Read Online How to Be Danish: A Journey to the Cultural Heart of Denmark by Patrick Kingsley - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Kingsley
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developed an increasing number of blurred word endings and glottal stops. When I first tried to learn Danish, I was amazed that a language could carry as many silent consonants as English. One of the first phrases I came across was the Danish for “what about you?” Written down, it is “ Hvad med dig ?” Out loud, it sounds like more of a mush: “vamedye?” Of its seven consonants, only three are pronounced. In other phrases, “ ikke ” (the Danish word for “not”) should technically be pronounced “ee-ker”, but in fact sounds more like the English word “air”; the Danish “d” is often softened into a kind of “l”-sound; while the “g” is sometimes lost altogether. In a famous example, the Danish word for cake was once the same as it still is in Swedish: “ kaka ”. But while the Swedish version remained fairly static, the Danish word has been eroded from “ kaka ” to “ kage ”, and its pronunciation has drifted from “ka-ka” to “kay-ger”, and from “kay-ger” to “kay-er”, and from “kay-er” to something that sounds a bit like the English name “Kay”.
This swallowing of unstressed syllables is nothing new – it was first documented in the 15th century by a touring Swedish bishop – and nor does it mean that Danish is any less sophisticated than languages like German and Russian, which are still fully inflected. (Word endings may have been strangled in Danish, but subtleties in meaning are instead conveyed by complex variations in word order.) However, harmless as it is, the process has sped up markedly in the last three decades, during which time the Norwegians andSwedes have found Danish increasingly hard to understand. In part, this is because Scandinavians have been watching less of their neighbours’ television and more of its English-language equivalents, and are therefore less exposed to the nuances of each other’s languages.
But a group of linguistic researchers I meet at the University of Copenhagen have another intriguing theory: that this exponential increase is a by-product of the introduction in the 60s of state-subsidised childcare. The policy, which sees the state pay for around three-quarters of the cost of childcare for every toddler over one, has made it much easier for mothers to go back to work. Today, 74% of Danish mothers return to their jobs after having children, compared to just 55% in Britain.
According to the researchers, this progression may have had a harmless yet fascinating side effect. Icelandic, says Professor Marie Maegaard, is still the most conservative of the Nordic languages, because in Iceland many children grow up on isolated farms and talk a lot with their grandparents. But in Denmark, she points out, “Almost every Danish child goes to kindergarten from the age of one. And that will speed up any development because they don’t talk so much with the older generations, who have more conservative diction.”
Maegaard and her colleagues are still fleshing out the theory, but regardless of its accuracy, it still gives an intriguing insight into the impact of the thing that may define Denmark above all else: the welfare state.
The state is huge in Denmark. It spends more money, as a percentage of GDP, than any other country in Europe. It employs around 900,000 Danes – about a third of the Danish workforce – and unsurprisingly therefore provides a raft of free services to its citizens. Childcare, healthcare and state education are naturally three of them – but more surprisingly, so is university education and most of its living costs. Over-65s receive a basic state pension worth twice the UK version. Despite recent rule changes, they can still retire up to three years early (receiving £19,000 every year in the process). The unemployed receive up to 90% of what they earned when they were last in work. As described in Chapter one, the vast majority of private school fees are subsidised by the state. The minimum wage is over
This swallowing of unstressed syllables is nothing new – it was first documented in the 15th century by a touring Swedish bishop – and nor does it mean that Danish is any less sophisticated than languages like German and Russian, which are still fully inflected. (Word endings may have been strangled in Danish, but subtleties in meaning are instead conveyed by complex variations in word order.) However, harmless as it is, the process has sped up markedly in the last three decades, during which time the Norwegians andSwedes have found Danish increasingly hard to understand. In part, this is because Scandinavians have been watching less of their neighbours’ television and more of its English-language equivalents, and are therefore less exposed to the nuances of each other’s languages.
But a group of linguistic researchers I meet at the University of Copenhagen have another intriguing theory: that this exponential increase is a by-product of the introduction in the 60s of state-subsidised childcare. The policy, which sees the state pay for around three-quarters of the cost of childcare for every toddler over one, has made it much easier for mothers to go back to work. Today, 74% of Danish mothers return to their jobs after having children, compared to just 55% in Britain.
According to the researchers, this progression may have had a harmless yet fascinating side effect. Icelandic, says Professor Marie Maegaard, is still the most conservative of the Nordic languages, because in Iceland many children grow up on isolated farms and talk a lot with their grandparents. But in Denmark, she points out, “Almost every Danish child goes to kindergarten from the age of one. And that will speed up any development because they don’t talk so much with the older generations, who have more conservative diction.”
Maegaard and her colleagues are still fleshing out the theory, but regardless of its accuracy, it still gives an intriguing insight into the impact of the thing that may define Denmark above all else: the welfare state.
The state is huge in Denmark. It spends more money, as a percentage of GDP, than any other country in Europe. It employs around 900,000 Danes – about a third of the Danish workforce – and unsurprisingly therefore provides a raft of free services to its citizens. Childcare, healthcare and state education are naturally three of them – but more surprisingly, so is university education and most of its living costs. Over-65s receive a basic state pension worth twice the UK version. Despite recent rule changes, they can still retire up to three years early (receiving £19,000 every year in the process). The unemployed receive up to 90% of what they earned when they were last in work. As described in Chapter one, the vast majority of private school fees are subsidised by the state. The minimum wage is over
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