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114-678: Sylt ( German pronunciation: [ˈzʏlt] ; Danish : Sild ; Söl'ring North Frisian : Söl ) is an island in northern Germany , part of Nordfriesland district, Schleswig-Holstein , well known for the distinctive shape of its shoreline. It belongs to the North Frisian Islands and is the largest island in North Frisia . The northernmost island of Germany, it is known for its tourist resorts, notably Westerland , Kampen and Wenningstedt-Braderup , as well as for its 40-kilometre-long (25-mile) sandy beach. It

228-429: A "difficult language to learn, acquire and understand", and some evidence shows that children are slower to acquire the phonological distinctions of Danish compared with other languages. The grammar is moderately inflective with strong (irregular) and weak (regular) conjugations and inflections. Nouns, adjectives, and demonstrative pronouns distinguish common and neutral gender. Like English, Danish only has remnants of

342-413: A cove's headlands , by the process of longshore drift by longshore currents. The drift occurs due to waves meeting the beach at an oblique angle, moving sediment down the beach in a zigzag pattern. This is complemented by longshore currents, which further transport sediment through the water alongside the beach. These currents are caused by the same waves that cause the drift. Where the direction of

456-671: A dialect of insular North Frisian , with elements of Danish , Dutch and English . The island has a museum called Altfriesisches Haus (Sölring Museen, Altfriesisches Haus in Keitum). Today, only a small fraction of the population still speak Söl'ring. A law to promote the language ( Friesisch-Gesetz ) was passed in 2004. The northernmost part of the island, Listland , was traditionally Danish-speaking. As in many areas in Schleswig-Holstein on New Year's Eve , groups of children go masked from house to house, reciting poems. This

570-417: A direction other than obliquely along the spit will halt the growth of the spit, shorten it, or eventually destroy it entirely. The sediments that make up spits come from a variety of sources including rivers and eroding bluffs, and changes there can have a major effect on spits and other coastal landforms. Activities such as logging and farming upstream can increase the sediment load of rivers, which may hurt

684-577: A former case system , particularly in the pronouns. Unlike English, it has lost all person marking on verbs. Its word order is V2 , with the finite verb always occupying the second slot in the sentence. Danish is a Germanic language of the North Germanic branch . Other names for this group are the Nordic or Scandinavian languages. Along with Swedish, Danish descends from the Eastern dialects of

798-510: A fortress, with concrete bunkers built below the dunes at the shore, some of which are still visible today. Lager Sylt , the concentration camp on Alderney was named after the island. Rudolf Höss hid on the island after Nazi Germany 's defeat, but he was later captured and brought to trial in Poland. Today, Sylt is mainly a tourist destination, famous for its sandy beaches and healthy climate. The 40 km-long (25 mi) west beach has

912-526: A literary language. Also in this period, Danish began to take on the linguistic traits that differentiate it from Swedish and Norwegian, such as the stød , the voicing of many stop consonants, and the weakening of many final vowels to /e/. The first printed book in Danish dates from 1495, the Rimkrøniken ( Rhyming Chronicle ), a history book told in rhymed verses. The first complete translation of

1026-475: A merger of the Sylt-Ost municipality with the town of Westerland on 1 January 2009. Various interest groups hope to merge every island municipality into one governing body. Six municipalities are situated along the west coast of Sylt. List in the very north of the island constitutes Germany's northernmost municipality; it retained a certain independence due to its remote location and its long-time adherence to

1140-707: A number of Danes remained as a minority within German territories . After the occupation of Denmark by Germany in World War II, the 1948 orthography reform dropped the German-influenced rule of capitalizing nouns, and introduced the letter ⟨å⟩ . Three 20th-century Danish authors have become Nobel Prize laureates in Literature : Karl Gjellerup and Henrik Pontoppidan (joint recipients in 1917) and Johannes V. Jensen (awarded 1944). With

1254-496: A number of surf schools and also a nude section. The PWA World Tour Windsurf World Cup Sylt, established in 1984, is annually held at Westerland's beach front. Sylt is also popular for second home owners, and many German celebrities who own vacation homes on "the island". At the beginning of the 20th century, the bathing beaches on Sylt were segregated by sex into "ladies' bath" ( Damenbad ) and "men's bath" ( Herrenbad ); one bathed in long bathing dresses of that time period. From

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1368-582: A process which is still ongoing today. The northern and southern spits of Sylt are exclusively made up of infertile sand deposits, while the central part with the municipalities of Westerland , Wenningstedt-Braderup and Sylt-Ost consists of a geestland core, which becomes apparent in the form of the Red Cliff of Wenningstedt. The geestland facing the Wadden Sea gradually turns into fertile marshland around Sylt-Ost. Sylt has only been an island since

1482-482: A similarity in pronunciation, combined with the long tradition of having Danish as a written language, which has led to similarities in vocabulary. Among younger Danes, Copenhageners are worse at understanding Swedish than Danes from the provinces. In general, younger Danes are not as good at understanding the neighboring languages as the young in Norway and Sweden. The Danish philologist Johannes Brøndum-Nielsen divided

1596-586: A so-called multiethnolect in the urban areas, an immigrant Danish variety (also known as Perkerdansk ), combining elements of different immigrant languages such as Arabic, Turkish, and Kurdish, as well as English and Danish. Within the Danish Realm , Danish is the national language of Denmark and one of two official languages of the Faroe Islands (alongside Faroese ). There is a Faroese variant of Danish known as Gøtudanskt . Until 2009, Danish

