The Danish Language: A Story of Dragons, Fairy Tales, and . . . Bluetooth?
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- Опубліковано 14 тра 2024
- 🇩🇰 What do runes and cell phones have in common? Are unicorn horns real? There’s a lot more to the history of the Danish language than you’d ever imagine!
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⏱ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
0:18 - What is Danish?
1:09 - Old Norse
2:52 - Runes and Danish Writing
6:34 - Vikings and Unicorns
7:45 - Medieval Changes
10:32 - The Enlightenment
12:15 - Modern Danish Dialects
13:45 - Influences on Danish
14:52 - Strange, Strange Numbers
16:04 - Alphabet and Pronunciation
19:11 - Grammar
📜 SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:
🎬 Video Clips:
WIKITONGUES: Lena speaking Danish
• WIKITONGUES: Lena spea...
Sagan Blóðbeins - The Saga of Bloodbone (Old Norse)
• Sagan Blóðbeins - The...
Steindinn okkar - Víkingar
• Steindinn okkar - Víki...
The secret messages of Viking runestones - Jesse Byock
• The secret messages of...
Rune styles (long-branch vs. short-twig, etc.)
• Rune styles (long-bran...
A Conversation in Old English and Old Norse
• A Conversation in Old ...
Why Danish sounds funny to Scandinavians
• Why Danish sounds funn...
Norway 200 Years! - (Danish Language Explained)
• Norway 200 Years! - (D...
WIKITONGUES: Riike speaking Danish
• WIKITONGUES: Riike spe...
Danske dialekter: Ida fra Sønderjylland
• Danske dialekter: Ida ...
Fleksnes makes fun of Danish Number system
• Fleksnes makes fun of ...
How to count to 100 in Danish - Language Challenge
• How to count to 100 in...
How to understand Danish numbers
• How to understand Dani...
Americans Try To Pronounce Danish Words
• Americans Try To Prono...
Danish language
• Danish language
20.000 Subs Special | Danish Tongue Twisters
• 20.000 Subs Special | ...
Learn Danish - The Danish "soft d" or "mute d"
• Learn Danish - The Dan...
• My Danish Learning Pro...
The Danish Language - What Makes it Easy/Hard to Learn Danish?
• The Danish Language - ...
🖼 Images:
“Jelling gr kl Stein” by Casiopeia is licensed under CC BY-SA2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Kam-med-runer-fra-Vimose DO-4148 2000” by Nationalmuseet is licensed under CC BY-SA3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“Einangsteinen inscript” by Lars Gustavsen is licensed under CC BY-SA4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
“CodexRunicus” by Asztalos Gyula is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
“Hanseschiffe vor Kopenhagen” by Unknown is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
“HCA by Thora Hallager 1869 crop” by Thora Hallager is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons
“Hans Christian Andersen statue in Kongens Have - Copenhagen DSC07861” by Daderot is licensed under CC0 via Wikimedia Commons
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Language Simp has been featured in an Olly Richards video, this is truly a historic moment
"Why is the D so soft?"
The first Scandinavian language I ever heard as a child was Danish, so it has always sounded right to me. I hope to learn the written language someday and read Hans Christian Anderson’s works in his original language. ❤
Solvang, California ❤
Dansk er det dejligste sprog i verden!Tusind tak Olly, jeg har ventede meget langt tid for dig til lave en video om Dansk! 🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰
Er dansk dit modersmål?
@@natashacallis2736 Nej, jeg er Amerikaner, Dansk er min andet sprog! 😀🇩🇰
@@amerikanskdansker8771 fedt! Mit modersmål er også engelsk, jeg taler også tysk og lærer fransk og dansk.
Jeg ventede eller jeg har ventet* i stedet for jeg har ventede
"Jeg har ventet meget længe på, at du skulle lave en video om dansk" er den korrekte formulering.
Please do a video on Dutch. You said it's one of the easiest languages to learn for English speakers.
I love learning different languages, even not having time enough for them, especially at this late in life. I heard a beautiful Danish dialect with a cover of Auld Lang Syne and wish it were taught online but I guess this will never happen. Danish is truly beautiful.
I confess I only try learning a bit of mainstream Danish now as an intellectual exercise to boost my brain, I've long given up mastering it: the lack of congruence between the pronounced words and their written forms makes it even harder for me than that crazy 'd', not to mention the younger generations speak so fast it becomes totally unfeasible to my ageing neurons.😱😵💫
Thanks for the vid!
