758 



DENMARK 



the Runic monuments) are the earliest specimens 

 of this Danish-Swedish language, there are three 

 dialects that of Skaane (the southmost province 

 of Sweden) and those of Zealand and Jutland, the 

 h'rst of which is nearest the old language, while 

 the last two have deviated from it by dropping 

 the h'nal consonants from the old inflexional end- 

 ings and changing their vowels a, i, u to a less 

 distinct e or ce, retaining, however, the hard 

 mutes p, k, t after vowels, as on the whole is 

 still the case in Swedish and spoken Norwegian. 

 The dialect of Zealand in the 14th and 15th 

 centuries forms the foundation of modern Danish. 

 The original vowels in almost all endings are there 

 replaced by half- vowels, and the dental aspirate j> 

 by t or d;p, k, t, when following long vowels, 

 are changed to b, g, d; masculine and feminine 

 are merged in one common gender ; nouns have 

 no other case-ending than the possessive s for both 

 numbers; verbs cease to indicate person (except 

 in the imperative); and the singular number 

 begins to supersede the plural, as it does every- 

 where in the spoken language from the 16th century. 

 Danish, like Swedish, retains the suffixed definite 

 article, which is characteristic of the Scandinavian 

 languages. Its form is -et in the neuter, -en in the 

 common gender, and -ne in the plural of both. 



The influence of the Hanseatic League and the 

 Oldenburg dynasty (from 1448) brought in a great 

 number of Low-German words, especially relating 

 to navigation and trade ; while that of the order 

 of St Bridget contributed a considerable Swedish 

 element. In the first half of the 16th century 

 the Danish language was chiefly used by religious 

 writers, and the translation of the Bible (1550) is 

 the first important monument of modern Danish. 

 After this period Latin became once more the 

 language or learning and culture, and for a 

 century and a half there was no Danish writer 

 of eminence. The influence of French was pre- 

 dominant in the 17th century, and that of High- 

 German, which had been constant since the Re- 

 formation, culminated in the 18th century under 

 the Struensee administration, when it was the 

 language of government and public instruction. 

 The result is, that Danish is indebted to German 

 for fully one-third of its vocabulary. It was not 

 till Holberg that the Danish written language 

 began to be enriched from the stores of native 

 expression in the spoken tongue. From the end 

 of the 18th century revived study of Old Scandi- 

 navian and the development of a national poetic 

 literature unfolded the language in a hitherto un- 

 suspected richness and fullness, and since that time 

 Danish prose has to a considerable extent worked 

 itself out of its poverty and dependence. Danish 

 is the softest of the Scandinavian languages, 

 though less euphonious than Swedish. It is the 

 language of the educated class in Norway, where 

 it is considerably augmented from the native 

 dialect, and is spoken with a somewhat harder 

 pronunciation. The best histories of the language 

 are by Petersen (2 vols. Copenhagen, 1829-30) and 

 Molbech (ib. 1846); grammars by Rask (2d ed. 

 Lond. 1846), Lo'kke, Munch, Lyngby, Jessen, and 

 Mb'bius ( Kiel, 1871 ) ; and dictionaries by the 

 Danish Academy ( Copenhagen, 1793-1881 ), and 

 Molbech (2d ed. 2 vols. ib. 1859), who also pro- 

 duced a Dansk-Dialekt-Lexikon (ib. 1841) and a 

 Dansk Glossarium (ib. 1853-66) for antiquated 

 words. Ferrall, Repp, and Rosing's Danish and 

 English Dictionary, in 2 parts (4th ed. Copen- 

 hagen, 1873), is the best for English students. 



Literature. After the Danish dialect had gradu- 

 ally separated itself from the Old Scandinavian as 

 a softer and simpler speech, with a strong infusion 

 of German ingredieijts, it was little used in writ- 

 ing down to the time of the Reformation. Saxo 



Grammaticus (i.e. 'the learned') in the second 

 half of the 12th century wrote in Latin his 

 Historia Danica, the only literary production of 

 medieval Denmark that retains any interest. 

