Low German or
Low Saxon is an
IngvaeonicIngvaeonic , also known as North Sea Germanic, is a postulated grouping of the West Germanic languages that comprises Old Frisian, Old English and Old Saxon....
West Germanic languageThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands. It descended from
Old SaxonOld Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
, its earliest form.
The historical
SprachraumSprachraum is a linguistic term used to designate a geographical region/district where a language, dialect, group or family of languages is spoken. The German word Sprachraum literally means "language area"....
of Low German also included contemporary northern
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the
Kaliningrad OblastKaliningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia situated on the Baltic coast. It has a population of The oblast forms the westernmost part of the Russian Federation, but it has no land connection to the rest of Russia. Since its creation it has been an exclave of the Russian SFSR and then the...
of
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, and a part of southern
LithuaniaLithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
. German speakers in this area were
expelled or murderedThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
after the post-
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
boundary changes. The former German communities in the Baltic states (see Baltic Germans) also spoke Low German. Moreover,
Middle Low GermanMiddle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
was the
Lingua FrancaLingua Franca was an American magazine about intellectual and literary life in academia.-Founding:The magazine was founded in 1990 by Jeffrey Kittay, an editor and Professor of French Literature at Yale University...
of the
Hanseatic LeagueThe Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
, and it had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages.
Low German in Europe
Dialects of Low German are widely spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands (
Dutch Low SaxonDutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
) and are written there with an orthography based on Dutch orthography.
Variants of Low German were widely (and are still to a far lesser extent) spoken in most parts of
Northern Germany- Geography :The key terrain features of North Germany are the marshes along the coastline of the North Sea and Baltic Sea, and the geest and heaths inland. Also prominent are the low hills of the Baltic Uplands, the ground moraines, end moraines, sandur, glacial valleys, bogs, and Luch...
, for instance in the states of
Lower SaxonyLower Saxony is a German state situated in north-western Germany and is second in area and fourth in population among the sixteen states of Germany...
,
North Rhine-WestphaliaNorth Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
,
Hamburg-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
,
BremenThe City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
,
Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern,
Saxony-AnhaltSaxony-Anhalt is a landlocked state of Germany. Its capital is Magdeburg and it is surrounded by the German states of Lower Saxony, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Thuringia.Saxony-Anhalt covers an area of...
and
BrandenburgBrandenburg is one of the sixteen federal-states of Germany. It lies in the east of the country and is one of the new federal states that were re-created in 1990 upon the reunification of the former West Germany and East Germany. The capital is Potsdam...
. Small portions of northern
HesseHesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
and northern
ThuringiaThe Free State of Thuringia is a state of Germany, located in the central part of the country.It has an area of and 2.29 million inhabitants, making it the sixth smallest by area and the fifth smallest by population of Germany's sixteen states....
are traditionally Low Saxon speaking too. Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
as well as in
East PrussiaEast Prussia is the main part of the region of Prussia along the southeastern Baltic Coast from the 13th century to the end of World War II in May 1945. From 1772–1829 and 1878–1945, the Province of East Prussia was part of the German state of Prussia. The capital city was Königsberg.East Prussia...
and the
Baltic StatesThe term Baltic states refers to the Baltic territories which gained independence from the Russian Empire in the wake of World War I: primarily the contiguous trio of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania ; Finland also fell within the scope of the term after initially gaining independence in the 1920s.The...
of
EstoniaEstonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
and
LatviaLatvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
. The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city state of
BerlinBerlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city the language vanished. (The Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of High German and typologically a
MissingschMissingsch is a type of Low-German-coloured dialect or sociolect of German. It is characterised by Low-German-type structures and the presence of numerous loanwords from Low German in High German.- Description :...
variety, although rarely recognized as the latter).
Today, there are still speakers outside of Germany and The Netherlands to be found in the coastal areas of present
PolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(minority of
ethnic GermanEthnic Germans historically also ), also collectively referred to as the German diaspora, refers to people who are of German ethnicity. Many are not born in Europe or in the modern-day state of Germany or hold German citizenship...
Pommersch speakers who were not
expelledThe later stages of World War II, and the period after the end of that war, saw the forced migration of millions of German nationals and ethnic Germans from various European states and territories, mostly into the areas which would become post-war Germany and post-war Austria...
from Pomerania, as well as the regions around
BraniewoBraniewo is a town in northeastern Poland, in the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, with a population of 18,068 . It is the capital of Braniewo County...
