Do people speak English in Denmark?
Languages of Denmark
A large majority (86%) of Danes also speak English as a second language; it is mandatory for Danish students to learn from the first grade in the public elementary schools (), by far the most popular option in the country. In the 1st (or 3rd, depends on the school) grade of folkeskole, a third language option is given, usually German or French. The vast majority pick German (47% of Danes report being able to speak conversational German). The third most widely understood foreign language is Swedish, with 13% of Danes reporting to be able to speak it.
Scandinavian Americans
The term "Scandinavia" is often misused when the term "Nordic" is meant. The Nordic countries consists of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, Greenland (a semi-independent Danish realm), the Faroese Islands (a semi-independent Danish realm), Åland (a semi-independent Swedish-speaking Finnish realm) and Finland. Sometimes also Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are included, due to the tiny group of Estonian Swedes in the archipelago of Northern Estonia. Unlike the three linguistically Scandinavian countries, the Nordic countries have languages that are only partially mutually intelligible (closest being Icelandic-FaroeIslandish on one hand and Danish-Norwegian-Swedish on the other) so therefore English is often used as a common language when Nordic people communicate. The Nordic countries have a lot of common history, as they have all been invaded/colonized by Scandinavians at one time, but even if there are close historical ties, these countries are also more culturally and genetically diverse than the Scandinavian countries with Greenlanders, Samis and Finns having a unique origin apart from the Germanic-Keltic Norsemen known as Scandinavians.
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people as a first language and 5 million people as a second language, constituting the majority of people in the Netherlands (where it is the sole official language) and Belgium (as one of three official languages). It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives English and German.
Homophile
Denmark
Danish language
With the exclusive use of "rigsdansk", the High Copenhagenian Standard, in national broadcasting, the traditional dialects came under increased pressure. In the 20th century, they have all but disappeared, and the standard language has extended throughout the country. Minor regional pronunciation variation of the standard language, sometimes called "regionssprog" ("regional languages") remain, and are in some cases vital. Today, the major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagenian, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of the capital, and low-Copenhagenian traditionally associated with the working class, but today adopted as the prestige variety of the younger generations. Also in the 21st century the influence of immigration has had linguistic consequences, such as the emergence of a so-called multiethnolect in the urban areas, an immigrant Danish variety (also known as "Perkerdansk"), combining elements of different immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish, as well as English and Danish.
Religion in Denmark
Just under 20% of the Danish population identifies as atheist. Phil Zuckerman, an American professor of sociology, after spending 14 months in Sweden and Denmark talking to hundreds of people about religion, reported that they were “often disinclined or hesitant to talk with [prof. Zuckerman] about religion, and even once they agreed to do so, they usually had very little to say on the matter.”
Perkerdansk
Perkerdansk or Immigrant Danish is a multi-ethnolect spoken in Denmark, a variety of Danish associated primarily with youths of Middle Eastern ethnic background. It is a contact variety that includes features of Danish as well as Arabic, Turkish, English and other immigrant languages. Particularly common in urban areas with high densities of immigrant populations, its features have also spread to general youth language in Denmark.
Turks in Denmark
Within the home environment the mother tongue is most dominant and children are expected to speak Turkish. However, Danish is spoken outside the home creating a bilingual identity.
Cyron Melville
Melville speaks Danish, English, Swedish and German.
Norwegian Americans
Some sources stated that today there are 81,000 Americans who speak Norwegian as their primary language, however, according to the US Census, only 55,475 Americans spoke Norwegian at home as of 2000, and the American Community Survey in 2005 showed that only 39,524 people use the language at home. Still, most Norwegian Americans can speak a common Norwegian with easy words like hello, yes and no. Today, there are still 1,209 people who only understand Norwegian or who do not speak English well in the United States. In 2000 this figure was 215 for those under 17 years old, whereas it increased to 216 in 2005. For other age groups, the numbers went down. For those who are from 18 to 64 years old, went down from 915 in 2000 to 491 in 2005. For those who are older than 65 years it went drastically down from 890 to 502 in the same period. The Norwegian language is likely to never die out in the U.S. because there is still immigration, of course on a much smaller scale, but they emigrate often to other areas, like Texas, where the number of Norwegian speakers increase.
Danglish
Danglish is a portmanteau of Danish and English. The term is used in Denmark to refer to the increasingly strong influx of English or pseudo-English vocabulary into Danish. It is an example of code switching, much like Spanglish in the United States.
While it has been argued that the influx of English words, similar to the import of Latin and French words in the past, makes the language more expressive, it remains controversial in many sectors of society, notably with older people, who are often less accustomed to English terms.
Culture of Denmark
Among today's Danish writers, probably the best-known to international readers is Peter Høeg (Smilla's Sense of Snow; Borderliners). Benny Andersen writes poems, short stories, and music. Poems by both writers have been translated into English by the Curbstone Press. Klaus Rifbjerg has published over 100 novels as well as poetry, short stories and TV plays. Two of his works have been translated into English: Witness to the Future and War. Kirsten Thorup's novel Baby, winner of the 1980 Pegasus Prize, is published in English by the University of Louisiana Press. The psychological thrillers of Anders Bodelsen also appear in English as do some of the novels of intrigue by Leif Davidsen. Suzanne Brøgger and Vita Andersen focus largely on the changing roles of women in society.
