h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I may not be Danish myself but I know a couple of people who are and THEY think Danish sounds like German! My mum's thoughts on this are that DAnish sounds like German only a little more like water going down a plughole than German does.

No, I'm sorry, but Danish is most unlike German and actually related more closely to English (through Old English). Something to do with those pesky Vikings, I think. With three extra characters in the alphabet, each capable of varying pronunciations - just to confuse those of us who have nothing better to do than attempt to learn the lingo. The "ø" is slightly different in each word it appears in "rød grød med fløde". Now you don't get that with English...

As a native Dane, I believe I'm entitled to an opinion on this subject. If you try to study the problem in an unbiased manner (which is practially impossible for any Dane), it surely must be concluded that Danish does have a lot more in common with German than with English. There are several reasons we are reluctant to admit this: First, German generally tend to be difficult for us, because of somewhat difficult grammar and a peculiar tendency to reverse the position of words in some sentences. Second, we are constantly bombarded with American soap operas, film, and the Internet (such as this site), which are slowly turning our entire culture more towards the English speaking World. Third, few people here actually NEED to know German and thus, most of us have a generally traumatic relationship to it.

Swedish and Norwegian, of course, are so closely related to Danish that we can usually understand each other with just minor difficulties. Finnish is incomprensible (I almost wrote to anybody, but you never know who's reading this ) and is, I believe, somehow related to Hungarian. Icelandic and Faeroese are no good, either, but most of the older folks up there were indoctrinated with Danish at school during our glorious days of colonialism and still speak it, after a fashion. Greenlandic is quite ridiculous - the most prominent letter would appear to be 'q' - but here colonialism has brought it's benefits, too .

Finally, some time ago the phone company here in Denmark ran a series of TV adds about how cheap their long distance rates are. They show this Danish lad being called from home on a Texas ranch. After the conversation, his American friend asks him (in a Texas drawl) 'What the H*** kind of language was that, H.J.?', he get's the reply 'That was DANISH!' - and the reply to that is the punchline: 'DANISH - ain't that somethin' ya' EAT ? ' I guess that pretty much sums up our attitude to the entire problem. We are so used to the fact that no foreigners speak or understand the language that maybe we don't really expect them to even know that there is such a thing at all. But there is. And it's alive and well, and is in daily use by more than 5 million people, who are doing just fine with it.

Incidentally the Danish word for the pastry thing referred to in the original entry is 'Wienerbrød', literally 'Vienese bread', so it appears we like to blame it on the Austrians ! It is quite popular with coffee at business meetings here.