Hi mag/his/ians,
I once heard that most of the modern-day Danish language doesn't even origin from Danish, but it originates from german.
Is this true?
If yes;
Aprox. how much of the Danish language is indeed just Dani-fied German words?
"Doesn't even origin from Danish"
Danish = Old Norse
Think of it more similarly to how natural selection works. Danish shares a recent common linguistic ancestor with German.
>>1392098
so... It's more like Danish evovled alongside (like Chimpanzees and humans) German, but they were only the same species at the "missing link"?
But does that mean, that modern-day Danish isn't old norse?
I only have a passing understanding of ancient history, but pretty sure Scandinavians walked north from Germany so they would have had the same ancestral language
>>1392107
Danish comes from Old Norse, which comes from Proto-Germanic. PG ultimately gave birth to all modern germanic language, including English, German, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Frisian, as well as the extinct Gothic language. So Danish is like a close cousin of German.
>>1392191
Why does Norwegians speak meme-danish now, while icelandics kept speaking norse?
>>1392196
Because it's closer, lol.
Farily certain, that only merchants would pass through Iceland.
>>1392196
Sorry to pop your bubble, but modern Icelanders don't speak Norse. Sure, it's the closest of modern Scandinavian languages to it, but its grammar and pronunciation have changed so much they can't really bw called the same language.
>>1392212
>calling Iceland Scandinavian
Dane here! Not too much of a /his/torian though.
Yeah sure, we have a lot of words in Danish that are the same in German, but I think that >1392191 has it right. I do think I heard somewhere that Danish was in the germanic language tribe though, so I'm not too sure.
Anyway, like I said, I'm a little new to the board, but I'm Danish so at least I know a little.
>>1392028
That's retarded, see pic related. Danish has a shitload of loan words from French and German though, and today even more so from English among the youth. However so does Swedish, who had a massive influx of German loan words in the 17th century afaik.
>>1392139
If I vaguely recall, I was under the impression that Germanics originated in or around southern Sweden near Scania. Not sure though.
>>1392196
Danes liked imposing the Danish language on their territories,hell the Faroese weren't allowed to write anything but Danish though they kept their language alive through just verbally speaking it and folk songs. I'm sure it's a similar situation in Iceland.
>>1395121
>and today even more so from English among the youth
But the english language was heavily influenced by the danish during Danelagen.
A lot of people confuse Germanic with German. They may have concluded that since Danish is a Germanic language, it has to have originated from German, which is not Danish.
They could also be thinking about the big German influence on the Danish language from German. Many Danish words originally come from German.
Another, kinda related thing, is the term Danish. Like thousand years ago, the word for Danish was used for all North Germanic languages, including West Norse dialects, which Icelandic and traditional Norwegian originate from. Because of this, you find people saying all North Germanic languages originate from Danish, even though this is not really true. When you say Danish, you mean the Danish language, which is spoken in modern Denmark, but when you confuse that with the old meaning of the word, you may end up with the wrong conclusion that Danish is the origin of all North Germanic languages. Back then, there were Danish dialects of old Norse, and there was the old Norse language as a whole. Both can be seen called Danish in different sources, but only the Danish dialects have any very much closer connection to modern Danish.
>>1392196
I think the Danes were more successful in getting their language spoken in Norway. In Norway, there was established an overclass of native Norwegians that spoke Danish, so even after Norway was free from Denmark, they kept enforcing their meme-Danish, causing it to spread and replace and influence traditional Norwegian dialects, after Norway was no loner under Denmark. While Icelandics didn't get a strong native elite speaking Danish, so when they were free they didn't have these strong, pro-Danish influences.
That being said, Norwegian would still be quite degenerate compared to Icelandic even without this elite, due to slow, natural spread of degeneracy across Scandinavia, and also a lot of influence from German trade from the 1300s.
