North Germanic Languages - Other Languages in Scandinavia

Other Languages in Scandinavia

Sami languages form an unrelated group that has coexisted with the North Germanic language group in Scandinavia since prehistory. Sami, like Finnish, is part of the group of the Uralic languages. In inter-Nordic contexts, texts are today often presented in three versions: Finnish, Icelandic, and one of the three languages Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. During centuries of interaction, Finnish and Sami have imported many more loanwords from North Germanic languages than vice versa.

The North-Germanic languages are majority languages in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, while Finnish is spoken by the majority in Finland. Another language in the Nordic countries is Greenlandic, the official language of Greenland.

In Southern Jutland in southwestern Denmark, German is also spoken by the North Schleswig Germans, and German is a recognized minority language in this region. In Southern Schleswig, German is the primary language among the Danish minority, and likewise, Danish is the primary language of the North Schleswig Germans. Both minority groups are highly bilingual.

Traditionally, Danish and German were the two official languages of Denmark-Norway; the and other official instruments for use in Denmark and Norway were written in Danish, and local administrators spoke Danish or Norwegian. German was the administrative language of Holstein and Schleswig.