Comparison of Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish
The Danish diphthongs and (spelled as "ej" and "øj") correspond to the Norwegian diphthongs (in Oslo pronunciation) and (spelled as "ei" and "øy"). Besides that, a great many letter combinations are pronounced as diphthongs in Danish, but as usual vowel-consonant combinations in Norwegian. That is mostly due to the Danish letters "g" and "v" (colloquially also "b") being pronounced as semivowels and after a vowel: thus, "dag" (day) is pronounced in Danish, but in Norwegian; "lov" (law) is pronounced in Danish, but in Norwegian. Similarly, and are often spelled as "eg" and "øg" in Danish ("eg" may be pronounced in Norwegian, too, e.g. in "regne", "to rain"). The Danish pronunciation is therefore, as with "a" above, closer to English, while the Norwegian is more conservative, closer to its spelling.The most notable differences are, as already mentioned, the pronunciation of approximants in Danish, corresponding to voiced and voiceless stops in Norwegian and of "r" as a uvu-pharyngeal approximant in Danish, corresponding to an alveolar trill in (East) Norwegian ("skrige", "shriek" vs "skrike"). Furthermore, Danish has replaced the voiced/voiceless opposition in ) vs ) with an aspirated/nonaspirated one ( vs ), and the contrast between the two is neutralized syllable-finally and before schwa (in practice, in the core of native words, this means it is lost everywhere except word-initially). Thus, "begge" (both) and "bække" (brooks) are pronounced alike as . In Norwegian, the opposition is still voiced vs voiceless and it is preserved everywhere, with being aspirated in the onset of a stressed syllable (as in English and German).
The Danish is either vocalized or dropped altogether, after having influenced the adjacent vowels, in all positions but word-initially and pre-stress, making the Danish "r" very similar to the standard German "r". Also, note the Danish pronunciation of initial "t" as , displaying a hint of the High German consonant shift wherein German changed "t" to "z"/"tz" (cf. Danish "tid", German "Zeit").
Danish language
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Minority languages of Denmark
First-generation Greenlanders in Denmark and Faroese in Denmark tend to speak their own languages, rather than Danish.
Languages of North America
Other introduced languages include Danish in Greenland, where it is spoken by nearly everyone (mostly as a second language) due to centuries of colonization by Denmark. Danish was once the language of administration of the US Virgin Islands before the purchase by the United States. Dutch in Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, where it is spoken alongside the Portuguese Creole language in Papiamento. In modern times North America has immigrant speakers of a large number of languages from around the world. For details see Languages of Canada, Languages of the United States, and Languages of Mexico. Some historic languages include Gholan Language and Quechua.
Kim Andersen (sailor)
Kim Andersen currently lives in Copenhagen, Denmark with his wife, and has one daughter and two grandchildren. On top of sailing, Andersen is a keen golfer and skier. In addition to his native Danish, Andersen is fluent in English and German.
Northern England
95% of the Northern population speak English as a first language – compared to an England and Wales average of 92% – and another 4% speak English as a second language well or very well. The 5% of the population who have another native language are chiefly speakers of European or South Asian languages. As of the 2011 census, the largest languages apart from English were Polish (spoken by 0.7% of the population), Urdu (0.6%) and Punjabi (0.5%), and 0.4% of the population speak a variety of Chinese: a similar distribution to that in the whole of England. Redcar and Cleveland has the largest proportion of the population speaking English as a first language in England, with 99.3%.
New Denmark, New Brunswick
The community hosts Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Pentecostal churches. Its five major ancestries are: English (50.1%), French (36.4%), Danish (17.0%), Scottish (12.4%), Irish (11.9%). The population has remained at approximately 1,000 residents in recent history, with Denmark Parish reporting a population of 1,668 in 2006.
Denmark
The tribal Danes came from the east Danish islands (Zealand) and Scania and spoke an early form of North Germanic. Historians believe that before their arrival, most of Jutland and the nearest islands were settled by tribal Jutes. The Jutes migrated to Great Britain eventually, some as mercenaries by Brythonic King Vortigern, and were granted the south-eastern territories of Kent, the Isle of Wight and other areas, where they settled. They were later absorbed or ethnically cleansed by the invading Angles and Saxons, who formed the Anglo-Saxons. The remaining Jutish population in Jutland assimilated in with the settling Danes.
Denmark–Norway
The state's inhabitants were mainly Danes, Norwegians, and Germans, and also included Faroese, Icelanders and Inuit in the Norwegian overseas possessions, a Sami minority in northern Norway, as well as indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans in the colonies. The main cities of Denmark–Norway were Copenhagen, Christiania (Oslo), Altona, Bergen and Trondheim, and the primary official languages were Danish and German, but Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Sami and Greenlandic were also spoken locally.
European hip hop
In Denmark, Hip Hop rap music has been growing steadily more popular over the last fifteen years and began with Danish language acts such as MC Einar and Rockers by Choice, later on: less knowned Rip Rap & Rock, Flopstarz, Humleridderne and Faktaposen, The Danish way of doing rap music was topped in the 80's towards acceptance among the common people who did not listen to any rap music was with a rap song called: "Rap Nu" by the famed and beloved old Danish football commentator: Gunnar "Nu" Hansen. The rap song was released towards the European football championship. In the early 1990s, English was the preferred language for underground acts such as Dope Solution, Kidnap and one of the first female and ground breaking artists No Name Requested, who merged rap with reggae well before other Danish contemporary artists. In the late 1990s Danish language rap was again in demand and the favorite choice of artists because of artists such as Jokeren and his group Den Gale Pose. The Funky Fly record label has been an important part of this evolution. In contrast to many other countries, Hip Hop in Danish has been generally as successful or more so locally than acts in English. Some Danish English language rappers have become more well-known abroad than at home, such as Static and NATiLL, both popular German acts, and Funk Flush and Delireeus, who are well-known elsewhere in Scandinavia. Prominent Danish-language artists include:
Church of Denmark
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark or National Church, sometimes called Church of Denmark ( or , literally: "the People's Church" or "the National Church"), is the established, state-supported church in Denmark. The reigning monarch is the supreme secular authority in the church. , 75.3% of the population of Denmark are members, though membership is voluntary.
Jutlandic dialect
The Danish cultural, media and business life revolves around Copenhagen, and Jutland has only in recent decades seen substantial economic growth. In the 20th century dialects were usually suppressed by media, state institutions, and schools. In recent decades, a more liberal attitude towards dialects has emerged, but since the number of speakers has decreased, and almost all of the remaining dialect speakers master a regional form of Standard Danish as well, dialects are still being ignored.
