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History of Danish

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:
Old West Norse dialect
Old East Norse dialect
Old Gutnish
Old English
Crimean Gothic
Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility
The Danish language developed during the Middle Ages out of the Old East Norse, the
common predecessor of Danish and Swedish, itself a late form of common Old Norse. The
history of Danish can by convention be divided into:

Old Danish (Old East Norse), 9th to 11th centuries


Middle Danish, 12th to 15th centuries
Modern Danish, 16th century to present.

Old Danish
Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in Denmark Runic Danish, but until the
12th century, the dialect was the same in the two countries. The dialects are
called runic because the main body of text appears in therunic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse,
which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with theYounger
Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes
were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel uwhich was also used for
the vowels o, and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.
A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the
change of the diphthong i (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthonge, as in stin to sten. This
is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a
change of au as in daur into as in dr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a
change from taur into tur. Moreover, the y (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed
into as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island".
Medieval Danish

Fangr man saar i hor seng mth annns mansz kun. oc kumr han burt liund....
"If one catches someone in the whore-bed with another man's wife and he comes away
alive..."

Jutlandic Law, 1241 [1]


takr bond annr man mth sin kun oc kumar swa at han drpr anti mannen....
"If a peasant takes another man with his wife and does it happen that he does not kill the
man..."

The Zealandic Law of Erik, approx. 1250[1]


hittr man annr man i siangu m aulkunu sinni ok drpr bondn horkarkl i sngu m
hnn....
"If one finds another man in bed with one's wedded wife and if the peasant kills the whorechurl in bed with her..."

Scanian Law, approx. 1216[1]


From 1100 and onwards, the dialect of Denmark began to diverge from that of Sweden. The
innovations spread unevenly from Denmark which created a series of minor dialectal
boundaries, isoglosses, ranging from Zealand to Svealand. In the medieval period Danish
emerged as a separate language from Swedish. The main written language was Latin, and the
few Danish language texts preserved from this period are written in the Latin alphabet,
although the runic alphabet seems to have lingered in popular usage in some areas. The main
text types written in this period are laws, which were formulated in the vernacular language
to be accessible also to those who were not latinate. TheJutlandic Law and Scanian Law were
written in vernacular Danish in the early 13th century. Beginning in 1350 Danish began to be
used as a language of administration and new types of literature began to be written in the
language, such as royal letters and testaments. The orthography in this period was not
standardized nor was the spoken language, and the regional laws demonstrate the dialectal
differences between the regions in which they were written.[2] Throughout this period Danish
was in contact with Low German, and many Low German loans were introduced.[3]
Rennaissance and Reformation
With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Danish also became the language of religion, which
sparked a new interest in using Danish as a literary language. It is also in this period that
Danish begins to take on the linguistic traits that differentiate it from Swedish and Norwegian,
such as the std and the voicing of many stop consonants.
The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495, the "Rimkrniken" (Rhyming Chronicle), a
history book told in rhymed verses.[4] The first complete translation of the Bible in Danish, the
Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen was published in 1550. Pedersen's
orthographic choices set the de facto standard for subsequent writing in Danish. [5]
Modern Danish

The first translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.


Some notable authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Sren Kierkegaard,
prolificfairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th
century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph
Gjellerup andHenrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm
Jensen (awarded 1944).

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