Abstract
In South Tyrol the Italian and German languages have coexisted for centuries. After a problematic development in the first half of the 20th century the situation has stabilised through an intense programme to protect the German-speaking minority living there. Though these protective measures were introduced primarily to keep the linguistic identity of the Italian and German language groups stable, they have led to a considerable degree of individual bilingualism, especially with the speakers of German. At the same time certain means were introduced to facilitate the use of German in the legal and administrative context of Italy. So these steps at the end have led to an intensified contact between the languages, and there is a growing awareness of the advantages of speaking more than one language. With the opening towards Europe and with general trends in society like globalisation and individualisation, a new model of a bilingual identity is developing which takes into consideration its usefulness in modern transcultural interaction as well as its value for regional self-identification. This development also leads to a higher degree of linguistic variation in the society of South Tyrol.
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