Talk:Low German

Personal Observations

As a native low german speaker (westphalia) under the age of fifty, living in England, I would like to add some comments to this discussion.

I still speak my mother tongue anytime I call my family or if I visit hy hometown on the dutch border. Within my family I speak low german with my parents, almost all my older relatives, and three of my younger siblings. But I speak high german with my two youngest siblings and most of the younger members of the local community. I only know of a handful of my peergroup that have opted for speaking low german with their children. So whilst I think the number of native low german speakers is still in the higher six digit numbers if not millions, it is sadly dwindling fast.

A few years ago I met the parents of a danish friend in London and whilst they spoke no english or german and I spoke no danish, we quickly established that we each spoke a version of low german and were thus able to communicate. Also, whilst in South Africa, I was able to understand some of the Africaans based on my low german. Infact, when our host uttered an exclamation, his pronounciation was absolutely identical to that of my mother.

One contributor spoke of local variations not existing anymore. I disagree. My mother and fathers families are from a town only a few miles down the road from my hometown. I vividly remember being asked 'where do you come from' when I started work. As if I was from another planet. Only because in my familie we say 'kerke' not 'karke' (spelling of my low german is total guess work... I never used it in any written form though people often make up low german poems for wedding invites etc..) These variations are still in place and people do recognise if someone is from a town further afield. I used to vary my own low german accent depending on whom I spoke to.

As you will have noticed, I have called it low german throughout. That is because it is the only phrase that has made any sense to my english audience when I have tried to explain that high german is not my mother tongue. I believe that this whole discussion is based on a (to some extent understandable) aversion of many dutch people to be thrown into one pot with anything german. Personally, I think that this is rather sad. As someone else said... we are very much one people. I feel that I have far more in common with the low german speakers on either side of the border than with the high german speakers of my regional capital for example. The people that home in on any devision are mostly the same that cause problems in any society. Mainly of a certain age and gender. Why? Why not celebrate the heritage we have in common?

Any dutch person speaking low german should feel no more german than a german person should feel indien due to speaking an indo-european language. If someone you know names their child with a name that has bad connotations for you... it really does not take that long before the name in your mind is connected to the child, not the person you knew previously under that name.

I am curious... are any of the other participants in this talk actually native low german/dutch speakers themselves? It did not seem to me from what people have posted. As such it confirms what I think holds true for many things. Those that are converted to something are far more zealous than those that grew up with it. Food for thought there.....

Amianna 20:32, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

I am a Dutchman, and Dutch speaker, and in the Low Countries, your dialect is called "Low Saxon". Dutch linguistics uses "Low German" only as a linguistic marker and the precise meaning of "german" in "low German" is explained as wel, and has not got the same meaning as "german" in general. You remark that you think you have more in common with the Dutch than speakers of High German is somewhat unrealistic to me. You might see a lot of similarities with the Dutch living near your border, but the idea that the Dutch as a whole are culturally closer is somewhat strange. I think that if you look closer you'll see that you have a lot more in common with someone from Austria than one from the Netherlands. Not just culturally, but in some cases linguistically as well.Rex 21:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

She's speaking of Low Saxons in the Netherlands, not of all Dutch, I guess. And I'm sure, it is true, that the Dutch Low Saxon dialects are nearer to her Westfalian Low Saxon than the dialect of Düsseldorf. --::Slomox:: >< 17:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

A North German may be linguistically closer to an Austrian than to someone from the Netherlands, but that is only because most North Germans do not speak Low German any more. Those who do are certainly linguistically a lot closer to standard Dutch than to Austrian dialects. Simply compare the "Wenker-Sätze" in any Low German variety with those in Austrian dialects and their translation in Standard Dutch.Unoffensive text or character 08:25, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm... Lol... I know the phenomenon... When an online-friend of mine from Cloppenburg visited Vienna, we met once an old friend of mine, who came from Utrecht but lives now in Vienna for... Fifteen years, I think... They talked... I didn't even understand a bit... But I realized the Low Saxon and the Low Franconian accents seem to be pretty close... The friend from Cloppenburg told me that this is somewhat their dialect over there... Didn't know that lower german is still that widespread in Germany...

