"Er der en læge her?"
Translation:Is there a doctor here?
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I notice this says that 'læge' is 'doctor (medical)'. So what is a non-medical doctor?
(And by that I mean what is the difference between doktor and læge, of course.)
'Læge' is as you said, a medical doctor, where 'doktor' is just a person with a doctorate, and not necessarily working with health or medicine.
A medical doktor is a person with a doctorate degree in medicine. A læge has also studied medicine but didn't get the M.D. title. I would translate them to doctor and physician respectively. By the way, a non-medical doctor is a doctor of philosophy. Their title is Ph.D.
It should be noted though that in both Denmark and Sweden many people think that doktor and læge/läkare is the same thing.
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This is strange and obviously different from other countries where a "cand. med." is just someone on his way to become a doctor.
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In English we might say "is there a doctor in the house", even in a non-residential setting. Can "huset" have this meaning in Danish, or can it only refer to a dwelling?
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Etymology information:
'Læge' is cognate with Old English 'læce', which became modern English 'leech', still used for a doctor or physician in the time of Shakespeare.
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According to https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/l%C3%A6ce its origin is Proto-West Germanic *lākī:
"From Proto-West Germanic lākī, from Proto-Germanic lēkijaz. Cognate with Old Frisian lētza, Old Saxon lāki, Old High German lāhhi, Old Norse *lækir
So the Old High German and Old Saxon words are very close to the origins of the word.