. --dllu 17:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

contest

I am currently participating in a contest at Universal Studios Florida. One of the clues is in a foreign language which I BELIEVE may have Danish or Nordic roots. I thought that perhaps someone here might be able to assist me.

The clue is in an audio file, which you can hear by going to the Halloween Horror Nights website and doing the following. As it is an audio file, you will need a computer with sound.

1) Go to: http://themeparks.universalstudios.com/orlando/hhn/?__dest=hhn.OFFER_right_1 2) Click on the book in the upper right hand corner (Next to FAQ's) 3) Click on the skull in the bookcase 4) Click on the large skull at the upper right hand of map. It is here that you will hear the audio file.

Your assistance would be greatly appreciated. In the event that the audio file is not of Danish roots, do you have any idea of what language it may be in? I have already confirmed that it is not in Latin. 24.110.97.56 (talk · contribs)

The words were not a language at all, they were simply made up. The site is still fun to navigate! User:Steve In Florida

Dialects

Not much about the dialects,and the difference between jutland(west) speakers and the rest.. I think about the E or Æ or A before a word in this dialect.Like (dialect)æ hund=(norm danish)hunden=(english)the dog Anybody knows the reason for this divide?Platdeutsch(Platgerman) influence ?Jønne

Standard Danish (rigsdnaks) are based on the dialect of copenhagen but the one of the opper class of copenhagen. The is a notisable difference between upper class copenhagen dialect and working class copenhagen dialect. the later being more related to general zealandic the the first. The old cities of Denmark (Aalborg, Randers, Århus, Odense, Esbjerg, Copenhagen) have a dialect different from their sourrounding area —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.198.215.136 (talk) 23:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

Spoken in:

Further up on this page, user Maunus wrote: I reintroduced Skåne, Sweden as a place where danish is spoken. This doesn't have anything to do with Scanian, but is simply a consequence of the many danes moving to sweden after the opening of Øresundsbron. Danes in skåne now number above throusand.

I think it needs to be discussed exactly what is meant by "Spoken in" in the infobox (it might well have been discussed somewhere before, which I have not seen). Should Sweden be on the list because there are many Danish speakers there? In Norway, there are over 19000 Danish people, presumably mostly Danish speakers[1]. Should Norway be on the list as well? I am sure there are also thousands of Danish speakers in, for instance, the UK and the USA. And for that matter, smaller or larger groups scattered all over the world, as indeed is the case for most languages. The question is what is useful information, and what is not. In my opinion, "spoken in" in the infobox should list those places where Danish is an official language, or has spoken by a compact group of people in a certain area over a longer period of time (generations). Is this the case with Skåne?

Also, why is Iceland on the list? Danish is taught as a second language there, but is that enough to class Iceland as a country where Danish is spoken? --Barend 17:09, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I merely assumed ths was a list of places with considerable danish speaking communties. Since there s another category saying in which places danish is an official language. Maunus 17:18, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, the amount of Danish speakers on Iceland is neglectible. Iceland shouldn't be on the list. Argentina, USA and Canada could be added. Shouldn't there be a more neat list with numbers of speakers in each country?--Sasper 12:35, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

There is Danish people living in Iceland like there is Icelandic people living in Denmark, the same with Faroe Islands. But why is Norway on the list? --Arigato1 16:30, 10 February 2007 (UTC) Oh i didt know there live 19000 Danish speakers in Norway. --Arigato1 16:33, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are about 50,000 Danes living in London. ;o)

I think the paragraph as it is now pretty much gives the correct information. Iceland should of course be mentioned because of the historical ties - Danish still at least the same status in Icelandic schools as German has in Danish schools. --dllu 17:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Why is Norwegian on the list? It looks like it's an official language when it is put like that. 19 000 speakers is almost nothing compared to how many there are of other languages (like Arabic). Also, there are more Swedes (24 000) than Danes, but Norway isn't listed as a country where Swedish is spoken. But, I'm not finished yet, there are also 14 000 thousand Norwegians in Denmark. In my mind, there are two options: Remove Norway from the list, or put Denmark on the list of countries where Norwegian is spoken. Personally, I vote for removing Norway from the list. 88.90.136.124 (talk) 20:44, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Help with IPA codes

Can anyone knowledgeable in IPA codes help me fix the pronunciation in the article Daldøs, as mentioned here: Talk:Daldøs#Pronunciation, and afterwards remove the present post?

Jysk and English

Is it worth point out that the dialect (and vocabulary) of Jysk (in the western coastal areas of Jylland) is, in some cases, so similar to the English spoken by some inhabitants of parts of north-east England (traditional eastern Yorkshire and Northumberland dialects), that these speakers can still understand one another? – Agendum 13:18, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it needs a proper citation. I suspect that it's uncommon now. Mikkel 17:47, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not true. The Jutlander will of course understand the Yorkshireman, given that all Danes know at least basic English. The other way round understanding will be more scarce. A genuine Northern Englander (or Northern Englishman?) will know certain words of Danish or Norse origin, but way too little to understand a Jutish sentence. But the sounds and melody of the dialects may sound similar, especially to outsiders. And then the mentality and humour of Northern England may be similar to that of Jutland, helping communication along. I come from a fishing village in Northwestern Jutland and speak a genuine dialect myself. We have the W sound, a great deal of diphtongs (worm and hole is pronounced almost like in English, whereas in Standard Danish it is orm and hul). The words are also stripped of the final -e so common in Standard Danish, changing the melody to harsh one-syllabic words. These things, and the special Jutish grammar makes it very difficult to understand for eastern Danes. I guess the myth about English and Jutish fishermen communicating is something that was invented to make us even more exotic. Many people in Jutland like the myth, though, because it makes us feel more special. (As if we would need that - we know we are best!) --Sasper 12:15, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

It is true. It is not a myth - at least it wasn't about half a century ago.

The same actually applies further south. I'm from South Jutland, and I have a friend who is half Dutch. His grand parents are from Frisia, and I was able to talk to them using our separate local dialects.