And of course there are commons between the states Germany and Austria, don't forget that Vienna was the Capital of the Holy Roman Empire, and a major City of the German Confederation... ;-) --PSIplus Ψ 14:35, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Low German may be called "Low Saxon" in Holland & Belgium, but the official linguistic term is "Low German" ("Niederdeutsch"), so that is what the page should say. --dllu 12:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Dialect continuum

What are the sources for the claims that LG forms a dialect continuum with Dutch and High German? And I mean "sources", not "arguments." --Pfold 00:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Take eg. this one: dtv Atlas Deutsche Sprache, ed. by Werner König, passim Unoffensive text or character 09:20, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm certainly not going to hunt through the whole book - let's have some specific page refs! --Pfold 00:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Shortly put, Low Saxon in The Netherlands sounds more like Dutch, and Low Saxon in Germany more like German, the is quite a big difference between these two. If you'd like some examples, compare: nds-nl:Nederlaand and nds:Nedderlannen. Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 13:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't want opinions or personal experience - I want references to published peer-reviewed research or standard handbooks. For example, the article by Niebaum on Westniederdeutsch in the LGL, characterises the boundary between LG and Low Franconian as a "Dialektscheide" and sees only the western end of the LG/HG boundary (i.e. the Rhenish Fan) as offering anything like a continuum. --Pfold 14:21, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about any published works about the differences between dialects in The Netherlands and Germany. But as is mentioned on this Wikipedia, the dialects in NL look to Dutch for neologisms and in DE to German (for example in Germany they say hoochladen from the German word 'hochladen'; in The Netherlands they use the English term or usually say bestand toevoegen (add a file) sometimes oplaojen from Dutch 'opladen'). This has been going on for centuries, and as you can imagine the differences because of this have become quite big. Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 15:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

I confess that I have not found the word "Dialektkontinuum" in the work I named. Yet, if you look at practically all linguistic maps in the book, you will find that the isoglosses never (literally: never) coincide with the Dutch-German border. But of course, this is an argument, not a source. On the other hand, you said yourself that Niebaum speaks of a "Dialektscheide" between Low German and Low Franconian and this dialect boundary is not identical with the border between Germany and the Netherlands. Just to get it clear for me: Are you looking for a confirmation that there is a dialect continuum across the Dutch-German border, or across the Low Saxon (Low German)- Low Franconian dialect boundary? Unoffensive text or character 15:23, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Servien, the question is not whether there is a dialect continuum, but whether anybody can name a source for this claim. I think, the fact that this continuum exists, is undisputed (or so I hope). Though you are right that dialects on each side of the political border have been diverging rather than converging for at least 150 years, they are still mutually comprehensible without any difficulty whatsoever. With the eventual extinction of most of those dialects on the German side of the border, however, there will in a few decades be a real language boundary between Germany and the Netherlands.Unoffensive text or character 15:28, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Pfold, will you accept this as a source? [1]Unoffensive text or character 16:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I call a proper source - thought it's a pity C&T don't give their source. Given Niebaum's different view it would be good to find some other published sources on this to see where the preponderance of expert opinion is. It's not a matter of national boundaries but of dialect boundaries - is a specific boundary marked by enough isoglosses to constitute a barrier to communication? --Pfold 17:24, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

To my knowledge, there is very little to be found on the mutual intelligibility of neighbouring dialects. There are certainly dialect boundaries (Dialektscheiden) where many isoglosses converge. But I do not know of any cases where this could severely impede mutual intelligibility. The only case where there are sharp dialect boundaries is that of dialect islands (Erzgebirgisch in the Upper Harz Mountains, Palatinate dialect on the Lower Rhine near Kleve and a few others).

