Danish
dansk
Pronunciation	[danˀsɡ̊]
Spoken in	Denmark, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Norway, Iceland, Schleswig-Holstein (Germany)
Native speakers	5.6 million  (2007)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic North Germanic East Scandinavian Danish
Writing system	Danish alphabet (Latin script)
Official status
Official language in	Denmark  Faroe Islands  European Union Nordic Council Minority language:[1]  Germany
Regulated by	Dansk Sprognævn (“Danish Language Committee”)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	da
ISO 639-2	dan
ISO 639-3	dan
Linguasphere	52-AAA-bf & -ca to -cj
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Danish (dansk, pronounced [danˀsɡ̊] ( listen); dansk sprog, [ˈdanˀsɡ̊ ˈsb̥ʁɔʊ̯ˀ]) is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, and 25,000 Danes in Norway where it holds minority language status.^[2] Danish is a mandatory subject in school in the Danish crown territories of the Faroe Islands (where it is also an official language after Faroese) and Greenland (where, however, the only official language since 2009 is Kalaallisut), as well as the former crown holding of Iceland. There are also Danish language communities in Argentina, the United States and Canada. Danish is mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish (see "Classification").

Classification[link]

Danish, together with Swedish, derives from the East Norse dialect group, while the old Norwegian dialects before the influence of Danish and Bokmål is classified as a West Norse language together with Faroese and Icelandic. A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian and Swedish into a Mainland Scandinavian group while Icelandic and Faroese are placed in a separate category labeled Insular Scandinavian.

Written Danish and Norwegian Bokmål are particularly close, though the phonology (that is, the system of relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of the language) and the prosody (the patterns of stress and intonation) differ somewhat. Proficient speakers of any of the three languages can understand the others, though studies have shown that speakers of Norwegian generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Both Swedes and Danes also understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages.^[3]

History[link]

The approximate extent of Old Norse and related languages in the early 10th century:

  Old West Norse dialect

  Old East Norse dialect

  Old Gutnish

  Old English

  Crimean Gothic

   Other Germanic languages with which Old Norse still retained some mutual intelligibility

By the 8th century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse, had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse. This language began to undergo new changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, which resulted in the appearance of two similar dialects, Old West Norse (Norway and Iceland) and Old East Norse (Denmark and Sweden).

Old East Norse is in Sweden called Runic Swedish and in east Denmark Runic Danish, but until the 12th century, the dialect was roughly the same in the two countries. The dialects are called runic because the main body of text appears in the runic alphabet. Unlike Proto-Norse, which was written with the Elder Futhark alphabet, Old Norse was written with the Younger Futhark alphabet, which only had 16 letters. Due to the limited number of runes, some runes were used for a range of phonemes, such as the rune for the vowel u which was also used for the vowels o, ø and y, and the rune for i which was also used for e.

A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei) to the monophthong e, as in stæin to sten. This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin. There was also a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr. Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey) diphthong changed into ø as well, as in the Old Norse word for "island".

Some famous authors of works in Danish are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen, and playwright Ludvig Holberg. Three 20th century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature: Karl Adolph Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes Vilhelm Jensen (awarded 1944).

Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England. Many words derived from Norse, such as "gate" (gade) for street, still survive in Yorkshire and the East Midlands (parts of eastern England) colonized by Danish Vikings. The city of York was once the Viking settlement of Jorvik. Several other English words also derive from Old East Norse, for example, "knife" (kniv), "husband" (husbond), "call" (kalde) and "egg" (æg).^[4] The suffix "-by" for 'town' is common in place names in Yorkshire and the East Midlands that is, Selby, Whitby, Derby and Grimsby. The word dale in Yorkshire and Derbyshire is commonly used in place of valley.

The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495. The first complete translation of the Bible in Danish was published in October 1550.^{[citation needed]}

Geographical distribution[link]

Danish is the national language of Denmark, and one of two official languages of the Faroes (alongside Faroese). Until 2009, it had also been one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic). Danish is widely spoken in Greenland, and an unknown portion of the native Greenlandic population has Danish as their first language. In addition, there is a small community of Danish speakers in Southern Schleswig, the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, where it is an officially recognized regional language, just as German is north of the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council. Under the Nordic Language Convention, citizens of the Nordic countries speaking Danish have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs.^[5][6]

There is no law stipulating an official language for Denmark, making Danish the de facto language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down Danish as the language of the courts. Since 1997 public authorities have been obliged to observe the official spelling by way of the Orthography Law.

