Relationship between Danish and Dutch

Guest   Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:38 am GMT
Northern Germanics are Scandinavic, man!
Chinese   Wed Aug 23, 2006 7:10 am GMT
Germanic Group includes 2 branches, one is Western Germanic, and another should be called Northern Germanic, although actually it's just the Scandinavic languages, I mean that Northern Germanic = Scandinavic.
Guest   Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:39 pm GMT
Actually, the Germanic group has 3 branches:
*East Germanic
*West Germanic
*North Germanic
Saying that they don't have a connection is obviously wrong, of course they have a connection, if only because both are Germanic languages.


Dunken, is a beautiful verb and expresses someones opinion. It indicates what you are someone else thinks about someone. That's its sole meaning. So instead of using a construction like "Ik denk dat [...] " (I think that [...]) you use "Me dunkt".

"Dat moet wel lukken, me dunkt" -comparable to- "I say, that'll do it".

There's one tiny thing, and that's that the personal pronoun "ik" is replaced by "me" (me).
Sander   Wed Aug 23, 2006 12:41 pm GMT
That was me.
Fredrik uit Noorwegen   Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:26 pm GMT
Oh, so "Me dunkt" corresponds to English "Methinks", though without being considered archaïc?

As Jo points out, the Hanseatic League and its trade with Scandinavia had a tremendous impact on the Scandinavian languages. Although the Hanseatic League was based in modern Northern Germany, it also incorporated towns from the Netherlands and thus the Dutch can be said to have taken part in the process.

A smaller, but solely Dutch-Flemish influence was the flow of modern ideas within architecture, painting, agriculture, finance, domestic living etc. that flowed from the prosperous Low Countries into backward Scandinavia in the 16th and 17th century. For instance King Christian II settled the peninsula Amager in Copenhagen with experts farmers from the Low Countries in early 16th century, so that they could grow vegetables for the court and the city. Alas there are very few traces of Dutch on Amager today (if you don't count the offices of KLM on Kastrup Airport on Amager :-)), but a more lasting memorial to the Dutch influence is King Christian IV's famous and beautiful Rosenborg Castle in Copenhagen, built for him in Dutch renaissance style by his Dutch-born master architect, Hans van Steenwinckel:
http://www.ses.dk/db/files/rosenborg_slot_1.jpg
Arthur   Wed Aug 23, 2006 5:51 pm GMT
Well thanks as always Sander,

So, the sentence "Ze dunkt me goed haar best te doen" can be traslated as "It seems to me, that she is doing (has done) her best?....

What about this other construction?
De kinderen zijn buiten aan het spelen (aan het + infinitive)
What does this express?
The children are playing outside? (present continuous?
Guest   Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:10 pm GMT
--Dunken, is a beautiful verb and expresses someones opinion. It indicates what you are someone else thinks about someone. That's its sole meaning. So instead of using a construction like "Ik denk dat [...] " (I think that [...]) you use "Me dunkt".--

Reminds me of the German version "Mir dünkt".
thomas   Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:20 pm GMT
i do not know much about dutch, but yes, the two languages sound familiar. i've experienced hearing danish people talk at a distance and then when they come closer i discover they're actually speaking dutch.
Sander   Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:16 pm GMT
>>De kinderen zijn buiten aan het spelen<<

The children are playing outside; onvoltooid tegenwoordige tijd (OTT) aka present continous.
Jo   Wed Aug 23, 2006 8:50 pm GMT
«So, the sentence "Ze dunkt me goed haar best te doen" can be traslated as "It seems to me, that she is doing (has done) her best?.... »

That's not really proper Dutch.
"It seems to me, that she is doing (has done) her best?....
Me dunkt dat zij goed haar best doet/ gedaan heeft.

Another dunk in Dutch:
Hij heeft een hoge dunk van zichzelf
He thinks the world of himself
Arthur   Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:19 pm GMT
Hi Sander,


>The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four diphthongs. The vowels /eː/, /øː/, /oː/ are included on the diphthong chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple vowels.

I found this somewhere in Internet. If this is true, can you tell me how do they diphthongise, i.e., in which direction do they change?
Arthur   Sat Sep 09, 2006 6:48 pm GMT
...geen reactie van Sander of een andere Nederlander, hoe rart.
Pauline kan mischien iets mijn vraag aantwoorden?
Joey   Sat Sep 09, 2006 7:24 pm GMT
(Another dunk in Dutch:
Hij heeft een hoge dunk van zichzelf
He thinks the world of himself)

This can also be translated as
He thinks very highly of himself.