Scandinavia
Norwegians are accustomed to variation and may perceive Danish and Swedish only as slightly more distant dialects. This is because they have two official written standards, in addition to the habit of strongly holding on to local dialects. The people of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark have the greatest difficulty in understanding other Scandinavian languages. In the Faroe Islands and Iceland, learning Danish is mandatory. This causes Faroese people as well as Icelandic people to become bilingual in two very distinct North Germanic languages, making it relatively easy for them to understand the other two Mainland Scandinavian languages.
Languages in censuses
Studying English and Danish (or another Scandinavian language) is mandatory for students in compulsory schools and also part of many secondary-level study programmes, so knowledge of the two languages is widespread. Other foreign language frequently studied include German, Spanish and French.
Languages of the European Union
English remains by far the most widely spoken foreign language throughout Europe. 95% of students in the EU study English at secondary level and 38% of EU citizens state that they have sufficient skills in English to have a conversation (excluding citizens of the United Kingdom and Ireland, the two English-speaking countries). 28% of Europeans indicate that they know either French (14%) or German (14%), along with their native language. French is most commonly studied and used in southern Europe, especially in Mediterranean countries, in Germany, Portugal, Romania, the UK, and Ireland. German, on the other hand, is commonly studied and used in the Benelux countries, in Scandinavia, and in the newer EU member states. Spanish is most commonly studied in France, Italy, Luxembourg, and Portugal. In 19 out of 29 countries polled, English is the most widely known language apart from the native language, this being particularly the case in Sweden (89%), Malta (88%); the Netherlands (87%); and Denmark (86%). 77% of EU citizens believe that children should learn English. English was considered the number one language to learn in all countries where the research was conducted except for the United Kingdom, Ireland and Luxembourg. English, either as a native language or as a second/foreign language, is spoken by 51% of EU citizens, followed by German with 32% and French with 26%.
With the enlargement of the European Union, the balance between French and German is slowly changing. More citizens in the new member states speak German (23% compared with 12% in the EU15) while fewer speak French or Spanish (3% and 1% respectively compared with 16% and 7% among the EU15 group). A notable exception is Romania, where 24% of the population speaks French as a foreign language compared to 6% who speak German as a foreign language. At the same time, the balance is being changed in the opposite direction by growth of the French-speaking population and decrease of the German-speaking population.
Norwegian language
Norwegian () is a North Germanic language spoken mainly in Norway, where it is the official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional varieties, and some Norwegian and Swedish dialects, in particular, are very close. These Scandinavian languages, together with Faroese and Icelandic as well as some extinct languages, constitute the North Germanic languages. Faroese and Icelandic are hardly mutually intelligible with Norwegian in their spoken form because continental Scandinavian has diverged from them. While the two Germanic languages with the greatest numbers of speakers, English and German, have close similarities with Norwegian, neither is mutually intelligible with it. Norwegian is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era.
Denmark
The government records upper secondary school completion rates of 95% and tertiary enrollment and completion rates of 60%. All university and college (tertiary) education in Denmark is free of charges; there are no tuition fees to enrol in courses. Students aged 18 or above may apply for state educational support grants, known as "Statens Uddannelsesstøtte (SU)", which provides fixed financial support, disbursed monthly. Danish universities offer international students a range of opportunities for obtaining an internationally recognised qualification in Denmark. Many programmes may be taught in the English language, the academic lingua franca, in bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, doctorates and student exchange programmes.
Sweden
In varying degrees, depending largely on frequency of interaction with English, a majority of Swedes, especially those born after World War II, understand and speak English, owing to trade links, the popularity of overseas travel, a strong Anglo-American influence and the tradition of subtitling rather than dubbing foreign television shows and films, and the relative similarity of the two languages which makes learning English easier. In a 2005 survey by Eurobarometer, 89% of Swedes reported the ability to speak English.
Brenzikofen
Most of the population () speaks German (480 or 99.0%) as their first language, Danish is the second most common (2 or 0.4%) and English is the third (1 or 0.2%).
Denmark–Norway
The term "Kingdom of Denmark" is sometimes used to include both countries in the period, since the political and economic power emanated from the Danish capital, Copenhagen. These terms cover the "royal territories" of the Oldenburgs as it was in 1460, excluding the "ducal territories" of Schleswig and Holstein. The administration used two official languages, Danish and German, and for several centuries both a Danish and German Chancery existed.
Germanic languages
Danish is an official language of Denmark and in its overseas territory of the Faroe Islands, and it is a "lingua franca" and language of education in its other overseas territory of Greenland, where it was one of the official languages until 2009. Danish is also spoken natively by the Danish minority in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where it is recognised as a minority language.
Denmark, Tennessee
The population of Denmark was 1174 in the 2010 Census, and is over 70% African-American.
Danish language
Danish has a very large vowel inventory comprising 27 phonemically distinctive vowels, and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon "stød", a kind of laryngeal phonation type. Due to the many pronunciation differences that set apart Danish from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be a difficult language to learn and understand, and some evidence shows that small children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of a former case system, particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its syntax is V2 word order, with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence.
Danish language
In the 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask, who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote the first English-language grammar of Danish. Literary Danish continued to develop with the works of Ludvig Holberg, whose plays and historical and scientific works laid the foundation for the Danish literary canon. With the Danish colonization of Greenland by Hans Egede, Danish became the administrative and religious language there, while Iceland and the Faroe Islands had the status of Danish colonies with Danish as an official language until the mid-20th century.
North Germanic languages
The North Germanic languages are national languages in Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, whereas the non-Germanic Finnish is spoken by the majority in Finland. In inter-Nordic contexts, texts are today often presented in three versions: Finnish, Icelandic, and one of the three languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Another official language in the Nordic countries is Greenlandic (in the Eskimo–Aleut family), the sole official language of Greenland.
