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 Danish Duchy of Schleswig until 1864, since then to Germany.
Characteristic of Angel Danish was, among other things, the tonal pitch accent (like in the Danish dialects of Als and Langeland as well as in Swedish and Norwegian) and the fricative for the hard G (like today in the Angel Low German). There were also elevations from /o/ to /u/ (instead of Danish honning it was hunne in Angel Danish, cf. Icelandic hunang). There were also older Nordic forms such as hvénner (German wenn, Danish hvornår, Old Norse hvenær), mjølk (German Milch, Danish mælk, Old Norse mjólk) or gut (German Junge, Danish dreng, Norwegian gutt). However, there were also adoptions from German such as teller (Danish tallerken) or hunger (Danish sult).[1]
The dialect has never been an official school or church language.[2] In the 18th and 19th centuries, Angel Danish was increasingly replaced by Low and High German. The last record of the dialect was made in northern Angeln in the 1930s. A travelogue from 1813 documents the language change from Angel Danish to German in Swania in the first half of the 19th century.[3]
- ^ Eiler Henning Hagerup: Om det danske Sprog i Angel. Copenhagen 1867
- ^ In 1730, a pastor from Germany complained about his church members in Hürup/Hyrup with the following words: "Habe ich euch Teufelsgemeinde und Höllenbrände nicht Deutsch reden lehren wollen? Was hilft es aber, dieses Teufelsgesinde bleibt immer bey ihrer tollen dänischen Sprache, im Hause, unter sich, und allenthalben." In: Karl Nielsen Bock: Niederdeutsch auf dänischem Substrat, Copenhagen 1933, p. 262
- ^ „Die Landschaft auf der südlichen Seite der Schley heißt Schwansen [...] Die Einwohner sind hier ebenfalls ächte Dänen, wenn auch ihre Mundart von einem Kopenhagener oder Norweger nicht leicht verstanden wird. [...] Jetzt hört die Dänische Sprache auch beym Landvolke auf und die Plattdeutsche tritt ausschließlich an deren Stelle.“ From: Peter Treschow Hanson: Reise durch einen Theil von Sachsen und Dänemark in den letztverflossenen Jahren, Altona 1813, p. 299, 300 (GB)