This poster shows the Dutch dialect continuum and, if I interpret the text correctly, it also states that there are no abrupt dialect boundaries between Dutch and Low Saxon/Low German: [2]Unoffensive text or character 08:49, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a suspicion that this this idea of the dialect continuum across the LG/LF and LG/HG boundaries is an article of faith. I also suspect people look at the Rhenish fan and forget that it represents just a small set of phonemes - the LG Einheitsplural, the lack of ge- in past participles are *big* differences. To my mind, if you're speaking a variety with those features you are speaking LG, and if not then HG. Of course people living near the boundary are familiar with both varieties, but that doesn't mean they're not distinct. But I can't say I ever come across proper research on this. --Pfold 09:26, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

I think that the term "dialect continuum" does not necessarily imply that there are no language barriers to be found anywhere. Dialect islands like Erzgebirgisch in the Upper Harz Mountains or Pfälzisch on the Lower Rhine near Kleve are clearly not part of a continuum. There is one dialect barrier I know from personal experience: Immediately to the north of Frankfurt, a dialect is spoken that is very hard to understand for speakers of Frankfurt dialect. If I chose to speak the most basilectal form of the dialect of my home town, some 10 miles north of Frankfurt, I would not be understood in the city. But in other directions our dialect blends into neighbouring varieties more smoothly.Unoffensive text or character 12:42, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there are simply two problems about the classification of "Nedersaksisch". These dialects today have similarities to both Dutch and Low German dialects. So it is no wonder that both sides the Dutch and the Low German linguists often have a different opinion about the classification. However, I think the main problem is the political side of view. Dialects often do not stop at national borders and often they cannot be separated from each other easily because there are no clear boundaries. You just mentioned Niebaum. Goossens on the other hand arguments that these dialects are Dutch, they were Dutch and they are Dutch: Goossens, Jan: Zwischen Niederdeutsch und Niederländisch. Die Dynamik der ostniederländischen Sprachlandschaft, in: Goossens, Jan: Ausgewählte Schriften zur niederländischen und deutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft herausgegeben von Heinz Eickmans, Loek Geeraedts, Robert Peters, Münster u. a. 2000 (= Niederlande-Studien herausgegeben von Friso Wielenga und Loek Geeraedts, Bd. 22), S. 425 – 450. In my opinion his argumentation is rather political because I cannot find any clue in his claims. His sophisticated argumentation is too long to provide here so I will simplify it: All parts of the Netherlands have always spoken Dutch. German linguists claim that Low German was spoken in the northern parts some time ago. Goossens says there is no proof of this claim (however, there is no evidence of his, too). So his argumentation boils down to this: The Dutch dialects in the northeastern parts did not change like the other dialects in the Netherlands. So they got similiar to the neighbouring Low German dialects because of their resistance to change but they are still Dutch dialects. I cannot find any good reason why it could not be viewed the other way round: these dialects were Low German but became influenced by Dutch. So you can see it is more a political problem.

@Pfold: I see you're a German speaker (and a language buff) yourself. I'm surprised you have such a hard time accepting that there is indeed a dialect continuum between High German - Low German - Frisian - Dutch (- Afrikaans, if you will). Listen to the languages; it's really quite obvious. Also, I'm guessing you have some reference books on Germanic languages yourself, judging by the articles you wrote... --dllu 12:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Low German in The Netherlands?

Low German isn't spoken in The Netherlands, I don't know where this information comes from :S... in The Netherlands the language is called Low Saxon [Nedersaksisch = lit. Nethersaxic] (never Low German or Plattdeutsch/Platduits), this only refers to Low Saxon spoken in Germany. It sometimes is called "plat" but this really refers to any dialect spoken in The Netherlands. Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 13:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

And in Germany they don't have horses, they have Pferde.

There are different naming conventions on both sides of the border. The Dutch call it Low Saxon, the Germans call it Low German, but it belongs to the same dialect group.Unoffensive text or character 15:34, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

On the German Wikipedia they call it "Niedersächsisch", Dutch "Nedersaksisch", Dutch Low Saxon "Nedersaksisch", Plattdüütsch "Neddersassisch". Historically the name is also incorrect, it would be better to rename it to Low Saxon language :-) Sεrvιεи | T@lk page 17:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

German linguists use different naming conventions. One variant is calling the language "Low German" (Niederdeutsch) and the sub-dialects or varieties of Low German are eg. North Low Saxon, Westphalian, Eastphalian etc. But anyway, I do not wish to engage myself in one of the many fruitless wars about the names of languages. I leave that to Dutch and German nationalists who seem to take quite some pleasure out of these discussions. Unoffensive text or character 09:09, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

