Scandinavian Languages

FACT FILE:

Languages: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish

The three languages are very similar and mutually intelligible.

Countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Spoken by: 21 million people (native)

Language family: North Germanic – Germanic – Indo-European

Fun Fact: In Scandinavian languages, the word for ‘the’ is attached to the end of its noun. For example, the Norwegian word for ‘horse’ is ‘hest’; if you want to say ‘the horse’, you must say ‘hesten’. The ‘-en’ is called an enclitic definite article.

Official language in: Denmark

European Union, Nordic Council

Co-language in: Faroe Islands

Minority language in: Greenland, Germany

Spoken by: 6 million people (native)

Language family: East Scandinavian – North Germanic – Germanic – Indo-European

Writing system: Latin (Dano-Norwegian alphabet)

Fun Fact: Danish contains three extra vowels: Æ, Ø, and Å. It has a total of nine vowels, which can be pronounced in sixteen different ways.

Official language in: Norway, Nordic Council

Spoken by: 5 million people (native)

Language family: North Germanic – Germanic – Indo-European

Writing system: Latin (Norwegian alphabet)

Fun Fact: There are actually a number of languages that fall under the “Norwegian” ‘umbrella’ term. There is Bokmål (Book Norwegian, official), Nynorsk (New Norwegian, official), Riksmal (‘national language’) and Hognorsk (High Norwegian), to name the more well-known ones.

Official language in: Sweden

European Union, Nordic Council

Co-language in: Finland, Åland Islands

Spoken by: 10 million people (native)

Language family: East Scandinavian – North Germanic – Germanic – Indo-European

Writing system: Latin (Swedish alphabet)

Fun Fact: Until 2009 Sweden did not have an official language. Swedish was declared as an official language in May 2009. At the same time Sweden also recognized Finnish, Meänkieli, Sami, Romani, and Yiddish as minority languages.