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23-year-old Charlie Scurrah Grundsøe is surprised that 'søsken' isn't in the official dictionary. They use it often themselves and are also called that by their siblings. Foto: Kollage. Originalfoto: Privatfoto

In Danish, ’siblings’ is only used in the plural. Some have started using ’en søsken’ for gender neutrality, but it’s not in the official dictionary.

We're missing the word 'sibling'

23-year-old Charlie Scurrah Grundsøe is surprised that 'søsken' isn't in the official dictionary. They use it often themselves and are also called that by their siblings. Foto: Kollage. Originalfoto: Privatfoto
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In English, you can have a sibling. In Swedish, it’s ett syskon. And in Norwegian, it’s et søsken. But in Danish, you can only have siblings in the plural form. At least according to Retskrivningsordbogen (lit. The Orthographical Dictionary), which establishes the official Danish orthography.

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