Dansk Sprognævn
Dansk Sprognævn ( "Danish Language Council") is the official regulatory body of the Danish language as a part of the Danish Ministry of Culture, and resides at the University of Copenhagen. It was established in 1955. The committee has three main objectives:The working members of the committee follow written and broadcast media, read books to keep track of new words and record their usage. New words which have appeared enough in print and speech to be considered notable are added to "Retskrivningsordbogen", which all government institutions and schools are obliged by law to follow. The committee receives some 14,000 inquiries by phone or mail each year about the Danish language, half of them from private companies, but also by private citizens.
Danish dialects
The Danish language has a number of regional and local dialect varieties. These can be divided into the traditional dialects, which differ from modern Standard Danish in both phonology and grammar, and the Danish accents, which are local varieties of the Standard language distinguished mostly by pronunciation and local vocabulary colored by traditional dialects. Traditional dialects are now mostly extinct in Denmark, with only the oldest generations still speaking them. Danish traditional dialects are divided into three main dialect areas: Jutlandic dialect, Insular Danish and Bornholmish. Bornholmish is the only Eastern Danish dialect spoken in Denmark, since the other Eastern Danish dialects were spoken in areas ceded to Sweden and subsequently assimilated to Standard Swedish. Jutlandic is further divided into Southern Jutlandic and Northern Jutlandic, with Northern Jutlandic subdivided into North Jutlandic and West Jutlandic. Insular Danish is divided into Zealand, Funen, Møn and Lolland-Falster dialect areas - each with addition internal variation.
Danish language
Danish (; "dansk" , "dansk sprog" ) is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in Denmark and in the region of Southern Schleswig in northern Germany, where it has minority language status. Also, minor Danish-speaking communities are found in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their first language.
Immigration to Denmark
Denmark has seen a steady increase in immigration over the past 30 years, with the majority of new immigrants originating from non-Western countries. As of 2014, more than 8 per cent of the population of Denmark consists of immigrants. The population of immigrants is approximately 476,059, excluding Danish born descendants of immigrants to Denmark. This recent shift in demographics has posed challenges to the nation as it attempts to address religious and cultural difference, employment gaps, education of both immigrants and their descendants, spatial segregation, crime rates, and language abilities.
Lebanese people in Denmark
Lebanese people of Denmark are people from Lebanon or those of Lebanese descent who live in the country of Denmark. The majority of Lebanese people came to Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s, either escaping the Lebanese Civil War or for economic reasons. Per 1 October 2016, 26,404 persons in Denmark were of Lebanese origin.
United States Virgin Islands
English is currently the dominant language and Spanish is spoken by about 17% of the population. Other languages are spoken by 11% of the population.
English has been the predominant language since 1917 when the islands were transferred from Denmark to the United States. Under Danish rule, the official language was Danish, but it was solely the language of administration and spoken by Danes, a tiny minority of the overall population that primarily occupied administrative roles in colonial Danish West Indian society. However, place names and surnames of Denmark-Norway origin still remain among natives.
Denmark, New York
According to the census of the year 2000, there are 2,747 people, 977 households, and 753 families in the town of Denmark. The population density is 54.3 people per square mile (21.0/km²). There are 1,149 housing units at an average density of 22.7 per square mile (8.8/km²). The racial makeup of the town is 96.76% White, 0.51% African American, 0.25% Native American, 0.18% Asian, 0.04% Pacific Islander, 0.84% from other races, and 1.42% of two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race are 1.82% of the population.
Christianity in Denmark
According to official statistics from January 2017, 75,9% of the population of Denmark are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (), the country's state church since the Reformation in Denmark–Norway and Holstein, and designated "the Danish people's church" by the 1848 Constitution of Denmark.
Danish language
Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas: West Danish (Jutlandic), Insular Danish (including the Standard variety), and East Danish (including Bornholmian and Scanian). Under the view that Scandinavian is a dialect continuum, East Danish can be considered intermediary between Danish and Swedish, while Scanian can be considered a Swedified East Danish dialect, and Bornholmsk is its closest relative.
Insular Danish
Insular Danish (Danish: "Ømål") are the traditional Danish dialects spoken on the islands of Zealand, Langeland, Funen, Falster, Lolland and Møn. They are recorded in the Dictionary of Danish Insular Danish ("Ømålsordbogen") which has been collected since the 1920s, and published in biannual volumes since 1992. There are significant differences between the different insular varieties, but they also share a number of features. A major difference is between Modern Danish and the traditional insular dialects are that some of them lack the stød but kept the tonal accent. Also, they kept three noun genders.
Religion in Denmark
According to official statistics from January 2018, 75.3% of the population of Denmark are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark (), the country's state church since the Reformation in Denmark–Norway and Holstein, and designated "the Danish people's church" by the 1848 Constitution of Denmark.
Languages of Norway
In 2013, there were approximately 4.5 million people in Norway who were capable of conversing in English to some extent, out of a population of 5.1 million. The country currently scores in the top 5 of the EF English Proficiency Index along with its Nordic neighbours.
Denmark
Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, and the name of the people, from a word meaning "flat land", related to German "threshing floor", English "den" "cave". The "-mark" is believed to mean woodland or borderland (see marches), with probable references to the border forests in south Schleswig.
Ommen
Most inhabitants of Ommen speak Dutch, but many will also speak Low Saxon or "Plat" — an ancient language related to Low German and Old English which is indigenous to the north-east of the Netherlands. The dialect of Plat spoken in Ommen is Sallands. Although both the national government and the European Union recognise Plat as a regional language, it is considered by many to be a mere dialect of Dutch, and its popularity is waning rapidly, even compared to Twents. English and German are also widely spoken as second languages.