). In the Southern
JutlandJutland , historically also called Cimbria, is the name of the peninsula that juts out in Northern Europe toward the rest of Scandinavia, forming the mainland part of Denmark. It has the North Sea to its west, Kattegat and Skagerrak to its north, the Baltic Sea to its east, and the Danish–German...
region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some
German minorityGerman-speaking minorities live in many countries and on all six inhabited continents: the countries of the former Soviet Union, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Belgium, Italy, the United States, Latin America, Namibia, South Africa, Israel, and Australia...
communities, but the Low German and
North FrisianNorth Frisian is a minority language of Germany, spoken by about 10,000 people in North Frisia. The language is part of the larger group of the West Germanic Frisian languages.-Classification:...
dialects of
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
can be considered moribund at this time.
Low German outside Europe and the Mennonites
There are also immigrant communities where Low German is spoken in the western hemisphere, including
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
,
VenezuelaVenezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
,
South AfricaThe Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
,
Central AsiaCentral Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
,
BoliviaBolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
,
ArgentinaArgentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
,
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
,
ParaguayParaguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
and
UruguayUruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
. In some of these countries, the language is part of the
MennoniteThe Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
religion and culture. There are
MennoniteThe Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
communities in Ontario,
SaskatchewanSaskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
, Alberta, British Columbia,
ManitobaManitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, and Minnesota which use Low German in their religious services and communities; the people are largely ethnic Germans whose ancestors had moved to newly acquired
RussiaRussia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n territories in
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
before emigrating to the
AmericasThe Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The type of Low German spoken in these communities and in the Midwest region of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
has diverged since emigration. The survival of the language is tenuous in many places and has died out in some places where assimilation has occurred. Mennonite colonies in
ParaguayParaguay , officially the Republic of Paraguay , is a landlocked country in South America. It is bordered by Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the east and northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest. Paraguay lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, which runs through the center of the...
,
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
,
BelizeBelize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
, and Chihuahua,
MexicoThe United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
have made Low German a "co-official language" of the community. Pommersch is also spoken in parts of Southern Brazil.
Nomenclature
Low German is called
Plattdüütsch or
Nedderdüütsch by its native speakers in the specific German area, and
Nedersaksisch or
Nederduuts by most of its native speakers in the Netherlands.
Officially, Low German is called
Niederdeutsch (Nether/Low German) by the German authorities. In The Netherlands, the Dutch authorities call it
Nedersaksisch (Nether/Low Saxon).
Plattdeutsch/
Niederdeutsch and
Platduits/
Nedersaksisch are seen in linguistic texts from the German and Dutch linguistic communities respectively.
In Danish it is called
Plattysk,
Nedertysk or, rarely,
Lavtysk.
Mennonite Low German is called "
PlautdietschPlautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia, today Polish territory. The word is another pronunciation of Plattdeutsch, or Low German...
."
“Low” refers to the flat plains and coastal area of the
northern European lowlandsThe North European Plain is a geomorphological region in Europe. It consists of the low plains between the Central European Highlands to the south and the North Sea and the Baltic Sea to the north. These two seas are separated by the Jutland peninsula...
, contrasted with the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany,
SwitzerlandSwitzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, and
AustriaAustria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, where High German is spoken.
The colloquial term "Platt" denotes both Low German dialects and any non-
standardA standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...
variety of
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
; this use is chiefly found in northern and western Germany and is considered not to be
linguisticallyLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
correct.
The
ISO 639-2ISO 639-2:1998, Codes for the representation of names of languages — Part 2: Alpha-3 code, is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. The three-letter codes given for each language in this part of the standard are referred to as...
language code for Low German (Low Saxon) has been
nds (
ne
der
saksisch) since May 2000.
Disambiguation
There are different uses of the term “Low German”:
- A specific name of any West Germanic
The West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
varietiesIn sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...
that neither have taken part in the High German consonant shiftIn historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...
nor classify as Low FranconianLow Franconian, Low Frankish, or Istvaeonic, is a group of several West Germanic languages spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium , in the northern department of France, in western Germany , as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia that originally descended from Old Frankish.- The...
or Anglo-FrisianThe Anglo-Frisian languages form a group of West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants...
; this is the scope discussed in this article.
- A broader term for the closely related, continental West Germanic language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
unaffected by the High German consonant shift, nor classifying as Anglo-FrisianThe Anglo-Frisian languages form a group of West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants...
, and thus including Low Franconian varieties such as DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
.
