(Frequently asked questions)
1. Are you (John Madsen) Danish?
2. "John" is an English name, are you Danish?
4. My name is also Madsen, are we related?
5. Do you speak Dutch in Denmark?
6. Is Danish a language or is it something to be eaten?
7. Do the Scandinavian people understand each other?
1.
Yes, I am 100% Danish. My mother tongue is Danish and I speak Danish daily.
The other languages that I know have all been learned by hard
work.
2.
Yes, John is an English name, but also many Danes have this name,
so I consider "John" to be a good
"Danish" name.
3.
The name Madsen has nothing at all to do with the English
word "mad" which is in Danish "gal" or "vred".
"Mads" is the short name for the bibel
names Mattheus and Matthias.
"Madsen" is "Mads" + "sen" i.d the son of "Mads"
('sen' is an old name
for 'son').
By the way "-sen" is in Swedish names "-son".
The pronunciation of "Madsen" is like "mash" in English, the
-d- is NOT pronounced, it is mute.
Phonetic transcription of "Madsen" is [mäs-n] and
in American transcription it is [MASH-N].
4.
In Denmark Madsen is a very common family name and
about 100.000 persons have the name today,
If you live in the US we are probably not related, because I don't think that any of my Madsen-relatives emigrated to the
US.
But all my grandfather's brothers and sisters emigrated and live today in Florida and New York,
but their surname is Rasmussen from my mother's side.
Some relatives from my father's side also emigrated to the US, but I don't know
where they live today and how they are related to
me.
5.
We do not speak Dutch in Denmark, we speak Danish.
Dutch is spoken in Holland, and they are 2 different languages.
Dutch is closer related to German than Danish is.
Compare the numbers from 1 - 5: Danish: en - to - tre - fire - fem Dutch: een - twee - drie - vier - vijf German: eins - zwei - drei - vier - fünf
6.
Danish is the name of the language spoken in Denmark
In the US "Danish" can also mean breakfast pastries.
In Denmark we call this stuff "wienerbrřd" (bread from Vienna).
7.
Danes, Swedes and Norwegians can normally understand each other.
Swedes and Norwegians understand each other better than they
understand Danish.
Danes understand best the Norwegian dialect "Bogmĺl"
Danes do not understand Islandic and Faroese nor do they understand Finnish.
Finnish is not a Scandinavian (Germanic) language
but belongs to the Finnish-Ugric languages related
to Estonian, Saami
and further away to Hungarian.
Compare the numbers from 1 - 5: Danish: en - to - tre - fire - fem Norwegian (Bogmĺl) en - to - tre - fire - fem Norwegian (Nynorsk) ein - two - tri - fjore - fem Swedish et - tvĺ - tre - fyra - fem Islandic einn - tveir - ţrír - fjórur - fimm Faroese ein - tveir - tríggir - fyra - fimm ------------------------------------------------------------------- Finnish yksi - kaksi - kolme - neljä - viisi Estonian üks - kaks - kolm - neli - viis Saami(Lapp) okta - guokte - golbma - njeallje - vihtta Hungarian egy - kettö - három - négy - öt
John Madsen's Linguistic Homepage