Teach Yourself Danish - Book and 2 Audio CDs
Brand New (still shrink wrapped):
2 CDs plus book
Teach Yourself Danish is the course for anyone who wants to progress quickly
from the basics to understanding, speaking and writing Danish with confidence.
Although aimed at those with no previous knowledge, it is equally suitable for
anyone wishing to brush up existing knowledge for a holiday or business trip.
Key structures and vocabulary are introduced in 18 thematic units progressing
from introducing yourself and dealing with everyday situations to talking about
work and shopping for presents. Teach Yourself Danish follows the journey of
George Wilson, a businessman, who travels to Denmark to establish a market
there for his products. He has been invited to stay with his friends who live
in Copenhagen. The emphasis is on communication throughout with important
language structures introduced through dialogues on the accompanying recording.
There are plenty of exercises to practise the language as it is introduced and
tips throughout to help with grammar. Cultural information sections give useful
advice and information for anyone planning a trip to Denmark.
- English-Danish vocabulary
- glossary of grammatical terms
- a 'taking it further' section to direct learners to further sources of real
Danish
About the Author Bente Elsworth
Bente Elsworth was born in Randers, Demark. She has lived in England since 1968
and has a degree in Russian from the University of London. She has many years
of experience in teaching Danish at the University of East Anglia and this has
made her aware of the particular problems that English speakers face when
learning Danish. This knowledge forms the basis of the approach adopted in
Teach Yourself Danish.
About the Danish Language
Danish (dansk) is one of the North Germanic languages (also called
Scandinavian languages), a sub-group of the Germanic branch of the
Indo-European languages. It is spoken by around 6 million people, mainly in
Denmark; the language is also used by the 50,000 Danes in the northern parts of
Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, where it holds the status of minority language.
Danish also holds official status and is a mandatory subject in school in the
Danish territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, which now enjoy limited
autonomy. In Iceland and Faroe Islands, Danish is, alongside English, a
compulsory foreign language taught in schools (although it may be substituted
by Swedish or Norwegian). In North and South America there are Danish language
communities in Argentina, the USA and Canada.
History of Danish
In the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse,
had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to
undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted
in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland)
and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).
Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in east Denmark Runic
Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was roughly the same in the two
countries. The dialects are called runic due to the fact that the main body of
text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with
the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark
alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some
runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which
was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used
for e.
A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West
Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong
e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older
read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø
as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr
into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as
well, as in the Old Norse word for "island".
Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren
Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright
Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize
laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint
recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944).
Danish was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. Many Danish
derived words such as gate (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and
other parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York
was once the Danish settlement of Jorvik.
The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495. The first complete
translation of the Bible in Danish was published in 1550.
Geographical distribution
Danish is the national language of Denmark, one of two official languages of
Greenland (the other is Greenlandic), and one of two official languages of the
Faroes (the other is Faroese). In addition, there is a small community of
Danish speakers in Schleswig, the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, where
it is an officially recognized regional language, just as German is north of
the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the
European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under
the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking
Danish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with
official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable to any
interpretation or translation costs.
There is no law stipulating an official language for Denmark, making Danish the
de facto language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down
Danish as the language of the courts. Since 1997 public authorities have been
obliged to observe the official spelling by way of the Orthography Law.
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