Legal status
The question of whether Low German should be considered a separate language, rather than a dialect of
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
or
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, has been a point of contention.
LinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
offers no simple, generally accepted criterion to decide this question.
Scholarly arguments have been put forward in favour of classifying Low German as a German dialect. As said, these arguments are not linguistical but rather socio-political and build mainly around the fact that Low German has no official standard form or use in sophisticated media.
(The situation of Low German may thus be considered a pseudo-dialectized abstand language.)
In contrast,
Old SaxonOld Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is the earliest recorded form of Low German, documented from the 8th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in the Netherlands by Saxon peoples...
and
Middle Low GermanMiddle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
are generally considered separate languages in their own rights. Since Low German has undergone a strong decline since the 18th century the perceived similarities with High German or Dutch may often be direct High German/Dutch adaptations due to the growing incapability of speakers to speak correctly what was once Low German proper.
At the request of
Schleswig-HolsteinSchleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the sixteen states of Germany, comprising most of the historical duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of Schleswig...
the German government has declared Low German as a
regional languageA regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....
.
German offices in Schleswig-Holstein are obliged to accept and handle applications in Low German in the same way as Standard High German applications. The Bundesgerichtshof ruled in a case that this was even to be done at the patent office in
MunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, in a
Non-Low German regionBavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...
, when the applicant then had to pay the charge for a translator, because applications in Low German are considered "nicht in deutscher Sprache abgefasst" (not written in the German language). Due to the nature of Bundesgerichtshof decisions creating
Ständige Rechtssprechung ("permanent jurisdiction") this can also be interpreted as the acceptance of Low German as a separate language through German law.
Low German has been recognised by the Netherlands and by Germany (since 1999) as a
regional languageA regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....
according to the
European Charter for Regional or Minority LanguagesThe European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
. Within the official terminology defined in the charter, this status would not be available to a dialect of an official language (as per article 1 (a)), and hence not to Low German in Germany if it were considered a dialect of German. Advocates of the promotion of Low German have expressed considerable hope that this political development will at once lend legitimacy to their claim that Low German is a separate language and help mitigate the functional limits of the language that may still be cited as objective criteria for a mere dialect (such as the virtually complete absence from legal and administrative contexts, schools, the media, etc.).
Classification and related languages
Low German is a part of the continental
West GermanicThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
dialect continuumA dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
.
To the West, it blends into the
Low Franconian languagesLow Franconian, Low Frankish, or Istvaeonic, is a group of several West Germanic languages spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium , in the northern department of France, in western Germany , as well as in Suriname, South Africa and Namibia that originally descended from Old Frankish.- The...
which distinguish two plural verbal endings, as opposed to a common verbal plural ending in Low German.
To the South, it blends into the
High GermanThe High German languages or the High German dialects are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish, as well as the local German dialects spoken in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and in neighboring portions of Belgium and the...
dialects of
Central GermanCentral German is a group of High German dialects spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany.-History:...
that have been affected by the
High German consonant shiftIn historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...
. The division is usually drawn at the
Benrath lineIn German linguistics, the Benrath line is the maken-machen isogloss: dialects north of the line have the original in maken , while those to the south have...
that traces the
maken – machen isoglossAn isogloss—also called a heterogloss —is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature...
.
To the East, it abuts the
Kashubian languageKashubian or Cassubian is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages....
(the only remnant of the
Pomeranian languageThe Pomeranian language is a group of dialects from the Lechitic cluster of the West Slavic languages. In medieval contexts, it refers to the dialects spoken by the Slavic Pomeranians...
) and, since the expulsion of nearly all Germans from
PomeraniaPomerania is a historical region on the south shore of the Baltic Sea. Divided between Germany and Poland, it stretches roughly from the Recknitz River near Stralsund in the West, via the Oder River delta near Szczecin, to the mouth of the Vistula River near Gdańsk in the East...
following the Second World War, also by the
Polish languagePolish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
. The Low German dialects of Pomerania are included in the Pommersch group.
To the North and Northwest, it abuts the
DanishDanish is a North Germanic language spoken by around six million people, principally in the country of Denmark. It is also spoken by 50,000 Germans of Danish ethnicity in the northern parts of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, where it holds the status of minority language...
and the Frisian languages. Note that in Germany, Low German has replaced the Frisian languages in many regions. The
Saterland FrisianSaterland Frisian, also known as Sater Frisian or Saterlandic , is the last living dialect of the East Frisian language. It is closely related to the other Frisian languages—North Frisian, which, like Saterland Frisian, is spoken in Germany and West Frisian, which is spoken in the Netherlands.- Old...
is the only remnant of East Frisian language and is surrounded by Low German, as are the few remaining
North FrisianNorth Frisian is a minority language of Germany, spoken by about 10,000 people in North Frisia. The language is part of the larger group of the West Germanic Frisian languages.-Classification:...
varieties, and the Low German dialects of those regions have Frisian influences from Frisian substrates.
