page_title: Language shift
section_title: Germany
hierarchical_section_title: Language shift / Examples / Germany
caption_attribution_description: Dansk: Kort over de nordfrisiske dialekter Deutsch: Karte der Verbreitung nordfriesischer Dialekte (dänische Übersetzung) English: Map showing the distribution of North Frisian dialects (Danish translation)
context_page_description: Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived to be higher status stabilise or spread at the expense of other languages that are perceived by their own speakers to be lower-status. An example is the shift from Gaulish to Latin during the time of the Roman Empire.
context_section_description: Southern Schleswig
  In Southern Schleswig, an area that belonged to Denmark until the Second Schleswig War, from the 17th to the 20th centuries, there was a language shift from Danish and North Frisian dialects to Low German and later High German. Historically, most of the region was part of the Danish and North Frisian Language area, adjacent in the South to the German-speaking Holstein. But with the reformation in the 16th century German became church language and in the 19th century also school language in the southern parts of Schleswig. Added to this came the influence of German-speaking Holsatian nobility and traders. German was (occasionally) also spoken at the royal court in Copenhagen. This political and economic development led gradually to a German language dominating in the southern parts of Schleswig. Native dialects such as the Angel Danish or Eiderstedt Frisian vanished. In the Flensburg area, there arose the mixed language Petuh combining Danish and German elements. As late as in 1851 (in the period of nationalization) the Danish government tried to stop the language shift, but without success in the long run. After the Second Schleswig War the Prussians introduced a number of language policy measures in the other way to expand the use of (High) German as the language of administration, schooling and church service.
  Today, Danish and North Frisian are recognized as minority languages in the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein.
caption: North Frisian dialects
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