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  • Chapter 34 - Minority Germanic Languages

  • from Part V - Language Contact and Nonstandard Varieties
  • Edited by Michael T. Putnam, Pennsylvania State University, B. Richard Page, Pennsylvania State University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Handbook of Germanic Linguistics
    Published online:
    31 March 2020
    Print publication:
    16 April 2020, pp 807-832

  • Summary

    This chapter centers on the sociolinguistic situation of Germanic languages spoken in minority communities around the world. Following a descriptive typology formulated by a geographer (White 1987) and a social psychologist (Edwards 1992, 2004), 21 Germanic minority languages are analyzed with an eye to understanding which external factors promote their maintenance or lead to a shift to a majority language. Special attention is paid to the most successful cases of minority language maintenance, which are found in highly traditional Anabaptist Christian and orthodox Jewish communities. The Germanic heritage languages of these groups are not only surviving, they are growing at rates not matched by any other language, large or small, in the world.