Don't be so quick to discard stories as "myths". ;o) --dllu 17:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Learning Danish

Hello,

I'm fairly new to Wikipedia so I'm not sure if adding a section on "Learning Danish" would be appropriate. I am half Danish but only learned a few words as a child. When I was 20 I moved to Copenhagen and learned to speak fluently but, as many who have tried will know, this was no easy task. I feel like I could provide some useful information and recommendations on how to learn the language (e.g. where you can find the most intensive, government sponsored courses). If this is appropriate, please reply letting me know and I'd be happy to contribute.

Kristian —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kkibak (talk • contribs) 06:25, 7 December 2006 (UTC).

Hi Kristian. Information on learning Danish could be relevant, but recommendations of courses would not. Important wikipedia principles to consider are WP:NPOV (give a neutral point of view, not a personal opinion) and WP:NOR (avoid original research; facts stated should be available from reliable citable sources). But WP:BB (be bold) - go ahead and do some editing; if it's inappropriate, someone will either fix it or remove it, and that's no big deal.--Niels Ø 07:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Devoiced stops

Article says that /b, d, g/ are all decoiced in all contexts. Is there evidence of these being underlyingly voiced, or should these be /p,t,k/? Seems that the the transcription of the word following the chart should be [lapə], as well, not [labə]. Would change it, but I'll leave it to someone with a lot more expertise in the subject. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.208.95.112 (talk) 17:57, 13 February 2007 (UTC).

The interpretation of unvoiced /bdg/ as being underlyingly voiced is the standard interpretatioin of danish phonologists (see e.g. Basbøll and Grønnum for example)so theres really no grounds for changing it. I am not sure about the reasoning behind it but I think it is probably a fortis/lenis contrast.Michkalas 12:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

I can agree that this should be mentioned in the phonology section, but I don't understand why the pronunciation of the name of Danish in the lead needs the diacritics. For the huge majority of readers that don't know what devoicing means, it's just confusing. Since the pronunciation phonetically could just as correctly be rendered as [tansk], I think we should use that transcription in the lead. Otherwise we're pretty much defeating the purpose of mentioning it in the lead.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with writing [tansk] - because it is even more confusing and because it is basically OR since no source will give this as the pronunciation. And because the article it self states that there is non [t] in Danish! I move that the pronuciation should be written with a d and with or without diacritics. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:11, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The only thing that separates a [d] from a [t] is voicing. If a [d] is for one reason or another devoiced, then it can only be a [t]. I clearly remember discussing this particular issue in phonetics class back when I studied linguistics at Stockholm University, and hardly think it's a case of OR. Adding dinky diacritics to a pronunciation guide serves no purpose but to satisfy academics. And an encyclopedic pronunciation guide is not supposed to be an acadmeic issue but rather a help to the average reader. The phonology section isn't actually contradictory since it discusses phonemes, and it does explain that /b, d, g/ are devoiced in all contexts. But I think it might be more appropriate to discuss how to make the phonology section easier to comprehend for non-linguists.

Peter ^Isotalo 11:24, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that everyone who knows either the danish language or anything about danish phonology will want to change that t to a d. Danish speakers because the letter t signals an affricate to them and linguists because they know that it is phonologically a devoiced d. You will have to discuss this with somebody every day - to me it is much more rational to simply use the pronunciation that sources use. I maintain that this is a case of OR since no reliable source can be presented for this pronunciation - it is simply not verifiable.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 13:39, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, give me a break... A devoiced [d] is phonetically a [t]. That kind of conclusion can't possibly count as OR. I really don't see, though, why either linguists or Danish speakers should insist on changing the transcriptions. Linguists should be well aware that it's a phonetic representation where phonemic transcription isn't relevant. As for speakers of Danish, this wouldn't be the first instance where native speakers simply don't know how to transcribe their own language. The pronunciation guide isn't even intended for them in the first place.

Peter ^Isotalo 14:04, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

No I will not give you a break. You are completely ignoring the fact that all linguists writing about danish transcribe the word with a devoiced d - you simply assume that this choice is irrelevant and unfounded. If you present a reliable source providing that transcription of the word "dansk" then I shall give you a break but not before. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:36, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

And a devoiced [d] is for our purposes still a [t]. I've pointed out that the devoicing diacritics are intended for phonological presentation, and a pronunciation guide for non-native speakers is not about phonology. You agree on that yourself in previous posts. The pronunciation in the lead and the infobox is not intended for phonological descriptions and there is no need for that pronunciation guide to be immidiately consistent with the phonology section. The use of brackets, rather than slashes, should make this perfectly obvious, don't you think?

The problem here is that we're not talking about any definitive statement about Danish phonology, but are trying to present a way to explain to readers who don't speak Danish how to pronounce the word dansk. Preferably in the most intuitive way possible. Using obscure diacritics merely to maintain phonological consistency in a phonetic transcription is no way intuitive.

Peter ^Isotalo 15:38, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure it is an academic issue, as any number of people will tell you on talk:IPA only academics understand IPA - if you want a laymans pronunciation guide then remove the brackets and write (pronounced: "TAhnsk").·Maunus· ·ƛ· 16:41, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

A devoiced [d] is phonetically a [t]. Writing something within brackets means you don't have to make a phonemic transcription. Could you please address these two arguments instaed of avoiding them? And please don't suggest that IPA is somehow an academic monopoly. This is a general encyclopedia, not an academic journal.

Peter ^Isotalo 17:19, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

The fact is this: in a narrow transcription the phoneticists and phonologists working with danish transcribe the sound as [d̥] and in a broad transcription they write [d] the reason that they don't do this is of course that they are not phonetically the same. Nina Grønnum states that danish [p t k] have a weaker articulation than the sounds written [pʰ t^s kʰ] in standard IPA usage and she says that in a narrow transcription they should be transcribed as [b̥ʰ d̥^s ɡ̊ʰ]. This means that the choice between a devoiced d and a t for use in transcribing danish is not only phonologically, but also phonetically motivated. A danish [d̥] is not articulated the same as a standard IPA [t].·Maunus· ·ƛ· 18:20, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

And you believe this minute level of phonetic detail is genuinely relevant to a pronunciation guide in an encyclopedia? Most people who see that transcription (granted that their browers are even able to display the diacritics) are going to believe they're seeing your average [d] and [g]. No matter if [tansk] might not be exactly on the mark, it's still so much closer than what most readers will interpret as [dansg] with voicing no doubt spilling producing a [z] for many speakers.