This has already been discussed extensively on this page and a decision reached on the basis of the preponderance of usage in the published English-language literature on the subject. What these varieties are called in other languages is irrelevant. --Pfold 09:34, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article on Low German. A dialect of this language is spoken in some parts of the Netherlands. If you like to call this dialect Low Saxon, go ahead.Unoffensive text or character 13:49, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, the term Nedersaksisch is young. It is a educated term that got widerspread use with appearence of a sense of community of the Nedersaksisch dialects. Before that the dialects were mostly named after the places they were spoken (this is still the case today) or Plat or Platduits. So never Low German or Plattdeutsch/Platduits is not true. This is also illustrated by the many Google hits for Platduits that come from the Netherlands. But the term Nederduits/Low German (a educated term, that never was in vernacular use) indeed is no good name. In the Netherlands it means in a wider sense (and a bit outdated) all Dutch dialects, or in a narrower sense no Dutch dialects, but only German ones. So Low Saxon indeed is the better term. --::Slomox:: >< 16:58, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Common dialect = same ethnic stock (across national lines)?

Judging by their language, it is possible to argue that people who speak Niederdeutsch/Nedersaksisch actually come from the same ethnic stock despite the fact that they are divided in national terms into Germans and Dutch (depending on which side of the border they live). Niederdeutsch/Nedersaksisch is very much an organic dialect - a mother tongue for the people who speak it - and the fact that it is spoken across a national border is not there due to some kind of colonial situation (example being the prevalence of the English language in Ireland).

Are the speakers of Niederdeutsch/Nedersaksisch (a 'multinational dialect') an example of the same ethnic stock divided by national lines similar to the speakers of a common shtokavian dialect in the former Yugoslavia (spoken by 85% of the Serbs, 70% of the Croats and all Bosniaks and Montenegrins)? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.46.5.68 (talk) 20:40, 17 January 2007 (UTC).

Yes, the language is based on a common ethnic stock, the Saxon one. But not only. In eastern parts of the language area it is more based on linguistic characteristics. The eastern dialects are the language of immigrants into Slavic areas. These immigrants came mostly from Low Saxon areas, but also from other areas like the Netherlands, Belgium or to a lesser degree from the more southern parts of Germany. Today there is not much awareness left for the ethnic Saxon background. People mostly see themselves as Germans or Dutch at first. So there is near to zero ambition in ethnic reunification or something like that.

At the Dutch/German border the border is younger than the language disposition. In the east it was more colonial. --::Slomox:: >< 16:41, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I find the Niederdeutsch/Nedersaksisch dialect situation fascinating, because it is a real world example of a discrepancy between ethnicity (common origin of the speakers of the dialect from the Saxons, despite the lack of any political significance of this) and nationality (division of the speakers of the dialect between Germans and Dutch in terms of nationality) in the European context...--24.80.113.166 19:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I have always been told that Low-German phrases and words were spoken in the West-Country of England (Somerset, Bristol) previously. I am told that my grandparents used such terms and that at least one of their parents were fluent. Some phrases such as 'How bist do' (How are you doing) still persist with some locally to me (Dorset), particularly of the pre-war generation. I would be interested to read what others think of this.

Interesting, I wasn't previously aware of this. I think it might have a historical basis. From the end of the 9th century until the beginning of the 11th, a large part what is now England was divided in two (imagine a line running roughly from London to Chester or look up the articles on Wessex and Danelaw). The northern part fell under the control of the Vikings, the southern part under the Saxon kings (Alfred the Great and those who followed him). The Saxons were in the British Isles before this, but their influence was stronger in the South - in the North they were pushed out by later invaders from Scandinavia.

I discovered through talking with Norwegian friends that there are parts of northern English dialect which are very close to modern Norwegian equivalents - for example a Yorkshire phrase meaning roughly "how are you" (sounds like "how do debra?" - I'm not from that area, if there's someone who is who can give a better version of it, feel free) is almost identical to the Norwegian "ha du det bra?" (meaning "are you well?")