 The earliest writings in Danish are the church 

 laws of Skaane (1162). and Zealand (1170), and 

 the civil laws of Skaane (1160), Zealand (1170), 

 and Jutland ( 1241 ) ; and after these a num- 

 ber of chronicles, partly in verse, of which 

 the best known is the Riimkronike, which was 

 the first Danish book printed (in 1495). It is 

 essentially an abridgment of Saxo. The famous 

 Danish ballads called Kccmpeviser ('hero-songs'), 

 some of which are said to belong to the latter 

 part of the llth century, were handed down orally 

 from generation to generation, and were first 

 collected, to the number of 100, by A. S. Vedel 

 in 1591. In 1695 Peder Syv published a new 

 edition with 100 more, and in 1812-14 appeared a 

 selection of 222, edited by Abrahamson, Nyerup, 

 and Rahbek. The most complete collection is in 

 Svend Grundtvig's unfinished Gamle Folkeviser (5 

 vols. 1853-77 ). They are about 500 in number, and 

 treat of the adventures of heroes, love, enchant- 

 ment, spectres, and historical events. Doubtless 

 they were sung to the dance, as is still the case 

 in the Faroe Islands. They must have suffered 

 much by their not being written down till the 16th 

 and 17tli centuries. 



The Reformation only emancipated Danish cul- 

 ture from Latin to bind it fast to German, 

 which at the death of Frederick I. in 1533 was the 

 language of the upper classes. About that time 

 Christian Pedersen set up a printing-press at 

 Malmo, at which he published a great number of 

 popular books, and finally in 1550 the first com- 

 plete translation of the Bible. Pedersen (1480- 

 1554) is justly called the father of Danish literature. 

 Tl>e hymns and translations of the Psalms by his 

 contemporary Tausen (1494-1561), as also by Kingo 

 (1634-1703), Vormondsen (1491-1551), and Arrebo 

 (1587-1637), and the national history (10 vols. 

 Copenhagen, 1595-1604) of Hvitfeld '(1549-1609) 

 were well received ; but the Danish language was 

 still banished from higher society till the advent of 

 the Norwegian Holberg (1684-1754), the founder of 

 Danish comedy. He found Denmark on the point 

 of being absorbed in Germany. ' The common 

 people,' he says, 'had no histories but dry lists of 

 dates ; no poetry but congratulatory verses ; no 

 theology but homilies and funeral sermons ; and 

 for plays, nothing but old stories about Adam 

 and Eve.' He Avrote histories of Denmark, of the 

 Jews, and of the Church ; and the irresistible 

 humour of his comedies and satires covered with 

 ridicule the imitators of foreign speech and 

 manners. What Holberg did for Danish prose, 

 another Norwegian, Tullin (1728-65), did for 

 Danish poetry. Equally dissatisfied with the cur- 

 rent imitations of the 17th century court-poetry 

 of France, and with the poetic reform of Klop- 

 stock (at Copenhagen from 1751), Tullin followed 

 the guidance of the English poets Pope, Young, 

 and Thomson, and in this was followed by most 

 of his countrymen who were settled at Copen- 

 hagen, while the Danes clung^ to German models. 

 Ewald (1743-81), an ardent disciple of Klopstock, 

 was Denmark's first great lyric poet and tragic 

 dramatist. His verse shows an unsurpassed 

 mastery of form, and is expressed in pure, clear, 

 and noble language. "VVessel (1742-85), by his 

 ' tragedy,' Love without Stockings (1772), a humor- 

 ous parody of the Danish imitations of the classi- 

 cal French drama, succeeded in laughing them 

 off the stage. Nordahl Brun (1745-1816), preacher 

 and poet, Glaus Frimann (1746-1829), 'the Burns 

 of the Norwegians,' Claus Fasting ( 1746-91 ), Jonas 

 Rein (1760-1821), Jens Zetlitz (1761-1821), and 