Some classify the northern dialects of Low German together with
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
,
ScotsScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, and Frisian as the
North SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
Germanic or
IngvaeonicThe Ingaevones or, as Pliny has it, apparently more accurately, Ingvaeones , as described in Tacitus's Germania, written c. 98 AD, were a West Germanic cultural group living along the North Sea coast in the areas of Jutland, Holstein, Frisia and the Danish islands, where they had by the 1st...
languages. However, most exclude Low German from that group often called
Anglo-Frisian languagesThe Anglo-Frisian languages form a group of West Germanic languages consisting of Old English, Old Frisian, and their descendants...
because some distinctive features of that group of languages are only partially observed in Low German, for instance the
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant lawIn historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a description of a phonological development in some dialects of West Germanic, which is attested in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon...
(some dialects have
us,
os for ‘us’ whereas others have
uns,
ons), and because other distinctive features do not occur in Low German at all, for instance the
palatalizationIn linguistics, palatalization , also palatization, may refer to two different processes by which a sound, usually a consonant, comes to be produced with the tongue in a position in the mouth near the palate....
of /k/ (compare palatalized forms such as English
cheese, Frisian
tsiis to non-palatalized forms such as Low German
Kees or
Kaise, Dutch
kaas, German
Käse).
In Germany
- West Low German
- East Frisian Low Saxon
East Frisian Low Saxon is a West Low German dialect spoken in the East Frisian peninsula of northwestern Lower Saxony. It is used quite frequently in everyday speech there. About half of the East Frisian population in the coastal region uses Platdüütsk. A number of individuals, despite not being...
- Northern Low Saxon
Northern Low Saxon is a West Low German dialect.As such, it covers a great part of the West Low-German-speaking areas of northern Germany, with the exception of the border regions where Eastphalian and Westphalian are spoken...
- Westphalian language
Westphalian is one of the major dialect groups of West Low German. Its most salient feature is the diphthongization . For example, speakers say iEten instead of Eːten for eat...
- Eastphalian language
Eastphalian, or Eastfalian , is a West Low German dialect spoken east of the Weser river in southern parts of Lower Saxony and western parts of Saxony-Anhalt in Germany, including Hanover, Braunschweig, Hildesheim, Göttingen and Magdeburg, an area that roughly corresponds with the historic region...
- East Low German
East Low German is a group of Low German dialects, including various varieties known as Pomeranian and Prussian, spoken in Northeast Germany as well as by minorities in present northern Poland. Together with West Low German, it constitutes Low German...
- Brandenburgisch
Brandenburgish or Markish is a dialect spoken in Germany in the northern and western parts of Brandenburg as well as in northern Saxony-Anhalt...
- Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
- Mittelpommersch
- East Pomeranian
East Pomeranian is an East Low German dialect that is or used to be spoken in Northern Poland . It is part of the Pommersch dialect group....
- Low Prussian
Low Prussian , sometimes known simply as Prussian , is a dialect of East Low German that developed in East Prussia. Low Prussian was spoken in East and West Prussia and Danzig up to 1945. It developed on a Baltic substrate through the influx of Dutch and Low German speaking immigrants...
- Plautdietsch
Plautdietsch, or Mennonite Low German, was originally a Low Prussian variety of East Low German, with Dutch influence, that developed in the 16th and 17th centuries in the Vistula delta area of Royal Prussia, today Polish territory. The word is another pronunciation of Plattdeutsch, or Low German...
(MennoniteThe Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations named after the Frisian Menno Simons , who, through his writings, articulated and thereby formalized the teachings of earlier Swiss founders...