If fragments of Norse have been preserved within northern dialects, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that Low German could have been assimilated into southern dialects in the same way (though they are perhaps less apparent, the dialects in the Southeast have been weakened by urbanisation, more so than the North and West) --Wren-3^talk 19:39, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, it doesn't sound very likely. A good share of England is of Saxon descent, but I don't think there are dialects with any apparent alikeness after 1500 years. And they don't got assimilated into the dialects... Saxon language was the sole basis for those dialects. Some single phrases don't make a relationship between the languages, it's maybe just mere chance. How bist do is nothing I have ever heard in any Low German dialect. And if there were other phrases with resemblance of Low German phrases it's more likely they were introduced by single modern (modern in the sense of 16th century till today) immigrants, than that they endured all the 1500 years of separation. And this sounds especially likely, when he is speaking about one of his grand grandparents being a fluent speaker. --::Slomox:: >< 23:38, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch - link fix needed

I've changed Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch into Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch because this is the right name of this dialect. For all of those who understand German look at this page [3]. There I wrote some more detailed info about that subject. If you need an Internet ressource have look at http://www.ins-bremen.de/. There you can find a brief history of Low German but also brief descriptions of those dialects that are spoken today. I didn't fix the link because I think first of all the article Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch must be renamed into Mecklenburgisch-Pommersch. Then we should do the link fixing. --89.53.11.120 15:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

South America?

I know there are quite a few descendants of German emigrants living in South America, but does anybody know the sizes of these "communities"? Is it really fair to list Brazil and Uruguay (or the Netherlands, for that matter) as countries where Low German is spoken? You might as well say that German is spoken in England because there are tens of thousands of Germans living in London. --dllu 12:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Request for renaming to Low Saxon language

I'd like to request renaming 'Low German' to 'Low Saxon language', linguistically and politically it's more correct. 'Low German' in the Netherlands and Germany mostly refers to Low Saxon dialects spoken in Germany. Low German is, as mentioned, limited to Germany while it's spoken in countries from The Netherlands, Denmark, untill Poland and Ukraine. Also because the term 'Platdüütsch' was mentioned on the page, people will get the impression that is only about the German Low Saxon dialects, this is VERY confusing. Because of this confusing factor most interwiki links directing to this article are incorrect (some direct to West Low German, which isn't the main group Low Saxon, or they are not linked at all). Also the lable 'language' is missing, this is done in every other language article. I hope this can be solved a.s.a.p. Servien 12:18, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

"Linguistically more correct"? - see the discussion in the Archive. Those who propose this always offer arguments and opinions, never sources. The preponderance of usage in English linguistics books is very clearly 'Low German', no matter where the boundaries are. That ought to be the end of the matter unless someone can come up with a significant number of reputable sources that say otherwise. --Pfold 13:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, linguistically correct. In both of these countries the gouvernments use Low Saxon for refering to this language. Including the whole of the EU, which uses the English term Low Saxon not Low German. If you check your sources correctly you might find that "Low German" does not refer to Low Saxon spoken in The Netherlands it generally refers to Northern Low Saxon (for example if you search the net for 'Low German' you'll find a lot of info about German Low Saxon dialect but not Dutch Low Saxon dialects. Also you'll find that Ethnologue doesn't list Low German under 'language names' but it does list Low Saxon. Wikipedia is also supposed to be neutral in case of 'political' or 'offensive' article names or text and opt for the neutral variant (being Low SAXON). There has been such a lot of discussion about this title because it's simply offensive or at least confusing to a lot of people. The same is the case with titles such as Holland for the whole of The Netherlands, to some this is 'offensive' or at least irritating, this is because the whole of The Netherlands is divided in provinces and two of these provinces originally formed one region called 'Holland', to use this name for the whole of NL is incorrect and offensive. The name Holland is used more in English than "The Netherlands" in that case should Wikipedia choose for the title Holland? Servien 19:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that that you do really mean politically more correct, not linguistically more correct. To clarify, by linguistically more correct I mean in accordance with the linguistic usage of English-speaking academic linguists in peer-reviewed publications. Web searches are not a defensible method for establish correct terminological usage in an academic discipline. (Ethnologue itself is not obviously peer-reviewed and is very muddled about Germanic.)

