Resumen de German minority children in the Danish border region: Code‐switching and interference
Children from the German minority in Denmark are among the informants in a longitudinal sociolinguistic research project in the Danish‐German border region. Most of the children have the southern Jutland dialect, which is a Danish dialect, as their L1. They pick up German as L2 in the German kindergarten from the age of 3 and in the German school where they are taught in German as if it were the children's mother tongue. This fact results in code‐switching and interference in some cases and a few examples are described. In a minority where two languages serve as media of communication we suggest that code‐switching and interference are manifestations of linguistic creativity with bilingual children. They dare speak two languages and the two codes do not seem to have an inhibitory effect on their narrative skill. The children have a functional regional bilingualism.