That would have been Steen Steensen Blicher's translation into West Jutlandic, "Skuld gammel wenskaw rejn forgo" It was a stroke of genius - Robert Burns' poem was written in Scots, then about to be demoted to a dialect of English. The west Jutland dialext was similarly ridiculed by the denizens of the capiltal. nothing has changed...
Thanks Olly for doing a video on both Norwegian and Danish. Let's do Swedish and Finnish next.
Yes, please. I've been wanting a video on Finnish for months, if not longer.
Jeg er tysker og da jeg var 16 år gammel ville jeg lære mig et sprog, som mange tysker ikke kunde tale. Jeg købte en parlør med en grammofonskive og begyndte med dansk. Senere flyttede jeg til Hamburg. Her er der en dansk kirke og der mødte jeg mange dansker der arbejdede i Hamburg. Det var en meget sjovt tid. Jeg kan godt lide denne typisk danske humor.
Desværre har jeg i mellemtiden tabt kontakten med mine danske venner .
You forgot to mention that the West Germanic Old English ( Anglo-Saxon) language was completely transformed and simplified significantly during the clash and later fusion with the North Germanic Old Norse of the Danish and Norwegian Viking settlers in N. & E. England plus parts of Scotland, which over time became some sort of a Germanic creole language ( with a lot of French & Latin words added on top of it over time ) as it transitioned into the remarkably different Middle English ), which even today has many deep similarities with basic Danish & Scandinavian vocabulary and its grammatical structure, still making English a fairly language for Danes to learn, since we by magic already "know" many bits and pieces in advance.
Simple sentences written in Danish will even often look like some sort of weird older, but still quite understandable Pseudo English because of these deep links.
ME also used to have this inversion between subject and verb in certain cases, as far as I know ( before the peculiar modern use of "do" became common some time in the 15th century - possibly as an influence from the Welsh language ).
So it was circa:
ME What (hwat!) seek(est) thou here?
D Hvad søg-er du (thu) her [heir]? ( N& S søker / sökar)
ME Now have we come (for) to see you / thee.
( or Early Modern E. ( Shakespeare, Richard the Third ):
"Now IS the winter of our discontent ... " )
D Nu er [air] (are) / har [hAr] (haver) vi [ve] kommet for at se dig ( orig. "thik"! ).
Check out Langfocus' brilliant video called "Viking Influence on the English Language", if you want a more detailed explanation.
I Just love how danish sounds❤️❤️❤️
Thank you for making a video on danish
Thank you for watching it :)
@@storylearning 11:20
@@storylearning 21:08
Having moved from Canada to Denmark nearly 9 years ago, I really appreciate the in-depth nature of this dive into the Danish language. I have become fluent-ish in the language, but it does sometimes mess with the other two languages in my repertoire, namely French and English. For example, I continue to understand French when spoken or read, but when I attempt an entire phrase in French, it quickly becomes a strange Danish-French hybrid. In another case (working in a shop), I told someone in English "That have we there over" which is English words directly applying the Danish inversion grammatical structure...
As far as the numbers structure, from an entertainment standpoint I enjoy explaining it (to Danes and non-Danes alike), but from a practical standpoint of learning the language, it's potentially best to just memorize and let go of the why! I have, however, learned to accomodate Norwegians and Swedes by telling them item prices in their less-confusing number systems instead of in Danish!
The Danish number system is pretty close to the French, though. We just indicate when we are halfway to the next multiplier of 20, while in French, it is indicated that ten is added to the last multiplier of 20.
The Danish vowels are very complex, which makes it a fun adventure for foreigners. I've even spoken with linguistically trained Danes who have difficulty distinguishing between different vowels until you point out minimal pairs. Thankfully, apart from the "soft D," the consonants aren't terribly difficult for English speakers.
I have to correct some of the subtext translation here. "Grød" has a wider meaning than "porridge", and "rødgrød med fløde" is definitely NOT "red porridge with cream". There’s no cereal in it.
If you want an English equivalent to "rødgrød", it’s almost like a simplified version of a red berry trifle.
There's absolutely cereal in the _traditional_ recipe for rødgrød. It was made with groats or grit, which are made up of grains. Nowadays it's often made with different thickening agents (most commonly potato starch), but that's where the original name came from, and often cereals are still used -- semolina flour comes to mind.
