Danish evolved from Old Norse and is very closely related to Norwegian and Swedish. A close cousin after that is Icelandic, but Danish is also part of the same language family as German, Dutch, and English.

The Danish language began to develop around the year 1100 and was very similar to Old Norse. Technically, all forms of Danish evolved significantly and didn’t solidify into their modern form until about the year 1500.

Danish is almost the same language as Norwegian and Swedish. In fact, most Danish people can understand both of those languages fairly well. However, it’s much harder for Norwegians and Swedes to understand Danish. It’s often joked that Danish sounds like someone speaking with a potato in their mouth.

The Danish alphabet consists of the regular 26 letters, plus three additional characters: Æ, Ø, and Å.

The Danish language is far more vowel-heavy and doesn’t rely as much on consonants.

Unlike German, which has masculine, feminine, and neuter grammatical genders, Danish dropped this system long ago in favor of just two: common and neuter.

The word gift in Danish is a false friend — it can mean either “poison” or “married.”

Jutland has a unique dialect of Danish that can sound almost incomprehensible to speakers from Copenhagen and other parts of Denmark.

Unlike Icelandic, the Danish language has borrowed many English words over time.

In addition to Denmark, Danish is also an official language in Greenland, which is still technically part of the Kingdom of Denmark, despite being a large and sparsely populated island nation.

In addition to Danish, most Danes also speak either English or German as a second language.

Most Danish swear words are rooted in religion.

Many Danes believe that Danish is not a particularly beautiful-sounding language, especially when compared to Swedish.