Peter ^Isotalo 19:03, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this reasoning is problematic, because it introduces editors as an intermediary link that decides if the scientifically approved explanations are palatable enough for the general public - and if they are we just change them for something else that we imagine readers will understand easilier. This is contrary to wikipedia policies that set reliability and verifiability as the standard. When all reliable sources state that a certain interpretation of facts is the best then I am very reluctant to say that wikipedias readers should be offered a different one. Apart from this using the t- version also seems to be against consensus since no one apart from you have argued in favour of it but at least three independent editors have showed to be against it. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 20:30, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(Unindent) Do whatever you want with it if you feel you have consensus on your side. I'm just rather frustrated that you treat this as though we were still discussing academia, rather than basic information for non-linguists. We have two choices: a) we allow for a rough estimation that is reasonably easy to understand for most readers but might not pass academic standards (though this is not the point of encyclopedias) or b) we use a level of detail that is useful only to a tiny minority of linguistics aficionados that don't really need the transcription in the first place. I really ask you to consider whether you're actually editing for your own sake or for a general readership.

Peter ^Isotalo 09:23, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I will wait for more input and a broader consensus before taking any action. I also think that you are misrepresenting the problem first of all I don't thin you are right that [tansk] is more helpful to non-academes than [dansg] with or without devoicing marks. English speakers for example instinctively aspirate t when ocurring initially so a d which is instinctively devoiced in initial position for eglish epakers is closer to the danish initial d than to an english initial t. Writing [t] is only closer to people that are fully competent in IPA - so that they will realise that an IPA [t] is not equivalent to an english /t/ - and these readers might just as well get the fully academically approved explanation of danish phonetics since they can well be expected to understand it. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 09:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Like I said, it's not the perfect solution. The mother tounge of the reader will always be an issue no matter what type of transcription we use. However, complicating things further by going into very fine detail will only make it more difficult to decipher. I added a pronunciation file from Commons to make it a bit clearer, though.

Speaking of explanations of Danish phonetics. Wouldn't you like to work on the phonology section a bit? Most of the current info was written back in 2005 and it was never referenced in any detail. I was the one who added Basbøll to the reference list, but I think I might have troulbe getting a hold of it again.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:52, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually in this case, because we are presumably writing for speakers of English I think the more detialed version is preferable because it avoids the problem by being both a better description phonetically and closer fitted to English pronunciation. I could work on the phonology section I suppose but I don't know what specifically needs referencing or changing? Might you help by putting in fact tags or writing here on the talk pages what you think is questionable? I think I can get my hands on Basbøll without too much of a problem.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 14:05, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I was just thinking about fleshing out the refs with a few well-placed footnotes. For example, the tables could be footnoted with a "based on Basbøll p. XXX". The statement about stød and its relation to Scandinavian word accents would probably benefit from a page citation. And I guess we might as well cite the comment about the Danish /r/ while we're at it.

Peter ^Isotalo 06:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Nordic Language Convention

I don't know if you would like to include some legal information on Danish from a new article I have created on Nordic Language Convention. --Michkalas 12:07, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

A little number correction

Actually, French 70, which I deleted, is not 20-based. It's soixante-dix or 60 + 10. And soixante is derived from six, not twenty. Also, to complicate things further, added the little part about checks and money. — J M Rice (talk) 07:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

All very interesting, but where is the citation for a source? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 15:51, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I think this is all common knowledge. You can eg. read about it at http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html . Stefán (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

"Common" knowledge or not, everything in WP must have a source, as I am sure you must know. The page you pointed out could be one of them, but it certainly doesn't cover everything in this particular section, which reads very much like it is Original Research. This is not a failing of this section alone but of much else in the article. Thanks for your attention and help in finding sources for this section, which I hope you will add as you get them. GeorgeLouis (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

It is common knowledge - it really isn't controversial. Ole Stig Andersens webpage is certainly an alright source for most of that information. ·Maunus· ·ƛ· 21:54, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

The statements concerning Danish in this section are all referenced in the external links, Dictionary of the Danish Language and Danish grammar will eg. cover them all, except the one about the checks but I already provided references to that. The statements about German, Dutch and French can be verified by looking at a grammar for these languages, links to such books can be found in the respective articles. Is that all? If not, can you please be specific, which statement do you not believe? Stefán (talk) 00:52, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Tycho Brahe

Just wondering about this: is Tycho really pronounced [tsyːː] ?

No but "Thyge" which is the danish spelling of the name is. (Actually it should probably be transcribed [tˢy:ə])·Maunus· ·ƛ· 07:50, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I can buy the schwa, just not the triple [y]. Thanks! — kwami (talk) 07:56, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually the triple y is closer to my own pronunciation (really a long y followed by a short) but I think the schwa-pronunciation is more standard.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 08:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Consonant voicing

Quoth the section:

/b, d, g/ are devoiced in all contexts [...] Hence lappe and labbe are rendered [labə].

1) If /b d g/ are entirely devoiced, surely it would make more sense to call them /p t k/ and contrast them with the aspirated versions /p_h t_h k_h/ explicitly?

2) The above quote is contradictory. It might be that /b d g/ are phonemically devoiced but unaspirated, but are phonetically voiced medially (equivalent to saying that /p t k/ are phonemically aspirated but phonetically voiced medially), but I don't have a book of Danish phonology handy to check if this is the case, or if the article is outright wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.72.128.208 (talk) 22:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

1. No, because they are lenis. In fact phonetically danish aspirated consonants are also described as devoiced voiced consonants because they are also lenis.

