Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/894

* DANLELL. 776 DANISH LANGUAGE. and was elected an R.A. in 1709. Accompanied by his nephew William, he went to India in 1784 and remained in the Kast ten years. The fruit ijf these travels Avas the remarkable collection, "Oriental Scenery" (1808, 144 views). Besides these he published "Views in Egj'pt," "Hindu Excavations at Ellora" (24 plates), and Pic- turesque Voyage to China by Way of India (Lon- don, 1810). DANTELS, WiNTHBOP More (1807—). An American political economist, born at Dayton. Ohio. He graduated in 1888 at Princeton Uni- versity, studied at Leipzig, and in 1893 was ap- pointed professor of political economy at Prince- ton. His publications include Elements of Pub- lic Finance (1894) aud a. Revision and Continua- tion of Alexander Johnston's History of the United States (1897). DANILO, danl-16, I., or Danilo Petrovitch NiEGOSH (1826-60). A prince of Montenegro. He was educated at Vienna and succeeded his uncle, Peter II., in 1851, dispensing, however, with the customary title of prince-bishop. In 1852 he became involved in a war with Tur- key, the Porte claiming jurisdiction in Mon- tenegro, and the boundaries between the two countries were not defined until 1858. Danilo devoted himself steadfastly to the achievement of Montenegrin independence and the further- ance of civilization' throughout the land. He introduced financial reforms, organized a mili- tary service, and issued a legal code. He was assassinated by a personal enemy, August 12. 1860. His nephew, Prince Nicholas, succeeded him. DA'NISH LANGUAGE AND LITERA- TURE.— Laxgu.-vge. The history of the Dan- ish language begins properly about the year A.D. 1000, when the different Scandinavian dia-' lects, which until that time had formed one speech, developed into separate languages. ( For an account of the earliest Scandinavian monu- ments, see Runes.) The Danish and Swedish formed together the East Northern group, the Icelandic and Norwegian, with the Faroese, the West Northern. The oldest specifically Danish records are runic inscriptions and a few names in Latin MSS. About 1300 appeared several collections of laws, which show the existence of at least three distinct dialects, there being at that time no standard form for literary use. The leveling of inflections, which is as marked a feature of Danish as of English, had already begun, although many forms were still retained. The vocabulary- is still in the main Northern, with very few foreign elements. Between 1350 and 1500 the loss of inflections and of other grammatical distinctions increases rapidly and the language approaches more and more its present form. A striking featiire of the vocabu- lary is the introduction of foreign words, espe- cially those from the French. Latin, and Low German. High German words being sparingly borrowed. The syntax, too, is affected by Latin isms in consequence of the wide use of Latin by Danes. As a result of the publication of the first modern Danish translation of the Bible, that of Christian III. (1550), the vocabulary became fairly fixed, receiving practically its present character. The relation of the Danish Bible to the Danish language is very similar to that of the English Bible to the English lan- guage. After 1537 Danish became the official language of Norway, the Norwegian language remaining as a collection of dialects spoken chiefly in the country districts. (For the rela- tion of these dialects to Danish, see Norwegian L.kguage.) In the following century, on the other hand. Denmark suflered a loss by the ces- sion to Sweden of the Province of Skane, or Schonen, and within a generation the Swedish look tlie place of the original Danish. The principal grammatical changes between the Reformation and 1700 are the partial substi- tution of the natural for the grammatical gen- der, and the simplification of the inflections. The vocabulary shows a generous borrowing of French and German words. The different dia- lects are still used for literary expression, and it was not imtil Holberg (1684-1754) that a standard literary Danish may be said to have existed. During the last half of the eighteenth century German and Danish were used side by side in Denmark, very much as Latin and Danish had been used earlier, and so great was the Ger- man influence that the Danish State Calendar was published in that language until the first year of the nineteenth century. During the last tliirtj' yeais, mainly as a result of the war with (Jermany. the vocabulaiy has become more and more pure. Whole classes of German words have been replaced by Danish equivalents, and no new German words liae been borrowed. Danish differs in general from its nearest Scandinavian neighbor, Svi-edish, by a greater leveling of inflections and by less archaic sounds. The most striking single feature of the spoken language is the glottal 'catch,' called in Danish Stiid (literally a push or thrust). It occurs after certain consonant sounds and consists of a momentary closure of the glottis. It has been compared in its effect upon foreigners to a hic- cough. The glottal catch is not found in Dano- Norwegian, and it is lacking in some of the dialects in Denmark, while Jutish occasionally employs the catch where it is not found in the Seeland dialect. The cultivated standard speech is characterized by a marked tendency to slurring, the enunciation being much less distinct than that of Swedish or of the Danish spoken in Norway. There is also much less vocal inflec- tion. In Danish, as in German, the pronuncia- tion of the stage is very different from that of social intercourse. 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 Bornholmsk. which latter is the sole remnant of the East Danish dialects. The Dano-Norwcgian will be considered in con- nection with the Norwegian ( q.v. ). Jlention 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-.merican 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 extending to the syntax as well as to the vocabulary. As the subject has never been scien- tifically investigated, it is impossible to deter- mine how far the original dialectic peculiarities are preserved.