@@lDanielHolm Google "porridge" and "rødgrød" and look at the pictures. That should be enough to convince you that "porridge" is a very poor translation. You might be technically correct in a "well, AAACKSHUALLY..." sense, but that doesn't change the fact that "grød" and "porridge" aren't 1-to-1 translations of eachother.
Besides, I've been through about twenty recipes now, for "traditionel" or "gammeldags" rødgrød, and while they do obviously contain a very small amount of potato or corn flour for thickening, I haven't found any that are cereal based. Feel free to back up your claim.
@@boesvig2258 Corn _is a cereal._ The Danish word 'korn' is translated to either 'corn' or 'cereal'. They're the same thing. Even if you're using it in the American sense, meaning maize, maize is also a cereal grain.
'Porridge' and 'grød' absolutely do refer to precisely the same thing.
The earliest versions of rødgrød was very different to the modern dessert. It was literally any kind of porridge that was red in color. Here's a recipe from 1710:
Rød Grød, 1710
Tag et half pund Riismeel / og halfanden pot rød Viin / tver det der udi med Sucker / Cardemomme / Caneel og smaaskaaren Suckat / lad det kaage indtil det bliver jævn tyck / tag saa Mandeler for 4. Skilling / stød dem smaa og tver dem der iblant / og lad det koge der med / og om du vilt / kand du vel komme det i Steen-Former / eller kand du komme det i et Fad / og gif Wiin / Sucker / reven Citron-Skaller derover / eller strøe over med smaa Staffer / Sucker / alle slags hvilcke du vilt.
- Anna Wigant: En Høy-Fornemme Madames Kaage-Bog, København 1710
This one is based on rice flour and red wine, mixed with sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, almonds, and lemon zest.
You can read up on the history of rødgrød here, if you can read Danish: madamsif.dk/2022/05/13/roedgroed-en-liden-historie/
@@lDanielHolm I'm sorry, but you're simply wrong. Let's take it slow, one point at a time.
1. "Corn is a cereal."
Yes, obviously. But it's just as obvious that "rødgrød" isn't cereal-based just because you can optionally use a little corn flour to thicken it.
2. "'Porridge' and 'grød' absolutely do refer to precisely the same thing.2
This is the central argument. And no, it doesn't refer to precisely the same thing.
"PORRIDGE" is "a dish consisting of oatmeal or another meal or cereal boiled in water or milk", according to Oxford Languages. Definitions in Collins, Longman, Cambridge, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries don't differ significantly.
"GRØD" has two meanings (disregarding the figurative ones) according to ordnet.dk:
A) "varm madret tilberedt af fx gryn eller mel, der koges med mælk eller vand" [My translation: Hot dish made from cereal or flour boiled in milk or water]; and
B) "madret tilberedt af frugt eller bær, der koges med vand og evt. tilsættes sukker og jævning" [My translation: Dish made from fruit or berries boiled in water, optionally with sugar and/or thickening added].
"Rødgrød" falls under this second definition. And "porridge" doesn't have this secondary meaning. Therefore, "rødgrød" is NOT "porridge".
3. "The earliest versions of rødgrød was very different to the modern dessert."
Key point being "very different". The "rødgrød" we know today dates back to the late 1800s, and its main ingredient is berries. Well done for digging up an old recipe for at completely different dish that happens to share the same name. But that doesn't change the fact that "rødgrød", as it is most commonly used today, can't be translated to "porridge".
@boesvig2258 That's a secondary definition, not a separate one - note the numbering. Porridge is still the correct translation for grød, but I will grant that it isn't the most fitting in every case. That said, my particular objection to this specific case is that you said it doesn't contain cereal, when it absolutely can do just that.
These language profile videos are my favorite! Olly, is there a chance you could do one on Hungarian? And thank you for these!
Thank you for this video. As a Dane I find it quite interesting.
I enjoy these videos , they are really interesting. 😊 Thank you. It would be good if there was a video on Welsh as well :D. Never seen you talk about Welsh.
Very interesting! As a Swedish person I can often understand Norwegian, but not danish. Though written danish is a lot easier. The text is pretty similar to Swedish.
