A Simplified Grammar of the Danish Language/Part I/The Alphabet, etc.
DANISH GRAMMAR.
PART I.
MODES OF WRITING AND SPELLING DANISH AND NORWEGIAN (DANSK-NORSK).
THE ALPHABET, ETC.
Until recently the Danes and Norwegians used no other characters in printing and writing but those known as the Gothic, or German. In the present day, however, the Latin Alphabet is being extensively employed by the best writers of Denmark and Norway, and a new and more rational system of spelling is gaining ground among the ablest cultivators of that special form of Northern speech known as Danish, or Dano-Norwegian (Dansk-Norsk). This compound term indicates the common use of this branch of Scandinavian by Danes and Norwegians, and in point of fact it has for centuries served both peoples as their common literary language, and mother-tongue, although each has spoken it with differences of accent, and each has preserved in its current speech modes of expression and construction peculiar to itself.
"Dansk-Norsk" and "Svensk" (Swedish) are twin-sister tongues, derived from the Old Northern branch of Gothic, used by the early Northmen, and still preserved almost unchanged by the natives of Iceland, who alone among Scandinavian peoples have adhered to the language of their ancestors as it was spoken a thousand years ago.
This identity of language between cultivated Norwegians and Danes is due to political, rather than to racial causes; for although all the Scandinavian peoples retained as late as the eleventh century a sufficiently accurate acquaintance with their common mother-tongue, the Old Northern, to be able to communicate freely together wherever they met in the course of their wanderings, they soon began to adopt special peculiarities of speech, although in unequal degrees. Thus the Swedes, who took less part than the other Northmen in foreign expeditions, and who by their geographical position were the least influenced by contact with other nations of Western Europe, have retained far more of the Old Northern character in their modes of speech than the Norsemen, or the Danes. In Norway the current speech of the nation at large would possibly have preserved as many traces of its origin, if the Norwegian kingdom had maintained, or recovered, its independence, as Sweden had done. But while the extinction of its native dynasty in the fourteenth century, led to its incorporation with the Danish kingdom, the almost complete extermination of the nobles, and leading free-men, during the sanguinary civil wars of the previous century, caused Norway to be early brought into a condition of dependence on Denmark, not warranted by the terms of its union with that kingdom. The result was that the people lost much of their old national character, while the current Danish form of speech supplanted more or less thoroughly the genuine Norse dialects, that had sprung up in the various provinces of Norway. For four hundred years the country remained under the rule of the kings of Denmark, and when, in 1814, this long protracted union was severed, and Norway was incorporated with Sweden into one joint realm, it possessed no cultivated native tongue, or literature, apart from Denmark.
The Dano-Norwegian language which was thus common to both Norwegians and Danes had, however, in the course of time become so deeply affected by Germanizing influences, that it had lost much of the special Scandinavian character, which could still be traced in Swedish, and in the various forms of the "Bondesprog" or peasant language of provincial Norway. Of this Danish and Norwegian scholars have long been sensible, and more than fifty years ago a scheme was propounded by the eminent philologist, Rasmus Rask, for the thorough reform of "Dansk-Norsk" (Dano-Norwegian). Rask's system included the adoption of the Latin characters, with the addition of the various marks and accents which the Swedes had long used to indicate special vernacular vowel-sounds, and other Northern modes of accentuation. Its most important feature was, however, its proposed rejection, as far as circumstances admitted, of all foreign elements, and its reversion to the Old Northern as the basis of grammatical construction and orthography. His suggestions found little favour at the time, but when the Linguistic Congress, which had been called together at the desire of the leading Scandinavian writers and printers, met at Stockholm, in 1869, to deliberate on the best methods for bringing the written languages of the three Northern kingdoms into closer harmony with each other, and with their common mother-tongue, the Old Northern, Rask's system was adopted as the main basis of the Orthographic Resolutions, unanimously accepted by the delegates.
In accordace with the scheme of the Congress, which closely agreed with the system of spelling and writing already in use among the Swedes, it was proposed that the Gothic characters should be discarded in Dano-Norwegian; that all superfluous letters should be rejected; that the marks employed in Swedish to indicate special vowel-sounds, as å (for aa), ä and ö, should be adopted, and that the spelling of the Dano-Norwegian and the Swedish should be governed by the same rules, wherever the nature and root of the words admitted of their being brought into accord.
