The
Kingdom of Denmark
The Danish Realm, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, or simply Denmark, is a sovereign state consisting of a collection of constituent territories united by the Constitution of Denmark, Constitutional Act, which applies to the entire territor ...
has only one
official language
An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
,
Danish, the
national language
'' ''
A national language is a language (or language variant, e.g. dialect) that has some connection— de facto or de jure—with a nation. The term is applied quite differently in various contexts. One or more languages spoken as first languag ...
of the Danish people, but there are several
minority languages spoken, namely
Faroese,
German, and
Greenlandic.
A large majority (about 86%)
of Danes also speak English as a second language; it is mandatory for Danish students to learn from first grade in the public
elementary school
A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...
s (), 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 (about 47% of Danes report being able to speak conversational German). The third most widely understood foreign language is Swedish, with about 13% of Danes reporting to be able to speak it.
Officially recognized minority languages
Faroese
Faroese, a
North Germanic language
The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also ...
like Danish, is the primary language of the
Faroe Islands
The Faroe Islands ( ) (alt. the Faroes) are an archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean and an autonomous territory of the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. Located between Iceland, Norway, and the United Kingdom, the islands have a populat ...
, a self-governing territory of the Kingdom. It is also spoken by some Faroese immigrants in mainland Denmark. Faroese is similar to Icelandic and retains many features of
Old Norse
Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...
, the source of all North Germanic languages.
Greenlandic
Since the Act on Greenland Self-Government was adopted by parliament on 12 June 2009,
Greenlandic, or ''Kalaallisut'', is the sole official language of Greenland.
Greenlandic belongs to the
Eskimo–Aleut languages
The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...
; it is closely related to the
Inuit languages
The Inuit languages are a closely related group of Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and the adjacent subarctic regions as far south as Labrador. The Inuit ...
in Canada, such as
Inuktitut
Inuktitut ( ; , Inuktitut syllabics, syllabics ), also known as Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the North American tree line, including parts of the provinces of ...
, and entirely unrelated to Danish.
See also
*
Minority languages of Denmark
*
Danish dialects
References
External Links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Languages Of Denmark