Youth in Denmark
The use of English is frequent among young people under 25. English is the predominant second language and is in the school curriculum from the first grade. Roughly 90% of 15- to 21-year-olds speak English with other Danes at least once per week. Youth code switch from Danish to English with friends and classmates. English phrases or words are spoken in between Danish words. Codeswitching is a marker of youth identity and sign of opposition to adult culture. Youth use their language style to differ from adults.
Language shift
In Southern Schleswig, an area that belonged to Denmark until the Second Schleswig War 1864, there was from the 17th and up to the 20th centuries 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 merchants. 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. So 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.