A drainage divide , water divide , ridgeline , watershed , water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins . On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges , and may be in the form of a single range of hills or mountains , known as a dividing range . On flat terrain, especially where the ground is marshy , the divide may be difficult to discern.
82-650: Angeln ( Danish : Angel ) is a peninsula on the Baltic coast of Jutland , in the Bay of Kiel . It forms part of Southern Schleswig , the northernmost region of Germany . The peninsula is bounded on the north by the Flensburg Firth , which separates it from Sundeved and the island of Als in Denmark , and on the south by the Schlei , which separates it from Schwansen . The landscape
164-429: A "difficult language to learn, acquire and understand", and some evidence shows that children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish compared with other languages. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns, adjectives, and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of
246-561: A former case system , particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its word order is V2 , with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch . Other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of
328-883: A key problem in such canals is ensuring a sufficient water supply. Important examples are the Chicago Portage , connecting the Great Lakes and Mississippi by the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal , and the Canal des Deux Mers in France, connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The name is enshrined at the Height of Land Portage on the route from the Great Lakes in the Atlantic drainage basin to
410-516: A literary language. Also in this period, Danish began to take on the linguistic traits that differentiate it from Swedish and Norwegian, such as the stød , the voicing of many stop consonants, and the weakening of many final vowels to /e/. The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495, the Rimkrøniken ( Rhyming Chronicle ), a history book told in rhymed verses. The first complete translation of
492-683: A number of Danes remained as a minority within German territories . After the occupation of Denmark by Germany in World War II, the 1948 orthography reform dropped the German-influenced rule of capitalizing nouns, and introduced the letter ⟨å⟩ . Three 20th-century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature : Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes V. Jensen (awarded 1944). With
574-478: 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. In general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as the young in Norway and Sweden. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided
656-573: 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. Within the Danish Realm , Danish is the national language of Denmark and one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (alongside Faroese ). There is a Faroese variant of Danish known as Gøtudanskt . Until 2009, Danish
738-600: A variant of Standard Danish, Southern Schleswig Danish , is spoken in the area. Since 2015, Schleswig-Holstein has officially recognized Danish as a 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
820-407: A very large vowel inventory consisting of 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 Danish apart from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be
902-555: Is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark . Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland , the Faroe Islands , and the northern German region of Southern Schleswig , where it has minority language status. Minor Danish-speaking communities are also found in Norway , Sweden ,
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#1732837077666984-700: Is a West Germanic language descended from Old English. Old Norse exerted a strong influence on Old English in the early medieval period. The shared Germanic heritage of Danish and English is demonstrated with many common words that are very similar in the two languages. For example, when written, commonly used Danish verbs, nouns, and prepositions such as have , over , under , for , give , flag , salt , and arm are easily recognizable 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 and northern English bairn , i.e. 'child'). In addition,
1066-452: Is an independent town, the Angeln peninsula belongs to the district of Schleswig-Flensburg , Germany's northeasternmost district. This comparatively rural district had approximately 200,025 inhabitants in 2018. The largest North Angeln lakes are: The largest South Angeln lakes are: The chain of hills running across Angeln between Husby and Kappeln constitutes the drainage divide between
1148-715: Is hilly, dotted with numerous lakes. The largest towns are Flensburg , Schleswig and Kappeln . Angeln is notable for being the original homeland of the Angles , a Germanic tribe that migrated from its original homeland in what is now Northern Germany to Great Britain during the Age of Migrations and founded the kingdoms of Mercia , Northumbria and East Anglia . The Angles would ultimately give their name to England . Glücksburg Castle in Glücksburg and Gottorf Castle in Schleswig were
1230-430: Is its closest relative. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Approximately 2,000 uncompounded Danish words are derived from Old Norse and ultimately from Proto Indo-European . Of these 2,000, 1,200 are nouns, 500 are verbs and 180 are adjectives. Danish has also absorbed many loanwords , most of which were borrowed from Low German of