Dialects[link]

Map of Danish dialects

Standard Danish (rigsdansk) is the language based on dialects spoken in and around the capital, Copenhagen. Unlike Swedish and Norwegian, Danish does not have more than one regional speech norm. More than 25% of all Danish speakers live in the metropolitan area of the capital and most government agencies, institutions and major businesses keep their main offices in Copenhagen, something that has resulted in a very homogeneous national speech norm. In contrast, though Oslo (Norway) and Stockholm (Sweden) are quite dominant in terms of speech standards, cities like Bergen, Gothenburg and the Malmö-Lund region are large and influential enough to create secondary regional norms, making the standard language more varied than is the case with Danish. The general agreement is that Standard Danish is based on a form of Copenhagen dialect, but the specific norm, as with most language norms, is difficult to pinpoint for both laypeople and scholars. Historically Standard Danish emerged as a compromise between the dialect of Zealand and Scania. The first layers of it can be seen in east Danish provincial law texts such as Skånske Lov, just as we can recognize west Danish in laws from the same ages in Jyske Lov.

Despite the relative cultural monopoly of the capital and the centralized government, the divided geography of the country allowed distinct rural dialects to flourish during the centuries. Such "genuine" dialects were formerly spoken by a vast majority of the population, but have declined much since the 1960s. They still exist in communities out in the countryside, but most speakers in these areas generally speak a regionalized form of Standard Danish, when speaking with one who speaks to them in that same standard. Usually an adaptation of the local dialect to rigsdansk is spoken, though code-switching between the standard-like norm and a distinct dialect is common.^[7]

The distribution of one, two, and three grammatical genders in Danish dialects. In Zealand the transition from three to two genders has happened fairly recently. West of the red line the definite article goes before the word as in English or German; east of the line it takes the form of a suffix.

Danish is divided into three distinct dialect groups,^[8] which are further subdivided in about 30 dialektområder^[9]:

• Insular Danish (ømål), including dialects of the Danish islands of Zealand, Funen, Lolland, Falster, and Møn
• Jutlandic (jysk), further divided in North, East, West and South Jutlandic
• Bornholmsk dialect (Bornholmian) the dialect of the island of Bornholm

The term Eastern Danish^[10] is occasionally used for Bornholmian, but including the dialects of Scania (particularly in a historical context). The background for this lies in the loss of the originally Danish provinces of Blekinge, Halland and Scania to Sweden in 1658. The island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea also belongs to this group, but returned to Danish rule in 1660. This means that the spoken language in this part of Sweden is descended from a regional variant of Danish, while the written language used is standard Swedish, which evolved in Uppsala and Stockholm. Similarly, the Norwegian language is classified as a descendant of West Norse, while the written language used by the vast majority in Norway is derived from an older variant of standard Danish. A few generations ago, the classical dialects spoken in the southern Swedish provinces could still be argued to be more Eastern Danish than Swedish, being similar to the dialect of Bornholm. Today, influx of Standard Swedish and Standard Danish vocabulary has generally meant that Scanian and Bornholmian are closer to the modern national standards of their respective host nations than to each other. The Bornholmian dialect has also maintained to this day many ancient features, such as a distinction between three grammatical genders, which the central Insular Danish dialects gave up during the 20th century. Standard Danish has two genders and the definite form of nouns is formed by the use of suffixes, while Western Jutlandic has only one gender and the definite form of nouns uses an article before the noun itself, in the same fashion as West Germanic languages. Today, Standard Danish is most similar to the Insular Danish dialect group.

Sound system[link]

This article is part of the series on: Danish language

Use: Alphabet Phonology Grammar Other topics: History Literature Dansk Sprognævn

This box: view talk edit

The sound system of Danish is in many ways unique among the world's languages. It is quite prone to considerable reduction and assimilation of both consonants and vowels even in very formal standard language. A rare feature is the presence of a prosodic feature called stød in Danish (lit. "push; thrust"). This is a form of laryngealization or creaky voice, only occasionally realized as a full glottal stop (especially in emphatic pronunciation). It can be the only distinguishing feature between certain words, thus creating minimal pairs (for example, bønder "peasants" with stød versus bønner "beans" or "prayers" without). The distribution of stød in the lexicon is clearly related to the distribution of the common Scandinavian tonal word accents found in most dialects of Norwegian and Swedish, including the national standard languages. Most linguists today believe that stød is a development of the word accents, rather than the other way round.^{[citation needed]} Some have theorized it emerged from the overwhelming influence of Low German in medieval times, having flattened the originally Nordic melodic accent, but stød is absent in most southern Danish dialects where Low German impact would have been the greatest. Stød generally occurs in words that have "accent 1" in Swedish and Norwegian and that were monosyllabic in Old Norse, while no-stød occurs in words that have "accent 2" in Swedish and Norwegian and that were polysyllabic in Old Norse.

Unlike the neighboring Continental Scandinavian languages, the prosody of Danish does not have phonemic pitch. Stress is phonemic and distinguishes words such as billigst ['bilist] "cheapest" and bilist [bi'list] "car driver".

Vowels[link]

In most modern variants of Danish, it is possible to distinguish at least 17 different vowel qualities in distinct pronunciation. The table below shows the approximate distribution of the vowels as pronounced in Modern Standard Danish, and the symbol used in IPA for Danish.

All but four of these vowels may be either long and short, with the exceptions being [a], [ʌ], [ə] and [ɐ] that are short only. [ə] and [ɐ] occurs only in unstressed syllables.

The many different vowels can be analyzed to represent 10 distinctive vowel phonemes: /i e ɛ a y ø œ u o ɔ/, and /ə/ that only occurs in unstressed syllables. These phonemes often have different allophones depending on length, and in conjunction with /r/. For example, /ø/ is lowered when it occurs either before or after /r/, and /a/ is pronounced [æ] when it is long.

Consonants[link]

In distinct pronunciation it is possible to distinguish at least 21 consonants in most variants of Danish (see IPA for Danish):

These consonants can be analyzed to represent 15 phonemes: /m n p t k b d ɡ f s h v j r l/. Many of these phonemes have quite different allophones in onset and coda. /p t k/ are aspirated in onset, not in coda. /d ɡ v j r/ are contoid in onset and vocoid in coda.

[ʋ, ð] often have slight frication, but are usually pronounced as approximants.

The combination of /sj/ is realized as an alveolo-palatal fricative, [ɕ], making it unnecessary to postulate a /ɕ/-phoneme in Danish.

In onset /r/ is realized as a uvular fricative, [ʁ], but in coda it is either realized as a non-syllabic low central vowel, [ɐ̯] (which is almost identical to how /r/ is often pronounced in syllable-final position in German) or simply coalesces with the preceding vowel. The phenomenon is also comparable to non-rhotic pronunciations of English. The Danish pronunciation of /r/ distinguishes the language from Norwegian and Swedish, which use trilled /r/, and makes it sound to speakers of those languages as if Danes speak with a German accent.

Grammar[link]

The infinitive forms of Danish verbs end in a vowel, which in almost all cases is a schwa, represented in writing by the letter e. Verbs are conjugated according to tense, but otherwise do not vary according to person or number. For example the present tense form of the Danish infinitive verb spise ("to eat") is spiser; this form is the same regardless of whether the subject is in the first, second, or third person, or whether it is singular or plural. This extreme ease of conjugating verbs is compensated by the large number of irregular verbs in the language.

Standard Danish nouns fall into only two grammatical genders: common and neuter, while some dialects still often have masculine, feminine and neuter. While the majority of Danish nouns (ca. 75%) have the common gender, and neuter is often used for inanimate objects, the genders of nouns are not generally predictable and must in most cases be memorized. A distinctive feature of the Scandinavian languages, including Danish, is an enclitic definite article. To demonstrate: The common gender word "a man" (indefinite) is en mand but "the man" (definite) is manden. The neuter equivalent would be "a house" (indefinite) et hus, "the house" (definite) huset. Even though the definite and indefinite articles have separate origins,^{[citation needed]} they have become homographs in Danish. In the plural, the definite article is -(e)ne, as the plural endings are - / -e / -er. The enclitic article is not used when an adjective is added to the noun; here the demonstrative pronoun is used instead: den store mand "the big man", "the big house", det store hus.

Like most Germanic languages, Danish joins compound nouns. The example kvindehåndboldlandsholdet, "the female handball national team", illustrates that it does so to a significantly higher degree than English. In some cases, nouns are joined with an extra s, like landsmand (from land, "country", and mand, "man", meaning "compatriot"), but landmand (from same roots, meaning "farmer"). Some words are joined with an extra e, like gæstebog (from gæst and bog, meaning "guest book").

Vocabulary[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

A miniature Danish-French dictionary

Danish words are largely derived from the Old Norse language, with new words formed by compounding. A large percentage of Danish words, however, hail from Middle Low German (explaining the relative similarity of its vocabulary with modern Dutch), for example, betale (to pay). Later on, standard German and French and now English have superseded Low German influence — although many old Nordic words remain, they fall out of favor when the new come in, such as can be seen with æde (to eat) which became less common when the Low German spise came into fashion. Because English and Danish are related languages which share a common root in Old Norse, many common words are very similar in the two languages. For example, Danish words for commonly used nouns and prepositions are easily recognizable in their written form to English speakers, such as have, over, under, for, give, flag, salt, and kat. When pronounced, these words sound quite different from their English equivalents, due to the Great Vowel Shift of English. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scottish equivalents, e.g., kirk and barn. In addition, the word by, meaning "village" or "town", occurs in many English place-names, such as Whitby and Selby, as remnants of the Viking occupation.

[edit] Numerals

In Danish numerals, the tens and units digits of numbers above 20 are reversed when spoken or written, such that 21 is rendered enogtyve, meaning "one and twenty". Similar constructions are found in German, Dutch, Afrikaans, certain varieties of Norwegian, Slovene and Arabic as well as in archaic and dialect English (compare the line "Four-and-twenty blackbirds" in the old nursery rhyme.)

The numeral halvanden means 1½ (literally "half second", implying "one plus half of the second one"). The numerals halvtredje (2½) and halvfjerde (3½) are now almost obsolete, but still implicitly used in the vigesimal system described below. Similarly, the temporal designation klokken halv tre, literally "half three o'clock", is half past two o'clock.

One peculiar feature of the Danish language is the fact that numerals from 40 through 90 are (somewhat like the French numerals 80 and 90) based on a vigesimal system, formerly also used in Norwegian and Swedish. This means that the score is used as a base unit in counting: Tres (short for tre-sinds-tyve meaning "three times twenty") means sixty, while halvtreds (short for halvtredje-sinds-tyve meaning "half third times twenty", implying two score plus half of the third score) is fifty. The ending sindstyve meaning "score" is no longer included in cardinal numbers, but still used in ordinal numbers. Thus, in modern Danish forty is called fyrre derived from the original fyrretyve (derived from the old Danish fyritiughu, which translates to '4 tens'.^[11]), which is now only used in extremely formal settings or for humorous effect. Fifty-two is usually rendered as tooghalvtreds from the now obsolete tooghalvtredsindstyve, whereas 52nd is tooghalvtredsindstyvende. An exception is in banking, where traditionally the ten-base without reversal is used in writing and speech for all amounts from 20 and over; thus, fir(e)ti is forty (4 times 10) and seksti-to is sixty-two (6 times 10 plus 2).

For large numbers (one billion or larger), Danish uses the long scale, so that for example, one U.S. billion (1,000,000,000) is called milliard, and one U.S. trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is billion.

Writing system[link]

The oldest preserved examples of written Danish (from the Iron and Viking Ages) are in the Runic alphabet. The introduction of Christianity also brought the Latin script to Denmark, and at the end of the High Middle Ages the Runes had more or less been replaced by the Latin letters.

As in Germany, the Fraktur types were still commonly used in the late 19th century (until 1875, Danish children were taught to read Fraktur letters in school), and many books were printed with Fraktur typesetting even in the beginning of the 20th century, particularly by conservatives. However, the Latin script was used by modernists, for example, the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters changed style in 1799. Nouns were capitalized, as in German, until the 1948 spelling reform.

Danish letters Æ, Ø and Å on a computer keyboard. The light green Æ and Ø show the Danish keyboard layout; the red are Norwegian, and Ä and Ö Swedish and Finnish.

The modern Danish alphabet is similar to the English one, with three additional letters: æ, ø, and å, which come at the end of the alphabet, in that order. A spelling reform in 1948 introduced the letter å, already in use in Norwegian and Swedish, into the Danish alphabet to replace the digraph aa; the old usage still occurs in some personal and geographical names (for example, the name of the city of Aalborg is spelled with Aa following a decision by the City Council in the 1970s). When representing the å sound, aa is treated just like å in alphabetical sorting, even though it looks like two letters. When the letters are not available due to technical limitations (e.g., in URLs), they are often replaced by ae (Æ, æ), oe or o (Ø, ø), and aa (Å, å), respectively.

The same spelling reform changed the spelling of a few common words, such as the past tense vilde (would), kunde (could) and skulde (should), to their current forms of ville, kunne and skulle (making them identical to the infinitives in writing, as they are in speech), and did away with the practice of capitalizing all nouns, which is still done in German. Modern Danish and Norwegian use the same alphabet, though spelling differs somewhat.

See also[link]

• Differences between Norwegian Bokmål and Standard Danish
• Jutlandic
• South Jutlandic

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Basbøll, Hans (2005) The Phonology of Danish ISBN 0-19-824268-9
• Carl Harding Sørensen (1999) Vikings and Expeditions (Vikinger og togter)

External links[link]

Look up Category:Danish language in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Look up Danish in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Danish language edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikibooks has more on the topic of Danish language

• English online dictionary and grammar for Danish
• "BBC Quickfix: Danish" 12 Danish phrases with audio
• "Learning the Danish language online" a list of courses on newtodenmark.dk
• "GrammarExplorer Danish" an online Danish grammar
• "Speakdanish" a commercial Danish course with audio
• "Danish Online" a Danish course with audios, text-to-speech, picture dictionary facilities and many others
• Danish Swadesh list of basic vocabulary words (from Wiktionary's Swadesh list appendix)
• "Danish as a second language" at Studieskolen

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Victor Borge
Victor Borge in 1990
Born	(1909-01-03)3 January 1909 Copenhagen, Denmark
Died	23 December 2000(2000-12-23) (aged 91) Greenwich, Connecticut, United States
Occupation	Classical pianist, entertainer, comedian, humorist

Victor Borge ( /ˈbɔrɡə/ BOR-gə; 3 January 1909 – 23 December 2000),^[1] born Børge Rosenbaum, was a Danish and American comedian, conductor and pianist, affectionately known as The Clown Prince of Denmark,^[2] The Unmelancholy Dane,^[3] and The Great Dane.^[4]

Biography[link]

Early life and career[link]

Borge was born Børge Rosenbaum in Copenhagen, Denmark, into a Jewish family. His parents, Bernhard and Frederikke Rosenbaum, were both musicians—his father a violist in the Royal Danish Orchestra^[5] and his mother a pianist.^[6] Like his mother, Borge began piano lessons at the age of two, and it was soon apparent that he was a prodigy. He gave his first piano recital when he was eight years old, and in 1918 was awarded a full scholarship at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, studying under Olivo Krause. Later on, he was taught by Victor Schiøler, Liszt's student Frederic Lamond, and Busoni's pupil Egon Petri.

Borge played his first major concert in 1926 at the Danish concert-hall Odd Fellow Palæet (The Odd Fellow's Lodge building). After a few years as a classical concert pianist, he started his now famous "stand up" act, with the signature blend of piano music and jokes. He married American Elsie Chilton in 1933, the same year he debuted with his revue acts.^[7] Borge started touring extensively in Europe, where he began telling anti-Nazi jokes.

When the Nazis occupied Denmark during World War II, Borge was playing a concert in Sweden, and managed to escape to Finland.^[8] He traveled to America on the USS American Legion, the last neutral ship to make it out of Petsamo, Finland,^[9] and arrived 28 August 1940, with only 20 dollars (equal to $332 today), with $3 (equal to $49.77 today) going to the customs fee. Disguised as a sailor, Borge returned to Denmark once during the occupation to visit his dying mother.^[10]

Move to America[link]

Even though Borge did not speak a word of English upon arrival, he quickly managed to adapt his jokes to the American audience, learning English by watching movies. He took the name of Victor Borge, and, in 1941, he started on Rudy Vallee's radio show,^[11] but was hired soon after by Bing Crosby for his Kraft Music Hall.^[12]

From then on, fame rose quickly for Borge, who won Best New Radio Performer of the Year in 1942. Soon after the award, he was offered film roles with stars such as Frank Sinatra (in Higher and Higher). While hosting The Victor Borge Show on NBC beginning in 1946,^[13] he developed many of his trademarks, including repeatedly announcing his intent to play a piece but getting "distracted" by something or other, making comments about the audience, or discussing the usefulness of Chopin's "Minute Waltz" as an egg timer.^[14] Or he would start out with some well-known classical piece like Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" and suddenly move into a harmonically suitable pop or jazz tune like Cole Porter's "Night and Day" or "Happy Birthday to You".

Borge's style[link]

Among Borge's other famous routines is the "Phonetic Punctuation" routine, in which he recites a story, with full punctuation (comma, period, exclamation mark, etc.) as exaggerated onomatopoeic sounds.^[15] Another is his "Inflationary Language", where he incremented numbers embedded in words, whether they are visible or not ("once upon a time" becomes "twice upon a time", "wonderful" becomes "twoderful", "forehead" becomes "fivehead", "tennis" becomes "elevennis", "I ate a tenderloin with my fork and so on and so forth" becomes "'I nine an elevenderloin with my five'k' and so on and so fifth").^[16]

Borge used physical and visual elements in his live and televised performances. He would play a strange-sounding piano tune from sheet music, looking increasingly confused; turning the sheet upside down, he would then play the actual tune, flashing a joyful smile of accomplishment to the audience (he had, at first, been literally playing the actual tune upside down). When his energetic playing of another song would cause him to fall off the piano bench, he would open the seat lid, take out the two ends of an automotive seat belt, and buckle himself onto the bench, "for safety." Conducting an orchestra, he might stop and order a violinist who had played a sour note to get off the stage, then resume the performance and have the other members of the section move up to fill the empty seat while they were still playing. From off stage would come the sound of a gunshot. His musical sidekick in the 1950s, Leonid Hambro, was a well-known concert pianist. In 1968, classical pianist Şahan Arzruni joined him as his straight man, performing together on one piano a version of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody, considered a musical-comedic classic.^[17]

He also enjoyed interacting with the audience. Seeing an interested person in the front row, he would ask them, "Do you like good music?" or "Do you care for piano music?" After an affirmative answer, Borge would take a piece of sheet music from his piano and say, "Here is some", and hand it over. After the audience's laughter died down, he would say, "That'll be $1.95" (or whatever the current price might be). He would then ask whether the audience member could read music; if the member said yes, he would ask a higher price. If he got no response from the audience after a joke, he would often add "...when this ovation has died down, of course". The delayed punch line to handing the person the sheet music would come when he would reach the end of a number and begin playing the penultimate notes over and over, with a puzzled look. He would then go back to the person in the audience, retrieve the sheet music, tear off a piece of it, stick it on the piano, and play the last couple of notes from it.

Making fun of modern theater, he would sometimes begin a performance by asking if there were any children in the audience. There always were, of course. He would sternly order them out, then say, "We do have some children in here that means I can't do the second half in the nude. I'll wear the tie. (pause) The long one. (pause) The very long one, yes."^[18]

In his stage shows in later years, he would include a segment with opera singer Marilyn Mulvey. She would try to sing an aria, and he would react and interrupt, with such antics as falling off the bench in "surprise" when she hit a high note. He would also remind her repeatedly not to rest her hand on the piano. After the routine, the spotlight would fall upon Mulvey and she would sing a serious number with Borge accompanying in the background.

Later career[link]

The footstone of Victor Borge

Borge appeared on Toast of the Town hosted by Ed Sullivan several times during 1948. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States the same year. He started the Comedy in Music show at John Golden Theatre in New York City on 2 October 1953. Comedy in Music became the longest running one-man show in the history of theater with 849 performances when it closed on 21 January 1956, a feat which placed it in the Guinness Book of World Records.^[19]

Continuing his success with tours and shows, Borge played with and conducted orchestras including Chicago Symphony Orchestra,^[20] the New York Philharmonic^[21] and London Philharmonic.^[22] Always modest, he felt honored when he was invited to conduct the Royal Danish Orchestra at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1992.

His later television appearances included his "Phonetic Punctuation" routine on The Electric Company in a filmed sketch; he would also use it on the record to follow during the "Punctuation" song. He appeared several times on Sesame Street^[23] and was a guest star during the fourth season^[24] of The Muppet Show.^[25]

Victor Borge continued to tour until his last days, performing up to 60 times per year when he was 90 years old.

Other endeavors[link]

Borge made several appearances on the long-running TV show What's My Line?, both as a celebrity panelist, and as a contestant with the occupation "poultry farmer"; Starting in the 1950s, as a businessman, Borge raised and popularized Rock Cornish hens.^[26]

Borge helped start several trust funds, including the Thanks to Scandinavia Fund,^[27] which was started in dedication to those who helped the Jews escape the German persecution during the war.^[28]

Aside from his musical work, Borge wrote three books, My Favorite Intermissions^[29] and My Favorite Comedies in Music^[30] (both with Robert Sherman), and the autobiography Smilet er den korteste afstand ("The Smile is the Shortest Distance") with Niels-Jørgen Kaiser.^[31]

Family[link]

He married his first wife, Elsie Chilton, in 1933. After divorcing Elsie, he married Sarabel Sanna Scraper in 1953, and they stayed married until her death at the age of 83 in September 2000.^[32]

Borge fathered five children (who occasionally performed with him): Ronald Borge and Janet Crowle with Elsie Chilton, and Sanna Feirstein, Victor Bernhard (Vebe) Jr., and Frederikke (Rikke) Borge with Sarabel.^[33]

Death[link]

Borge died in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the age of 91, after more than 75 years of entertaining. He died peacefully in his sleep a day after returning from a concert in Denmark. "It was just his time to go", Frederikke Borge said. "He's been missing my mother terribly."^[34] According to his wish, to mark his connection to both the United States and Denmark a part of Victor Borge's ashes is interred at Putnam Cemetery in Greenwich, with a replica of Danish icon The Little Mermaid sitting on a large rock at the gravesite, the other part in Western Jewish Cemetery (Mosaisk Vestre Begravelsesplads), Copenhagen, Denmark.^[35]

Legacy[link]

Borge received an honorary degree from Trinity College, Hartford in 1997.^[36]

When in 1998 the Royal Danish Orchestra celebrated its 550th anniversary, Borge was appointed an honorary member^[37] – at that time one of only 10 in the orchestra's history.^[38]

Borge received Kennedy Center Honors in 1999.^[39]

Victor Borge Hall,^[40] located in Scandinavia House in New York City, was named in Borge's honor in 2000, as was Victor Borges Plads ("Victor Borge Square") in Copenhagen in 2002.^[41] Celebrating Borge's Centennial in 2009 a statue was erected on the square.^[42]

Victor Borge: A Centennial Celebration[link]

From 23 January to 9 May 2009, the life of Borge was celebrated by The American-Scandinavian Foundation with "Victor Borge: A Centennial Celebration."

A television special about his life, 100 Years of Music and Laughter, aired on PBS on 14 March 2009.^[43]

Discography[link]

• Phonetic Punctuation Parts 1 and 2 (1945, Columbia Records 36911, 78 rpm)^[44][45]
• The Blue Serenade / A Lesson in Composition (1945, Columbia Records 36912, 78 rpm)^[44][45]
• Brahms’ Lullaby / Grieg Rhapsody (1945, Columbia Records 36913, 78 rpm)^[44]
• A Mozart Opera by Borge / All The Things You Are (1945, Columbia Records 36914, 78 rpm)^[44]
• A Victor Borge Program (1946, Columbia Album C-111, 4 discs 78 rpm – a set containing the four previous releases)^[46]
• Unstarted Symphony / Bizet's Carmen (1947, Columbia Records 38181, 78 rpm)^[47]
• Intermezzo / Stardust (1947, Columbia Records 38182, 78 rpm)^[47]
• Rachmaninoff's Concerto No. 2 / Inflation Language (1947, Columbia Records 38183, 78 rpm)^[47]
• Clair de Lune / Vuggevise (1947, Columbia Records 38184, 78 rpm)^[47]
• An Evening with Victor Borge (1948 Columbia Album C-161, 4 discs 78 rpm – a set containing the four previous releases)^[47]
• A Victor Borge Program (1951, Columbia Records CL-6013, 10'' LP)^[48]
• Comedy in Music, Vol. 1 (1954, Columbia Records CL-6292, 10'' LP)^[49]
• Comedy in Music, Vol. 2 (1954, Columbia Records CL-6293, 10'' LP)^[49]
• Comedy in Music (1954, Columbia Records CL-554, LP)^[50]
• Caught in the Act (1955, Columbia Records CL-646, LP)^[51]
• Brahms, Bizet and Borge (1955, Columbia Records CL-2538, 10'' LP)^[48]
• ½ Time På Dansk (1958, Fona 251 HI-FI, 10'' LP)^[52]
• The Adventures of Piccolo, Saxie and Company (1959, Columbia Records CL-1223, LP)^[48]
• The Adventures of Piccolo, Saxie and Company (1959, Coronet KLP 762, LP (AUS))^[53]
• Victor Borge Plays and Conducts Concert Favorites (1959, Columbia Records CL-1305/CS-8113, LP)^[54]
• Borge's Back (1962, MGM E/SE-3995P, LP)^[55]
• Borge's Back (1962, MGM CS-6055, LP (UK))^[56]
• Borgering on Genius (1962, MGM 2354029, LP – same material as Borge's Back)^[49]
• Great Moments of Comedy (1964, Verve V/V6 15044, LP – same material as Borge's Back)^[49]
• Victor Borge presents his own enchanting version of Hans Christian Andersen (1966, Decca DL7-34406 Stereo, LP)^[48]
• Comedy in Music (1972, CBS S 53140, LP)
• Victor Borge at His Best (1972, PRT Records COMP 5, 2 LPs)^[48]
• Victor Borge Live At The London Palladium (1972, Pye NSPL 18394, LP)^[57]
• My Favorite Intervals (1975, PYE NSPD 502, LP)^[48]
• 13 Pianos Live in Concert (1975, Telefunken-Decca LC-0366)
• Victor Borge 50 Års Jubilæum (1976, Philips 6318035, LP)
• Victor Borge Show (1977, CBS 70082, LP, in Danish)^[49]
• Victor Borge Live in der Hamburger Musikhalle (1978, Philips 6305 369, LP)
• Victor Borge Live (1978, Starbox LX 96 004 Stereo, LP)
• Victor Borge – Live(!) (1992, Sony Broadway 48482, CD)
• The Piano & Humor of the Great Victor Borge (1997, Sony Music Special Products 15312, 3 CDs)
• The Two Sides of Victor Borge (1998, GMG Entertainment, CD)
• Caught in the Act (1999, Collectables Records 6031, CD)
• Comedy in Music (1999, Collectables Records 6032, CD)
• Phonetically Speaking – And Don't Forget The Piano (2001, Jasmine 120, CD)
• En aften med Victor Borge (2003, UNI 9865861, CD)
• I Love You Truly (2004, Pegasus (Pinnacle) 45403, CD)
• Victor Borge King of Comedy (2006, Phantom 26540, CD)
• Verdens morsomste mand: alle tiders Victor Borge (2006, UNI 9877560, CD)
• Unstarted Symphony (2008, NAX-8120859, CD)
• Comedy in Music (2009, SHO-227, CD)

Filmography[link]

• Frk. Møllers Jubilæum (1937)
• Der var engang en Vicevært (1937)
• Alarm (1938)
• De tre måske fire (1939)
• Higher and Higher (1943)
• The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) (unbilled)
• Victor Borge at Carnegie Hall (TV special, ABC) (1964)
• The Daydreamer (1966)
• The King of Comedy (1983)

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Gansing, Gunhild (1956) (in Danish). Om Victor Borge, verdens morsomste mand. Martin. http://books.google.com/books?id=QPVFHAAACAAJ. Retrieved 3 October 2010. 
• Borge, Victor; Sherman, Robert (August 1971). My favorite intermissions. Doubleday. http://books.google.com/books?id=93gfAAAAMAAJ. Retrieved 3 October 2010. 
• Borge, Victor; Sherman, Robert (1980). Victor Borge's My favorite comedies in music. Dorset Press. ISBN 978-0-88029-807-0. http://books.google.com/books?id=R7rBAAAACAAJ. Retrieved 3 October 2010. 
• Borge, Victor; Kaiser, Niels-Jørgen (2001) (in Danish). Smilet er den korteste afstand -: erindringer. Gyldendal. ISBN 978-87-00-75182-8. http://books.google.com/books?id=RYlWAAAACAAJ. Retrieved 3 October 2010. 

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Victor Borge (1909–2000)

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Victor Borge

• Victor Borge at the Internet Movie Database
• Victor Borge at Find a Grave
• A Tribute to Victor Borge.
• A website dedicated to Victor Borge.
• Victor Borge and the Bosendorfer Imperial Pianos with images, video and sound files provided by his management
• Internet Archive: Victor Borge Collection