Nordic countries
The combined area of the Nordic countries is . Uninhabitable icecaps and glaciers comprise about half of this area, mostly in Greenland. In January 2013, the region had a population of around 26 million people. The Nordic countries cluster near the top in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life and human development. With only four language groups, the common linguistic heterogeneous heritage is one of the factors making up the Nordic identity. The languages of Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, and Faroese are all rooted in Old Norse and Danish, Norwegian and Swedish are considered mutually intelligible. These three dominating languages are taught in schools throughout the Nordic region. For example, Swedish is a mandatory subject in Finnish schools, since Finland by law is a bilingual country. Danish is mandatory in Faroese and Greenlandic schools, as these insular states are a part of the Danish Realm ("Rigsfællesskabet"). Iceland also teaches Danish, since Iceland too was a part of the Danish Realm until 1918. Beside these and the insular Scandinavian languages Faroese and Icelandic, which are also North Germanic languages, there are the Finnic and Sami branches of the Uralic languages, spoken in Finland and in northern Norway, Sweden and Finland, respectively; and Greenlandic, an Eskimo–Aleut language, spoken in Greenland. All the Nordic countries have a North Germanic official language, commonly called a Nordic language in the Nordic countries. The working languages of the Nordic region's two political bodies are Danish, Norwegian and Swedish.
Kaospilot
The education was in Danish until August 2005 as the students were mainly from the Scandinavian countries. Now the official language at Kaospilot is in English, the most commonly spoken secondary language in the region.
Comparison of Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish
Generally, speakers of the three largest Scandinavian languages (Danish, Norwegian and Swedish) can read each other's languages without great difficulty. This holds especially true of Danish and Norwegian. The primary obstacles to mutual comprehension are differences in pronunciation. Danish speakers generally do not understand Norwegian as well as the extremely similar written norms would lead one to expect. Many Norwegians – especially in northern and western Norway – also have problems understanding Danish. According to a scientific study, of the three ethnic groups, Norwegians generally understand the other languages better than any other group, while Swedes understand the least.
Viggo Mortensen
Mortensen holds dual American and Danish citizenship. He speaks fluent Danish, English, French and Spanish; he is also conversational in Italian, and understands Norwegian and Swedish. He has stated that he was raised speaking English and Spanish, and sometimes feels more comfortable expressing himself in Spanish. He also has some knowledge of Catalan; twice, when receiving a prize in Catalonia, he made a short speech in Catalan.
Immigration to Denmark
Another explanation relates to the structure of the Danish labor market, which consists primarily of highly skilled jobs with firm-specific training and few low skill or entry level positions. In addition, many entry level jobs require vocational training which most immigrants lack. Denmark's labor market is also characterized as flexible, with high levels of employee turn over. Immigrants' lack of language skills and cultural knowledge have been argued to be linked to their shorter periods of employment and lengthier dependency on unemployment benefits. The length of time an immigrant has lived in Denmark, their Danish language skills, and their associations with native Danes have been identified as being positively linked to immigrant employment. The connection between the gender of immigrants and these as well as additional factors, such as parenthood, and the level of Danish language skills, and the importance of education and employment qualifications differ among male and female immigrants. One study found that men’s language skills and qualifications were of less importance than for women immigrants applying for jobs. It was also found that immigrant women with small children were less likely to be employed than those without.
Danish Americans
According to the United States Census of 2000, the states with the largest populations of Danish Americans are as follows:The states with the smallest populations of Danish Americans are as follows:About 30,000 Danish Americans continue to speak the Danish language. According to the 2000 US Census Bureau, 33,400 people spoke Danish at home; that figure was down to 29,467 five years later (2005 American Community Survey), a decrease of about 11.8%.
Danish language
Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, and has been influenced by English since the turn of the 20th century.
Norway
The primary foreign language taught in Norwegian schools is English, considered an international language since the post-WWII era. The majority of the population is fairly fluent in English, especially those born after World War II. German, French and Spanish are also commonly taught as second or, more often, third languages. Russian, Japanese, Italian, Latin, and rarely Chinese (Mandarin) are offered in some schools, mostly in the cities. Traditionally, English, German and French were considered the main foreign languages in Norway. These languages, for instance, were used on Norwegian passports until the 1990s, and university students have a general right to use these languages when submitting their theses.
Danish phonology
The phonology of Danish is similar to that of the other Scandinavian languages such as Swedish and Norwegian, but it also has distinct features setting it apart from the phonologies of its most closely related languages. For example Danish has a suprasegmental feature known as stød which is a kind of laryngeal phonation that is used phonemically. It also exhibits extensive lenition of plosives, which is noticeably more common than in the neighboring languages. Because of that and a few other things, spoken Danish is rather hard to understand for Norwegians and Swedes, although they can easily read it.
Geographical distribution of German speakers
Today, German, together with French, is a common second foreign language in the western world, as English is well established as a first foreign language. German ranks second (after English) among the best known foreign languages in the EU (on par with French) as well as in Russia. In terms of student numbers across all levels of education, German ranks third in the EU (after English and French) as well as in the United States (after Spanish and French). In 2015, approximately 15.4 million people were in the process of learning German across all levels of education worldwide. As this number remained relatively stable since 2005 (± 1 million), roughly 75–100 million people able to communicate in German as foreign language can be inferred assuming an average course duration of three years and other estimated parameters. According to a 2012 survey, ca. 47 million people within the EU (i.e., up to two thirds of the 75-100 million worldwide) claimed to have sufficient German skills to have a conversation. Within the EU, and not counting countries where it is a (co-)official language, German as a foreign language is most widely taught in Central and Northern Europe, namely the Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, the Netherlands, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden and Poland.
Swedes
The native language of nearly all Swedes is Swedish () a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is, to a considerable extent, mutually intelligible with Norwegian and to a lesser extent with Danish (see especially "Classification"). Along with the other North Germanic languages, Swedish is a descendant of Old Norse, the common language of the Germanic peoples living in Scandinavia during the Viking Era. It is the largest of the North Germanic languages by numbers of speakers.
South Jutlandic
South Jutlandic is still spoken to some degree in villages up to about 15 km south of the Danish-German border, but hardly in the major city of Flensburg, where the Danish speakers speak Standard Danish. Most people will be able to speak or understand Low German and sometimes North Frisian. All will know High German, often being the only language of young people and children. Members of the Danish minority are taught Standard Danish as well in schools, but often choose to communicate in German in everyday life.