1710-625: A variant of Standard Danish, Southern Schleswig Danish , is spoken in the area. Since 2015, Schleswig-Holstein has officially recognized Danish as a regional language , just as German is north of the border. Furthermore, Danish is one of the official languages of the European Union and one of the working languages of the Nordic Council . Under the Nordic Language Convention , Danish-speaking citizens of

1824-407: A very large vowel inventory consisting of 27 phonemically distinctive vowels , and its prosody is characterized by the distinctive phenomenon stød , a kind of laryngeal phonation type . Due to the many pronunciation differences that set Danish apart from its neighboring languages, particularly the vowels, difficult prosody and "weakly" pronounced consonants, it is sometimes considered to be

1938-528: Is 8.5 °C (47°F). The annually averaged wind speed measures 6.7 m/s (15 mph), predominantly from western directions. The annual rainfall amounts to about 650 millimetres (25½"). Since 1937 weather data are collected at Deutscher Wetterdienst 's northernmost station on a dune near List , which has meanwhile become automated. A number of commercial meteorological services like Meteomedia AG operate stations in List too. Sylt features an oceanic climate that

2052-700: Is a West Germanic language descended from Old English. Old Norse exerted a strong influence on Old English in the early medieval period. The shared Germanic heritage of Danish and English is demonstrated with many common words that are very similar in the two languages. For example, when written, commonly used Danish verbs, nouns, and prepositions such as have , over , under , for , give , flag , salt , and arm are easily recognizable to English speakers. Similarly, some other words are almost identical to their Scots equivalents, e.g. kirke (Scots kirk , i.e., 'church') or barn (Scots and northern English bairn , i.e. 'child'). In addition,

2166-599: Is a former municipality which was formed in 1970 out of several small villages on the Nössehalbinsel of Sylt. The population (as of 2000) was 5,500. The villages included Tinnum , Munkmarsch , Archsum , Morsum and Keitum . In 2009, Sylt-Ost merged with Westerland and Rantum to form Gemeinde Sylt . Geographically, Sylt was originally part of Jutland (today Schleswig-Holstein and mainland Denmark ), with evidence of human habitation going back to 3000 BC at Denghoog . The first settlements of Frisians appeared during

2280-780: Is called the proximal end, and the end jutting out into water is called the distal end. There is debate as to the longest spit in the world, with both the Arabat Spit in the Sea of Azov and the Younghusband Peninsula in South Australia approximately 110 kilometres (68 mi) long. Alternatively, with the natural closing of the Roanoke inlet in 1811, Bodie Island in North Carolina may qualify as

2394-403: Is currently provided by federal German, Schleswig-Holstein state and EU funds. Since 1972, an estimated 35.5 million cubic metres (46.4 million cu. yd.) of sand have been flushed ashore and dumped on Sylt. The measures have so far cost more than €134 million in total, but according to scientific calculations they are sufficient to prevent further loss of land for at least three decades, so

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2508-693: Is divided into two administrative bodies: the Amt Landschaft Sylt administers all municipalities on the island, save for the Gemeinde Sylt , which was established in 2009 from the formerly independent municipalities of Westerland , Rantum and Sylt-Ost . As of December 2007, Sylt had 21,190 inhabitants, 9,072 of whom living in Westerland. These numbers do not include owners of summer residences. A referendum held in May 2008 resulted in

2622-526: Is frequently covered by the media in connection with its exposed situation in the North Sea and its ongoing loss of land during storm tides . Since 1927, Sylt has been connected to the mainland by the Hindenburgdamm causeway. In later years, it has been a resort for the German jet set and tourists in search of occasional celebrity sightings. With 99.14 square kilometres (38.28 square miles), Sylt

2736-543: Is influenced by the Gulf Stream . On average, the winter season is slightly warmer than in mainland Nordfriesland. The summer season, however, is cooler despite longer sunshine periods. The yearly average sunshine period is greater than 4.4 hours per day with some years exceeding the average sunshine for all of Germany. Also precipitation is lower than on the mainland. This is due to the low relief of Sylt's shoreline where clouds are not able to accumulate and rain off. Sylt

2850-430: Is its closest relative. East Germanic languages West Germanic languages Icelandic Faroese Norwegian Danish Swedish Approximately 2,000 uncompounded Danish words are derived from Old Norse and ultimately from Proto Indo-European . Of these 2,000, 1,200 are nouns, 500 are verbs and 180 are adjectives. Danish has also absorbed many loanwords , most of which were borrowed from Low German of

2964-406: Is known as "Rummelpottlaufen", and as a reward, children receive sweets or money. Sylt also features many Frisian-style houses with thatched roofs . Since the mid-18th century, the vowel in the name of the island has been represented as "y" for unknown reasons, while older spellings are Sildt and Silt , allegedly derived from Danish sild " herring ", or maybe related to English silt . Sylt

3078-476: Is mentioned in a pangram , a sentence that uses every letter in the German alphabet, including every umlaut (ä, ö, ü) plus the ß: Victor jagt zwölf Boxkämpfer quer über den großen Sylter Deich ("Victor chases twelve boxers across the Great Levee of Sylt"). Among the first painters who discovered Sylt as a theme were Eugen Dücker and Eugen Bracht . Franz Korwan followed them. The painter Andreas Dirks