1312-508: Is possible that the early-medieval Danish settlers did worship Thor, the name is more likely to be traced back to a hill with a Viking-Age burial ground and finds, the Thorsberg. The settlement density in Angeln apparently decreased dramatically in the 5th and 6th centuries and many villages fell into disrepair. A sharp decline in grain pollen suggests that fields were deserted. Locations with heavy clay soils were abandoned first. Since more pollen
1394-766: Is the bifurcation of the Orinoco in the north of South America , whose main stream empties into the Caribbean , but which also drains into the South Atlantic via the Casiquiare canal and Amazon River . Since ridgelines are sometimes easy to see and agree about, drainage divides may form natural borders defining political boundaries, as with the Royal Proclamation of 1763 in British North America which coincided with
1476-518: Is used in Canada and the United States to refer to a drainage divide. It is frequently used in border descriptions, which are set according to the "doctrine of natural boundaries ". In glaciated areas it often refers to a low point on a divide where it is possible to portage a canoe from one river system to another. Drainage divides can be divided into three types: A valley-floor divide occurs on
1558-436: The skarre-R , the uvular R sound ( [ʁ] ), began spreading through Denmark, likely through influence from Parisian French and German. It affected all of the areas where Danish had been influential, including all of Denmark, Southern Sweden, and coastal southern Norway. In the 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask , who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote
1640-652: The Urstromtäler , for example, between Havel and Finow in the Eberswalde Urstromtal . In marsh deltas such as the Okavango , the largest drainage area on earth, or in large lakes areas, such as the Finnish Lakeland , it is difficult to find a meaningful definition of a watershed. A bifurcation is where the watershed is effectively in a river bed, in a wetland, or underground. The largest watershed of this type
1722-604: The Bible in Danish, the Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen , was published in 1550. Pedersen's orthographic choices set the de facto standard for subsequent writing in Danish. From around 1500, several printing presses were in operation in Denmark publishing in Danish and other languages. In the period after 1550, presses in Copenhagen dominated the publication of material in
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#17328370776661804-716: The Black Sea and the Rienz into the Adriatic . Settlements are often built on valley-floor divides in the Alps. Examples are Eben im Pongau , Kirchberg in Tirol and Waidring (In all of these, the village name indicates the pass and the watershed is even explicitly displayed in the coat of arms). Extremely low divides with heights of less than two metres are found on the North German Plain within
1886-829: The Danevirke and around the Viking settlement of Hedeby , which constitute a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Angeln is served by the Neumünster–Flensburg Railway , part of the Jutland Line, and the Kiel–Flensburg Railway . There is also a heritage railway , the Angeln Steam Railway [ de ] , which runs between Süderbrarup and Kappeln. The Bundesautobahn 7 runs along the western edge of Angeln, connecting Schleswig and Flensburg, before merging into
1968-514: The Flensburg Firth . The western part of the peninsula is known as Luusangeln [ de ; da ] ("light Angeln") because of its relatively light and sandy soil. This region represents a transition zone between the Angeln Uplands to the east and the Schleswig Geest to the west. The Schleswig Geest in turn merges into the tidal marshes of North Frisia . Apart from Flensburg, which
2050-562: The Late Middle Ages . Out of the 500 most frequently used Danish words, 100 are loans from Middle Low German; this is because Low German was the second official language of Denmark–Norway. 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 loanwords, especially after World War II . Although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, for example æde (to eat)
2132-512: The Old Norse language ; Danish and Swedish are also classified as East Scandinavian or East Nordic languages. Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum , where no sharp dividing lines are seen between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, and has been influenced by English since
2214-660: The Oxbek [ de ; da ] (which is also called Mühlenau, and whose longest tributary is the Flaruper Au). The Füsinger Au flows into the Schlei at Winningmay (municipality of Schaalby ), east of Schleswig. There are 10 officially designated nature reserves ( Naturschutzgebiete ) in Angeln: There is also one nature park, Naturpark Schlei [ de ; da ] . The Haithabu-Dannewerk [ de ] nature reserve lies just southwest of Angeln. It stretches along
2296-1053: The United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during the Viking Era . Danish, together with Swedish, derives from the East Norse dialect group , while the Middle Norwegian language (before the influence of Danish) and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic . A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian , and Swedish as "mainland (or continental ) Scandinavian", while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as "insular Scandinavian". Although
