Danish

Danish (endonym: dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ]) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about 5.5 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, 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 Nynorsk are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic (Norwegian Bokmål may be thought of as mixed Danish-Norwegian, therefore mixed East-West Norse). However, the "mainland (or continental) Scandinavian" languages — modern spoken Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish — are largely mutually intelligible with each other, but not with "insular Scandinavian", i.e. Icelandic and Faroese. Although the written languages are compatible, spoken Danish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either varies between regions and speakers.