John Gunther Dean
Dean speaks four languages: English, French, German and Danish. He was the first U.S. Ambassador to Denmark who learned and spoke Danish, thus gaining significant respect from its people. He is married to the French-born Martine Duphenieux, and they have three grown children. He now lives in Switzerland and France but remains active on foreign affairs issues and comes to the U.S. often.
Danish language
Danish and English are both Germanic languages, Danish a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse and English a West Germanic language descended from Old English, and Old Norse exerted a strong influence on Old English in the early medieval period. To see their shared Germanic heritage, one merely has to note the many common words that are very similar in the two languages. For example, commonly used Danish nouns and prepositions such as "have", "over", "under", "for", "give", "flag," "salt," and "kat" are easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scots equivalents, e.g., "kirke" (Scots "kirk", i.e., 'church') or "barn" (Scots "bairn", i.e. 'child'). In addition, the word "by", meaning "village" or "town", occurs in many English place-names, such as "Whitby" and "Selby", as remnants of the Viking occupation. During the latter period, English adopted "are", the third person plural form of the verb "to be", as well as the corresponding personal pronoun form "they" from contemporary Old Norse.