Talk:Danish language

Rigsdansk
Rigsdansk does not necessarily mean standard danish. For Jutlandic people rigsdansk does refer to standard danish as in the language around Copenhagen, though not strong Copenhagen dialects. Essentially what they hear in modern day radio and TV. To people on Sjælland and in Copenhagen Rigsdansk refer to the Rigsdansk dialect spoken in the TV and radio until the 1970s. Rigsdansk was a formal dialect that matches written danish much more than modern danish does, but Rigsdansk wasn't spoken naturally anywhere, and was only used to convey formality. It is still used from time to time for comic effect especially to sound like old TV or radio. Carewolf (talk) 10:09, 19 October 2011 (UTC)

This is not correct. Rigsdansk still exists. It just does not sound the way it did fifty years ago. See the article on Risdansk in the Danish Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.233.234.245 (talk) 22:22, 27 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Danish wikipedia is using the Jutlandic definition for most of the article, and only provides references to the historical context, not the modern misunderstanding. Carewolf (talk) 14:44, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is a jutish definition of rigsdansk. And looking at the article the definition given is entirely correct. Rigsdansk simply is standard Danish, based on the copenhagen dialect. Rigsdansk is which ever language is the standard language at agiven time. There is no distinction between modern Danish and rigsdansk anywhere in the literature that I know of.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:52, 28 January 2015 (UTC)
 * Standard Danish is developed from an old Aarhusian dialect. Saying that it's based on "the" copenhagen dialect (there are -several- of those today) is misrepresenting the history of Danish.
 * Standard Danish is also not currently supposed to be based on how people in Copenhagen speak, since the institute for languages was moved to Bogense on Fyn.
 * So no. How people speak in Copenhagen is not standard danish or rigsdansk. 89.239.195.102 (talk) 10:35, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Med lov skal land bygges
The infobox top right has the text:
 * The first page of the Jutlandic Law originally from 1241 in Codex Holmiensis, copied in 1350. The first sentence is:
 * "Mædh logh skal land byggas"
 * "With law the land shall be built".

It seems odd to me to have the ancient Danish and modren English version, but not (in between, perhaps) the modern Danish version.

... Afterthought: What is the modern Danish version, then? Fixing the spelling (which is what I meant) it is "Med lov skal land bygges", but the syntax is odd. The phrase is proverbial in modern Danish and as such acceptable and will be understood, but today it would be more like "Landet skal bygges med lov" or "Loven bruges til at opbygge landet".--Nø (talk) 11:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)
 * There's nothing weird about the original phrasing. I doubt anyone who have any problems with people using sentences with the same structure. "Loven bruges til at opbygge landet" however, sounds very artificial to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.239.195.102 (talk) 10:42, 25 July 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it is just poetic syntax "Med lov" is first for emphasis and flow. I think a more correct english version would be "Upon law, shall a nation be founded". Of course you reformulate that as "Law shall be the foundation of a nation", but then you lose poetic nature. The best modern Danish translation I can think of is "Lov skal være grundlaget for en nation".Carewolf (talk) 16:15, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * We might want to look at some sources. I certainly don't think there is anything that is not compatible with modern Danish syntax in "med lov skal land bygges". Most konfirmationssange would be considered ungrammatical if that were the case.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 22:11, 24 May 2016 (UTC)


 * "Med lov skal land bygges" and "Landet opbygges med lov" doesn't mean the same. skal should be translated to must in English, This is not a description of a process, which your alternative is. 89.239.195.102 (talk) 10:46, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

