Danish (language)

Danish
dansk
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" Modern orthography: "Med lov skal land bygges" English translation: "With law shall a country be built"
Pronunciation	[ˈd̥anˀsɡ̊]
Native to	Denmark Greenland Faroe Islands Schleswig-Holstein, Germany
Native speakers	5.5 million (2012)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic East Scandinavian Continental Scandinavian Danish
Early forms	Old Norse Old East Norse Early Old Danish Late Old Danish
Dialects	Bornholmian (Eastern Danish) Jutlandic South Jutlandic Insular Danish
Writing system	Latin script: Dano-Norwegian alphabet ∙ Danish orthography ∙ Danish Braille
Signed forms	Danish Sign Language
Official status
Official language in	Denmark  Faroe Islands  Schleswig-Holstein  Nordic Council  European Union
Recognised minority language in	Greenland  Germany
Regulated by	Dansk Sprognævn (Danish Language Committee)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	da
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	Either: dan – Insular Danish jut – Jutlandic
Glottolog	dani1284
Linguasphere	5 2-AAA-bf & -ca to -cj
The Danish-speaking world:   regions where Danish is the language of the majority   regions where Danish is the language of a significant minority
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Danish ⁱ/ˈdeɪnᵻʃ/ (dansk pronounced [ˈd̥anˀsɡ̊]; dansk sprog, [ˈd̥anˀsɡ̊ ˈsb̥ʁɔʊ̯ˀ]) is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in Denmark and in the region of Southern Schleswig in northern Germany, where it has minority language status. There are also minor Danish-speaking communities in Norway, Sweden, Spain, the United States, Canada, Brazil and Argentina. Due to immigration and language shift in urban areas, around 15–20% of the population of Greenland speak Danish as their home language.