The moving spring of this radical reform of the Scandinavian languages was the national desire of giving to the three Northern lands one joint literature equally accessible to all. And for a time it seemed as if this object would be speedily attained; but it must be admitted that the progress of the much needed reform in the mode of writing, and spelling Dano-Norwegian, has not been as rapid and complete as its advocates had hoped. At the present moment the old and the new systems are still running their parallel courses in Denmark and in Norway, for while scientific works almost without exception, and some of the best literary productions of either country, are printed and spelt in accordance with the new system, the popular daily press, and all public notices, and advertisements, generally adhere to the German characters, and to the old forms of spelling.
In Norway this uncertainty in regard to the method of writing and spelling the language is intensified by strong national feeling, for while all parties are agreed in desiring to bring back their spoken language to the more genuine Northern forms, of which survivals are to be found in the "Bondesprog" or peasant-language, there is no agreement as to the special peasant-dialect that should be accepted as authoritative, and no harmony in the manner of carrying out the proposed changes. Thus, while one section of the patriotic party follows H. Ibsen and B. Björnson in writing their native language in accordance with the strictest rules of the modern system, others, equally zealous, refuse to depart from a single one of the practices which it was the special object of that system to do away with. Both parties have, however, one common object in view, which is to make modern Norwegian diverge as much as possible from the older Danish; and the result of the present tendency to take up into the spoken language of the cultivated classes expressions and modes of pronunciation, which till recently were exclusively used by the peasants, is to make Norwegian approximate more closely to Swedish. At present the language is passing through a stage of transition, almost bewildering to foreigners, who must be prepared, for some time to come, to meet in Norway with the most extreme diversity in the mode in which the language is spoken, and written, by the older and younger generations of cultivated Norwegians. In the present work we have followed the new system of orthography and printing, as the more rational and simple; but to the modern alphabet we have subjoined the German characters, owing to their frequent use by the Danish and Norwegian Press. We have also endeavoured to show the leading differences of pronunciation between Danes and Norwegians, and, where the occasion required it, we have pointed out some of the comparatively rare cases in which each nation employs some special word, peculiar to itself, to designate one common object.
The Dano-Norwegian Alphabet is composed of the following letters, representing the Latin and the German characters:—
A A called ah, pronounced like a in father. B B " bey " as in English. C C " sey " like k before a, å, o, u. D D " dey " as in English at the beginning of words, and by the Danes like soft th in the middle, or at the end of words. E E " aye " like a in lady, and like e in bell. It is sounded at the end of words. F F " eff " as in English. G G " ghey " like hard g in English by the Danes, and like English y before the soft vowels by Norwegians.
H H, called haw, aspirated except before j and v. I I " ee, pronounced as ee in tree; and i in bit. J J " yodth " as y in yell. K K
L L
M M
N N"
"
"
"kaw
el
em
en
" as in English. O O " o " when long, as o in bore; when short, as o in dog. P P " pey " as in English. Q Q " coo q is always followed by v instead of u. Qv is pronounced the same as English qu. R R " err " like English r. S S " ess " like English s, hard. T T " tey " as in English. U U " oo " as oo in spoon, or as u in full. V V " vey " as v in vale, and when preceded by s as w in scowl. Y Y " u (French) " as French u in dure, and in nul. Å or Aa [Å, called aw " like aw in saw, or like o in sorrow. Æ Æ " eh " like a in pale. Ö Ø ö ø eu (French) " like eu in sœur, and in peu.
The letters w, x and z only occur in the rendering of foreign words.
Native purists condemn the use of c and q as alien letters. The former they maintain should be rejected before k as unnecessary, and should always be replaced by k, where, as is the case in genuine Northern words, c has the sound of that letter; while, where it has the sound of English, or French c before a soft vowel, they prefer to represent it by the letter s. Qu (or qv) is, on analogous grounds, to be rendered by kv, which supply the equivalent sound in genuine Northern letters.
In regard to pronunciation, great variations, as already observed, are growing up between Danes and Norwegians; and in the following remarks we will endeavour briefly to notice some of the most prominent national, and recently acquired, differences of sound given to the same letters by the two peoples.