There's perfectly simple method to make to your point and convince me and others - cite half a dozen published books or articles in English on historical linguistics in which the term LS is used exclusively or predominates over LG. --Pfold 20:31, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think I have never heard anybody non-Dutch use the term Low Saxon, and certainly no linguist. The fact is, Low German is the internationally accepted linguistic term for this language. Plus Low Saxon is problematic in German, because it would translate to "Niedersächsisch", which obviously is not quite the same. In fact, if you read German, look up de:Niedersächsisch in the German Wiki and you will see that it is not used as a synonym for "Niederdeutsch" in German, but used to describe the Low German dialects spoken in the Netherlands. You are simply switching those two terms around: LG isn't a sub-category of LS; it's the other way round.

If you want a short linguistic explanation: The term Low Saxon implies that there must exist a High Saxon language too, which there doesn't. You could perhaps call the dialects spoken in Saxony "High Saxon", but they are just that: dialects of High German.

P.S.: There is no reason to open another discussion on the exact same topic as above... --dllu 21:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree, nevertheles let me correct some things. First of all: High Saxon exists. I don't know the proper name in English, in German it is called "Obersächsisch" which is merely spoken in Saxony today. A literal translation would be something like High Saxon. So "Niedersächsisch" (I'm just using the German terms to avoid any confusion) can be considered a certain counterpart to "Obersächsisch" if you refer to Low and High just like in High and Low German. However, Obersächsisch is in deed a High German dialect while Niedersächsisch is a dialect group of Low German. In Low German philology it is often called West Low German. East Low German doesn't belong to Low Saxon (Niedersächsisch). So your statement is a misinterpretation: In fact, if you read German, look up de:Niedersächsisch in the German Wiki and you will see that it is not used as a synonym for "Niederdeutsch" in German, but used to describe the Low German dialects spoken in the Netherlands. "Niedersächsisch" are those Low German dialects that are spoken mainly in the north western parts of Germany. The status of Nedersaksisch which is spoken in the Netherlands is somewhat complicated. Some linguists say these dialects belongs to Low German, others claim they are merely Dutch dialects today. The fact is, Low German is the internationally accepted linguistic term for this language. I can't say it any better. For those who don't believe that, have a look at English dictionaries such as the OED, Webster, or MED. You will only find the term Low German. I can also deliver another example: Oliver M. Traxel: Low German Loanwords in Middle English. A Comparison between the Electronic OED (Second Edition) and MED, in: Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch 128 (2005), p. 41-62. --89.53.14.103 22:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Dialect or separate language?

Apparently it is necessary that we discuss the question of whether Low German is considered a dialect of German or a separate language. I changed the wording of the section "Official status" of this article to say:

Low German is considered a dialect of the German language by some, but a separate language by others.

This was changed so that it now doesn't really mention the "dialect option." dllu contacted me on my talk page, and I'll respond here because I think this is the best place for this discussion. He wrote:

Just because the definition as a separate language isn't accepted by you, doesn't mean it's not "universally accepted". Any linguist will tell you that it is indeed considered a separate language. If you have any references suggesting otherwise, feel free to share them with the rest of us in the discussion [...]

I shall do this happily, but the sources I can immediately find are all in (High) German; I have to ask for your understanding. A good reference, I believe, is Sachsensprache – Hansesprache – Plattdeutsch by Prof. Willy Sanders, who is a linguist and indeed an established German scholar of Low German, following Gerhard Cordes at the University of Kiel in 1974. The book is scientific, but the tone is not overly scholarly. He writes (I'll give an English summary below):

Niederdeutsch – Sprache oder Mundart(en)?

Gelegentlich ist die Rede gewesen von dem "beliebten Spiel, das da heißt 'Niederdeutsch. Sprache oder Mundart?' – und das immer dann gespielt wird, wenn man Kriterien für ein eprinzipielle Wertung des bedrohten Niederdeutschen zu erlangen hofft" (Schuppenhauer 1969, 3). Allerdings sollte es dabei weniger um einen bloß terminologischen Streit als vielmehr die sachliche Abklärung dieses umstrittenen Tatbestandes gehen.

