A Viking Nation
Historically, the majority of the Danish population is of Scandinavian origin, with individuals of Inuit and Faroese descent from the autonomous territories of Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In addition, there is an official German minority of around 25,000 people from the former amt of South Jutland - formerly a Danish county corresponding to Germany's North Schleswig - now part of Danish Syddanmark.
We have to go back as far as 3000 BC to find traces of the Danish ancestors: nomads living off hunting and fishing, originally from south-eastern Europe. A thousand years later, Denmark was colonized by Indo-Europeans, migrants from the Middle East, then by the Cimbres, a Danish tribe from the north of the peninsula, whose conquests were eerily reminiscent of the Viking campaigns, the famous ancestors of the Scandinavians who populated Denmark from the early 9th century. At the time, Denmark was home to around two million inhabitants.
Today, Denmark is home to 5.9 million people, representing around 1.5% of Europe's total population. The population is relatively evenly distributed, with a higher concentration in the Copenhagen metropolitan area, which accounts for just under a third of the total population: 1.4 million. This is followed by Aarhus (367,000), Odense (183,700) and Ålborg (223,000).
On January1, 2024, the population of foreign origin represented 15.4% of the Danish population, of which 59% were Westerners (European Union and Northern Europe); the share of "non-Western" nationals would be 6.3%. The Turkish community is the largest, followed by Asians (57,000), Africans (24,000) and North Americans (6,000). This percentage is set to decline over the coming years, due to increasingly strict immigration policies. In 2002, the nationalist Conservative government imposed the so-called 24-year rule: Danes are only allowed to marry foreigners if both fiancés are over 24 and meet a set of drastic conditions. In 2015, the country adopted a controversial confiscation law, allowing migrants to seize their cash and objects worth more than 1,340 euros. In 2018, the small island of Lindholm was transformed into an open-air detention center for foreigners who have been sentenced to a prison term, but whom international conventions prevent from being sent back to their country of origin. In 2021, asylum applications were at their lowest level since 2008.
An ancient language
Danish belongs to the Germanic language group. Old Norse, a Viking language, was spoken in Scandinavia from the 6th to the 13th century. The alphabet then used consisted of various signs called runes, traces of which can still be found on the famous Jelling runestones. Scandinavian languages then diversified with the introduction of Old Danish, until the 16th century, and then the modern Danish used today. Nevertheless, there are many similarities between Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Those with a good command of German won't have too much trouble getting used to it, at least when it comes to reading; on the other hand, pronunciation and comprehension are rather tricky!
Useful to know when consulting a Danish index, dictionary or phone book: there are three more letters than in our alphabet, and they come at the end of the list, after the 26 letters we know in French, in this order: æ ("è"), ø ("eu"), å ("o"). The y is also pronounced "u". You should also know that in Danish, the use of the formal form of address has been abandoned as being too unequal. You can try your hand at Danish by saying tak (thank you) or farvel (good-bye) for local color, but Danes are fluent in English, which makes it easier to exchange and understand small everyday words. Otherwise, simply use French: the words "merci" and "bonjour" are still understood, even if the French-speaking world is in decline.
On the other hand, there are situations in which you'll need a bit of vocabulary, such as deciphering a menu in a restaurant, or if you come up against a closed door. When it comes to toilets, there's no need to worry: D stands for Damer and H for Herrer, so there's no confusion for French speakers, who will immediately assimilate D for "Dames" and H for "Hommes" (literally "Messieurs").
From the Faroe Islands
The Faroese are descended from the Gall Gàidheal, a people born of encounters between Vikings and Celts. In 2024, the population stood at 53,450, the highest figure in the island's history, with almost half living in the capital, Tórshavn. An island where life is good: life expectancy is 80.4 years for men and 85.3 years for women. The islands stand out for their fertility rate of 2.4: the highest in Europe, yet many women leave the island for the mainland.
On the immigration front, the number of foreign citizens and immigrants registered in 2023 was 1,746. Statistics showed that more than half of these nationals came from the Nordic countries. Danes accounted for 51%, followed by Greenland (1.5%), Iceland (2.9%), Norway (3%), Sweden (1.8%) and Finland (0.0%). The remaining % corresponded to immigrants from 90 different countries, most of them European: Croatia, Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Lithuania, United Kingdom, United States, Canada.
Asian countries (Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia...) represented the largest foreign community, characterized by predominantly female migration until 2022. Very few women migrated in 2023: just 22. These figures reflect the emigration of Faroese women, waiting for Faroese society to evolve towards greater equality and tolerance. An exception in Scandinavia (rather exemplary when it comes to parity) linked to the fact that in these conservative islands, 66% of women work part-time, and only 6% of men take parental leave.
An island language of its own
The national language is Faroese. Danish, the second official language, and English - a widely used optional language - are taught in all schools. Faroese is also a Germanic language with roots in Old Norse, as are Icelandic, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish. Although closely related to these Scandinavian languages, the Faroese are the only people in the world to speak it, and it remains somewhat hermetic, even within the Nordic linguistic circle! So, for a Frenchman, we leave you to imagine the complexity!
It was in 1846 that Venceslaus Ulricus Hammersheimb, a Faroese Lutheran minister, developed his spelling system. To help you get to grips with the phonetic complexities once you're here, a free translation application has been developed: Féroé Islands Translate. You type in your word or phrase and almost instantly receive a video translation by a volunteer Faroese! It's easy when you need to express your feelings right away with an " I love you " or want to say " I'd like a beer "!
Solutions to the problem of integration
In 2015, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination considered a report submitted by Denmark, the latter having set up an anti-discrimination unit within the Ministry responsible for Integration, and prepared a new plan for integration on the issue of access to employment without inequality. The report, which included representatives from Greenland and the Faroe Islands, stated that 45% of people from minority ethnic backgrounds were victims of discrimination, including the Roma community. It also raised the situation of the Inuit. The rapporteur also noted the rise in xenophobic propaganda in political discourse and the media, the rise in Islamophobia and the terrorist attack against the Jewish community in February 2015.
In March 2019, the agreement reached between the government and the Danish People's Party in November 2018 led to a revision of the Aliens Act to make it easier to revoke residence permits granted to immigrants on Danish territory. Next step: on June 3, 2021, Parliament adopted an "amendment to the Aliens Act allowing the transfer of asylum seekers to a country outside the European Union for the purpose of processing asylum applications and protecting refugees". However, specific favorable arrangements have been put in place to receive Ukrainians.
Similarly, the question of freedom of expression and incitement to hatred was raised after the Danish Parliament agreed to an exhibition of racist works by a Swedish artist who had been convicted several times for racism in his own country. In conclusion, the report highlighted the various optimistic and positive measures taken by the Danish government to combat racism and xenophobia, as well as integration measures.
The subject of immigration concerns many European countries, and fiction often deals with this issue, both in TV series - such as The Team (a police series in which Germany, Belgium, Austria and Denmark collaborated) - and in cinema.
