Southern Jutlandic
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South Jutlandic or South Jutish ( South Jutish: ; ; ) is a
dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...
of the
Danish language Danish (, ; , ) is a North Germanic languages, North Germanic language from the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark. Communities of Danish speakers are a ...
. South Jutlandic is spoken in
Southern Jutland Southern Jutland (; ) is the region south of the Kongeå in Jutland, Denmark and north of the Eider (river) in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. The region north of the Kongeå is called . Both territories had their own ting assemblies in the Mi ...
(''Sønderjylland''; also called Schleswig or Slesvig) on both sides of the border between Denmark and Germany. Variants of the dialect include Western and Eastern South Jutlandic (including Alsisk). The former variant in
Angeln Angeln (; ) is a peninsula on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Jutland, in the Bay of Kiel. It forms part of Southern Schleswig, the northernmost region of Germany. The peninsula is bounded on the north by the Flensburg Firth, which separates it ...
(Danish: ''Angel'') and Schwansen (''Svansø'') was known as
Angel Danish Angel Danish (German: ''Angeldänisch'', Danish: ''Angeldansk'' or ''Angelbomål'') was a variant of South Jutlandic spoken in the regions of Angeln and Schwansen in Southern Schleswig partly until the 20th century. Both landscapes belonged to ...
. The other dialects classified as belonging to the
Jutlandic Jutlandic, or Jutish (Danish: ''jysk''; ), is the western variety of Danish, spoken on the peninsula of Jutland in Denmark. Generally, Jutlandic can be divided into two different dialects: general or Northern Jutlandic (; further divided into ...
or Jutish (''Jysk'') group of dialects are
West West is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some Romance langu ...
,
East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...
, and North Jutlandic.


Usage


Northern Slesvig

Many older people will still speak a distinct South Jutlandic dialect, both in towns and rural areas. Younger people and children are more likely to use a dialect-tinted version of Standard Danish, but everything ranging from relatively pure dialect to Standard Danish can be found. Many are able to switch between both varieties. A renewed popular interest in preserving the South Jutlandic dialect has been seen in recent years. This revival has been fuelled by the works of several local artists and authors as well as Æ Synnejysk Forening, a society working for the promotion of the dialect. Several schools now offer the dialect as an optional subject, but ''Rigsdansk'', the official Danish, remains a compulsory subject. Members of the South Jutlandic minority on the German side of the border tend to emphasize their South Jutlandic identity. Many members of this minority are in one way or another connected with agriculture, the dialect being more prevalent in rural communities. The German minority usually speak South Jutlandic with each other and with Danish-minded people alike, but prefer German for writing and official occasions such as meetings. Standard Danish is mastered as well and is taught in schools, along with Standard German.


Southern Slesvig

South Jutlandic is still spoken to some degree in villages up to about 15 km south of the Danish-German border, but hardly in the major city of Flensburg, where the Danish speakers speak Standard Danish. Most people will be able to speak or understand Low German and sometimes North Frisian. All will know High German, often being the only language of young people and children. Members of the Danish minority are taught Standard Danish as well in schools, but often choose to communicate in German in everyday life. Language, especially spoken language, is not necessarily linked with national identification. Family ties and informal local contact across the border used to be very common, with South Jutlandic being the first language of both Danish-minded and German-minded people. Sometimes, the purest South Jutlandic may be found among older people who identify as German. Since they have not attended Danish schools, their speech is not influenced by Standard Danish. With urbanisation in the recent decades, the crisscross of dialects and national sentiment has faded, with High German becoming the first choice everywhere, but some South Jutlandic words are often retained in the vocabulary.