Ryomgård
Many Danes have a working knowledge of English and to some extent German - the two main foreign languages taught in Danish schools.
North Germanic languages
In Southern Jutland in southwestern Denmark, German is also spoken by the North Schleswig Germans, and German is a recognized minority language in this region. German is the primary language among the Danish minority of Southern Schleswig, and likewise, Danish is the primary language of the North Schleswig Germans. Both minority groups are highly bilingual.
Anglia (peninsula)
The main language of Anglia is German. The peninsula is, however, also part of the Low German (Low Saxon) language area, a language which is more closely related to English than Standard German since it was not affected by the High German consonant shift. Danish was the main language of Anglia from the 9th to the 19th century, when a language shift towards Low German occurred. Many Anglian placenames are of Danish origin, like all placenames ending on "-by" (Flensburg-Engelsby, Flensburg-Jürgensby). There are many placenames of Danish origin in England as well (Derby, Rugby, Whitby), but in Danish, German and Swedish, "-by" is pronounced , and not , as in England. Danish is still spoken in Anglia, mainly in Flensburg/Flensborg, Schleswig/Slesvig and Glücksburg/Lyksborg. North Frisian, one of the Frisian languages, which are very closely related to English as well, is spoken in many dialectal variants in neighbouring North Frisia along the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein and on the North Frisian Islands.
Norwegian exonyms
"Below is list of Norwegian language exonyms for places outside of Norway :"
Places in Denmark are in Norway spelt like in Danish. Also for places with "Aa" which during the latter half of the 20th century were spelt "Å" in Denmark, and then changed back to "aa". Thus Aabenraa and some more places are spelt with "aa" also in Norway. The same sound is spelt "Å" for places in Norway.Until quite recently, most people tended to use the official Swedish names in Norwegian. The Swedish names are not exonyms, since both Finnish and Swedish are official languages in Finland, with many towns, cities and regions having two, often very different, official names. In recent years, however, the use of Finnish place names have gained some popularity in Norwegian.
Languages of the United States
Around 136,000 people in the United States still speak the Dutch language at home today. They are concentrated mainly in California (23,500), Florida (10,900), Pennsylvania (9,900), Ohio (9,600), New York (8,700) and Michigan (6,600; i.e. almost entirely in the city of Holland).
Studieskolen
Danish for Foreigners
Studieskolen’s Danish Language Centre teaches Danish for Foreigners under contract with the Municipality of Copenhagen. Students must be at least 18 years old and have a solid academic background with at least 12 years of schooling. They must also have learned English as a foreign language or speak English as their native language and have learned another foreign language.
Danglish
A large majority of Danes are familiar with English as a second language, but sometimes the translation from Danish to English is more Danglish:
Several schools have lately changed their names to become more internationally recognized. "Handelshøjskolen i København" is now known as "Copenhagen Business School" or "CBS". Of the three music conservatories offering classical music programs, the English names of Royal Academy of Music, Aarhus/Aalborg and Danish National Academy of Music deviate from their original Danish names that show strong geographical emphasis, "Det Jyske Musikkonservatorium (DJM)" and "Syddansk Musikkonservatorium (SDMK)", which are translated as "The Jutlandic Music Conservatory" and "Southern Denmark Music Conservatory" respectively. Their English acronyms "RAMA" and "DNA of Music" are also employed in such informal settings as social media, for instance, the former's annual "RAMA Festival" and the latter's Facebook page URL.
Danes (Germanic tribe)
The Danes spoke Proto-Norse which gradually evolved into the Old Norse language by the end of the Viking Age. Like previous and contemporary people of Scandinavia, the Danes used runes for writing, but did not write much apparently, as they have left no literary legacy except for occasional rune stones and carvings in wood and various items like weapons, utensils and jewellery.
Danebod
Danebod has continued to be a haven for Danish culture through the 20th century and into the 21st. The elementary school, university, library, newspapers, and church services remained Danish language for decades (and remained the most widely spoken language until the 1940s). Danebod remains a predominantly Danish-American town. It is customary to fly the Danish flag, Dannebrog, and Danish cuisine, music, cultural celebrations, language, literature, and the Evangelical Lutheran religious tradition remain important parts of life for the more than 200 inhabitants. Until 1947 church services were held solely in the Danish language, but has since offered one weekly service in Danish. Danebod is sometimes referred to as "the home of the Nissemænd," a reference to the mythological tomte of folklore. There is a sign on Tyler Street saying: "Welcome to Tyler. Home of the Nissemaend".
Low German
Today, there are still speakers outside Germany and the Netherlands to be found in the coastal areas of present-day Poland (minority of ethnic German East Pomeranian speakers who were not expelled from Pomerania, as well as the regions around Braniewo). In the Southern Jutland region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some German minority communities, but the Low German and North Frisian dialects of Denmark can be considered moribund at this time.
Danish language
Jutlandic is further divided into Southern Jutlandic and Northern Jutlandic, with Northern Jutlandic subdivided into North Jutlandic and West Jutlandic. Insular Danish is divided into Zealand, Funen, Møn, and Lolland-Falster dialect areas – each with addition internal variation. The term "Eastern Danish" is occasionally used for Bornholmian, but including the dialects of Scania (particularly in a historical context) – Jutlandic dialect, Insular Danish, and Bornholmian. Bornholmian is the only Eastern Danish dialect spoken in Denmark, since the other Eastern Danish dialects were spoken in areas ceded to Sweden and subsequently swedified.
Sørensen
Sørensen is a Danish-Norwegian patronymic surname meaning "son of Søren" (given name equivalent of Severin). It is the eighth most common surname in Denmark, shared by about 2,3% of the population. 
Immigrants to English-speaking countries often changed the spelling to "Sorensen" or "Sorenson" in order to accommodate English orthographic rules. English-language media often similarly renders "Sørensen" it as either "Sorensen" or "Sorenson". A parallel form of similar origin is Severinsen.
