Indo-European · ISO 639-3 dan · da
Danish Language dansk
Danish is an Indo-European language spoken by about 6.0 million people in 5 countries. It is an official language of Denmark. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Danish is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Danish
About the Danish language
Danish (dansk) is spoken by about 6.0 million people, which makes it the 163rd most spoken language in the world — just behind Mewati (6.1 million) and ahead of Lambadi (6.0 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the South Scandinavian group within the Germanic branch.
Where is Danish spoken?
Danish is used in 5 countries. The largest communities live in Denmark (5.6 million), Germany (1.7 million), Greenland (8,085), Iceland (2,257) and Faroe Islands (1,693). More than half of the population speaks it in Denmark — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Danish: Denmark 93% (5.6 million), Germany 2% (1.7 million), Greenland 14% (8,085), Iceland 0.6% (2,257) and Faroe Islands 3.2% (1,693).
Danish is an official language in 1 country: Denmark.
Writing system and status
Danish is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Swedish, Icelandic, Faroese, English, German, Nigerian Pidgin and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 da, ISO 639-3 dan.
Frequently asked questions about Danish
How many people speak Danish?
Where is Danish spoken?
In which countries is Danish an official language?
What language family does Danish belong to?
What is Danish called in Danish?
Is Danish an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.