History

Historically, the Danish language had a much larger extension in South Slesvig than today. South Jutlandic was spoken down to the
Danevirke The Danevirke or Danework (modern Danish language, Danish spelling: ''Dannevirke''; in Old Norse language, Old Norse: ''Danavirki'', in German language, German: ''Danewerk'', literally meaning ''Earthworks (archaeology), earthwork of the Danes'') ...
wall south of Schleswig town, close to the Viking town of Hedeby, and to Eckernförde on the east coast. South of this was a sparsely inhabited area which after the
Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...
became populated with
Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
settlers whose language is now better known as
Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
. The western islands and the west coast were settled by
Frisians The Frisians () are an ethnic group indigenous to the German Bight, coastal regions of the Netherlands, north-western Germany and southern Denmark. They inhabit an area known as Frisia and are concentrated in the Dutch provinces of Friesland an ...
. A little further inland Frisians and Danes were mixed. With the
reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major Theology, theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the p ...
in the 16th century the national language was installed in church instead of Latin. In Slesvig this meant not the language of the peasantry, but that of the dukes and gentry, being first Low German and later High German. German was the language of administration in all of Slesvig. In Northern Slesvig, however, priests were educated at the chapter of
Haderslev Haderslev (; ) is a Denmark, Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark with a population of 22,405 (1 January 2025).plebiscite A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a direct vote by the electorate (rather than their representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either binding (resulting in the adoption of a new policy) or adv ...
in 1920. During the 17th and the 18th centuries, the population in the area south of the Schlei (Sli) inlet switched to Low German, few details being known about their former South Jutlandic dialect. The people of
Angeln Angeln (; ) is a peninsula on the Baltic Sea, Baltic coast of Jutland, in the Bay of Kiel. It forms part of Southern Schleswig, the northernmost region of Germany. The peninsula is bounded on the north by the Flensburg Firth, which separates it ...
(Danish ''Angel''), the countryside between Flensburg and the Schlei where the Angles who settled England also originally came from, kept to their South Jutlandic dialect for a longer time, but often had some knowledge of
Low German Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
as well. The Angel dialect became extinct around 1900. A few records of it exist and show that it was similar to the South Jutlandic of the
Sønderborg (; ) is a Denmark, Danish town in the Region of Southern Denmark. It is the main town and the administrative seat of Sønderborg Municipality (Kommune). The town has a population of 28,333 (1 January 2025),Flensborg Fjord. The Low German dialect of Angel still has a great deal of Danish words and grammatical influence, which makes it difficult to understand for other Low German speakers. During the 19th century the South Jutlandic dialect had a status inferior to Low German, and parents started to encourage their children to speak Low German, so they would be better prepared for school, where education was in High German. Some scholars assume that centuries with German spoken in church made people identify with the German nationality, even if they still spoke a Danish vernacular at home. The Danish government, for political reasons, wished to halt this
language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, 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 ...
from Danish to German. After the
First War of Schleswig The First Schleswig War (), also known as the Schleswig-Holstein uprising () and the Three Years' War (), was a military conflict in southern Denmark and northern Germany rooted in the Schleswig–Holstein question: who should control the Duc ...
, in 1851, the government issued the Slesvig Language Rescripts, ordering the school language to be Danish in areas where the peasantry spoke Danish and even in an area stretching further south, into the Low German speaking area. Church language would alternate between Danish and German. Standard Danish had never been widely used in South Slesvig even where the populace spoke a Danish dialect. The dominant official language was German, and the measures of the government had quite the adverse effect, reinforcing anti-Danish sentiment. A pattern emerged, with the poorest in rural areas sticking to South Jutlandic, the wealthier peasants speaking Low German as the ''
lingua franca A lingua franca (; ; for plurals see ), also known as a bridge language, common language, trade language, auxiliary language, link language or language of wider communication (LWC), is a Natural language, language systematically used to make co ...
'' and the educated townsmen speaking High German. A variety of South Jutlandic was spoken until the 1940s in an area west of the town of Schleswig, 40 km south of the present border. Called ''Fjoldedansk'' after the village Fjolde (German: Viöl) or ''sydslesvigsk'' (southern Schleswigian), the dialect had many archaic features otherwise lost in Danish, such as verbs fully inflected in person and number. The village was isolated between surrounding moorland, creating a
language island A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Many speakers of these languages als ...
, similar to the case of the
Saterland Frisian language Saterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian, Saterfrisian or Saterlandic ( ), spoken in the Saterland municipality of Lower Saxony in Germany, is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other Frisian ...
.


Place names

Place names in South Slesvig are of almost exclusively Danish origin, except in North Frisia and the southernmost area. Typical Scandinavian endings include ''-by, -bøl, -trup, -lund, -ved, -toft'' (in German form: ''-by, -büll, -trup, -lund, -witt, -toft''). In some cases the South Jutlandic form has been eradicated from the Standard Danish variety of the name, but is still visible in the Germanised version:Stednavne
In many other cases the Germanised versions are out of
etymological Etymology ( ) is the study of the origin and evolution of words—including their constituent units of sound and meaning—across time. In the 21st century a subfield within linguistics, etymology has become a more rigorously scientific study. ...
context. Examples include the Danish ending ''-næs'' (peninsula) being replaced by ''-nitz'', an unrelated Slavic ending which is common in eastern Germany. Such arbitrary translations were often made by the central Prussian government after the whole of Slesvig was ceded to
Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...
after the war of 1864. The South Jutlandic name of the town of
Schleswig The Duchy of Schleswig (; ; ; ; ; ) was a duchy in Southern Jutland () covering the area between about 60 km (35 miles) north and 70 km (45 mi) south of the current border between Germany and Denmark. The territory has been di ...
(Slesvig), from which the region derives its name, was ''Sljasvig'' with the stress on the second syllable.


References


External links


Æ Synnejysk Forening, society promoting the dialect

Hip-hop artist singing in South Jutlandic

Film in South Jutlandic, trailer
{{Authority control Danish dialects Languages of Denmark Languages of Germany