Border-region Danish

Abstract

The majority and a large part of the German national minority living in the Danish part of the Danish-German border region have Danish as their first language. In the German part of the region, the Danish national minority has Danish as its official language, although it is most members' second language. To the German majority Danish is a foreign language. Border-region Danish includes a broad range of varieties, and studies from the last twenty-five years show that one of these varieties, the classical Sonderjysk dialect, is being replaced by regional Sonderjysk in the Danish majority, although it still has a high status within the German minority. South of the border the classical Sonderjysk dialect no longer has any function. The Danish minority has developed a regional minority language, South Schleswig Danish, which is characterized by German influence. However, it is not based on the dialect, but on standard Danish rigsmal. In the minority, this variety has high status outside the minority's educational sphere. This article discusses the sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic variables involved in this multidimensional pattern of border-region Danish.