2.Danish /b, d, g/ are voiceless in all environments, i.e. they are also not voiced medially phonetically. The contrast between b/p, d/t and k/g is neutralised medially and finally. The quote is only wrong in so far as it uses a broad phonetic transcription leaving out the devoiceing mark on the b in the example [labə]. I have several books of danish phonology at hand and the example is correct.·Maunus· ·ƛ· 12:22, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Aa and Å

In the article it is said that "Aalborg" is spelled with aa, anyway that is not 100% true. The Danish words which is still spelled with aa can actually be spelled with BOTH aa and å. Perhaps that fact should be added to the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.81.74.242 (talk) 17:38, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Danish placenames that are spelled with Aa can be spelled with an å instead. But Danish surnames that are spelled with aa, like Kirkegaard (or Kierkegaard), can not be spelled with å unless the person or family has changed their name (which some people have done). --Saddhiyama (talk) 21:43, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Aalborg cannot be spelled with å anymore - the city council changed the placename back to the Aa spelling a few years ago because they felt it was more "international" - only old texts use å and no official signs or maps will spell Aalborg with å. ·Maunus·ƛ· 22:23, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

The city council may have a saying on how the official documents coming from the town is spelled, but like Aarhus/Århus, both solutions can still be used by anyone else (ex the printed media and the Danish postal services which uses both spellings). --Saddhiyama (talk) 22:31, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

They can but it would be wrong - just like writing københavn with oe would.·Maunus·ƛ· 07:05, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

According to the online version of retskrivningsordbogen both Ålborg and Aalborg seem to be acceptable, so I don't think the comparison with Koebenhavn is valid. They cite a paragraph that isn't available online, but trying to find the corresponding paragraph in my (slightly old) version of politikens nudansk ordbog, in my own translation: "In Danish placenames Å/å is always the correct one, e.g. Århus, Tåstrup, Grenå. Only if you want to respect strong local traditions, is Aa/aa usable, e.g. Ålborg or Aalborg, Åbenrå or Aabenraa." Hemmingsen 07:54, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Removed from vocabulary

I have removed the examples "computer" and "TV" from the vocabulary section where they were used to serve as examples of words that were (allegedly) adapted directly from English. While "harddisk" and "skateboard" are genuine examples, "computer" belongs to international vocabulary and is used in virtually any modern language (with the exception of languages where specific puristic attitudes prevail, e.g. Icelandic). Therefore, "computer" is not appropriate here (all of the following would be equally inappropriate for the same reason: "interference", "psychology", "transistor", "reaction" etc.)

"TV" has also entered international vocabulary and is thus inappropriate as well. It is, however, not a proper word but just an acronym. --RokasT (talk) 01:26, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Danish formerly a mandatory subject in schools in Iceland?

This is in the current revision of the article: "Danish was formerly a mandatory subject in schools in Iceland." I mean, it still is. Isn't it? I do think this is nonsense. -MrGulli (talk) 20:15, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Fyrretyve røvere

In the secion on number words, the article has:

Thus, in modern Danish forty is called fyrre derived from the original fyrretyve (i.e. four score), which is now only used in extremely formal settings or for humorous effect.

This (and the table below it) is clearly wrong as four score is 80, not 40! As far as I recall, the usual explanation for the word "fyrre" (40) - and in particular its archaic form "fyrretyve" - is that it means "four tens", as "tyve" (today meaning 20) is really an old plural of "ti" (10). Of course, this is quite confusing when e.g. "firs" (80) is explained as "fire sinde tyve" (4x20) where "tyve" means 20, not 10! To avoid this confusion, "firs" could also be explained as "fire snese" (4x20), where "snes" is equivalent to the English "score", i.e. an archaic word for the vigesimal base, 20. But that would leave e.g. "firsindstyvende" (still in use) unexplained - I wonder what the true history of "firs" is. Does anyone knonw (and perhaps even have an authoritative source)??? It seems that more than one archaeological layer is involved!--Nø (talk) 14:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Unique among the world's languages"

Somebody changed this article, particularly its introductory paragraph that said that Danish was unique among the world's languages due to its prosidy and creaky voice, "stød". And also other things were changed. I'm not Danish and I am not the author of the original introductory paragraph, but I would like to know why it was changed. "unique among the world's languages" is a phrase I remember. And frankly, the article as it is written sounds like it was written for children. I had to check that this wasn't the Simple English version. This is not the version of the article that I know and like.Dub8lad1 (talk) 04:32, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I probably removed it. Because it is not a meaningful statement. Danish is not more "unique" than any other language is. I am still working on the article, so any constructive input you have will be appreciated. I think your feeling of it being written for children is because I try to use clear and concise language aimed at an audience that do not have a specialized linguistics background. I think that is a good way to write in general on wikipedia. If some phrasings are to "dumbed down" you can point them out and suggest improvements. The article was a mess when I started working on it with lots of incorrect statements and almost no sources - so bringing back an older version is not an option. We move forward only. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 05:45, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Looking through the history, the introductory paragraph never had the "unique among the world's languages" phrase - that phrase was found only in the phonology section. It has been changed to "unusual" which is more accurate and less sensationalist.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 07:15, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Compound nouns

The article gives the example kvindehåndboldlandsholdet or "women's national handball team." From a linguistic perspective the English phrase is just as much a compound noun as the Danish word is; the fact that when writing we retain the spaces between the components is just an orthographic convention. While I don't doubt that Danish does form compound nouns to a greater degree than English, I think a better example is needed.Pithecanthropus (talk) 22:10, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Actually, that's not the case; "women's" is a possessive adjective, and "national" is a regular adjective. "Handball team" is at least arguably a compound noun in English, but the entire phrase "women's national handball team" is not, unless you want to count every instance of a noun modified by adjectives as a compound noun. --Smeazel (talk) 08:31, 8 September 2012 (UTC)

Geographic distribution

The introduction mentions "...Danish language communities in Argentina, the U.S. and Canada.", however the geographical distribution section makes no mention of them. Does anyone have some references or knowledge of where these communities exist in those countries? Thanks! //Blaxthos ( t / c ) 23:21, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

There are also small communities of Danish speakers in Spain. The Map does not include Greenland although 15 to 20 per cent speak Danish there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Henryfunk (talk • contribs) 03:49, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Dialects

The article says (January 5, 2011) that one of the three distinct dialect groups is called "Eastern Danish" and includes also the dialects of three Swedish provinces. As source is dialekt.dk [2] mentioned. If you go to that source you will find that the Afdeling for Dialektforskning at the Univeristy of Copenhagen calls this group "Bornholmsk" and does not include any Swedish dialect in it. I will now correct the information according to the source. --Vedum (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

can you translate this paragraph? Kan du svare Lone? Jeg kan ikke se hvad hun gor forket.Hun tommer basket og gemmer-hvad allers skal der til? Eller maske er der en fejl? KH Betiina — Preceding unsigned comment added by 110.93.89.78 (talk) 12:35, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

loans in English

"Cold" is not necesssarily a Danish loan, and I nowhere found an attestation for that view. It is rather a normal development from OS=OE cald. It thus had to be cancelled.HJJHolm (talk) 16:54, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

---

Recently,

Because English and Danish are related languages which share a common root in Old Norse, many common words are very similar in the two languages.

was changed into

As Danish and English are both Germanic languages, many common words are very similar in the two languages.

