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Anette Guldager Boye
Danish is a North Germanic language. From the Middle Ages onwards Danish has been strongly influenced by the German language and dialects, as well as French in the 17th century. Later on, in the 19th century, a lot of English loanwords have found their way into the Danish language.
Originally Danish, or Old Norse, was written in the Rune Alphabet. This was used until around the 12th century when the Latin alphabet took over. In some cases, in less formal areas, a mixture of the Runic and Latin alphabet have been seen. Archaeological finds have turned up objects, such as lucky charms, which used a mixture of both alphabets. The first Danish history “Gesta Danorum” was written in Latin.
• Saxo Grammaticus: Gesta Danorum
• Gesta Danorum
The Danish alphabet has 3 extra letters Ææ, Øø and Åå. Æ and Ø derive from Latin and became a part of the Danish language via Latin. The do have them in the other Scandinavian countries. See these projects. in Danish it is seen as an independent letter instead of a ligature. Ææ has been around since ca. 1100, when they first started to write Danish using the Latin alphabet. In Norwegian, Icelandic and Faroese Æ is used – as in Danish- as an independent letter. The letter or sign æ was used in handwritten texts from the middle ages instead of the sign ae. The letter Æ most likely came to the Danish alphabet through Old English. Which had in turned acquired Latin. Øø has also been part of the Danish alphabet since around 1100. In handwriting in the Middle Ages the signs Ø and Oe were used as variations. As a result either could be used without changing the meaning of a word. In Norwegian and Faroese Ø is also used. In Swedish Ö is used. In German the letter ö is used, but as a ligature. The letter Åå is the youngest letter in the Danish alphabet. In 1948 it was made a part of the Danish book of orthography. Before that the rule was to use aa. However, since the 17th century there was a move towards using Å instead of aa, so you can easily find the letter Åå used in texts from before 1948. Å arrived from Swedish writing in the 1400s. Åå is also used in Swedish and Norwegian. Place names can be written using either Å or AA. The letters C, Q, W, X and Z are only used in foreign loanwords, never in words of Danish origin.
links:
Naming tradition in Denmark
Naming traditions are a bit different in Denmark and Scandinavia compared to the rest of the world. In 1856 a new Law about surnames was passed in Denmark, bringing the naming system into line with other parts of Europe. However, it did not take effect immediately all over the nation. It took about 20 years to take full effect. After this law was passed children received the same surname or family name as their father and women began to take the name of their husband. Before this law was passed, children had traditionally been called “son” or “daughter”, for example, the son of Peder was called Pedersen, his daughter was called Pedersdatter Before this new law it was very rare for a woman to take the name of the husband. She kept her name, e.g.“Pedersdatter”. If a family name existed, she took it from her father.
This tradition of being your father’s daughter or son was a common feature in Scandinavia. Family names were unusual, especially in the middle Ages.
1526: King Frederic demanded of the noble families that they use a family name. This was not difficult for them, as most of them already followed the German tradition of a family name.
links:
- https://www.sa.dk/en/genealogy/danish-names
- http://www.danishkin.com/namingtraditions.html
- http://geneablog.kilokilokilo.dk/2006/patronymer/
