Once the seat of Viking raiders and later a major north European power, Denmark has evolved into a modern, prosperous nation that is participating in the general political and economic integration of Europe.
It joined NATO in 1949 and the EEC (now the EU) in 1973. However, the country has opted out of certain elements of the European Union's Maastricht Treaty, including the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and issues concerning certain justice and home affairs. Danish is one of the North Germanic languages, also referred to as the Scandinavian languages and is spoken by around 6 million people mainly in Denmark.
The Danish language was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. As a consequence, many words of Danish origin such as gate (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and other parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York in England was once the Danish Viking settlement of Jorvik.
Because English and Danish are related languages, many words are similar in the two languages. For example, the following Danish words are easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers: have, over, under, give, salt. When pronounced however, these words sound quite different from their English equivalents.
