Category:Danish

From Namespedia - Names Meaning and Origins

Danish is an Indo-European language(along with Norwegian, Swedish, and Icelandic), member of Germanic group languages ( and more precise North Germanic languages, also called Scandinavian languages).It is spoken by around 6 million people, of which 5 million live in Denmark.The other 1 million live mainly in south of Germany, as a minority.Some Danish speakers live in Greenland, Feroe Islands and Iceland.The Danish people in Greenland and the Feroe Islands enjoy in the present day limited autonomy.There are also Danish language communities in Argentina, the U.S. and Canada. Danish derives from Old Norse dialect group, the East Norse (together with Swedish), while Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese language derive from West Norse.Recent mutual intelligibility based criteria separates Southern Scandinavian ( Danish) from Northern Scandinavian ( Norwegian and Swedish).The is also Insular Scandinavian, consisting of Faroese and Icelandic.Old Norse evolved from Proto Norse in the 8th century.But the changes did not spread in all of Scandinavia, so two separate categories appeared: Old West Norse and Old East Norse.The old common Scandinavian dialect can be traced back the 3rd century. Studies show that Norwegian speakers understand both Danish and Swedish better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Also Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages.