It’s perfectly simple. The Danish numeric system is the ultimate code - no outsider could ever break it.
Clue: It’s in base twenty, not base ten. That’s pretty much all there is to it. They operate by “snes,” or a score. “Tres” (60) for instance is telescoped from “tre snes,” or three score.
(I.e., while English has seventy/eighty/ninety/hundred, Danish has half-fours/fours/half-fives/fives respectively.
Why base twenty is superiour to base ten is still a mystery, however.
(Does the word “forty” look wonky to anyone? Anyone? Bueller?)
My SIL the corn freak is from Sweden, and works as an English/ Swedish/Norwegian/German translater. She is able to go back and forth between all four languages with remarkable fluency.
However, stick something in Spanish, French or any other Romance lanague in fron of her and she is lost.
That is the strangest thing I have heard in quite a while. Base 20?
It’s known as the vigesimal system and several European languages either use it or have traces of it in the language. (French quatre-vingts, for instance).
Also, could we get a Dane to explain why the hell the money doesn’t have the same numbers as you use when you count? For example: the 50 kroner note has “femti” on it to demarcate the amount, but 50 in danish is “halvtreds.” I remember asking a Dane this question once but all they said was that “femti” was “old-fashioned.” But this counting system seems to make more sense. After all, femti sounds more like fifty or any other Germanic representation of the word than actual Danish does. So if this is old-fashioned, why did they change to a less-logical system? Or is this a one-off thing?
I really have always wanted to know. Is there some sort of parallel counting system that is “old-fashioned?”
Yeah, who knows, I’ve always wondered about that too. And you have to say the numbers backwards, as in one-and-twenty or six-and-half-eighty, so that if you’re trying to say any large number it comes out as (for example) five-and-sixty-thousand, three-hundred-and-three-and-half-sixty (65,353).
Speaking as an Icelander, I always use English to communicate with Scandinavians. Sometimes they speak their own language and I speak English back, which works OK. The problem I have is the fact that they sometimes expect us to be able to speak their language fluently but not one of them understands a word of Icelandic (except the Faroese).
I have to communicate with Scandinavians quite frequently at work so this is an issue that often comes up, some of my colleagues are religious about speaking some weird mish-mash of Danish, Norwegian and Swedish with a Finnish accent. They seem to think it impresses the Scandinavians, which I’m not totally convinced about.
Oh, and regarding the Danish numbers, can someone confirm that Greenlanders all count in Danish? Someone told me they had a much less efficient numerical system before being “colonised” and thus just adopted the Danish system along with the words and everything.
Carefull. Those are fightin’ words.
I’ve heard greenlanders, while on the phone with other greenlanders speaking thier native language, suddenly switch to danish number-words. These were children, though.
Actually, the list of possible missunderstandings between scadinavian languages is so hilarious I suspect it was done on purpose. To sum up.
“må”: “may” in danish, “must” in norwegian
“Pule”: Fuck in norwegian, to fix something in swedish("…first I’ll fuck the windows, then I’ll fuck the shed in the garden, and then I’ll fuck the hedge with the kids.")
“Bøger”: “Books” in danish, homosexual men in norwegian/swedish (you can just imagine what a danish Used Bookstore looks like to the rest of us.)
“Anledning”: “Opportunity” in norwegian, “Reason” in swedish.
“Klit”: Sand-dune in danish, exactly what it sounds like in norwegian 
“Bøsse”: Homosexual man in danish (or a type of gun), collection tin in norwegian.
Septima: don’t get me started on all the incredibly strange and rude things that Faroese words are said to mean in Icelandic 
Example, possibly false as Icelanders generally don’t know much Faroese and rely on second hand information: “Fleigja sér”, I am told, means to masturbate in Faroese. In Icelandic in means to throw yourself, you’d typically tell people you were going to throw yourself on the bed for a couple of hours.
Then there is the infamous “Ríðingafélag Færeyja” which is said to be a club for horse enthusiasts. In Icelandic it means “The Faroese F**king Society”.
Yes. They use Danish numbers. As I said: superior. Your time shall come too. Before long the whole world shall count in Danish! They also mostly use Danish names. Although I don’t know why, since they must have had names before.
That’s only because in Iceland those two things are pretty much the same.
“Rolig”: “Quiet/easy” in Danish, “fun” in Swedish.
Would people from places like Malmo (across from Copenhagen) be able to understand Danish better, since I assume they’d get Danish TV and now with the bridge be able to go between the cities easier?
Yes, they do understand it much better but at the same time they are less understood by other Swedes since they also sound more like Danes.
People in Malmö just sound hillarious, frankly. They speak “Swanish”, or something of the sort, a very peculiar blend of Danish and Swedish. I stopped there on a train ride between the two countries and found myself profoundly confused by what I was listening to.
Do we have any Faroese on the boards? Those are some righteous folks, gave us money in our time of need even though we gave them bugger all when they were defaulting. Thanks guys, just stop beating up the gays and you’re super cool 
Not so much because of TV as because southern Sweden, including Malmø, used to be Danish until quite recently.
I’m half Faroese. Don’t worry about the gays. They aren’t getting beat up anymore. They’ve all left for Denmark. …umm. Did you know The Faroe Islands is the country in the whole of the Western world with the highest fertility rate. Nothing much to do there besides making babies and beat up the three gay guys in Torshavn. And now the gays have left. Well I expect a baby boom.
Brilliant answer 
As a sidenote, I once read a news report that quoted a man called “Högni í Stórustofu” is this really a name? Or is Stórastofa some place or thing he works for? Because if it’s a name, it’s awesome!
Or so the stereotype goes…
Yes it is a name. “Högni” is common enough. “í Stórustofu” is a name, but doesn’t sound particular Faroese. More like Icelandic. But perhaps not if you are Icelandic.
You don’t want to say that to a Malmö resident, they’ll be sorely vexed.
The dialect you’re thinking of is skånska, which while it has a couple of sounds in common with Danish is nothing like it. In fact, most Danes I’ve talked to say it’s impossible to understand, and find the dialects from further up north to be much easier on the ears.
I’m from Stockholm, a bit further northeast, and have lived in Malmö for a couple of years now. Since my BF is Danish I’ve had to learn the language, and it was incredibly difficult in the beginning (it’s still tricky). Many Swedes will revert to English while speaking to a Dane, simply because they can’t hear what the Danes are saying. Few people except those living close to the Danish border have been exposed to Danish at all. If you haven’t, it’ll be very nearly unitelligible at first, since it’s everything that Swedish isn’t. Danes seem to feel the same way.