By Danes and Norwegians the final d is not pronounced after l, n, r, t, as Hånd (hǎwn), 'hand;' or before t and s. Among Norwegians, however, d never takes the soft th sound common in Danish when it follows a vowel at the end of a word, as med (medth), 'with.' Norwegian final d has the sound of t in most nouns and adjectives, but in some pronouns, as hvad, 'what,' it is not heard.
In Danish, g loses its distinctive sound in monosyllables when following a vowel, as mig (mei), 'me.'
In Norwegian the g before the soft vowels ä, e, i, ö, y, acquires the sound of English y, as gærne, (yerne), 'willingly.'
In certain parts of Norway hv has the sound of kv, as hvad (kva), 'what.' This peculiarity, which was till lately regarded as a mere provincialism, is now beginning to find favour among the general body of cultivated Norsemen. This peculiar sound of the Northern hv brings more clearly into view the affinity between the Old Northern and Latin; the kvem (hvem, 'who,' 'whom') of the rising Norsk generation being identical with quem, while their kvad (hvad, 'what,' 'which') represents with nearly equal exactness the Latin neuters quid, quod.
J is rejected after k and g before soft vowels in the new system of spelling, but its rejection has by no means met with unqualified approval, and hence one modern dictionary will give gjerne, kjöbe, etc., while another gives gærne, 'willingly,' köbe, 'to sell,' etc. One person will write kjær (or kjer), and another kär, 'dear;' or one book published at Copenhagen may bear on its title page the name Kjöbenhavn, while another gives the same word as Köbenhavn.
The combined letters sk, st, which have among Danes the same sounds as in English, are differently pronounced by Norwegians and Swedes. The sk among the latter has the sound of English sh, as Skyds, (shütz), 'relay of carriages.' The st when preceding j has a less well established sound among Norwegians, some of whom follow the Swedes in giving it the sound of sh, or sch, as Scherne for Stjærne, 'star,' while others, like the Danes, keep to the sound of stierne.
In the older forms of spelling much confusion prevailed in the use of vowels, and in the present transition stage of Dano-Norwegian orthography this indefiniteness still exists, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the Stockholm Linguistic Congress to establish some fixed rules for vowel-sounds, that might be accepted both in Dano-Norwegian, and in Swedish. Among such rules we may instance the following, which were adopted by the Danish and Norwegian delegates to promote this end:—
1. To avoid the doubling of the vowel wherever it was not required on etymological grounds, and to indicate the necessary lengthening, or accentuation, by the substitution of some other vowel, or by an accent or mark, such as has been in use in Sweden for more than three centuries. Thus double aa was to be replaced by å, as Båd, for Baad, 'boat'.
2. Double e and i were to be represented by the single unaccented vowel in such words as at se, 'to see,' (instead of at see); spiste, 'ate,' (instead of spiiste). E when it followed j was to be replaced by æ, as Hjælpe, 'help,' (instead of Hjelpe). Æ was also to replace e before g where the latter had the hard sound, as Æg, 'edge of knife,' (instead of Eg); but where the g has the j sound before n, the e should be retained, as Regn, 'rain.'
3. When the e is mute it is to be rejected, as in döe, 'to die,' boe, 'to dwell;' and here it may be observed that excepting in these, and a few analogous cases, final e is always pronounced, although with a grave accent only, as Rose (Rosè), 'rose.'
4. It was recommended on the part of the Danish delegates at the Congress to retain the distinctive vowels ö and ø, the former being used for the opener sound of the letter. Their Norwegian colleagues preferred, however, like the Swedes, not to distinguish the letter by two marks; and it was agreed that if Danish writers would consent to represent the letter by one character only, the ö, as used in Swedish, should be accepted.
