Denmark: a perhaps unexpected dialect laboratory

The chapter is a commentary which discusses and offers perspectives on the nine previous chapters of the book. First, the general tendencies of standardization within Europe are discussed, and then the discussion is broadened to the present volume. Britain concludes that the collection has both alerted us and sensitised us to a range of sites where we should investigate obsolescence-in-progress beyond the usual, but essential, variationist descriptions of dialect structure from sociolinguistic interviews. Furthermore, it is argued that the volume has enriched our understanding of the broader sociolinguistic context in which obsolescence occurs, demonstrating clearly how language attitudes and ideologies; local discourses about dialect and place; the use of dialect in the media, older and newer; and stylisations and performances of dialect interact with actual dialect use. Finally, the chapters together demonstrate how sociolinguistic change—social changes which have knock-on implications to the sociolinguistic and language ideological order, such as geopolitical reconfigurations, mediatisation, and so on—affects the terminal stages of linguistic change. The commentary concludes by stating that even though Denmark may not be celebrated for its dialect diversity, the volume demonstrates how productive it can be for our understanding of linguistic change to examine communities where diversity is more moribund.