2378-532: The Zealand dialect Introductio ad lingvam Danicam puta selandicam ; and in 1685 the first Danish grammar written in Danish, Den Danske Sprog-Kunst ("The Art of the Danish Language") by Peder Syv . Major authors from this period are Thomas Kingo , poet and psalmist, and Leonora Christina Ulfeldt , whose novel Jammersminde ( Remembered Woes ) is considered a literary masterpiece by scholars. Orthography
2460-402: The introduction of the printing press , a standard language was developed which was based on the educated dialect of Copenhagen and Malmö . It spread through use in the education system and administration, though German and Latin continued to be the most important written languages well into the 17th century. Following the loss of territory to Germany and Sweden, a nationalist movement adopted
2542-579: The 9th century with the younger futhark . Possibly as far back as the seventh century, the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, resulting in the appearance of two dialect areas, Old West Norse ( Norway and Iceland ) and Old East Norse ( Denmark and Sweden ). Most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse
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2624-897: The Angles: From the Angles, that is, the country which is called Angulus, and which is said, from that time, to remain desert to this day, between the provinces of the Jutes and the Saxons, are descended the East Angles, the Midland Angles, Mercians, all the race of the Northumbrians, that is, of those nations that dwell on the north side of the River Humber, and the other nations of the English. The phrase "north of
2706-604: The Baltic and North Seas. East of it, small streams mostly called Auen flow towards the Baltic. West of it, most streams flow towards the Treene and later the Eider and hence into the North Sea. The Treene is the longest tributary of the Eider, and its two headstreams, Bondenau [ de ; da ] and Kielstau [ de ; da ] , rise in and flow through Angeln. The sources of
2788-718: The Bondenau are in Mohrkirch and in Sörup -Sörupholz. At Mittelangeln -Bondebrück the Südensee Au [ de ] joins the Bondenau. The Kielstau rises in Sörup -Schwensby, passes through the Winderatter See and flows into the Bondenau at Großsolt , just before the Bondenau enters the Treßsee. Upon leaving the lake the river takes on the name Treene and leaves Angeln to the west. It enters
2870-508: The Danish Sønderjyske Motorvej [ da ] . The language most spoken in Angeln is German. However the peninsula is also part of the language area of Danish and Low German . The latter is more closely related to English than German is, since it was not affected by the High German consonant shift . Before the 9th century Angeln was inhabited by the Angles, who spoke a West Germanic dialect that would later evolve into English. A language shift to North Germanic occurred following
2952-419: The Danish language, and also started a period of homogenization, whereby the Copenhagen standard language gradually displaced the regional vernacular languages. Throughout the 19th century, Danes emigrated, establishing small expatriate communities in the Americas, particularly in the United States, Canada, and Argentina, where memory and some use of Danish remains today. After the Schleswig referendum in 1920 ,
3034-517: The Danish language. Herrer og Narre have frit Sprog . "Lords and jesters have free speech." Peder Syv , proverbs Following the first Bible translation, the development of Danish as a written language , as a language of religion, administration, and public discourse accelerated. In the second half of the 17th century, grammarians elaborated grammars of Danish, first among them Rasmus Bartholin 's 1657 Latin grammar De studio lingvæ danicæ ; then Laurids Olufsen Kock 's 1660 grammar of
3116-407: The Danish tongue." Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson By the eighth century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse . This language was generally called the "Danish tongue" ( Dǫnsk tunga ), or "Norse language" ( Norrœnt mál ). Norse was written in the runic alphabet , first with the elder futhark and from
3198-443: The Eider at Friedrichstadt , which in turn enters its extensive estuary, the Purrenstrom [ de ] , at Tönning . The largest river system that flows entirely in Angeln from its sources to its mouth is the system of the Füsinger Au . This river is called Loiter Au in its upper course and is formed by the confluence of the Boholzer Au (which is called Wellspanger Au [ de ; da ] in its upper course) and
3280-467: The Humber" refers to the northern kingdom of Northumbria, which included most of northern England and part of southern Scotland. Mercia was located in central England and broadly corresponds to the English Midlands . This account can be related to the evidence of archaeology, notably the distribution of types of fibulae , or brooches, worn by both men and women in antiquity. Eastern and northern Britain were settled by groups wearing cruciform brooches, of
3362-572: 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. Drainage divide A triple divide is a point, often a summit , where three drainage basins meet. A valley floor divide is a low drainage divide that runs across a valley , sometimes created by deposition or stream capture . Major divides separating rivers that drain to different seas or oceans are continental divides . The term height of land