In seinem Versuch einer exakten Definition des Begriffs 'niederdeutsche Sprache' kommt J. Goossens zu folgendem Resümee hinsichtlich der wissenschaftlichen Behandlung des Niederdeutschen: "Innerhalb der Gruppe der germanischen Sprachwissenschaften ist die niederdeutsche eine selbständige Disziplin, insofern sie als das Studium des als niederdeutsche Sprache zu verstehenden Diasystems aufgefaßt wird, das heißt des As. und Mnd. Die Untersuchung der modernen nd. Mundarten dagegen ist keine eigene Disziplin, sondern vielmehr eine nicht genau zu umgrenzende Unterabteilung der deutschen Sprachwissenschaft" (Goossens 1974, 27). Unübersehbar, zumal für den Nichtlinguisten wohl paradox anmutend, trtt hier der klare Bruch in der historischen Kontinuität des Niederdeutschen zutage: daß die Sprachperioden des Alt- und Mittelniederdeutschen sprachtheoretisch einen anderen Status haben sollen als die plattdeutschen Mundarten der Gegenwart. Vor einer ungerechtfertigten Überbewertung dieses Faktums warnen indes durchaus verleichbare Fälle sprachgeschichtlicher Entwicklung, in denen ursprünglich selbständige Sprachen zu Mundarten abgesunken, umgekehrt aber auch Mundarten zu selbständigen Sprachen aufgestiegen sind.

Sprachdefinitorische Argumente

Als Grundlage der Definition dient das linguistische Konzept des 'Diasystems'; darunter versteht man eine Zusammensetzung "aus den Elementen einer Reihe von Kommunikationssystemen …, die alle in einer Formel untergebracht werden können, weil jedes dieser Systeme fundamentale Übereinstimmungen mit jedem einzelnen anderen System aufzeigt, aber in bestimmten Punkten von ihm abweicht" (Goossens 1973, 10). Die prinzipiellen Übereinstimmungen sind notwendig, weil erst sie die Zusammenfasusng mehrerer Systeme rechtfertigen und ermöglichen. Die Unterschiede in Einzelheiten sind ebenfalls erforderlich, weil sich sonst nur ein einzelnes System, kein Diasystem ergäbe.

Sprache als Diasystem bedeutet demzufolge das Inbeziehungsetzen diachronischer (zeitgebundener), diatopischer (raumgebundener) und diastratischer (sozialschichtgebundener) Sprachvarietäten. Selbstverständlich können diese Beziehungen nicht beliebig sein, sondern sie bedürfen einer definitorischen Festlegung. Goossens (1973, 11f.) nennt als Abgrenzungskriterien

(1) das "Kriterium der Überdachung" durch eine Kultursprache, die zugleich eines der zum Diasystem gehörenden Systeme ist;

(2) das "Kriterium der Bruchstelle der Sprachlandschaft".

Wie das erste Kriterium die Existenz einer regulären Hoch- und Schriftsprache voraussetzt, so beruht das zweite – positiv formuliert – auf der Bedingung der Verwandtschaft, insofern sich eben nur verwandte und darum weitgehend übereinstimmende Sprachsysteme in einem Diasystem vereinigen lassen.

Hinsichtlich der Beurteilung des Niederdeutschen führen diese Gesichtspunkte zu folgendem Ergebnis: Kriterium (1) ist auf das Niederdeutsche nicht anwendbar, da es eine niederdeutsche Hochsprache der Gegenwart nicht gibt; wohl aber hat es "eine mnd. Schreibsprache gegeben, die als überdachendes Moment fungierte", und auch das "Konglomerat der as. Dialekte enthielt exklusiv nd. Merkmale". Kriterium (2) ist auf das Alt- und Mittelniederdeutsche nicht sinnvoll anwendbar, dagegen im Hinblick auf das Neuniederdeutsche unverzichtbar; es "erlaubt jedoch keine Defintion des Nnd. als Sprache, sondern nur als Sprachlandschaft im deutschen Sprachgebiet" (Goossens 1973, 13ff., 21ff.). Erläuternd wäre dem hinzuzufügen, daß zwar das Alt- und Mittelniederdeutsche sicher nicht als Hoch- und Schriftsprachen im modernen Sinne gelten können, doch hat die sprachraumbildende Kraft des Sachsentums im einen, der Hanse im anderen Falle zweifellos eine ähnlich integrierende Wirkung ausgeübt. Viel schwieriger erscheint eine angemessene Beurteilung des Neuniederdeutschen.