Low German, used also in many other countries)
In the Netherlands
The
Dutch Low SaxonDutch Low Saxon is a group of Low Saxon, i.e. West Low German dialects spoken in the northeastern Netherlands. In comparison, the remainder of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects.The class "Dutch Low Saxon" is not unanimous...
varieties, which are also defined as Dutch dialects, consist of:
- Westerkwartiers
- Kollumerpompsters
- Kollumerlands
- Middaglands
- Midden-Westerkwartiers
- Zuid-Westerkwartiers
- Gronings
Gronings, in the dialect itself called Grunnegs or Grönnegs, is a collective name for some Friso-Saxon dialects spoken in the province of Groningen and around the Groningen border in Drenthe and Friesland. Gronings and the strongly related varieties in East-Frisia have a strong Frisian influence...
and Noord-Drents
- Hogelandsters
- Stadsgronings
- Westerwolds
- Veenkoloniaals
- Oldambtsters
- Stellingwerfs
- Midden-Drents
- Zuid-Drents
- Twents
Tweants is a Dutch Low Saxon group of dialects, descending from Old Saxon. It is spoken by approximately 62% of the population of Twente, a region in the Dutch province of Overijssel bordering on Germany. Its speakers also refer to Twents as plat or simply dialect. A widespread misconception is...
- Twents-Graafschaps
- Gelders-Overijssels
- Achterhoeks
- Sallands
Sallaans is a collective term for the Dutch Low Saxon dialects of the region Salland, in the west of the province of Overijssel, which is in the eastern Netherlands. A common term used by native speakers for their dialect, which is also used by Low Saxon speakers from other regions for their...
- Urkers
Urkers is the local language of the municipality and former island of Urk, located on the west coast of the Dutch province of Flevoland. In Dutch, Urkers is called Urks. Urk was an island until the middle of the 20th century...
- Veluws
Veluws is a Dutch Low Saxon dialect which is spoken on the Veluwe. Veluws is usually divided into two main dialects, West-Veluws and Oost-Veluws , these two dialects are reasonably similar but differ in grammar...
- Oost-Veluws
- West-Veluws
West-Veluws is a West Low Saxon dialect from the Dutch province of Gelderland. This dialect is spoken in different villages on the west side of the Veluwe and some villages on border of Gelderland and Utrecht...
Old Saxon
Old Saxon, also known as
Old Low German, is a
West GermanicThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
language. It is documented from the 9th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into
Middle Low GermanMiddle Low German is a language that is the descendant of Old Saxon and is the ancestor of modern Low German. It served as the international lingua franca of the Hanseatic League...
. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in
DenmarkDenmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
by Saxon peoples. It is closely related to Old Anglo-Frisian (
Old FrisianOld Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken between the 8th and 16th centuries in the area between the Rhine and Weser on the European North Sea coast. The Frisian settlers on the coast of South Jutland also spoke Old Frisian but no medieval texts of this area are known...
, Old English), partially participating in the
Ingvaeonic nasal spirant lawIn historical linguistics, the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law is a description of a phonological development in some dialects of West Germanic, which is attested in Old English, Old Frisian, and Old Saxon...
.
Only a few texts survive, predominantly in baptismal vows the Saxons were required to perform at the behest of
CharlemagneCharlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
. The only literary texts preserved are
HeliandThe Heliand is an epic poem in Old Saxon, written in the first half of the 9th century. The title means saviour in Old Saxon , and the poem is a Biblical paraphrase that recounts the life of Jesus in the alliterative verse style of a Germanic saga...
and the Old Saxon Genesis.
Middle Low German
The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of modern Low German. It was spoken from about 1100 to 1500. The neighbour languages within the
dialect continuumA dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...
of the
West Germanic languagesThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three traditional branches of the Germanic family of languages and include languages such as German, English, Dutch, Afrikaans, the Frisian languages, and Yiddish...
were
Middle DutchMiddle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
in the West and
Middle High GermanMiddle High German , abbreviated MHG , is the term used for the period in the history of the German language between 1050 and 1350. It is preceded by Old High German and followed by Early New High German...
in the South, later substituted by
Early New High GermanEarly New High German is a term for the period in the history of the German language, generally defined, following Wilhelm Scherer, as the period 1350 to 1650.Alternative periodisations take the period to begin later; e.g...
. Middle Low German was the
lingua francaA lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
of the
Hanseatic LeagueThe Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
, spoken all around the
North SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
and the
Baltic SeaThe Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...
. Based on the language of
LübeckThe Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, in northern Germany, and one of the major ports of Germany. It was for several centuries the "capital" of the Hanseatic League and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World...
, a standardized written language was developing, though it was never codified.
Contemporary
After mass education in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
in the 19th and 20th centuries the slow decline which Low German was experiencing since the end of the
Hanseatic leagueThe Hanseatic League was an economic alliance of trading cities and their merchant guilds that dominated trade along the coast of Northern Europe...
turned into a free fall. Today efforts are made in Germany and in the Netherlands to protect Low German as a
regional languageA regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....
