There are no provisions for the use of Danish or other languages in the Danish constitution and there is no specific law providing overall regulation for language use. However, rulings for language are part of legislation in other fields, for example in promoting Danish as a second language for minority students, and there is a law stating that all schools and public institutions must use the Danish orthography provided by the Danish Language Council.

Although there is no official recognition or policy documents for sign languages, official recommendations for the teaching of sign languages exist.

There are no official nationwide or region wide data collection mechanisms on language diversity in Denmark.

Languages offered in pre-primary education

More than 85% of the children in Denmark attend either private or public day care. Danish local authorities are obliged to monitor the linguistic development of all children who do not attend day care at the age of three, and to initiate language stimulation up to 15 hours a week if necessary. The purpose of language stimulation is to provide the child with the necessary language skills in Danish before the start of school. Children that attend day care on a regular basis do not have to be monitored but they receive mandatory language stimulation if necessary.

Languages offered in primary education

Danish children normally start primary school at the age of five or six and leave at the age of 15 or 16.

Until 2002 extra-curricular education in immigrant languages was provided at primary school level and funded by the government. This is still the case for students from the EU, EEA, Greenland and the Faroe islands. For all other students, since 2002 it has been up to each local community to provide education in immigrant languages. Therefore education in immigrant languages is only offered in large communities with a high number of immigrants, for example Copenhagen.

A recent committee-report ‘Sprog er nøglen til verden’ (2011) suggests the introduction of English already in the first year of primary school and the introduction of a third language (German or French) at the age of 11-12. Furthermore, the report suggests that a broad range of languages such as Arabic, Chinese and Portuguese/Brazilian should be offered as electives.

 

Languages offered in secondary education

Sound knowledge of the national language is expected in upper secondary education in Denmark. The assessment of language skills is part of the admission procedure to the secondary level.

Danish and English are the only compulsory languages, whereas Ancient Greek, Arabic, Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Russian, Spanish and Turkish have been optional since the latest reform in 2005. The reform has lead to a dramatic decrease in the number of students that learn many foreign languages. The number of students who are taught three foreign languages dropped from 41% to 3% and in spite of minor adjustments of the reform, the picture has not changed significantly. 

 

Languages offered across 3 VET institutions in Denmark

Languages offered across 3 higher education institutions in Denmark

Danish universities comply with the Anglo-Saxon education system (Bachelor-Master) following the process to create a European Higher Education Area (Bologna process). As a result of these changes as well as an increased focus on internationalisation in general and to attract international students, Danish universities offer more than 25% of their courses in English. Also academy profession schools (90-150 ECTS) and professional bachelor's schools (180-240 ECTS) offer quite a number of programmes in English.

Since 2005 the number of students entering programmes in foreign languages other than English has been falling steadily, which has led to the closing of several language programmes. Spanish, German and French are still taught in many places whereas Italian and Russian have almost no students. A small increase has been noticed in Japanese and Chinese. Some universities offer Turkish and Arabic.

 

Languages offered in audiovisual media and press across 3 cities in Denmark

Denmark has six national television channels, three of which (DR1, DR2, TV2) are paid via a general license fee. In addition, several local television channels broadcast every day. According to a law of December 2002, programmes on public radio and television must ensure public access to information and important social debates. They must also draw on Danish language and culture.

Sign language is regularly offered in important media events and there is a special sign language channel. 

 

Languages offered in public services and public spaces across 3 cities in Denmark (N ≥ 2)

The Nordic Language Convention states that citizens of the Nordic languages have the right to address public institutions in any of the Nordic countries in their own language.

Languages other than English offered in business across 12 companies in Denmark (N ≥ 2)

Danish business is mainly composed of small and medium sized businesses. 92% of the companies have fewer than ten employees and less than 2% have more than 50 employees. 67.7% of the jobs are in private companies.

According to a survey made by Danish Industry in 2007, more than 25% of the large businesses use English as the corporate language. The use of other languages and of translation services is decreasing. Danish Industry has expressed severe concerns about the falling numbers of language students and has suggested combined competences, i.e. the combination of engineering skills and language skills as one of the solutions.

 

For the last 150 years Denmark has been a mainly monolingual country with Danish as the main language and where the citizens had a fairly good command of German and French and, since 1945, English. Furthermore, Danes have had easy access to the whole of Scandinavia due to Danish, Norwegian and Swedish being mutually understandable.

During the last ten years English has gained a much stronger position at the cost of German and French. The parallel Danish/English language strategy of the Danish Government has strongly supported this development. Language skills in foreign languages including the Scandinavian languages are decreasing, and the command of immigrant languages such as Arabic and Turkish has not been promoted as an asset. As a consequence we see a falling interest in foreign languages other than English in universities, industry and schools. If Denmark wants to live up to the language policies of the EU and the Council of Europe, this development may become a serious challenge. The recent suggestions to introduce English already at the beginning of primary school will probably further accelerate this development.

 

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

At Købmagergade skole in Fredericia experiments with internationalisation and Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) have been taking place since 2001. In 2005 an international stream was establish for the lower secondary level where sciences such as biology and mathematics were taught in English by native English teachers.

Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP)

The Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language Use (CIP) was established in 2008 at the University of Copenhagen in order to augment the University's efforts to implement a language policy based on the principles of parallel language use.

Nordic Language Coordination

Nordic Language Coordination was established in 2009 under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers in order to enhance the mutual understanding between the speakers of the mainland Scandinavian languages: Danish, Swedish and Norwegian.

Tegn på sprog (Sign language)

Tegn på sprog is a research and development project established in 2008 for a period of six years by the Ministries of Education and Integration in broad cooperation with universities, university colleges and schools. The aim of the project is to gain insights into how children with Danish as their second language approach written Danish, and to develop new teaching strategies.

 

Sprog til Tiden (Language in time). Report by the language policy group of the Danish government (2008)

Sprog er nøglen til verden (Language is the key to the world). Report by a working group under the ministry of research, innovation and higher education (2011)

Nordic Convention of Languages (1987)

www.efnil.org