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3444-421: The North Angeln Lake Group (Ger. Nordangeliter Seengruppe ) and the South Angeln Lake Group ( Südangeliter Seengruppe ). The River Treene , with its main headstreams, Bondenau and Kielstau, rises in Angeln before flowing westwards to join the Eider , the historic border between the Danish and German realms. The northernmost part of Angeln is the Holnis [ de ; da ] peninsula, which projects into
3526-479: The Old Norse word for "island". This monophthongization started in Jutland and spread eastward, having spread throughout Denmark and most of Sweden by 1100. Through Danish conquest, Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England . Many words derived from Norse, such as "gate" ( gade ) for street, still survive in Yorkshire , the East Midlands and East Anglia, and parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings . The city of York
3608-500: The West Germanic tribe of the Angles. Numerous important and rich cultural and historical finds were made in the bog in the 19th century. The current name does not allow the assumption that the sanctuary was already consecrated to the god Thor at the time of the Angles. Rather, the naming is based on early medieval Danish influence, especially in the Viking Age. With the migration of most Angles to Britain came widespread discontinuity in settlement and cultural structure in Angeln. Whilst it
3690-600: The area, eventually outnumbering the Danish speakers. The political loss of territory sparked a period of intense nationalism in Denmark, coinciding with the so-called " Golden Age " of Danish culture. Authors such as N.F.S. Grundtvig emphasized the role of language in creating national belonging. Some of the most cherished Danish-language authors of this period are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen . The influence of popular literary role models, together with increased requirements of education did much to strengthen
3772-410: The bottom of a valley and arises as a result of subsequent depositions, such as scree , in a valley through which a river originally flowed continuously. Examples include the Kartitsch Saddle in the Gail valley in East Tyrol , which forms the watershed between the Drau and the Gail, and the divides in the Toblacher Feld between Innichen and Toblach in Italy , where the Drau empties into
3854-399: The chronicler Æthelweard reported that the most important town in Angeln was Hedeby . The unofficial coat of arms of Angeln was designed by Hans Nicolai Andreas Jensen and appeared for the first time in 1847. It consists of nine fields, all but one of which represent the historic Danish hundreds (Danish: herreder , German: Harden ) of Angeln: In the original draft of the coat of arms,
3936-432: The colours of Schleswig-Holstein and the other showing the Nordic cross from the flag of Denmark . 54°40′N 9°40′E / 54.667°N 9.667°E / 54.667; 9.667 Danish language Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] )
4018-459: The departure of the Angles, when the peninsula was occupied by Danes. Danish became the main language of the region between the 9th and 19th centuries. In the 19th century another language shift occurred and the predominant language changed from the North Germanic Danish to the West Germanic Low German . Low German has since been gradually superseded by a variety of Standard German with Low German traits. The variety of Danish indigenous to Angeln
4100-521: The end of the settlement period of the Angles in Angeln and their arrival in eastern and central England up to 100 years passed. The Angles would have initially moved west, to the Schleswig Geest, before leaving their home completely. For the years 449–455 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle , written around 890, describes how Vortigern , a British king, invited the Angles to come and receive land in return for helping him defend his realm against marauding Picts . Those successful Angles sent word back that good land
4182-431: The exclusive use of rigsdansk , the High Copenhagen 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,
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#17328370776664264-451: 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
4346-426: The history of Danish into a period from 800 AD to 1525 to be "Old Danish", which he subdivided into "Runic Danish" (800–1100), Early Middle Danish (1100–1350) and Late Middle Danish (1350–1525). Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu . " Dyggvi 's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg 's son, who was the first to be called king in
4428-447: The hundred of Husby was symbolically represented by two crossed arrows with a heart in front of them. From 1906 at the latest, the stylized house corresponding to the old hundred seal appeared instead. The original version of the coat of arms can therefore still be found occasionally. The Uggelharde [ de ; da ] , which only partially lay in Angeln, is not represented in the arms. Two unofficial flags are in use, one showing
4510-412: The island of Great Britain in the 5th and 6th centuries. Thorsberg moor is a peat bog in the municipality of Süderbrarup. This inconspicuous body of water is an important archaeological site and was a Germanic sacrificial bog from the times of the Roman Empire. In the period from the 1st century to the early 5th century objects were sacrificed in several phases in Thorsberg Moor, presumably by members of