3192-401: Is not interrupted, and the spit is not breached by the sea (or, if across an estuary, the river), the spit may become a bar , with both ends joined to land, and form a lagoon behind the bar. If an island lies offshore near where the coast changes direction, and the spit continues to grow until it connects the island to the mainland, it is called a tombolo . The end of a spit attached to land

3306-634: Is only 320 metres (1,050 feet) wide. Its greatest width, from the town of Westerland in the west to the eastern Nössespitze near Morsum , measures 12.6 kilometres (7.8 miles). On the western and northwestern shore, there is a 40-kilometre-long (25-mile) sandy beach. To the east of Sylt, is the Wadden Sea , which belongs to the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park and mostly falls dry during low tide . The island's shape has constantly shifted over time,

3420-498: Is the fourth-largest German island and the largest German island in the North Sea . Sylt is located from 9 to 16 kilometres (6–10 miles) off the mainland, to which it is connected by the Hindenburgdamm . Southeast of Sylt are the islands of Föhr and Amrum , to the north lies the Danish island of Rømø . The island of Sylt extends for 38 kilometres (24 miles) in a north-south direction. At its northern point at Königshafen , it

3534-432: Is thought to result in increasing storm activity, which would result in increased land loss and, as a first impact, might mean the end of property insurance. Measurements showed that, unlike in former times, the wave energy of the sea is no longer lost offshore, today it carries its destructive effects on to the beaches proper. This will result in an annual loss of sand of 1.1 million m³ (1.4 million cu. yd.). The dunes of

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3648-412: Is used for land reclamation . Also the grazing of sheep on the sea dikes and heaths of Sylt eventually serves coastal management, since the animals keep the vegetation short and compress the soil with their hooves. Thus they help create a denser dike surface, which in case of storm surges provides less area for the waves to impact. The flora of Sylt is shaped by the island's original sparseness. Until

3762-436: The skarre-R , the uvular R sound ( [ʁ] ), began spreading through Denmark, likely through influence from Parisian French and German. It affected all of the areas where Danish had been influential, including all of Denmark, Southern Sweden, and coastal southern Norway. In the 18th century, Danish philology was advanced by Rasmus Rask , who pioneered the disciplines of comparative and historical linguistics, and wrote

3876-471: The Grote Mandrenke flood of 1362. The so-called Uwe-Düne (Uwe Dune) is the island's highest elevation with 52.5 metres (172.2 feet) above sea level . The island in its current form has only existed for about 400 years. Like the mainland geestland , it was formed of moraines from the older ice ages , thus being made up of a till core, which is now apparent in the island's west and centre by

3990-623: The Bible in Danish, the Bible of Christian II translated by Christiern Pedersen , was published in 1550. Pedersen's orthographic choices set the de facto standard for subsequent writing in Danish. From around 1500, several printing presses were in operation in Denmark publishing in Danish and other languages. In the period after 1550, presses in Copenhagen dominated the publication of material in

4104-825: The Curonian Lagoon from the Baltic Sea ; it is 98 km long (61 mi). In a similar fashion, the Vistula Spit separates the Vistula Lagoon from the Gdańsk Bay off the coast of Poland . Zlatni Rat , a popular pebble beach jutting southward from the harbor town of Bol , on the Croatian island of Brač , is formed by Adriatic currents flowing east and west through the Hvar Channel , along

4218-558: The Kamchatka peninsula in Siberia . The undemanding rose met ideal conditions on Sylt and spread so quickly that it is now a common sight on the island. Its proliferation is viewed critically from a biological point of view, since it threatens to displace endangered local species, especially on the heaths. The ample heaths on the eastern side of the island provide habitats for many rare species of plants and animals which are adapted to

4332-570: The Late Middle Ages . Out of the 500 most frequently used Danish words, 100 are loans from Middle Low German; this is because Low German was the second official language of Denmark–Norway. In the 17th and 18th centuries, standard German and French superseded Low German influence, and in the 20th century, English became the main supplier of loanwords, especially after World War II . Although many old Nordic words remain, some were replaced with borrowed synonyms, for example æde (to eat)

4446-523: The Old Norse language ; Danish and Swedish are also classified as East Scandinavian or East Nordic languages. Scandinavian languages are often considered a dialect continuum , where no sharp dividing lines are seen between the different vernacular languages. Like Norwegian and Swedish, Danish was significantly influenced by Low German in the Middle Ages, and has been influenced by English since

4560-688: The Viking Era . Danish, together with Swedish, derives from the East Norse dialect group , while the Middle Norwegian language (before the influence of Danish) and Norwegian Bokmål are classified as West Norse along with Faroese and Icelandic . A more recent classification based on mutual intelligibility separates modern spoken Danish, Norwegian , and Swedish as "mainland (or continental ) Scandinavian", while Icelandic and Faroese are classified as "insular Scandinavian". Although

4674-544: The Zealand dialect Introductio ad lingvam Danicam puta selandicam ; and in 1685 the first Danish grammar written in Danish, Den Danske Sprog-Kunst ("The Art of the Danish Language") by Peder Syv . Major authors from this period are Thomas Kingo , poet and psalmist, and Leonora Christina Ulfeldt , whose novel Jammersminde ( Remembered Woes ) is considered a literary masterpiece by scholars. Orthography

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4788-402: The introduction of the printing press , a standard language was developed which was based on the educated dialect of Copenhagen and Malmö . It spread through use in the education system and administration, though German and Latin continued to be the most important written languages well into the 17th century. Following the loss of territory to Germany and Sweden, a nationalist movement adopted