. Various Low German dialects are understood by 10 million people, and native to about 3 million people all around northern Germany. Most of these speakers are located in
ruralRural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
villages and are often elderly. However, the
KDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
project supports Low German (nds) as a language for its computer desktop environment as well as the
GNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
Desktop Project does. Several Open Source Software is getting translated into Low German today and most of them are managed by the NDS umbrella Project nds.sourceforge.net. Examples here are the Linux distributions Ubuntu or Fedora.
Sound change
As with the Anglo-Frisian languages and the North Germanic languages, Low German has not been influenced by the High German consonant shift except for old /ð/ having shifted to /d/. Therefore a lot of Low German words sound similar to their English counterparts. One feature that does distinguish Low German from English generally is final devoicing of obstruents, as exemplified by the words 'good' and 'wind' below. This is a characteristic of Dutch and German as well and involves positional neutralization of voicing contrast in the coda position for obstruents (i.e. t = d at the end of a syllable.) This is not used in English except for in the English county of Yorkshire, where there is a process known as
Yorkshire assimilation.
For instance:
water [wɒtɜ, watɜ, wætɜ],
later [lɒːtɜ, laːtɜ, læːtɜ],
bit [bɪt],
dish [dis, diʃ],
ship [ʃɪp, skɪp, sxɪp],
pull [pʊl],
good [ɡout, ɣɑut, ɣuːt],
clock [klɔk],
sail [sɑil],
he [hɛi, hɑi, hi(j)],
storm [stoːrm],
wind [vɪˑnt],
grass [ɡras, ɣras],
hold [hoˑʊl(t)],
old [oˑʊl(t)].
Low German is a West Germanic language of the lowlands and as such did not experience the
High German consonant shiftIn historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...
. The table below shows the relationship between English and Low German consonants which were unaffected by this
chain shiftIn phonology, a chain shift is a phenomenon in which several sounds move stepwise along a phonetic scale. The sounds involved in a chain shift can be ordered into a "chain" in such a way that, after the change is complete, each phoneme ends up sounding like what the phoneme before it in the chain...
and gives the modern
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
counterparts, which were affected by the sound shift.
| Proto-Germanic |
High German |
Low German |
Dutch |
English |
German |
Frisian |
| k |
ch |
maken, moaken, maaken |
maken |
make |
machen |
meitsje |
| k |
kch |
Karl, Korl |
Karel |
Carl, Ceorl, Churl |
Karl |
Kirl, Tsjirl |
| d |
t |
Dag, Dach |
dag |
day |
Tag |
Dei |
| t |
ss |
eten, äten |
eten |
eat |
essen |
ite |
| t |
z (/ts/) |
teihn, tian |
tien |
ten |
zehn |
tsien |
| t |
tz, z (/ts/) |
sitten |
zitten |
sit |
sitzen |
sitte |
| p |
f, ff |
Schipp, Schepp |
schip |
ship, skiff |
Schiff |
skip |
| p |
pf |
Peper, Päpa |
peper |
pepper |
Pfeffer |
piper |
| β |
b |
Wief, Wiewer |
wijf, wijven * |
wife, wives |
Weib, Weiber * |
wiif, wiven |
Note: The words shown are phonetic cognates. The semantic values of some of these words have shifted over time. For example, the correct equivalent term for "wife" in modern Dutch and German is
vrouw and
Frau respectively; using
wijf or
Weib for a human is considered archaic in German and derogatory in Dutch, comparable to "bitch". There is no surviving phonetic equivalent to
Frau/vrouw in English (cf. Old English
frōwe "lady").
Grammar
Generally speaking, Low German
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
shows similarities with the
grammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
s of
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
, Frisian,
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, and
ScotsScots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
, but the
dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s of Northern
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
share some features (especially
lexicalIn linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. A lexicon is also a synonym of the word thesaurus. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes. Coined in English 1603, the word "lexicon" derives from the Greek "λεξικόν" , neut...
and
syntacticIn linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....
features) with
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
dialects.
Nouns
Low German
declensionIn linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...
has only three morphologically marked
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
cases, where accusative and dative together constitute an
objectiveAn objective pronoun in grammar functions as the target of a verb, as distinguished from a subjective pronoun, which is the initiator of a verb. Objective pronouns are instances of the oblique case....
case.