Yes, the first is incorrect, and the second true, but it also misses the fact that similarities stem not only from shared roots but also from later contact. How is this best stated - briefly?--Nø (talk) 13:34, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

However you choose to put it, the pleonasm "share a common" should be avoided. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.234.254 (talk) 11:43, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes! And Old English is not "rooted" in Old Norse. OE was influenced by ON, but it is derived from Proto-Germanic.85.233.234.245 (talk) 22:27, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Yes, but Middle English and Modern English do have Old Norse roots. Middle English is basically a creol of Old English, Old Danish and Norman, since several key grammatic structures and rules changed to North Germanic systems, which normally doesn't happen through loaning. Carewolf (talk) 12:59, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

The creole hypothesis is not widely accepted.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:25, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Sure, that is a creole is not widely accepted or the preferred way to put it, but that English has a lot more than just loan words from Old Norse/Old Danish is.Carewolf (talk) 19:10, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

What do you mean by more than loanwords, here just contact induced grammatical change? That does happen very frequently through borrowing/diffusion.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:22, 30 January 2015 (UTC)

Some words, particularly in northern English, are directly descended from Old Norse. Old Norse is therefore one of the roots of English. I can give you examples if you wish. 78.151.30.194 (talk) 04:37, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

This does still not make it "rooted" in Old Norse. Incredibly more words than from Old Norse came from French and entered the English language. Is English rooted in French then? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.206.111 (talk) 15:31, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Vowels

Why are diphthongs ignored? Is this Wikipedia practice? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.234.254 (talk) 11:49, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I'm no linguist or phoneticist, but I don't think a consistent description of Danish phonetics need to invoke that concept - or at least, they are not phonemic. Did you have anything specific in mind?--Nø (talk) 14:50, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of diphthongs in Danish (most ending with i/j or u/u̯), they are just not included here because they are simply combinations of phonemes without independent status. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 14:59, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

I find the decision to suppress the diphthongs most unfortunate. The argument that they should be ignored because they are "simply combinations of phonemes without independent status" is misguided. I suspect this unfortunate decision was motivated by some implicit "ideological" (purist) position or a failure to consider what purpose an article such as this one is to serve. It is, moreover, an argument that is too strong for its purpose: any diphthong in any language can be described as a combination of "phonemes without independent status". Your argument really means little more than "I suffer from diphthongophobia".

Your analysis appears to have a certain economy, but it does so only in virtue of the arbitrary (and perhaps temporary) circumstance that the constituents of Danish phonemes all happen to occur as independent phonemes. If just one Danish phoneme had included a vowel that was not independently represented in the Danish vowel phoneme inventory, you would have had to include the vowel in question in your inventory of monophthongs, and if your analysis was to be helpful you would have to add a note to the effect that the distribution of this vowel was special in that it only occurred after (or before, as the case might be) the other vowel with which it formed a diphthong. This would obviously be a mess, and it would be even worse if there were more such cases. If you instead adopted a less brittle analysis, one that would work for other languages, there is a fair chance it would not appear alien to readers who know phonetics but do not know Danish phonetics. So please drop your ideological hang-ups and add the diphthongs.

The very fact that the second element of the diphthongs can be realized by such a restrictive paradigm as is the case (i, u) should perhaps make you suspect that the diphthongs do after all have "independent status"?

An analysis that includes diphthongs tends to be more informative for readers interested in the orthography and/or history of the language in question.

If you worked on the article on English language I suspect you would "kill" not only the diphthongs but also the two post-alveolar affricates :-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.234.245 (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2015 (UTC)

Articles give the phoneme inventories found in published sources. Including diphthongs as segments would require a phonological description that posits diphthongs as independent segments. Diphthongs could of course be included in a description of phonotactics, but since there is currently no phonotactics in the article that is the reason they are not. Almost all wikipedia articles suffer from a lack of engagement with phonotactics and phonological processes, and tend to simply list inventories of segments and phones.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 02:33, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

Phoneme /ɕ/ or not

I read: "The combination of /sj/ is realized as an alveolo-palatal fricative, [ɕ], making it unnecessary to postulate a /ɕ/-phoneme in Danish." According to my reasoning, this claim can only hold true if /sj/ is the only (string of) phoneme(s) that correspond(s) to the pronunciation [ɕ]. But what about words like "chance"? Here /ch/ does not seem to consist of /sj/.Redav (talk) 22:07, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

"ch" is just another way of writing the phoneme combination /sj/ in loanwords - chance is phonemically /sjaŋse/. You are confusing letters with phonemes.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 22:10, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

Danish not official in Faroe Islands

According to their constitution:

Symbols and Language (1) The Faroe Islands have a Flag and other Symbols according to statute. (2) The official language is Faroese.

http://loegmansskrivstovan.fo.dynamicweb.eu/ew/media/the.faroese.constitution.pdf ~~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.205.121 (talk) 22:39, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

This constitution is not currently in effect.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 01:14, 11 May 2013 (UTC)

Germany

Danish not official in Germany--89.199.239.218 (talk) 11:44, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

It also says "Recognised minority language", not "official language" in Germany. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:24, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Official?

List of official languages by state lists Danish language as statewide official language of Denmark, consistent with Danish language. But the article Official language lists Denmark as one of fifteen countries without an official language.