4902-555: The natterjack toad , endangered in Germany, has one of Germany's largest populations here. Their spawning places are wet dune slacks and shallow, short-lived pools. For a habitat they prefer sandy areas with vegetation, but the species has also been observed on the top of the Uwe Dune. The main threat for this species on Sylt is road traffic. The many water birds and other coastal avians that have their hatching grounds on Sylt or use

5016-475: The 1950s and 1960s, was famous in Germany for attracting celebrities, Wenningstedt has been known as a "family resort" for more than 100 years. Since 1855, the prominent black and white Kampen Lighthouse has been located between Kampen and Wenningstedt; it is the oldest one on the island. East of there, the Braderuper Heide nature reserve is situated. Right south of Wenningstedt are the town limits of

5130-448: The 19th century, tourism began. Westerland replaced Keitum as the capital. During World War I , Sylt became a military outpost. On 25 March 1916, British seaplanes bombed the German airship sheds on Sylt. The main connection for tourists was boats from Højer . Since Højer was ceded to Denmark in 1920, a rail causeway to the mainland was built in 1927, the Hindenburgdamm , named after Paul von Hindenburg . During World War II , Sylt became

5244-572: The 8th century and 9th century. In 1386, Sylt was divided between the Duke of Schleswig and the King of Denmark; except for the village of List, Sylt became part of the Duchy of Schleswig in 1435. During the 17th and 18th century, whaling , fishing and oyster breeding increased the wealth of the population. At this time, Keitum became the capital of the island, and a place for rich captains to settle down. In

5358-579: The 9th century with the younger futhark . Possibly as far back as the seventh century, the common Norse language began to undergo changes that did not spread to all of Scandinavia, resulting in the appearance of two dialect areas, Old West Norse ( Norway and Iceland ) and Old East Norse ( Denmark and Sweden ). Most of the changes separating East Norse from West Norse started as innovations in Denmark, that spread through Scania into Sweden and by maritime contact to southern Norway. A change that separated Old East Norse (Runic Swedish/Danish) from Old West Norse

5472-594: The Danish language, and also started a period of homogenization, whereby the Copenhagen standard language gradually displaced the regional vernacular languages. Throughout the 19th century, Danes emigrated, establishing small expatriate communities in the Americas, particularly in the United States, Canada, and Argentina, where memory and some use of Danish remains today. After the Schleswig referendum in 1920 ,

5586-517: The Danish language. Herrer og Narre have frit Sprog . "Lords and jesters have free speech." Peder Syv , proverbs Following the first Bible translation, the development of Danish as a written language , as a language of religion, administration, and public discourse accelerated. In the second half of the 17th century, grammarians elaborated grammars of Danish, first among them Rasmus Bartholin 's 1657 Latin grammar De studio lingvæ danicæ ; then Laurids Olufsen Kock 's 1660 grammar of

5700-407: The Danish tongue." Heimskringla by Snorri Sturluson By the eighth century, the common Germanic language of Scandinavia, Proto-Norse , had undergone some changes and evolved into Old Norse . This language was generally called the "Danish tongue" ( Dǫnsk tunga ), or "Norse language" ( Norrœnt mál ). Norse was written in the runic alphabet , first with the elder futhark and from

5814-647: The Faroe Islands , and the northern German region of Southern Schleswig , where it has minority language status. Minor Danish-speaking communities are also found in Norway , Sweden , the United States , Canada , Brazil , and Argentina . Along with the other North Germanic languages, Danish is a descendant of Old Norse , the common language of the Germanic peoples who lived in Scandinavia during

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5928-524: The Hörnum west beach in 2005. Since the early 1970s, the only effective means so far has been flushing sand onto the shore. Dredging vessels are used to pump a mixture of sand and water to a beach where it is spread by bulldozers. Thus storm floods would only erase the artificial accumulation of sand, while the shoreline proper remains intact and erosion is slowed down. This procedure incurs considerable costs. The required budget of an annual € 10 million

6042-436: The Nordic countries have the opportunity to use their native language when interacting with official bodies in other Nordic countries without being liable for any interpretation or translation costs. Spit (landform) A spit ( cognate with the word for a rotisserie bar) or sandspit is a deposition bar or beach landform off coasts or lake shores. It develops in places where re-entrance occurs, such as at

6156-710: The Old Norse word for "island". This monophthongization started in Jutland and spread eastward, having spread throughout Denmark and most of Sweden by 1100. Through Danish conquest, Old East Norse was once widely spoken in the northeast counties of England . Many words derived from Norse, such as "gate" ( gade ) for street, still survive in Yorkshire , the East Midlands and East Anglia, and parts of eastern England colonized by Danish Vikings . The city of York

6270-418: The area emanates from that custom, marking a great dune where booths ( German : Buden ) stood in former times to serve as shelters. This southern headland, called Odde , is marked by continuous loss of land. Each year great amounts of sand are washed away by storm floods and coastal management has not yet seen sustainable effects in the area, so that further losses have to be expected. Sylt-Ost ( East Sylt )

6384-600: The area, eventually outnumbering the Danish speakers. The political loss of territory sparked a period of intense nationalism in Denmark, coinciding with the so-called " Golden Age " of Danish culture. Authors such as N.F.S. Grundtvig emphasized the role of language in creating national belonging. Some of the most cherished Danish-language authors of this period are existential philosopher Søren Kierkegaard and prolific fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen . The influence of popular literary role models, together with increased requirements of education did much to strengthen