Example case marking: Boom (tree), Bloom (flower), Land (land)
| | | Masculine | | Feminine | | Neuter |
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
| Nominative |
een Boom, de Boom |
Bööm, de Bööm |
een Bloom, de Bloom |
Blomen, de Blomen |
een Land, dat Land |
Lannen, de Lannen |
| Objective |
een Boom, den Boom |
Bööm, de Bööm |
een Bloom, de Bloom |
Blomen, de Blomen |
een Land, dat Land |
Lannen, de Lannen |
Dative dän
In most modern dialects, the nominative and the
objectiveAn objective pronoun in grammar functions as the target of a verb, as distinguished from a subjective pronoun, which is the initiator of a verb. Objective pronouns are instances of the oblique case....
cases are primarily distinguished only in the
singularIn linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....
of
masculineGrammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...
nounIn linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...
s. In some Low German dialects, the genitive case is distinguished as well (e.g. varieties of Mennonite Low German.) It is marked in the masculine gender by changing the masculine definite determiner 'de' from de to dän. By contrast, German distinguishes four cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. So, for example, the definite article of the masculine singular has the forms: der (nom), den (acc), des (gen), and dem (dat.) Thus case marking in Low German is simpler than
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
's.
Verbs
In Low German verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense. Verb conjugation for person is only differentiated in the singular. There are five tenses in Low German:
present tenseThe present tense is a grammatical tense that locates a situation or event in present time. This linguistic definition refers to a concept that indicates a feature of the meaning of a verb...
,
preteriteThe preterite is the grammatical tense expressing actions that took place or were completed in the past...
, perfect, and pluperfect, and in Mennonite Low German the present perfect which signifies a remaining effect from a past finished action. For example "Ekj sie jekomen", "I am come", means that the speaker came and he is still at the place to which he came as a result of his completed action.
Example verb conjugation: slapen, "to sleep"
| | | Present | | Preterite | | Perfect |
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural |
| 1st Person |
ik slaap |
wi slaapt/slapen |
ik sleep |
wi slepen |
ik hebb slapen |
wi hebbt/hebben slapen |
| 2nd Person |
du slöppst |
ji slaapt/slapen |
du sleepst |
ji slepen |
du hest slapen |
ji hebbt/hebben slapen |
| 3rd Person |
he, se, dat slöppt |
se slaapt/slapen |
he, se, dat sleep |
se slepen |
he, se, dat hett slapen |
se hebbt/hebben slapen |
Unlike
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
,
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, and southern Low German, the northern dialects form the participle without the prefix
ge-, like the Scandinavian languages and
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
. Compare to the German past
participleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
geschlafen. This past
participleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
is formed with the
auxiliary verbIn linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
hebben "to have". It should be noted that
e- is used instead of
ge- in most Southern (below
GroningenGroningen [] is the northeasternmost province of the Netherlands. In the east it borders the German state of Niedersachsen , in the south Drenthe, in the west Friesland and in the north the Wadden Sea...
in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
)
dialectThe term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...
s, though often not when the past
participleIn linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...
ends with
-en or in a few oft-used words like
west (been).
The reason for the two conjugations shown in the plural is regional: dialects in the central area use -t while the dialects in
East FrisiaEast Frisia or Eastern Friesland is a coastal region in the northwest of the German federal state of Lower Saxony....
and the dialects in
MecklenburgMecklenburg is a historical region in northern Germany comprising the western and larger part of the federal-state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern...
and further east use -en. The -en suffix is of Dutch influence.
There are 26 verb affixes.
There is also a progressive form of verbs in present, corresponding to the same in the Dutch language.
It is formed with wesen (to be), the preposition an (at) and "dat"(the/it).
Ik bün an't maken. (Low German)
Ik ben aan het maken. (Dutch)
I am making.
Vowels
The list given represents the phonology of the Plautdietsch dialect.
| IPA | Description | word |
| monophthong A monophthong is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation....
s |
| i~iː |
Close front unrounded vowel The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
|
ha |
| ɪ |
Near-close near-front unrounded vowel |
Kjnt |
| ɛ |
Open-mid front unrounded vowel |
mt |
| æ |
Near-open front unrounded vowel |
Kjokj |
| ɒ |
Open back rounded vowel The open back rounded vowel, or low back rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is . The symbol is called turned script a, because it is a rotated version of script a, so-called because it...
|
Gtt |
| ʊ |
Near-close near-back rounded vowel |
Bck |
| y |
Close front rounded vowel The close front rounded vowel, or high front rounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is y...