Which one is correct? Please discuss here: talk:Official language#Denmark--Nø (talk) 07:13, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

Vocabulary

The article states:

The majority of Danish words are derived from the Old Norse language. However, 50-60%[35] of Danish words come from Middle Low German and were borrowed in the late medieval era (explaining the relative similarity of its vocabulary to modern Low Saxon and Dutch), for example, betale (to pay).

However, if 50-60% of Danish words are of Low German origin, the first sentence stating that majority of vocabulary comes from Old Norse is impossible to be correct. Can anybody provide more sources regarding the subject? Michalite (talk) 21:44, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

It was changed from 35-40% by an IP-user.[3] The source describes the 55-60% estimate by Karl Wührer ("Der Einfluß des Deutschen auf die skandinavischen Sprachen" in Muttersprache 1954, pp. 448-459) as exaggerated, so the edit is a very selective interpretation.

Peter ^Isotalo 22:43, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Distribution map

The map in the infobox indicates that Danish is spoken by a significant minority in Iceland. As it is a mandatory subject in school, I suppose it is spoken by an overwhelming majority as a second language (or third, in fact), but I don't think it is spoken as first language or on an equal footing with icelandic by anyone excepting a very minor minority. So, I believe either the map or the legend (or both) should be changed.--Nø (talk) 08:17, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that seems reasonable. Only less than a percent of icelanders have danish as a first language.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 08:28, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

How are such maps made, I wonder? Should we request that the originator on mediawiki changes the map, or what do we do? Or can it be fixed by changing the legend? I don't see how.--Nø (talk) 10:11, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

I think I would start by just adding a note to explain that Iceland has mostly speakers of Danish as a foreign language. Then someone will have to change the map- it is not that hard to do with an image editor (just needs to change the color of Iceland) but I cant be bothered to do it myself.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 10:15, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

--- Another thing: In Southern Jutland, North of the German border, the map (with the present legend) indicates that Danish is a minority language in fairly large areas. I believe this is incorrect or exaggerated (but German is a significant minority language in those parts).--Nø (talk) 08:18, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

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/danˀsɡ /

I would like to say that its more like /dænˀsɡ/ than /danˀsg/. Just one man's thought though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Schwiiz (talk • contribs) 19:00, 4 October 2017 (UTC)

Pronunciation of "Danmark": In a narrow phonetic transcription it is really [ˈd̥ɛnmɑɡ̊], d and b being lenis (not fortis), and the stressed vowel being far from [a] and not even [æ], but closer to [ɛ]. Just listen to Danes speaking or some sound samples (forvo.com etc.).

And let's not forget: There is a good reason why the English word for "Danmark" is "Denmark"! Don't you think? Or otherwise, in English it would be spelled "Danmark", too! - Clearly a different vowel than in "man" or "hand"; as a German the "a" in Danish words like "dansk", "Danmark" sound completely like a German "ä" and different from an English "a" (like in "man" etc.). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.58.203.78 (talk) 13:58, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

[ˈdanˀsɡ] and Other Phonetically Inaccurate Transcriptions

re: Maunus' edit on 20:09, 16 May 2018

My "source" is that I have a really good understanding of the IPA and the cardinal vowels. I've been studying phonetics for over a decade, as I wrote earlier. That and the fact that I'm not deaf. "Dansk" does not have the same vowel as (or even a similar vowel to) Spanish "mapa." A sound like the Spanish "a" is what [a] is supposed to represent in the IPA. [ˈdanˀsɡ] (if you ignore the stød) is closer to the Swedish or Norwegian pronunciation of that word. "Dansk" in Danish actually sounds very similar to English "dense." Anyone who isn't deaf or hard of hearing should be able to hear that. Listen to the audio clips in the article. That clearly isn't [a] in "Dansk."

If that source isn't good enough, for some odd reason, then there is this blog post. That's from the phonetic blog of British phonetician John C. Wells. You'll notice the broad phonemic transcription he gives for Danish "mad" is /mað/, but the phonetic transcription (in brackets, not slashes!) he gives afterwards is [mɛð̞]. That's because the vowel in that word is phonetically nothing like the "a" of Spanish, Italian, etc. To native speakers of English, Danish "a" in "mad" sounds like the vowel of English "dead" (which is never [a]). To Italians it would probably sound like the stressed first vowel of "guerra" ("war"); that vowel is also not [a] (John Wells transcribes it ɛ).

In a broad phonemic transcription of Danish, you can use /a/ in words like "Dansk." In fact, using Roman letters like "a" in a phonemic transcription is desirable. Look at the following quote from the 1949 IPA Principles booklet (§20) (emphasis mine),

When a vowel is situated in an area designated by a non-roman letter, it is recommended that the nearest appropriate roman letter be substituted for it in ordinary broad transcriptions if that letter is not needed for any other purpose. For instance, if a language contains an ɛ but no e, it is recommended that the letter e be used to represent it. This is the case, for instance, in Japanese…

The Danish vowel in words like "Dansk" and "mad" is phonetically around ɛ. According to the above IPA principle, you have 2 options for transcribing that vowel in a broad phonemic transcription: /e/ and /a/. You shouldn't use /ɛ/ unless you have to, because it isn't a Roman letter. You guys have chosen /a/; that's fine. But you should put it between slashes, e.g., /'mað/, /ˈdanˀsɡ/, not between brackets [], as you have in this article. ˈmað and ˈdanˀsɡ are phonemic transcriptions, not phonetic ones, so they should be written /ˈmað/ (or /'mad/) and /ˈdanˀsɡ/. Brackets [] and slashes // are not interchangeable in IPA transcriptions. Putting those transcriptions between brackets is misleading to foreigners who are familiar enough with the cardinal vowels to know what sound [a] stands for. John Wells isn't a better source than me or anyone else who understands the IPA and has decent hearing.