6498-616: The beginning of the 20th century - starting from the Free German Youth camp Klappholttal and the intellectuals and artists in the village of Kampen - a social movement developed that lived a beach life without clothing (part of the German Freikörperkultur - FKK and Lebensreform movement). The first official nude bathing beach in Germany was opened on Sylt in 1920. Nude bathing and sunbathing (also erroneously referred to as "nudist" or "nudism") spread over

6612-502: The benefits for the island's economic power and for the economically underdeveloped region in general would outweigh the costs. In the 1995 study Klimafolgen für Mensch und Küste am Beispiel der Nordseeinsel Sylt (Climate impact for Man and Shores as seen on the North Sea island Sylt), it reads: "Hätte Sylt nicht das Image einer attraktiven Ferieninsel, gäbe es den Küstenschutz in der bestehenden Form gewiss nicht" (If Sylt did not have

6726-399: The cliff, dunes and beach. This sandy core began to erode as it was exposed to a strong current along the island's steep basement when the sea level rose 8000 years ago. During the process, sediments were accumulated north and south of the island. The west coast, which was originally situated 10 kilometres (6 miles) off today's shore, was thus gradually moved eastward, while at the same time

6840-436: The complementary process of littoral drift, the bar would not build above the surface of the waves becoming a spit and would instead be leveled off underwater. Spits occur when longshore drift reaches a section of headland where the turn is greater than 30 degrees. The spit will continue out into the sea until water pressure (e.g. from a river) becomes too great to allow the sand to deposit. Vegetation may then start to grow on

6954-460: The current characteristic shape of Sylt. It is the northern and southern edges of Sylt which were, and still are, the subject of greatest change. For example, Listland was separated from the rest of the island in the 14th century and from the later 17th century onwards the Königshafen (King's Harbour) began to silt up as the "elbow" spit began to form. In addition to the constant loss of land,

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7068-574: The desired effect of stopping the erosion caused by crossways currents. " Leeward erosion", i.e. erosion on the downwind side of the groynes prevented sustainable accumulation of sand. In the 1960s, breaking the power of the sea was attempted by installing tetrapods along the groyne bases or by putting them into the sea like groynes. The four-armed structures, built in France and many tons in weight, were too heavy for Sylt's beaches and were equally unable to prevent erosion. Therefore, they were removed from

7182-526: The entire island. "Sylt" was associated with nude bathing and the ideal environment for supporters of the Freikörperkultur (FKK) . Since the 1960s, there have been designated nudist beaches (marked FKK-Strand ) with names such as "Abyssinia", "Samoa" or "Zanzibar" on the entire west beach. The most famous nudist beach on Sylt became the " Groyne 16" ( Buhne 16 ) in Kampen through regular reports in

7296-508: The exclusive use of rigsdansk , the High Copenhagen Standard, in national broadcasting, the traditional dialects came under increased pressure. In the 20th century, they have all but disappeared, and the standard language has extended throughout the country. Minor regional pronunciation variation of the standard language, sometimes called regionssprog ("regional languages") remain, and are in some cases vital. Today,

7410-473: The extreme conditions such as drought, warmth, wind. About 2,500 animal species and 150 species of plants have so far been recorded. 45% of those plants are on the IUCN Red List . Especially notable are the 600 species of butterflies that live in the heaths, small tortoiseshell , brimstone , painted lady and peacock butterfly among them. With several thousand individuals in the dune belt of Sylt,

7524-451: The first English-language grammar of Danish. Literary Danish continued to develop with the works of Ludvig Holberg , whose plays and historical and scientific works laid the foundation for the Danish literary canon. With the Danish colonization of Greenland by Hans Egede , Danish became the administrative and religious language there, while Iceland and the Faroe Islands had the status of Danish colonies with Danish as an official language until

7638-426: The history of Danish into a period from 800 AD to 1525 to be "Old Danish", which he subdivided into "Runic Danish" (800–1100), Early Middle Danish (1100–1350) and Late Middle Danish (1350–1525). Móðir Dyggva var Drótt, dóttir Danps konungs, sonar Rígs er fyrstr var konungr kallaðr á danska tungu . " Dyggvi 's mother was Drott, the daughter of king Danp, Ríg 's son, who was the first to be called king in

7752-399: The image of an attractive holiday island, coastal management in its current form would certainly not exist). The enforcement of a natural reef off Sylt is being discussed as an alternative solution. A first experiment was conducted from 1996 to 2003. A sand drainage as being successfully used on Danish islands is not likely to work on Sylt owing to the underwater slope here. In parallel to

7866-539: The inhabitants during the Little Ice Age were constrained by sand drift. Dunes shifting to the east threatened settlements and arable land and had to be stopped by the planting of marram grass in the 18th century. Consequently, though, material breaking off the island was increasingly washed away and the island's extent continued to decrease. Records of the annual land loss exist since 1870. According to them, Sylt lost an annual 0.4 metres (16 inches) of land in

7980-404: The intertidal environments around spits by smothering delicate habitats. Roads or bulkheads built along bluffs can drastically reduce the volume of sediment eroded, so that not enough material is being pushed along to maintain the spit. If the supply of sediment is interrupted the sand at the neck (landward end) of the spit may be moved towards the head, eventually creating an island. If the supply