|
Hs |
| ʌ~ɐ |
Open-mid back unrounded vowel, Near-open central vowel |
Lst |
| ɜ~ɜː |
Open-mid central unrounded vowel |
fhäa |
| ə |
SchwaIn linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...
|
schmäar |
| e |
Close front unrounded vowel The close front unrounded vowel, or high front unrounded vowel, is a type of vowel sound, used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ....
|
Tn |
Consonants
Since there is no standard Low German, there is no standard Low German consonant system. The table shows the consonant system of North Saxon, a West Low Saxon dialect.
| |
Labial Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...
|
AlveolarAlveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...
|
PostalveolarPostalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...
|
Palatal-VelarPalatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...
|
GlottalGlottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...
|
| Plosive |
p b |
t d |
|
k ɡ |
|
| Fricative Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...
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f v |
s z |
ʃ |
x ɣ |
h |
| Nasal A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
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m |
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ŋ |
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r |
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Writing system
Low German is written using the
Latin alphabetThe Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. There is no true standard
orthographyThe orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...
, only several locally more or less accepted orthographic guidelines, those in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
mostly based on
DutchDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
orthography, and those in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
mostly based on German orthography. This diversity—being the result of centuries of official neglect and suppression—has a very fragmenting and thus weakening effect on the language as a whole, since it has created barriers that do not exist on the spoken level. Interregional and international communication is severely hampered by this. Most of these systems aim at representing the phonetic (
allophonicIn phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...
) output rather than underlying (
phonemicIn a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....
) representations. Furthermore, many writers follow guidelines only roughly. This adds numerous idiosyncratic and often inconsistent ways of spelling to the already existing great orthographic diversity.
See also
- Bible translations into German
- Fritz Reuter
Fritz Reuter was a novelist from Northern Germany who was one of the most prominent contributors to Low German literature.-Early life:...
- Gorch Fock
Gorch Fock may refer to:* Gorch Fock , pseudonym of Johann Wilhelm Kinau , German author* Gorch Fock , the first sailing ship named after him* Gorch Fock , that ship's successor...
- Klaus Groth
Klaus Groth , Low German poet, was born at Heide in Schleswig-Holstein.After studying at the seminary in Tondern , he became a teacher at the girls school in his native village, but in 1847 went to Kiel to qualify for a higher educational post. Ill health interrupted his studies and it was not...
- Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish or Rheinmaasländisch is a modern term that geographically refers to the literature written in mediæval times in the greater Meuse-Rhine area. This area stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse and Rhine...
- Moin
Moin is a Frisian and Low German greeting from East Frisia, Southern Schleswig , Bremen, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the eastern Netherlands and Southern Jutland in Denmark, meaning "hello".-Usage:...
- 1614 Low German Bible
A 1614 Low German Bible is a rare, illustrated folio edition in Low German of Martin Luther's High German translation of the Bible...
- Hamborger Veermaster
´De Hamborger Veermaster´ is a famous sea shanty sung in Low German. It is partly in English and partly in Low German...
- Ohnsorg-Theater
The Ohnsorg Theater in Hamburg is a stage where comedy is performed in Platt and plays a major role in spreading the knowledge of this language. Founded in 1902 by Dr. Richard Ohnsorg , broadcasts of its comedies on the NDR have made it and its main star Heidi Kabel popular in many parts of...
Resources
There is a lot of information about Low German to be found online. A selection of these links can be found on this page, which will provide a good framework to understand the history, current situation and features of the language.
Online dictionaries:
Information:
Organizations:
If your organisation isn't listed here, feel free to add it.
Writers:
Musicians:
- 3molPlaut (Ken Sawatzky, Vern and Christina Neufeld - Manitoba, Canada)
- Skik (Drents/Dutch - Drenthe, the Netherlands)
- Jan Cornelius (East Frisian - Ostfriesland, Germany)
- Törf (Gronings - Groningen, the Netherlands)
- Eltje Doddema (Veenkoloniaals - Groningen, the Netherlands)
- Boh foi toch (Achterhoeks - Gelderland, the Netherlands)
- Helmut Debus (Lower Saxony - Niedersachsen, Germany)
- Wunnerwark (Lower Saxony - Niedersachsen, Germany)
Unorganized links:
- http://www.plattmaster.de/
- http://www.platt-online.de/
- http://www.zfn-ratzeburg.de/
- http://www.deutsch-plattdeutsch.de/