Danish Language - Vocabulary

Vocabulary

Danish words are largely derived from the Old Norse language, with new words formed by compounding. A large percentage of Danish words, however, hail from Middle Low German (explaining the relative similarity of its vocabulary with modern Dutch), for example, betale (to pay). Later on, standard German and French and now English have superseded Low German influence — although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, such as can be seen with æde (to eat) which became less common when the Low German spise came into fashion. Because English and Danish are related languages which share a common root in Old Norse, many common words are very similar in the two languages. For example, Danish words for commonly used nouns and prepositions are easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers, such as have, over, under, for, give, flag, salt, and kat. When pronounced, these words sound quite different from their English equivalents, due to the Great Vowel Shift of English. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scottish equivalents, e.g., kirk and barn. In addition, the word by, meaning "village" or "town", occurs in many English place-names, such as Whitby and Selby, as remnants of the Viking occupation.