8094-401: The island began to extend to the north and south. After the ice ages, marshland began to form around this geestland core. In 1141, Sylt is recorded as an island, yet before the Grote Mandrenke flood it belonged to a landscape cut by tidal creeks and, at least during low tide, it could be reached on foot. It is only since this flood that the creation of a spit from sediments began to form

8208-624: The island constitute nature reserves and may only be traversed on marked tracks. So called "wild paths" promote erosion and are not to be followed. Where vegetation is tread upon, no roots are left to hold the sand and it will be removed by wind and water. The Wadden Sea on the east side between Sylt and the mainland has been a nature reserve and bird sanctuary since 1935 and is part of the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. The construction of breakwaters in this area will abate sedimentation and

8322-487: The island for resting on their migrations constitute an ornithological feature. There are two notable hatching areas on Sylt, the Königshafen bay with the small island Uthörn in the north and the Rantum basin in the southeast. Birds that hatch on Sylt include black-headed gull , Arctic tern , pied avocet , common redshank , common gull , oystercatcher , northern lapwing , common shelduck and tufted duck . During

8436-439: The island in 1962. Part of the island near Rantum which is only 500 metres (yards) wide is especially threatened. Measures of protection against the continuous erosion date back to the early 19th century when groynes of wooden poles were constructed. Those were built at right angles into the sea from the coast line. Later they were replaced by metal and eventually by armoured concrete groynes. The constructions did not have

8550-408: The island's largest town, Westerland. After the complete destruction of the village Eidum by a storm surge on 1 November 1436, the survivors founded a new village northeast of their old home: Westerland. The name was first recorded in 1462. In 1865, a seaside spa was founded and, 50 years later, Westerland was granted town privileges . In 1949, it was officially recognised as a health resort. In 2007,

8664-414: The island. When the island was connected to the mainland by the causeway, red fox and European badger also became common. West of Sylt a breeding area of harbour porpoises is located. In addition, great numbers of harbour seals and grey seals , the latter being rather uncommon in German seas, can be found on sand banks off Sylt. Numerous associations and societies that care for the exploration and

8778-684: The islands of Sylt and Rømø features prominently in the film. [REDACTED] Sylt travel guide from Wikivoyage Danish language Nordic Council Danish ( / ˈ d eɪ n ɪ ʃ / , DAY -nish ; endonym : dansk pronounced [ˈtænˀsk] , dansk sprog [ˈtænˀsk ˈspʁɔwˀ] ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken by about six million people, principally in and around Denmark . Communities of Danish speakers are also found in Greenland ,

8892-475: The kingdom of Denmark . On its eastern shore, a harbour is located where, in addition to tourist ships, the "Sylt-Express" ferry-boat sails to Havneby on the Danish island of Rømø . Wenningstedt together with Braderup and Kampen used to form the Norddörfer (Northern Villages) municipality, an early intercommunal association, which partly remains today in form of a school union. While Kampen, mainly in

9006-424: The language as a token of Danish identity, and the language experienced a strong surge in use and popularity, with major works of literature produced in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, traditional Danish dialects have all but disappeared, though regional variants of the standard language exist. The main differences in language are between generations, with youth language being particularly innovative. Danish has

9120-547: The language of the courts. Since 1997, public authorities have been obliged to follow the official spelling system laid out in the Orthography Law. In the 21st century, discussions have been held with a view to create a law that would make Danish the official language of Denmark. In addition, a noticeable community of Danish speakers is in Southern Schleswig , the portion of Germany bordering Denmark, and

9234-520: The longest, also measuring in at approximately 70 miles (110 km) to the peninsula's terminus at the Oregon Inlet . The longest spit in a freshwater body of water is Long Point, Ontario , which extends approximately 32 km (20 mi) into Lake Erie . Farewell Spit in New Zealand , at 32 km (20 mi), in the north-west area of South Island , is believed to be caused by

9348-473: The mainland, summer months though, with a median of 17 °C (62°F), are somewhat cooler, despite a longer sunshine period. The annual average sunshine period on Sylt is 4.4 hours per day. It is due to the low relief of the shoreline that Sylt had a total of 1,899 hours of sunshine in 2005, 180 hours above the German average. Clouds cannot accumulate as quickly and are generally scattered by the constant westerly or northwesterly winds. The annual mean temperature

9462-407: The major varieties of Standard Danish are High Copenhagen Standard, associated with elderly, well to-do, and well educated people of the capital, and low Copenhagen speech traditionally associated with the working class, but today adopted as the prestige variety of the younger generations. Also, in the 21st century, the influence of immigration has had linguistic consequences, such as the emergence of

9576-493: The mid 19th century, Sylt was an island almost completely devoid of trees except for small areas of forest and bush created by plantations. Today, one can still recognize the man-made origin of the Friedrichshain and Südwäldchen forests in Westerland where many of the trees stand in rank and file. Also, the now widespread rose Rosa rugosa , known as the "Sylt rose" on the island was imported to Sylt. It originates from

9690-422: The mid-20th century. Moders navn er vort Hjertesprog, kun løs er al fremmed Tale. Det alene i mund og bog, kan vække et folk af dvale. "Mother's name is our hearts' tongue, only idle is all foreign speech It alone, in mouth or in book, can rouse a people from sleep." N.F.S. Grundtvig , "Modersmaalet" Following the loss of Schleswig to Germany, a sharp influx of German speakers moved into