Peer Gynt
"Peer Gynt" was written in Danish, the common written language of Denmark and Norway since the Dano-Norwegian union and throughout Ibsen's lifetime. The language was usually referred to as Danish in Denmark and as Norwegian in Norway, although it was essentially the same written language, and is therefore often called Dano-Norwegian. Due to its basis in Norwegian folktales, the play uses a few Norwegianisms in its vocabulary and idiom, but is otherwise written in a language identical to standard Danish. "Peer Gynt" was originally published by the Danish publisher Gyldendal in Copenhagen and targeted at both the Danish and the Norwegian market in its original language.
English people
English people traditionally speak the English language, a member of the West Germanic language family, first spoken in early medieval England. It is closely related to the Frisian languages, but its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse (a North Germanic language), as well as by Latin and French. The three largest recognisable dialect groups in England are Southern English dialects, Midlands English dialects and Northern English dialects.
Those in the north generally pronounce such words with a short vowel whereas those in the south use a long vowel.
Demographics of the Faroe Islands
The 2011 census, called Manntal, shows that 10% were not born in the Faroe Islands, but of these only 3% were born outside the Kingdom of Denmark. 6.5% of people older than 15 did not speak Faroese as their mother tongue. 33 persons said that they did not understand Faroese at all. According to the 2011 census, 45 361 Faroese people (people living in the Faroes) spoke Faroese as their first language and 1546 spoke Danish as their first language.
Danish language
Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. The reason Norwegian occupies a middle position in terms of intelligibility is because of its shared border with Sweden resulting in a similarity in pronunciation, combined with the long tradition of having Danish as a written language which has led to similarities in vocabulary. Among younger Danes, Copenhageners are worse at understanding Swedish than Danes from the provinces, and in general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as are Norwegian and Swedish youths.
Danish language
Danish dialects can be divided into the traditional dialects, which differ from modern Standard Danish in both phonology and grammar, and the Danish accents or regional languages, which are local varieties of the Standard language distinguished mostly by pronunciation and local vocabulary colored by traditional dialects. Traditional dialects are now mostly extinct in Denmark, with only the oldest generations still speaking them.
English people
Gradually, the Danes in England came to be seen as 'English'. They had a noticeable impact on the English language: many English words, such as "anger", "ball", "egg", "got", "knife", "take", and "they", are of Old Norse origin, and place names that end in "-thwaite" and "-by" are Scandinavian in origin.
Danish language
Danish is the national language of Denmark and one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (alongside Faroese). Until 2009, it had also been one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic). Danish is widely spoken in Greenland now as "lingua franca", and an unknown portion of the native Greenlandic population has Danish as their first language; a large percentage of the native Greenlandic population speaks Danish as a second language since its introduction into the education system as a compulsory language in 1928. Danish was an official language in Iceland until 1944, but is today still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school taught as a second foreign language after English.
In addition, a noticeable community of Danish speakers is in Southern Schleswig, the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, where it is an officially recognized regional language, just as German is north of the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, Danish-speaking citizens of the Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs.
Nordic countries
Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish belong to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages. The languages have developed from a common Nordic language, but have moved away from each other during the past 1000 years. However, it is still possible for Danish, Norwegian and Swedish speakers to understand each other. These languages are taught in school throughout the Nordic countries: for example, Swedish is a mandatory subject in Finnish schools, whereas Danish is mandatory in Icelandic and Faroese schools. Approximately 5,3 per cent of population of Finland speak Swedish as their mother tongue.
In the Finnish-Sami group of the Finno-Ugric languages, Finnish is the most widely spoken language in the Nordic countries. However, other languages in this family are also spoken in the region. Various Sami languages are spoken in northern Finland, Norway and Sweden. Karelian is spoken a little in Finland, the Kven language in Norway and Meänkieli or "Torne Valley Finnish" in Sweden. Finns are also the largest immigrant group in Sweden, around 4.46 per cent of the total population; and Finnish is an official minority language of Sweden.
Danish language
Like all Germanic languages, Danish forms compound nouns. These are represented in Danish orthography as one word, as in "kvindehåndboldlandsholdet", "the female national handball team". In some cases, nouns are joined with an extra "s", originally possessive in function, like "landsmand" (from "land", "country", and "mand", "man", meaning "compatriot"), but "landmand" (from same roots, meaning "farmer"). Some words are joined with an extra "e", like "gæstebog" (from "gæst" and "bog", meaning "guest book").
Minority languages of Denmark
Throughout much of its history, Denmark has been home to a population of Low German speakers in many of its towns, including the capital Copenhagen. Rural settlers known as "potato Germans" and "" also brought their own languages to Danish farms. During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, Dutch was spoken among descendants of Dutch/Flemish settlers on the island of Amager (Dragør, Store Magleby and Christianshavn). In its heyday, the Royal Danish Navy was largely manned by Norwegian speakers. Additionally, North Frisian was spoken on the North Frisian Islands. During the 19th century, German Jews brought the Yiddish language to Copenhagen and a few other towns, and in the early 20th century, an influx of Russian Jews gave this language a brief revival.
Rotvælsk
Rotvælsk was a secret language (also known as a cant or cryptolect) that was spoken in Denmark from early modern times until the turn of the 20th century. Rorvælsk was also known under several other names. It is now extinct. Rotvælsk was used by a social group known as Natmændsfolk who did simple craftsmanship, demeaning and unclean work or panhandled to survive. Both the social group and the language changed through the centuries, but remained associated with crime, loose morals, poverty and low social status in the eyes of the surrounding population. The social group and their language have often been confused with Romani people and the Romani language, though they do not seem to have had a different ethnic origin than most danes at that time.
South Jutlandic
Language (and especially spoken language) is not necessarily linked with national identification. Family ties and informal local contact across the border used to be very common, with South Jutlandic being the first language of both Danish minded and German minded people. Sometimes the purest South Jutlandic may be found among older people who identify as German. Since they have not attended Danish schools, their speech is not influenced by Standard Danish. With urbanisation in the recent decades this crisscross of dialects and national sentiment has faded, High German becoming the first choice everywhere, but often some South Jutlandic words are retained in the vocabulary.