Turklshdelight (talk) 23:23, 16 May 2018 (UTC)

@Turklshdelight: We use an IPA (or at least IPA-based) system that reputable sources use - see Help:IPA/Danish and Danish phonology. It's not that we "chose" anything, if we had an actual choice we'd probably go for narrow IPA to show the actual phonetic qualities of the vowels. But we don't, per WP:RS and WP:OR. We'd also have to moderate every Danish IPA posted on Wikipedia to match our system, rather than the established set of symbols used by reputable sources. Also, see the conservative vowel chart in our article on Danish phonology to see that the set of symbols we use for Danish vowels is justified by how the vowels were realized decades ago. In Conservative Standard Danish, what we write [a] and [æː] (which are an actual short-long pair like the sounds we conventially write [ʌ] and [ɔː]) are exactly that: [a] and [æː]. In Modern Standard Danish, these are [æ] and [ɛː] or even [ɛ] and [ɛː].

You're mistaking phonetic transcription for (fully) narrow phonetic transcription, which is just a subset of the former. You also seem not to distinguish between phonetic and phonemic transcription, which is an amateurish mistake - for instance, */ˈdanˀsɡ ˈsbʁɔwˀ/ as a phonemic transcription is plain wrong, as the final phoneme of sprog is /ɡ/, [w] (more accurately: [ʊ̯], but Help:IPA/Danish uses a broad transcription) is just an allophone of it (but I have no idea how to transcribe the whole word in phonemic transcription - I guess it's something like /ˈsbrɔːɡ/?)

Truly narrow transcriptions of Dansk and Dansk Sprog as pronounced by speakers of Modern Standard Danish are probably [ˈtænˀsk] (or [ˈtɛnˀsk] for speakers that don't distinguish between these vowels, which nowadays may be the majority (I don't know that)) and [ˌtænˀsk ˈspʁ̞ɔ̽ʊ̯ˀ, ˌtɛnˀsk -]. To write the variant with [ɛ] (or [æ] as we transcribe it on Help:IPA/Danish) would be redundant anyway as the merger is probably far from being complete and it's pretty obvious anyway (you just need to use your ears and/or read a bit on the minutiae of Danish vowels). Again, see Danish phonology for the explanation. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:01, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

Basbøll who is a main expert on Danish phonetics and phonology, and who, I can assure you, has a very fine understanding of the cardinal vowels and has studied phonetic for a number of decades, transcribes this vowel as [a] in his phonetic transcriptions (he does not in his main book on Danish phonology transcribe the word "dansk" but he transcribes the word "dans" which has the same vowel). There is no comparable tradition that I am aware of of trandscribing these vowels as [ɛ]. If there is, then kindly cite it as we cannot accept your stated superior understanding of IPA and cardinal vowels as an authority. By the way, for a native Danish speaker the vowel in "mad" and "Dansk" sounds quite a bit lower than the vowel in most english pronunciations of "dead", In fact if I pronounce the word mad with the same vowel as in dead, it becomes indistinguishable from "med", which is a different Danish word. ·maunus · snunɐɯ· 13:00, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

"Basbøll who is a main expert on Danish phonetics and phonology, and who, I can assure you, has a very fine understanding of the cardinal vowels and has studied phonetic for a number of decades, transcribes this vowel as [a] in his phonetic transcriptions (he does not in his main book on Danish phonology transcribe the word "dansk" but he transcribes the word "dans" which has the same vowel)."

If he thinks the vowel in "Dansk" is [a], then he is very far from being an expert I'm afraid. He'll need quite a bit more ear training before he gets to my level. He might need hearing aids too. So will you, if you think "Dansk" is pronounced [ˈtænˀsk]. Both of those transcriptions of that vowel are incorrect. I have Professor John Wells on my side though, so I'm not alone.

"By the way, for a native Danish speaker the vowel in "mad" and "Dansk" sounds quite a bit lower than the vowel in most english pronunciations of "dead"..."

To a Danish speaker with horrible hearing, yes.

"You're mistaking phonetic transcription for (fully) narrow phonetic transcription, which is just a subset of the former. You also seem not to distinguish between phonetic and phonemic transcription, which is an amateurish mistake - for instance, */ˈdanˀsɡ ˈsbʁɔwˀ/ as a phonemic transcription is plain wrong, as the final phoneme of sprog is /ɡ/..."

I never claimed to be an expert on Danish phonology specifically. I don't know all the phonemic oppositions of Danish, but I clearly am much better at phonetics than either of you two or this "Basbøll" person. I actually know the difference between [ɛ] and [a], for one thing.

"There is no comparable tradition that I am aware of of transcribing these vowels as [ɛ]"

So what? That just means that the tradition is a phonetically inaccurate one and people just keep transcribing the vowel in "Dansk" [a] because other people did in the past. Which is stupid.

Turklshdelight (talk) 01:58, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

A genius such as yourself should be able to find somewhere other than wikipedia to publish your grundbreaking research on Danish phonology and phonetics. Please do, and then we can include your proposed transcriptions citing your published works.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:00, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

"A genius such as yourself should be able to find somewhere other than wikipedia to publish your grundbreaking research on Danish phonology and phonetics. Please do, and then we can include your proposed transcriptions citing your published works."

There's certainly a chance of that happening. Although Danish is an unimportant language, so I probably wouldn't do research on it. It isn't high on my list of languages to do research on. It's "groundbreaking", by the way. Turklshdelight (talk) 13:38, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

@Turklshdelight: I can see that you largely ignored what I wrote and that you haven't read Basbøll's book. Is Wells's blog your only source?

Just one thing:

To a Danish speaker with horrible hearing, yes.

You don't know the cardinal vowel system at all then, just like you don't know the difference between broad and narrow phonetic transcriptions. I see no point in continuing this conversation as you have a history of being WP:DISRUPTIVE. Mr KEBAB (talk) 08:28, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

If you think so highly of your understanding of the IPA's principles, then you must be very familiar with the 1999 Handbook of the IPA, which superseded the 1949 Principles half a century later, and what it says in the section "Broad and narrow transcriptions", pages 28–30. But unfortunately, your remarks show that you are not. Nardog (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2018 (UTC)

"You don't know the cardinal vowel system at all then, just like you don't know the difference between broad and narrow phonetic transcriptions."