9804-521: The migration, Sylt is a resting spot for thousands of brent geese and shelducks, Eurasian wigeons and common eiders , as well as bar-tailed godwits , red knots , dunlins and Eurasian golden plovers . Ringed plover , common snipe , ruff and other species are less common visitors to the island. Regarding land mammals , there is no significant difference from the neighbouring areas of mainland Nordfriesland. Primarily European hare , rabbit and roe deer can be found and are also hunted as game on

9918-404: The nearby Danish island of Rømø , which offers a road connection to the mainland. Sylt Airport at Westerland serves the region. The island was used during the filming of The Ghost Writer , as an alternate location for Martha's Vineyard , due to the film's director, Roman Polanski being unable to travel to the United States, due to an outstanding arrest warrant for rape. The ferry between

10032-408: The north and 0.7 metres (28 inches) in the south from 1870 to 1951. From 1951 to 1984, the rate increased to 0.9 metres (35 inches) and 1.4 metres (55 inches) respectively, while shorelines at the island's very edges at Hörnum and List are even more affected. Severe storm surges of the last decades have repeatedly endangered Sylt to the point of breaking in two, e.g. Hörnum was temporarily cut off from

10146-447: The ongoing sand flushing, the deliberate demolition of groynes has begun amid great effort at certain beach sections where they were proven largely ineffective. This measure also terminated the presumably most famous groyne of Sylt, Buhne 16 – the namesake of the local naturist beach. A number of experts, however, fears that Sylt will still have to face considerable losses of land until the mid 21st century. The continuous global warming

10260-575: The painters and sculptors Rainer Fetting and Ingo Kühl , who live in Berlin and on Sylt. Sylt is connected to the German mainland by the Hindenburgdamm , a causeway with a railway line on top. The passenger trains connect Westerland (Sylt) to Niebüll or Klanxbüll , and the Deutsche Bahn's "Syltshuttle" as well as RDC's "Autozug Sylt", allow the transfer of cars and trucks between Westerland and Niebüll. There are also car ferry services to

10374-411: The planting of marram grass stopped the dunes and put an end to this threat. To the east, there are a few scattered spots of marshland, but the area is mostly dominated by dunes. Hörnum on the island's southern headland is the youngest village. It was founded shortly after 1900, although the uninhabited southern tip of Sylt was said to serve as refuge for pirates and fishermen. The name Budersand in

10488-715: The protection of endangered animals and plants have branches on Sylt. Among them are the Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research , Verein Jordsand and Wadden Sea Conservation Station . Also the Federal Office for the Environment operates a research station in the dunes at Westerland. On Sylt, a marine climate influenced by the Gulf Stream is predominant. With an average of 2 °C (36°F), winter months are slightly milder than on

10602-472: The shared written standard language remained). With the introduction of absolutism in 1660, the Danish state was further integrated, and the language of the Danish chancellery, a Zealandic variety with German and French influence, became the de facto official standard language , especially in writing—this was the original so-called rigsdansk ("Danish of the Realm"). Also, beginning in the mid-18th century,

10716-412: The shore inland re-enters , or changes direction, for example at a headland , the longshore current spreads out or dissipates. No longer able to carry the full load, much of the sediment is dropped. This is called deposition. This submerged bar of sediment allows longshore drift or littoral drift to continue to transport sediment in the direction the waves are breaking, forming an above-water spit. Without

10830-479: The southern side of the island. The spit bends slightly west or east, changing its direction gradually, depending on the conditions of the tides and weather. Since prehistory humans have chosen certain spit formations as sites for human habitation. In some cases, these sites have been chosen for proximity to marine resource exploitation ; the Chumash Native American prehistorical settlement on

10944-426: The spit, and the spit may become stable and often fertile. A spit may be considered a special form of a shoal . As spits grow, the water behind them is sheltered from wind and waves, and a salt marsh is likely to develop. Wave refraction can occur at the end of a spit, carrying sediment around the end to form a hook or recurved spit. Refraction in multiple directions may create a complex spit. Waves that arrive in

11058-728: The strong prevailing winds and currents, bringing sand eroded from the Southern Alps of the South Island and depositing these into Golden Bay . A well-known spit in the UK is Spurn Point at the Humber ; it is approximately 4.8 km (3.0 mi) long. Another is Chesil Beach in the UK, which connects the Isle of Portland to the mainland. The Curonian Spit , off the coast of Lithuania and Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia , separates

11172-464: The tabloid media. Today the boundaries between nude and textile beaches are becoming more and more blurred. While nude beaches have lost some of their popularity, it is no longer unusual or sensational to bathe or sunbathe on "normal" beaches with no clothes on. Sylt is a part of the Frisian Islands . It has its own local dialect, Söl'ring , which is the indigenous speech of Sylt. Söl'ring is

11286-486: The three languages can often understand the others fairly well, though studies have shown that the mutual intelligibility is asymmetric: Norwegian speakers generally understand both Danish and Swedish far better than Swedes or Danes understand each other. Concomitantly, Swedes and Danes understand Norwegian better than they understand each other's languages. Norwegian occupies the middle position in terms of intelligibility because of its shared border with Sweden, resulting in