From all that has been said of the transition state of Dano-Norwegian writing, the reader will understand that he must be prepared to meet with a perplexing variety of spelling among Danish and Norwegian writers. These orthographic variations extend even to the order in which certain letters are given in dictionaries. Thus the authorized Dansk-Retskrivnings-Ordbog (Danish Spelling-Manual) of Svend Gruntvig, 1870, gave å for aa after the letter y , followed by æ, ö and ø. The Dansk Hand-Ordbog, which was issued by the same author in 1872, at the express orders of the Ministry for Education, which recommended its use to all colleges and schools in Denmark, differs however wholly from its predecessor, both as to the writing and place in the alphabet of this letter, for here aa is placed first among the letters, and is no longer represented by å. Another retrograde movement in this dictionary is that j is restored to its old place after g or k, when followed by a soft vowel, as Kjöbenhavn, 'Copenhagen.' In most other essential points, however, the two dictionaries are in harmony; and it was announced when the Hand-Ordbog appeared, that the object proposed by its publication was not to supersede the Retskrivnings-Ordbog of 1870, but to facilitate its acceptance by the general public. This aim has not as yet been fully attained, for although, as we have already stated, many of the best writers have accepted, in toto, the reformed system of spelling on which the dictionary of 1870 was based, a very large number of Danes and Norwegians seem content with the intermediate stage of reform represented in the authorized Handbog of 1872, which leaves them the use of aa, and of various other supernumerary letters to which long usage seems to have given a fictitious importance. The one great obstacle to the acceptance by Danish and Norwegian writers of the entire system of reform, agreed upon at the Stockholm Congress, is the adoption of the Swedish character å for aa. All other points will probably be in time conceded; but this innovation in modern Dano-Norwegian has of late been so persistently opposed, that it is difficult to say whether or not the character å will make good its claim to be accepted in the alphabet.
The following examples will sufficiently indicate the variations of spelling and writing which prevail at the present moment:—
| Et År har to Halvår, Et Aar har to Halvaar, Et Aar har to Halvaar, |
   |
A year has two half-years. |
| Hver Vismand har ikke Vismandsånden, Hver Vismand har ikke Vismandsaanden, Hver Viiſmand har ikke Viiſmandsaanden, |
|
Every wise-acre has not the spirit of wisdom. |
| Kvæget får straks dets Kvældsmad, Kvæget faar straks dets Kvældsmad, Qvæget faaer ſtrax dets Qvældsmad, |
|
The cattle will have their evening meal immediately. |
| Köbmanden er i Kökkenet, Kjöbmanden er i Kjökkenet, Kjöbmanden er i Kjökkenet, |
|
The merchant is in the kitchen. |
| Kapteinen, Kaptejnen, or Captejnen, Kaptejnen, or Captejnen, |
|
The captain. |
| Vinen er ikke Sùr, Viinen er ikke suur, or sur, Viinen er ikke ſuur, |
|
The wine is not sour. |
It may be observed that cumbrous as is the older system of doubling e, i and u, it helps to mark the long sound of the vowel, as Green (Grēn), 'twig;' Sviin (Svīn), 'swine;' Huus (Hūs), 'house'. And this is specially important to foreigners, as these vowels, together with y, ö and ø, have two distinct sounds, one short and open; as, let, 'easy;' lidt, 'little,' godt, 'good;' Grund, 'foundation;' Tryk, 'pressure;' gör, 'does;'—and the other long and close; as, led, 'tiresome;' lide, 'to suffer;' god, 'good;' Gud, 'God;' tyk, 'thick;' gøer, 'barks.'
Accentuation, or stress, plays an important part in Dano-Norwegian, but is dependent on so many arbitrary rules that it requires a prolonged acquaintance with the tone in which the language is spoken by Danes and Norwegians to enable a stranger to acquire the various modifications of stress, characteristic of their mother-tongue.
As a general rule, it may be stated that where the word is of genuine Northern origin, the stress rests on the radical syllable, as, rēnlig (ren, 'clean'); urēnlig, ' 'uncleanly.' In words of foreign origin the accent is very commonly on the last syllable, as Generāl, Kollegiūm.
The first syllable very usually takes the accent in Northern words, unless they are compounded with the German prefixes, be, er, for (Ger. ver), which are unaccentuated; as, bĕgrive, 'to comprehend;' ĕrindre, 'to remember;' fŏrrådne, 'to putrefy.' In words compounded of Northern particles, these take the accent; as, fōrekaste, 'to upbraid;' vēdblive, 'to continue.'
In compound words the stress is usually thrown on the syllable which marks the leading characteristic of the whole; as, en Præstegård, 'a parsonage;' Nordsöensbölger, 'the waves of the German Ocean;' Frederiksborg, 'the castle of Frederick.'