When will you make intermediate level short stories in Brazilian Portuguese? I love your short stories! I read your beginners level already and want the intermediate whenever you make them
Tak fordi du har lavet en video om det danske sprog! Jeg har lært dansk i 8 måneder og jeg synes det er et dejligt og smukt sprog og jeg kan rigtigt godt lide dansk! 🇩🇰 kan du ikke lave en video om svensk?
At the 13:18 timestamp, the statue is of H.C. Ørsted, a different person, but perhaps the most impressive Dane ever.
Thank you for this video , I wanted one talking about the Danish language .
And sorry again for my English , I don't use it very often here
- Can you recommend some books .
Great video! I'd love to see one on Finnish ;)
Language Simp was the highlight of this video. 🤩
As an example he uses: "Aldrig har jeg set noget så mærkeligt". You can also do it like this: "Jeg har aldrig set noget så mærkeligt". It's the same. I think in English too.
1) English is derived from Norwegian. The grammar is the same.
2) Danish is spoken as written. The rules of pronunciation follow the Danish rules of pronunciation.
3) The Danish intonation emphasizes the first syllable in the word. English the third syllable in longer words, or the last..
Guess English rules of pronunciation do not apply in French or italian either?
I have long thought that Danish is the foreign language that sounds the most like English (or American English) or that it sounds somewhere between English and Dutch. After studying Swedish a bit, I find that I can understand a lot of written Danish. (The level of difficulty of trying to read Danish after studying Swedish may be comparable to trying to read Afrikaans after studying Dutch.)
Norwegian seems very roughly to me to be like written Danish with Swedish pronunciation.
Det var sateme en ordentlig omgang om det danske sprog.
Narhval - Nar being a fool. Perfect.
Hi, when you talk about silent D you actually mean the soft D. This is really difficult for English speakers as the sound doesn't exist in English. We often perceive it as L but if you speak it like that it sounds wrong to Danish people. The tongue touches the back of the bottom teeth and does not touch the roof of the mouth. The silent D is where the D is literally not pronounced at all, as in the name Anders (sounds like Anners). The hard D is obvious, like in Danmark. Historically the soft D is descended from the "th" sound ð, and that's how it's phonetically notated in Danish dictionaries.
Yes, the soft d (ð)in Danish similar to the -th in English as in "with", but without sticking the tip of your tongue out 😂 - but just letting it rest up against your lower front teeth instead.
As a dane from southern jutland, I could understand Ida. I don't use the dialect myself though. And I would totally understand if someone who didn't grow up with parents speaking the dialect wouldn't be able to understand it.
Also at 20:36 that was an example of a "soft D", not a silent D. The soft D is arguably one of the hardest things for foreigners to learn.
The video is Amazing. I do however have one issue and that is that you use people from Germany with pretty thick German accents to show what Danish sounds like.
It's a soft D In bad, and not silent - unless you're on the island Funen (Fyn), where they don't exist in the language, or dialect if you will, hence can be considered silent. But nowhere else. Everywhere else is a soft D, as you said, resembling the th sound in English.
I feel sorry for people who have to learn my language. Never thought about how hard it is till i met my husband who is not danish. Our pronunciation of words are crazy and nothing makes sense.
Still waiting for a video on Finnish. 😅
But as far as the Scandinavian languages, I think I'd like to learn Icelandic and Swedish or Norwegian.
Now I just need a video about the Portuguese language 😊
2:36 That's the United Kingdom not England!
🙄
The leprechauns failed to pillage the cabbage kingdom before the bomber blimps arrived.
Danish, and Scandinavian myths in general come from the Cimbri Tribe. Who were “Celtic”. Cymry, Cimbri, Cumbrians, Cimmerians. All originally the same people!
Southern Jutlandic is mostly incomprehensible even to Danes, yeah. I come from Funen and I could not understand a single word the first time through. Even after carefully listening to it, I can only get, like, half.
Æ tøs do ska slaw ud æ lyttelapper😂 Glædelig jul
@@ole7146 Glædelig jul :P
And….. a story of quantum theory as well. 😊
It s like cold water
The best way to learn Dansk is going to Sweden JK... Swedish is a bid complex but not that advanced like Danish :v
Only thing I can say is: I believe Scandinavian people are extremely intelligent.
are you going to make an albanian episode pls???
They used wax tablets for writing runes.
i like that you included "perkerdansk" among dialects in modern Denmark 😂
And the Norwegians officially call it "kebab Norsk", which made me smile a bit when I first noticed it.