4592-424: The language as a token of Danish identity, and the language experienced a strong surge in use and popularity, with major works of literature produced in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though regional variants of the standard language exist. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative. Danish has
4674-414: The language of the courts. Since 1997, public authorities have been obliged to follow the official spelling system laid out in the Orthography Law. In the 21st century, discussions have been held with a view to create a law that would make Danish the official language of Denmark. In addition, a noticeable community of Danish speakers is in Southern Schleswig , the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, and
4756-403: The largest Danish-speaking minorities are Flensburg, Schleswig and Glücksburg. Many Angeln place-names are of Danish origin, including those ending in - by (town), such as Brodersby , Nieby and Husby , and -rup (hamlet), such as Sörup , Sterup and Tastrup . The region was home to the Germanic Angles, some of whom, together with Saxons and Jutes , left their homeland to migrate to
4838-407: The major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagen Standard, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of the capital, and low Copenhagen speech 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
4920-422: The mid-20th century. Moders navn er vort Hjertesprog, kun løs er al fremmed Tale. Det alene i mund og bog, kan vække et folk af dvale. "Mother's name is our hearts' tongue, only idle is all foreign speech It alone, in mouth or in book, can rouse a people from sleep." N.F.S. Grundtvig , "Modersmaalet" Following the loss of Schleswig to Germany, a sharp influx of German speakers moved into
5002-424: The original seats of two historically important dynasties, the House of Glücksburg and the House of Holstein-Gottorp . The place-name is first attested in Widsith , an Old English poem dating to the 6th or 7th century. It has been linked to the Germanic roots * angulaz ("hook") and * angw - ("narrow"), and may have originated as a name for the Schlei. It is unclear whether the ancient Angeln corresponded to
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#17328370776665084-463: The region now denoted by the name or whether it was of greater extent. Angeln is one of four peninsulas lining the Baltic coast of Schleswig-Holstein , along with Schwansen, Danish Wahld and Wagrien . As part of the Schleswig-Holstein Morainic Uplands (Ger. Schleswig-Holsteinisches Moränenhügelland ), formed during the Weichselian glaciation , these peninsulas are hilly and dotted with several glacial lakes . The Angeln lakes are subdivided into
5166-510: The ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains forming the Eastern Continental Divide that separated settled colonial lands in the east from Indian Territory to the west. Another instance of a border matching a watershed in modern times involves the western border between Labrador and Quebec , as arbitrated by the privy council in 1927. Drainage divides hinder waterway navigation . In pre-industrial times, water divides were crossed at portages . Later, canals connected adjoining drainage basins;
5248-420: The shared written standard language remained). With the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the Danish state was further integrated, and the language of the Danish chancellery, a Zealandic variety with German and French influence, became the de facto official standard language , especially in writing—this was the original so-called rigsdansk ("Danish of the Realm"). Also, beginning in the mid-18th century,
5330-399: The style in fashion at the time in coastal Scandinavia , Denmark , and Schleswig-Holstein south to the lower Elbe and east to the Oder , as well as a pocket in coastal Friesland . After the Angles departed from Angeln, by the 8th century the region was occupied by Danes . This is reflected in the large number of place names ending in -by (town) in the region today. In the 10th century
5412-486: The three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that the mutual intelligibility is asymmetric: Norwegian speakers generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Concomitantly, Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. Norwegian occupies the middle position in terms of intelligibility because of its shared border with Sweden, resulting in
5494-445: The turn of the 20th century. Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas: Jutlandic (West Danish), Insular Danish (including the standard variety), and East Danish (including Bornholmian and Scanian ). According to 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 Bornholmian
5576-411: The vernacular language to be accessible also to those who were not Latinate. The Jutlandic Law and Scanian Law were written in vernacular Danish in the early 13th century. Beginning in 1350, Danish began to be used as a language of administration, and new types of literature began to be written in the language, such as royal letters and testaments. The orthography in this period was not standardized nor