I'm afraid it's both of you who don't understand the cardinal vowel system at all. It's clear by reading your comments that that makes you feel very inferior to me, which is completely understandable. Anyone who thinks that "Dansk" is pronounced [ˈdanˀsɡ] in Danish has no understanding of the cardinal vowels. The vowel in "Dansk" sounds nothing like the Spanish a sound. I know the truth hurts, but someone has to write it, right? Turklshdelight (talk) 12:03, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

I think this discussion should

either be a discussion of how the principles of Help:IPA/Danish apply to the IPA used in this article,
or be a discussion of those principles and hence take place here: Help talk:IPA/Danish,
or perhaps even be a discussion of this: MOS:IPA, and hence take place here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation.

And I think personal attacks should be avoided.--Nø (talk) 14:25, 5 October 2018 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Danish language/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mr. Guye (talk · contribs) 01:54, 14 July 2018 (UTC)

I will be the one reviewing this nomination. Sorry that it took so long for someone to take a look at it.

Thanks, I am traveling and will not be able to respond quickly or with sufficient access to literature untill the middle of August.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:00, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

Criteria

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)
It is reasonably well written. a (prose, spelling, and grammar): Seems to have the basics down. b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists): ~~I'm currently trying to improve this.~~ I think it is decent enough. The manual of style is very big and is too difficult for any one person to review. It is factually accurate and verifiable. a (references): 86+ citations. Very well-sourced, though I still see very infrequent instances of uncited significant claims that I'd recommend be verified or removed if this article were nominated to for . I might be able to find sources during this review. b (citations to reliable sources): Very reliable sources here. The article actually relies mostly on print books written by Danish linguists. The sources that aren't in print tend to be university research and scholarly academic societies. Article possibly over-relies on the Haberman print source, but I think its fine. c (OR): There doesn't seem to be original research, as almost everything is sourced. d (copyvio and plagiarism): The only stuff I saw were mirror sites and popular quotes. It is broad in its coverage. a (major aspects): Seems to cover everything an article about a language should. b (focused): All content is topical and the article is organized well so all aspects of the subject can be explored. It follows the neutral point of view policy. Fair representation without bias: ~~Sometimes reads like an essay. Trying to fix.~~ I have improved it to a degree that meets the criterion, though more improvements need to be made if there is a desire to get it classed higher than GA. It is stable. No edit wars, etc.: There are some unresolved disputes, at least one involving the nominator, but no edit wars and they seem resolvable. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate. a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): Everything seems fair as far as I can tell. b (appropriate use with suitable captions): Yes, every last image has a relevant caption.
Overall: Pass/Fail: Pass
· · ·

Decision

I think the article is of high-enough quality to be certified a Good article. — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs) 00:29, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Numbered positions in Main clauses

In the section Main clauses, there is a table with 8 numbered positions. The number 6 is missing. I tried to correct it, but when I edit the number is there, and I see no difference from the other numbers. Could someone with more understanding of the syntax fix this?--Klausok (talk) 12:17, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

Done. (In each table line, two vertical bars go between each column - one of them was a single vertical bar instead.) Please verify that the table now actually shows what it is meant to show!--Nø (talk) 13:52, 20 July 2018 (UTC)

And him Per hadn't given a thought in years

May we know the English meaning, please? Is it: "And Per hadn't given a thought to him in years."? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.97.75 (talk) 11:44, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

Correct. The construction is a little artificial (in order to show all eight positions in one example, I guess). Same basic meaning could be conveyed by, e.g., "I årevis havde Per ikke skænket ham en tanke". The particular word order may shift the emphasis - I'd say the sentence in the article suggests a surprise by the fact that, now, suddenly, Per did think of him. PS. I'm a native Danish speaker - but otherwise not an expert.--Nø (talk) 14:52, 27 August 2020 (UTC)

"Main difference"

Following a statement on dialects and regional variants, the lead says:

The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative.

That seems to me to imply that (assuming some measure of difference between language variants) you should find larger difference between a 15-year-old and an 80-year-old living in the same part of the country, than between a Dane living on Bornholm and one living in Western Jutland, say. That is not a correct picture, I believe. Rather, I'd say there is a continuum from B-80 (an 80 year old living on Bornholm) over B-15 to WJ-15 to WJ-80 - the largest difference found between older people in different parts of the country, not between old and young. There are certainly markes (e.g., slang) that would place B-15 and WJ-15 close together, and further from both B-80 and WJ-80, but still, I donit think the wording is true. Not sure how to express it clearly, though (and missing a source).--Nø (talk) 09:53, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Cyrillic writing system

An anonymous user (93.160.57.138) has added Cyrillic as a writing system for the Danish language. I removed it again, but (s)he added it again. In a mail correspondance, (s)he calls me an idiot and claims that any language can be written in Cyrillic. The consequence of that would be that all "XXX Language" pages need to have Cyrillic added as writing system, which I believe is absurd. But then again, I'm not a language expert. So can someone else weigh in: Should Cyrillic really be added as writing system for the Danish Language. Troels Arvin (talk)

Hi there, im danish myself and I mean that Cyrillic should be added as a writing system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.83.200.22 (talk) 14:12, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

If Danish is written in Cyrillic then it should not be difficult to get a reliable source to back this claim up. If you find one you can add the claim back in with a citation. It would also be ideal for this information to be located in some place else in the article, with further information about its use and extent, rather than just the infobox which is intended for quick reference. AquitaneHungerForce (talk) 14:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

There is no source on this, but a lot of Danes speak Danish Cyrillic every language can be written in Cyrillic - go look up "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyrillization_of_German" of which you can see latin German is made into Cyrillic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.83.200.22 (talk) 14:57, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Nonsense. Nobody speaks "Danish Cyrillic". Yes, Danish can be translitterated into Cyrillic. Doesn't mean Cyrillic is used for writing Danish. And a lot of Danish sound lacks in every cyrillic alphabet. You cannot write the sounds Æ. Ø and Å using the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Madglad (talk • contribs) 19:47, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

We could add hexadecimal ascii, Greek letters, stenographic shorthand, katakana, and others. And the same would be true for pretty much all other languages. It's pointless. Danish is written in the latin alphabet augmented with æ, ø and å - period! (And I am Danish too.) Oh, and of old, Danish was written in Futhark, of course.--Nø (talk) 21:03, 1 September 2021 (UTC)