The principal Danish dialects are the Seeland, including the slightly differing uses of the neigh boring smaller islands, and with a distinct type for Copenhagen, the Jutish, including the speech of Schleswig, and the Bornhohnsk. which latter is the sole remnant of the East Danish dialects. The Dano-NorwcTian will be considered in con nection with the Norwegian (q.v.). Alention should be made of the Danish spoken in the United States, which really constitutes a modern dialect. It differs from the home tongue in pronunciation, apparently as a result mainly of English influ ence, and in vocabulary. Danish-American news papers contain many English words not recog nized in Denmark, and the speech of our Danish citizens is even more mixed, the English influ ence extendin5, to the syntax as well as to the vocabulary. As the subject has never beeni scien tifically investigated, it is impossible to deter mine how far the original dialectic peculiarities are preserved.
Danish orthography is in an even more unset tled state than the English. There arc several distinct systems of spelling in use in Denmark, and at least two others in Norway. The official system is employed in all school books and Gov ernment publications, but is generally disregard ed by writers, whose system in turn is scorned by philologists. As in German, both the so-called Gothic and Boman type are in use, and substan tives are sometimes uniformly spelled with ini tial capitals, sometimes nut. There is, however,
a decided tendency in recent times toward sim plitieation of spelling, and in time uniformity will probably be reached.
Dona Ordbog (Copenhagen. 1854-59), the standard dic tionary in Danish; Larsen, a Dictionary of the Dano-Norwegian and English Languages (3d ed., London, 1897) ; Hosing, English-Danish Diction ary (7th ed. Copenhagen. 1899) ; Brynildsen, English-Dano-Nonrcgian Dictionary (Chris tiania, 1900—). This last, when completed. will he the best Danish international dictionary. There are also several dictionaries of foreign words in Danish. and dictionaries giving simply the forms of words. Pronouncing dictionaries are very little used. Grammars: Groth, Danish and Dano-Nonregian Grammar (Boston. 1894), especially strong in the treatment of the Dano Norwegian. There is no good treatment in Eng lish of Danish grammar. The best grammars in Danish are Jessen's and Alikkolsen's. The best recent history of the language in Danish is Ver ner Dahlerup's (Copenhagen, 1896). There is a short survey by Ludvig Wimmer, translated by Lentzner, in llodern Language Notes (Balti more. 1895). The oldest period is treated tech nically by Noreen in Paul, Grundriss der Ger manischen Philologic, vol. i. (Strassburg, 1896).