Languages of Denmark

The Kingdom of Denmark has only one official language, Danish, the national language of the Danish people, but there are several minority languages spoken, namely Faroese, German, and Greenlandic.

A large majority (about 86%) of Danes also speak English as a second language; it is mandatory for Danish students to learn from first grade in the public elementary schools (folkeskole), by far the most popular option in the country. In the 1st (or 3rd, depends on the school) grade of folkeskole, a third language option is given, usually German or French. The vast majority pick German (about 47% of Danes report being able to speak conversational German). The third most widely understood foreign language is Swedish, with about 13% of Danes reporting to be able to speak it.

Faroese
Faroese, a North Germanic language like Danish, is the primary language of the Faroe Islands, a self-governing territory of the Kingdom. It is also spoken by some Faroese immigrants in mainland Denmark. Faroese is similar to Icelandic and retains many features of Old Norse, the source of all North Germanic languages.

Greenlandic
Since the Act on Greenland Self-Government was adopted by parliament on 12 June 2009, Greenlandic, or Kalaallisut, is the sole official language of Greenland. Greenlandic belongs to the Eskimo–Aleut languages; it is closely related to the Inuit languages in Canada, such as Inuktitut, and entirely unrelated to Danish.