5658-407: The vernacular, such as the plural form of verbs, should be conserved in writing (i.e. han er "he is" vs. de ere "they are"). The East Danish provinces were lost to Sweden after the Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645) after which they were gradually Swedified; just as Norway was politically severed from Denmark, beginning also a gradual end of Danish influence on Norwegian (influence through
5740-464: The whore-bed with another man's wife and he comes away alive..." Jutlandic Law, 1241 In the medieval period, Danish emerged as a separate language from Swedish. The main written language was Latin, and the few Danish-language texts preserved from this period are written in the Latin alphabet, although the runic alphabet seems to have lingered in popular usage in some areas. The main text types written in this period are laws, which were formulated in
5822-440: 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 that period English adopted ‘are’, the third person plural form of the verb ‘to be’, as well as the personal pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ from contemporary Old Norse. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish . A proficient speaker of any of
5904-479: The written languages are compatible, spoken Danish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either is variable between regions and speakers . Until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Southern Jutland and Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and
5986-481: Was Angel Danish , a dialect of South Jutlandic (the southernmost variety of Danish spoken on the Jutland peninsula, formerly spoken as far south as Eckernförde ). Danish continues to be spoken in Angeln by a minority but the dialects spoken nowadays are Southern Schleswig Danish , which are not dialects of the previously indigenous South Jutlandic but (Low) German-influenced dialects of Standard Danish. The cities with
6068-487: Was a territory ruled by Denmark–Norway , one of whose official languages was Danish. Though Danish ceased to be an official language in Iceland in 1944, it is still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school, taught as a second foreign language after English. No law stipulates an official language for Denmark, making Danish the de facto official language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down Danish as
6150-452: Was also one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic ). Danish now acts as a lingua franca in Greenland, with a large percentage of native Greenlanders able to speak Danish as a second language (it was introduced into the education system as a compulsory language in 1928). About 10% of the population speaks Danish as their first language , due to immigration. Iceland
6232-525: Was available and that the British were "worthless". A wholesale emigration of Angles and kindred Germanic peoples followed. The Chronicle , commissioned by Alfred the Great , drew on earlier oral traditions and on the few written fragments available. The best of these, written around 730, was by the monk Bede , whose history of English Christianity contains the following brief account of the origin and distribution of
6314-463: Was found at some locations of the Schleswig Geest (the region neighbouring Angeln), it is assumed that the climate had changed. Increased rainfall could explain this move to the sandy geest areas. Another reason for leaving settlements near the coast is believed to be attacks from the sea. This initially regional migration would also explain another phenomenon: it is now considered likely that between
6396-482: Was mostly supplanted by the Low German spise . As well as loanwords, new words can be 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%. Danish and English are both Germanic languages. Danish is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse, and English
6478-569: Was once the Viking settlement of Jorvik. Several other English words derive from Old East Norse, for example "knife" ( kniv ), "husband" ( husbond ), and "egg" ( æg ). The suffix "-by" for 'town' is common in place names in Yorkshire and the east Midlands, for example Selby, Whitby, Derby, and Grimsby. The word "dale" meaning valley is common in Yorkshire and Derbyshire placenames. Fangær man saar i hor seng mæth annæns mansz kunæ. oc kumær han burt liuænd... . "If one catches someone in
6560-463: Was still not standardized and the principles for doing so were vigorously discussed among Danish philologists. The grammar of Jens Pedersen Høysgaard was the first to give a detailed analysis of Danish phonology and prosody, including a description of the stød . In this period, scholars were also discussing whether it was best to "write as one speaks" or to "speak as one writes", including whether archaic grammatical forms that had fallen out of use in
6642-469: Was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei ) to the monophthong e , as in stæin to sten . This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . Also, a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr occurred. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey ) diphthong changed into ø , as well, as in
6724-464: Was the spoken language, and the regional laws demonstrate the dialectal differences between the regions in which they were written. Throughout this period, Danish was in contact with Low German , and many Low German loan words were introduced in this period. With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Danish also became the language of religion, which sparked a new interest in using Danish as
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