Danish grammar
There are two grammatical genders in Danish: common and neuter. All nouns are mostly arbitrarily divided into these two classes. The singular indefinite article (a/an in English) is "en" for common nouns and "et" for neuter nouns. They are often informally called n-words and t-words.
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.
Languages of Denmark
German is an officially recognized minority language in the former South Jutland County (part of what is now the Region of Southern Denmark), which was part of Imperial Germany prior the Treaty of Versailles. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Ethnic Germans live in South Jutland, of whom roughly 8,000 use either the standard German or the Schleswigsch variety of West Low German in daily communications. Schleswigisch is highly divergent from Standard German and can be quite difficult to understand by Standard German speakers. Outside of South Jutland, the members of St. Peter's Church in Copenhagen use German in their Church, its website, and the school that it runs.
Danish language
About 2000 of Danish non-compound words are derived from the Old Norse language, and ultimately from Proto Indo-European. Of these 2000 words, 1200 are nouns, 500 are verbs, 180 are adjectives and the rest belong to other word classes. Danish has also absorbed a large number of loan words, most of which were borrowed from Middle Low German in the late medieval period. Out of the 500 most frequently used words in Danish, 100 are medieval loans from Middle Low German. In the 17th and 18th centuries, standard German and French superseded Low German influence and in the 20th century English became the main supplier of loan words, especially after World War II. Although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, as can be seen with "æde" (to eat) which became less common when the Low German "spise" came into fashion. As well as loan words, new words are freely formed by compounding existing words. In standard texts of contemporary Danish, Middle Low German loans account for about 16‒17% of the vocabulary, Graeco-Latin-loans 4‒8%, French 2‒4% and English about 1%.
Regions of Denmark
The government most often uses the Danish names in English-language publications or directly translated English names (e.g. Greater Copenhagen, Zealand, North Jutland, Southern Denmark, Central Jutland).
Language shift
In Southern Schleswig, an area that belonged to Denmark until the Second Schleswig War 1864, there was from the 17th and up to the 20th centuries a language shift from Danish and North Frisian dialects to Low German and later High German. Historically, most of the region was part of the Danish and North Frisian Language area, adjacent in the South to the German-speaking Holstein. But with the reformation in the 16th century German became church language and in the 19th century also school language in the southern parts of Schleswig. Added to this came the influence of German-speaking Holsatian nobility and merchants. German was (occasionally) also spoken at the royal court in Copenhagen. This political and economic development led gradually to a German language dominating in the southern parts of Schleswig. Native dialects such as the Angel Danish or Eiderstedt Frisian vanished. In the Flensburg area, there arose the mixed language Petuh combining Danish and German elements. So late as in 1851 (in the period of nationalization) the Danish government tried to stop the Language shift, but without success in the long run. After the Second Schleswig War the Prussians introduced a number of language policy measures in the other way to expand the use of (High) German as the language of administration, schooling and church service.
Norwegian language conflict
In the United Kingdoms of Denmark and Norway (1536–1814), the official language was Danish. The urban Norwegian upper class spoke ""dansk-norsk"", Dano-Norwegian, a form of Danish with Norwegian pronunciation and other minor local differences while the majority of the population spoke their local and regional dialects. After the two countries separated in 1814, Dano-Norwegian remained the sole official language until 1885.
Norwegians
Norwegian is a North Germanic language with approximately 5 million speakers, of whom most are located in Norway. There are also some speakers of Norwegian in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Britain, Spain, Canada, and the United States, where the largest community of speakers exists, with 55,311 speakers as of 2000; approximately half of the speakers live in Minnesota (8,060), California (5,865), Washington (5,460), New York (4,200), and Wisconsin (3,520).
Dutch Empire
Today, in Suriname, Dutch is the official language and 58 percent of the population speak it as their mother tongue. Twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language, and in total 82 percent of the population can speak Dutch. In Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao, Dutch is the official language but spoken as a first language by only seven to eight percent of the population, although most people on the islands can speak the language and the education system on these islands is in Dutch at some or all levels. The population of the three northern Antilles, Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius, is predominantly English-speaking.
Greenland
Both Greenlandic (an Eskimo–Aleut language) and Danish have been used in public affairs since the establishment of home rule in 1979; the majority of the population can speak both languages. Greenlandic became the sole official language in June 2009, In practice, Danish is still widely used in the administration and in higher education, as well as remaining the first or only language for some Danish immigrants in Nuuk and other larger towns. Debate about the roles of Greenlandic and Danish in the country's future is ongoing. The orthography of Greenlandic was established in 1851 and revised in 1973. The country has a 100% literacy rate.
List of official languages
Danish:
The unity of the Realm
The language of Denmark is Danish, and the Danish state authorities are based in Denmark. The Kingdom of Denmark's parliament, with its 179 members, is located in the capital, Copenhagen. Two of the parliament's members are elected in each of Greenland and the Faroe Islands; the remaining 175 members are elected in Denmark. The Government ministries are located in Copenhagen, as is the highest court, the Supreme Court.
Religion in Denmark
According to the latest Eurobarometer estimates, as of 2015, 78.2% of Danish people are Christians (67.4% are Protestant, 2.0% are Orthodox and 1.3 are Catholics), 19.7% are non-religious and 2.1% are members of other religions.
Danish language
The sound system of Danish is unusual among the world's languages, particularly in its large vowel inventory and in the unusual prosody. In informal or rapid speech, the language is prone to considerable reduction of unstressed syllables, creating many vowel-less syllables with syllabic consonants, as well as reduction of final consonants. Furthermore, the language's prosody does not include many clues about the sentence structure, unlike many other languages, making it relatively more difficult to segment the speech flow into its constituent elements. These factors taken together make Danish pronunciation difficult to master for learners, and Danish children are indicated to take slightly longer in learning to segment speech in early childhood.