Where does danish come from?

Answer 1

its an old Norse language with the same roots as swedish, norwegian, and (argueably) finnish...

NO! Finnish is from a completely different group of languages traditionally called Finno-Ugrian or Uralic now, which also consists of Estonian, Hungarian (!) and several of the languages of Northern Siberia. Apart from relatively few later loan words Finnish has absolutely NO connection with the other Nordic languages!

Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are three closely related and mostly mutually intelligible languages that have descended from Old Norse, which is a member of the North Germanic branch of the Germanic family of languages. Other members are Faroese (Faroe Islands), Icelandic and Norn (a now extinct language the Shetlands and Orkney Islands ).

German, Low German, Dutch, Frisian AND English belong to the West Germanic branch, but there are STILL lots of similarities in basic vocabulary and grammar between these two surviving main branches of the Germanic family, especially since "Danish" (and Norwegian) have later on influenced and shaped early (Middle) English and old English ( Anglo-Saxon ) immensely via the Viking invasions and later settlements, mainly in NE England, to such a degree that English often appers to have jumped linguistic branch (!) in many ways.

These two closely related languages, Anglo-Saxon and Norse, were still mutually intelligible to some degree, since the AS settlers had arrived in England from roughly the same areas of North Western Europe (The Netherlands, North Germany (Old Saxony = Holstein) & Denmark ( Angeln = Schleswig / Slesvig area and the rest of the Jutland peninsula) only a few centuries earlier.

Actually you can even today write whole sentences in Danish that should be perfectly comprehensible to an English speaking person with just a little bit of intelligent "guessing" - almost like a "primitive" version of "pseudo English" in many respects - eg.

"Lad os gå {go} home efter midnat" =

"Let us go hjem {yem} after midnight",

"Hvor er (!) min ko?" = "Where is ("are") my cow?"

"Hvad skal vi sige {see-ye} til vore frænd-er"=

"What shall we say to our friends?"

"Find min røde hat" = "Find my red hat",

"Jeg {yaigh(!)} vil sælge {sell-ye} alle mine kalve næste sommer" =

"I will sell all my calves next Summer"

"Hav en god dag {daygh}" = "Have a good day"

"Bring ham her-over" = "Bring him over here",

"Giv mig din kniv" = "Give me 'thine' knife",

"Vi kan allerede (!) se dem nu - de er der" =

"We can already see them now - they are there"

"Han (!) vil synge en sang for mig" =

"He 'will' (wants to) sing a song for me".

"Du skal komme ud til mig igen {ee-gain}" =

"You 'shall' (have to) come out to me again (!)".

"Vi håber {ho-ber(!)} (th)at du vil sende mange fine ting til os {us} fra din

lange tur ver(l)d-en rundt"

"= "We hope that you ('thou') will send many fine things to us from your ('thine')

long journey (tour) a-round the world"

etc.