Dutch with an American accent? But Dutch is German with an American accent!
...I t a l l m a k e s s e n s e n o w
The Danes really only became Christians for trade and peace reasons. The Crusades were taking off right about the end of the Viking era and by that time nobody wanted to challenge these Christian extremist so it was a very good idea to become "Christians" in order to avoid conflict. Christianity however didn't actually play a big part of people´s lives and it took quite some time to actually Christianize the Danes. In many places people did not accept Christianity for hundreds of years and those who did were often somewhat omnism in their beliefs having both the Asatru and Christianity mixed up in one big puddle. In fact people still used völvas in parts of Denmark to seek guidance for as late as the 1800´s but with time these female seers transcended into priests. Till this day Christianity isn't a big thing either as a religion in Denmark but functions as a cultural thing with about 3/4 of the Danish population being a member of the State Church but with a low percentage of these actually believing in God and a very low number practicing Christianity actively. Quite interesting
During our recent Scandinavian trip, My husband thought Danish (and Norwegian and Swedish) sounded like Russian (or another Slavic language). The first time I heard Danish after learning Norwegian on and off for a year, I was like “Oh heck no! I’m sticking with Norwegian” 😂 I absolutely did not like the sound of Danish and much prefer Norwegian, and Swedish. (Sorry Danes). Now reading Danish words (with my little bit of Norwegian knowledge) was much easier, though I’m sure I said it with a Norwegian accent.
Never met a Dane in the US.
If you met anyone whose surname ends with "...sen" they are probably of either Danish or Norwegian descent.
We are there under cover 😂
Sweds don't understan Danish unless you come from the south parts of Sweden. Most of them gets Norwegian and the Norwegians seem to have no problem whit Danish or Swedish. So Norway wins😀
Well, I come from east Jutland - Denmark, and I've meet many Sweds over the years that didn't have any major problems understanding me.
Good for you🙂@@ole7146
You don't need to understand where the numbers come from, you just have to learn the words. Just like in English. You can not just say twoty, threety, fourty, fivety in English either.
Standard Danish is not all based on Copenhagen dialexts. The island dialects have, or had, three genders. The standard two gender system is the east Jutlandish way.
I rather learn swedish 😅
It is an exageration of nordicism when it is stated that they were "migthy " they only really conquered almost empty islands Iceland, greenland and the faroese islands and yes for a while the british isles when every one was killing each other... NEVer have i heard the same hype on the Turkish tribes that conquered halv of Europe or the Mongols...
the Turkish didn't conquer half of Europe although they did conquer quite a bit , Denmark once ruled England, Norway, Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, the Virgin Islands and a picee of Africa , I would say that is a bit- do you realize how tiny Denmark is ? , the Vikings also funded Normandy and Russia , it sounds like you should learn a bit more , that said this is not a competition on who was the biggest power, that more like the British empire, Russian empire and Mongolian Empire, the reason many find Norse Vikings interesting is that they spread all over and a lot of people have some of the dna
@@veronicajensen7690 I think you are exagerating when stating "the vikings" as they did not even see themselves as the same people (despite that they where right) like danish and swedish was the same language ca year 1000.. Then Greenland, Iceland were founded by Norwegian Vikings ( Not Danes) Denmark had a shitty small colony on Africa and an Island of the Caribbean. Russia or the Kievan Rus started with a dynasty of Swedish princes(so yes u have a point), but they were established there so that the slavic tribes did not slaughter each other, there was never a mighty swedish army colonizing them hence why they speak Ukrainian and Russian over there and not swedish or Danish... Now about the Turks you seem to ignore a lot, they were tribes coming from Mongolia, they subjugated the Persians, they created the empire of Khazan, their descendants formed the Ottoman Empire, that ruled over the whole middle east and large portions of Africa, they even Conquered the Balcans and were only stopped in Wien (vienna austria) .... Silly comparison don't you think so ... And it was not even the first time Remember Attila the HUn.... Gengish Khan ? The great Khan was so great that today even muslim countries adopted the word for king despite the word not coming from any arabic- speaking territory....
14:54 this can’t be danish… i refuse to belive it xD
Oh yes that's how they talk in Southern Jutland. What I got from it in plain danish: "...når man ikke kender nogen, jeg frøs mine tæer og havde ondt i maven. Det er altid..."
@@ellenstergaardgravesen1011 ahh... i see... maybe...