Danish people or
Danes are a
nation and
ethnic group native to
Denmark, who speak
Danish. This includes people with a Danish ancestral or ethnic identity, whether living in
Denmark, emigrants, or the descendants of emigrants, eg: the
Danish ethnic minority in Southern Schleswig, a former Danish province.
The Danes, as an ethnic group, is part of the larger ethnic group known as
Scandinavians.
Origins
The current Danes are descended from an ancient North Germanic tribe originating and residing in
Scania and on the
Danish islands, the
Danes (Dani) of e.g.
Beowulf.
Several other ethnic components exist in what is today the
Kingdom of Denmark. The modern peoples of
Jutland descend from the
Jutes from
Jutland, and their proto-
Jutish ancestral tribes, including the
Cimbri, who resided in
Jutland.
The Dani were not mentioned by
Tacitus, whose famous work Germania mentions the
Gothones (Geats and/or Goths?). They seem to be, however, mentioned by
Jordanes and
Procopius, as the Dani. The name Dani is the etymological root of Dane.
Jordanes maintains that the Dani were of the same stock as the Suetidi (Swedes, Suithiod?) and expelled the
Heruli and took their lands. If Tacitus simply did not overlook the Dani, and if Jordanes's information was correct, it is possible that they first appeared, as an off-shoot of the Swedes, sometime in the 2nd or 3rd century A.D.
There are several different legendary accounts of the foundation of Denmark. One of the legendary accounts found in the
Chronicle of Lejre tells that a ruler of
Zealand with name
Dan had raised an army and saved his people from an invasion by the Roman Emperor
Augustus Caesar, that the Jutes, the men of
Funen and the
Scanian Provinces also accepted him as king, whence the resultant expanded country of Denmark and Danes was named after him.
Dan as one or more ancient kings of the Danes are also written in other Nordic
sagas.
Danes in Denmark
Five million ethnic Danes live in Denmark today.
A minority of approx. 50,000 Danes live in
Southern Schleswig in
Germany, a former Danish territory, forming around 10% of the local population. In Denmark, the latter group is often referred to as
De danske syd for grænsen (Literally: The Danish south of the border) or
sydslesvigere (South Schleswigers).
The Danish nation in a political context
Det danske folk (
The Danish people) as a concept, played an important role in 19th century
ethnic nationalism and refers to self-identification rather than a legal status. Use of the term is most often restricted to a historical context; the historic German-Danish struggle regarding the status of the
Duchy of
Schleswig vis-à-vis a Danish
nation-state. It describes people of Danish
nationality, both in
Denmark and elsewhere. Most importantly, ethnic Danes in both
Denmark proper and the former Danish
Duchy of
Schleswig. Excluded from this definition are people from the formerly
Norwegian Faroe Islands and
Greenland as well as members of the German minority as well as members of other ethnic minorities.
The term should not be confused with the legal concept of
nationality,
danske statsborgere (
Danish nationals) i.e. individuals holding Danish citizenship.
See also
