ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines a chronology of 17 Danish runic inscriptions from the period 1050-1250. During the Danish language went through a number of fundamental phonetic and morphologic changes which made it stand out from its Scandinavian sister languages. Thus, if one turn to twelfth-century Denmark, it would be wrong to assume that the drastic changes that affected the Danish pronunciation resulted in massive language barriers between generations. According to wave theory, linguistic innovations spread from a central point in continuously weakening concentric circles. Unfortunately, the scarcity of Danish-language sources from the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries makes it difficult to estimate any German influence through the presence of Low German loanwords. The relations between Denmark and Saxony seem to have been extended after the Danish civil war ended in 1157 and Denmark was able to follow a more ambitious foreign policy to the east and south.