11400-511: The town numbered 9,072 citizens. South of Westerland, the island extends for about 15 km (10 miles) in the form of a spit, until it is cut by the Hörnumtief tidal creek that runs through the Wadden Sea mudflats east of Sylt. Here is the location of Rantum . This village, like no other on Sylt, had to fight sand drift during the past centuries. Many farmsteads and a church had to be abandoned because of shifting dunes moving eastward. Only

11514-445: The turn of the 20th century. Danish itself can be divided into three main dialect areas: Jutlandic (West Danish), Insular Danish (including the standard variety), and East Danish (including Bornholmian and Scanian ). According to the view that Scandinavian is a dialect continuum, East Danish can be considered intermediary between Danish and Swedish, while Scanian can be considered a Swedified East Danish dialect, and Bornholmian

11628-411: The vernacular language to be accessible also to those who were not Latinate. The Jutlandic Law and Scanian Law were written in vernacular Danish in the early 13th century. Beginning in 1350, Danish began to be used as a language of administration, and new types of literature began to be written in the language, such as royal letters and testaments. The orthography in this period was not standardized nor

11742-469: The vernacular, such as the plural form of verbs, should be conserved in writing (i.e. han er "he is" vs. de ere "they are"). The East Danish provinces were lost to Sweden after the Second Treaty of Brömsebro (1645) after which they were gradually Swedified; just as Norway was politically severed from Denmark, beginning also a gradual end of Danish influence on Norwegian (influence through

11856-516: The whore-bed with another man's wife and he comes away alive..." Jutlandic Law, 1241 In the medieval period, Danish emerged as a separate language from Swedish. The main written language was Latin, and the few Danish-language texts preserved from this period are written in the Latin alphabet, although the runic alphabet seems to have lingered in popular usage in some areas. The main text types written in this period are laws, which were formulated in

11970-492: The word by , meaning ‘village’ or ‘town’, occurs in many English place-names, such as Whitby and Selby , as remnants of the Viking occupation . During that period English adopted ‘are’, the third person plural form of the verb ‘to be’, as well as the personal pronouns ‘they’, ‘them’ and ‘their’ from contemporary Old Norse. Danish is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Swedish . A proficient speaker of any of

12084-489: The written languages are compatible, spoken Danish is distinctly different from Norwegian and Swedish and thus the degree of mutual intelligibility with either is variable between regions and speakers . Until the 16th century, Danish was a continuum of dialects spoken from Southern Jutland and Schleswig to Scania with no standard variety or spelling conventions. With the Protestant Reformation and

12198-492: Was a territory ruled by Denmark–Norway , one of whose official languages was Danish. Though Danish ceased to be an official language in Iceland in 1944, it is still widely used and is a mandatory subject in school, taught as a second foreign language after English. No law stipulates an official language for Denmark, making Danish the de facto official language only. The Code of Civil Procedure does, however, lay down Danish as

12312-457: Was also one of two official languages of Greenland (alongside Greenlandic ). Danish now acts as a lingua franca in Greenland, with a large percentage of native Greenlanders able to speak Danish as a second language (it was introduced into the education system as a compulsory language in 1928). About 10% of the population speaks Danish as their first language , due to immigration. Iceland

12426-720: Was born in Tinnum on Sylt in 1865. He studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and in Weimar, lived in Düsseldorf since 1895, accepted a professorship there in 1916 and at the same time maintained a studio in Westerland. Ulrich Schulte-Wülwer described him as "... the strongest artistic talent that the island has produced". Carl Arp came to Sylt in 1903. Painters like Emil Nolde , Erich Heckel , Anita Rée and Albert Aereboe moved to Sylt. Contemporary artists include

12540-488: Was mostly supplanted by the Low German spise . As well as loanwords, new words can be freely formed by compounding existing words. In standard texts of contemporary Danish, Middle Low German loans account for about 16–17% of the vocabulary, Graeco-Latin loans 4–8%, French 2–4% and English about 1%. Danish and English are both Germanic languages. Danish is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse, and English

12654-627: Was once the Viking settlement of Jorvik. Several other English words derive from Old East Norse, for example "knife" ( kniv ), "husband" ( husbond ), and "egg" ( æg ). The suffix "-by" for 'town' is common in place names in Yorkshire and the east Midlands, for example Selby, Whitby, Derby, and Grimsby. The word "dale" meaning valley is common in Yorkshire and Derbyshire placenames. Fangær man saar i hor seng mæth annæns mansz kunæ. oc kumær han burt liuænd... . "If one catches someone in

12768-463: Was still not standardized and the principles for doing so were vigorously discussed among Danish philologists. The grammar of Jens Pedersen Høysgaard was the first to give a detailed analysis of Danish phonology and prosody, including a description of the stød . In this period, scholars were also discussing whether it was best to "write as one speaks" or to "speak as one writes", including whether archaic grammatical forms that had fallen out of use in

12882-469: Was the change of the diphthong æi (Old West Norse ei ) to the monophthong e , as in stæin to sten . This is reflected in runic inscriptions where the older read stain and the later stin . Also, a change of au as in dauðr into ø as in døðr occurred. This change is shown in runic inscriptions as a change from tauþr into tuþr . Moreover, the øy (Old West Norse ey ) diphthong changed into ø , as well, as in

12996-474: Was the spoken language, and the regional laws demonstrate the dialectal differences between the regions in which they were written. Throughout this period, Danish was in contact with Low German , and many Low German loan words were introduced in this period. With the Protestant Reformation in 1536, Danish also became the language of religion, which sparked a new interest in using Danish as

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