The only thing that seems outdated to me in "Med lov skal land bygges" is the lack of an article. "Med lov skal et land bygges" is a perfectly natural modern Danish sentence.--Klausok (talk) 11:02, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
 * OK, as people seem to have no objections, I have now added the modern orthography version, so we have:
 * The first sentence is:
 * "Mædh logh skal land byggas"
 * Modern orthography: "Med lov skal land bygges
 * English translation: "With law the land shall be built".
 * --Nø (talk) 15:18, 8 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't that be 'a land' or 'a nation' instead of 'the land'?
 * Carewolf (talk) 11:45, 9 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Not "nation" there was no concept of "nation" when Jyske Law was written. It says "land" and the best translation is "land", the second best would be "country", the third "state".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 11:41, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Yes you are right. I think the appeal of this motto through the years - e.g. when it was used for Copenhagen City Courthouse in 1815 - relies on a nation-like conception of the "land", but as a quote from Jyske Lov from 1241 that is hardly relevant.--Nø (talk) 14:47, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I know the concept didn't exist at the time. The question was a modern translation. Since "land" is an ambigious term that has drifted in meaning, the modern expression "nation" is a more precise modern translation. Note land is not used in modern English like in Danish, you would never refer to countries as lands in modern English, they are nations, states, countries, realms or kingdoms, not lands. Carewolf (talk) 17:41, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I estimate that in tn minutes I could find some fifty counter examples to that statement, in which English "land" is used in exactly the same sense as Danish "land" was in Jyske Lov - it tends to be used in a poetic or archaic register which is in fact perfect for this context. The best example of course is the idiom "the law of the land".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 20:40, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Which is why I stressed modern English. And most of these are idioms. The intro of Jyske Lov is not an idiom, therefore the use of 'land' there is potentially confusing unless you read it as archaic English, and not as translation to modern English. The translation is not wrong, it just not very modern or clear. Carewolf (talk) 21:34, 26 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Of course the intro of Jyske lov is an idiom, and of course idioms and archaic and peotic registers are part of Modern English.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 04:45, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Copenhagen dialect
The "Copenhagen" dialect the article keeps referring to, is, in fact, not "the copenhagen dialect". It is a variant of the dialect from around Århus that was (fairly lately) adopted in Sjælland and then became standard Danish. The dialects (multiple) spoken in and around Copenhagen are very different from standard danish. Referring to standard danish as something that originates from Copenhagen is misrepresenting the actual development of the Danish language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.116.207.125 (talk) 08:57, 17 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Please present some literature in support of this claim, which is contradicted in all the literature on the development and definition of rigsdansk that I have surveyed.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 09:10, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Utter nonsense - First of all, you make of lot of bold claims without providing any credible sources/evidence to back it up. It seems more like an personal opinion than a valid argument.

You're clearly know very little linguistically when it comes to the danish language. Yes, there is in fact a uniquely danish Copenhagener dialect - both vocally and written. It's beyond ridiculous to proclaim that a dialect, geographically the furthest from Århus (and Jutland) is an offspring of Jutlandish. Get real, and do some proper research. Furthermore, you're also wrong about all the Copenhagen dialects being different from "Standard Danish" (Rigs Dansk) - true that a lot them arent exept 1: the historical and current dialect of the monarchy and Queen - located in Copenhagen. Du må være en fornærmet Jyde. 81.161.157.240 (talk) 06:01, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

3rd p. ref. possesive
Under pronouns, the bottom line says that sin/sit/sine is used for plural owners. As far as I now, "deres" is always used. "De tog deres gode tøj og gik." "Sit" would just be plain wrong, Klausok (talk) 07:43, 20 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Where are you seeing any reference to "plural" owners? The bottom line in the schema is not specified for number. The examples with possessives are translated to English singular forms, except sig, which is used with plural reference. You could add a note explaining this or something, but remember a source. By the way, calling it "plain wrong" is definitely an overstatement. -- Replayful (talk) 08:20, 20 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the "p." in the column may look like it's short for plural, which is indicated with pl.. I'll try to remove them as they are redundant since the column says "person" at the top. -- Replayful (talk) 09:50, 20 August 2023 (UTC)

Vowel table
First of all, I've heard spoken danish and it has no vowels, only pharyngeal approximants.

The table is very different than that of the Danish Phonology page. Can someone decide what in hell denmark is going on with this table please? Language Boi (talk) 20:43, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Relation to norwegian
“ while the Middle Norwegian language (before the influence of Danish) and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic”

Does this make sense? Bokmål is technically a norwegianized form of written danish, east norse. The first part seems to agree with that, but then it goes on to say that bokmål is also west norse. Maybe it should be rewritten 130.225.165.50 (talk) 18:03, 14 April 2024 (UTC)
 * No, it looks like a mistake, looking at some rephrasings during article history. And no sources. --Madglad (talk) 00:05, 15 April 2024 (UTC)