Languages of Denmark
| Languages of Denmark | |
|---|---|
Danish dialects
|
|
| Official languages | Danish |
| Regional languages | (Officially recognised) Faroese Greenlandic |
| Minority languages | German |
| Main foreign languages |
English (86%) German (47%) Swedish (13%) |
| Sign languages | Danish Sign Language |
| Common keyboard layouts |
|
The Kingdom of Denmark has only one official language,Danish, the national language of the Danish people, but there are several minority languages spoken through the territory. These include German, Faroese, and Greenlandic.
A large majority (86%) of Danes also speak English as a second language; it is mandatory for Danish students to learn from the first grade in Folkeskole. In the fifth grade of Folkeskole, a third language option is given, usually German or French. The vast majority pick German (47% of Danes report being able to speak conversational German). The third most widely understood language is Swedish, with 13% of Danes reporting to be able to speak it.
German is an official minority language in the former South Jutland County (part of what is now the Region of Southern Denmark), which was part of Imperial Germany prior the Treaty of Versailles. Between 15,000 and 20,000 Ethnic Germans live in South Jutland, of whom roughly 8,000 use either the standard German or the Schleswigsch variety of Low Saxon in daily communications. Schleswigisch is highly divergent from Standard German and can be quite difficult to understand by Standard German speakers. Outside of South Jutland, the members of St. Peter's Church in Copenhagen use German in their Church, its website, and the school that it runs.
...
Wikipedia