[…]

Sprachfunktionale Gesichtspunkte

Als vollgültige, zweifelsfrei anerkannte Sprachen können im Bereich der uns naheliegenden westeuropäischen Kultursprachen nach allgemein akzeptierter Auffassung etwa das Englische, Französische, Dänische usw. gelten. Fragt man, warum das so ist, lassen sich übereinstimmend als ihre wichtigsten Eigenschaften angeben, die zu den sprachdefinitorischen Kriterien (1) und (2) hinzutreten:

(3) offizizelle und generelle Gültigkeit;

(4) Einheitlichkeit im Sinne einer Normierung;

(5) kommunikative Komplettheit.

Damit sind eine Reihe weiterer Aspekte sprachfunktioneller Art genannt, die für oder gegen echten Sprachcharakter des Niederdeutschen geltend gemacht werden können.

Das Niederdeutsche in seiner heutigen Gebrauchsweise erfüllt keine der drei Bedingungen. Es ist weder die offizielle Sprache in Behörden- und Geschäftsverkehr, Schule, Kirche usw. noch in Presse, Rundfunk und Fernsehen. Es gilt auch keineswegs generell in Norddeutschland, sondern wird dort nur von einem regional sehr unterschiedlich großen Prozentsatz der Bevölkerung gesprochen und verstanden. Ganz abgesehen vom Fehlen jeglicher Normierung, die über wenig erfolreiche Versuche zur Einführung einer geregelten Rechtschreibung nie hinausgekommen ist, erschöpft sich die Einheitlichkeit des Niederdeutschen bisweilen an der jeweiligen Ortsgrenze. Für die Mundartsprecher kann hüben und drüben schon ein "anderes" Platt gelten, und daß die weiträumigeren Unterschiede etwa zwischen Westfälisch, Ostfriesisch, Holsteinisch usw. gravierend sind, weiß man ohnehin. Schließlich weist auch die "kommunikative Komplettheit", nämlich die Fähigkeit, von der Thematik her mit den eigenen sprachlichen Mitteln alles auszudrücken, im Niederdeutschen ein beträchtliches Defizit auf; das ist eine ständige Erfahrung jedes Mundartsprechers, der sich nur allzu oft gezwungen sieht, vor allem bei intellektuell oder technisch anspruchsvollen Sachverhalten das Hochdeutsche zu Hilfe zu nehmen. All diese Restriktionen betreffen ganz besonders den schriftlichen Gebrauch; denn das heutige Niederdeutsch lebt, außerhalb des Sonderbereichs literarischer Verwendung, eben nur in gesprochener Form.

Die Sprachwissenschaft hat längst ihre Schlußfolgerungen aus den bekannten Fakten gezogen. Dem historischen Niederdeutschen – in einer runden Jahreszahl: vor 1600 – kommt ein durchaus eigenständiger, auf sächsischer Stammesgrundlage erwachsener Sprachcharakter zu, der es in eine Reihe mit anderen germanischen Sprachen wie dem älteren Englischen, Friesischen, Niederländischen usw. stellt. Gleich diesen sind das Alt- und Mittelniederdeutsche folglich legitimer Gegenstand der Sprachgeschichtsforschung; wir verfügen also über eine eigene, niederdeutsche Sprachgeschichte. Die ursprüngliche Unabhängigkeit geht indes mit dem Untergang der mittelniederdeutschen Schreibsprache und der Übernahme des Hochdeutschen verloren. Damit kommt es in Norddeutschland zu dem großen Bruch: Sprache - Mundarten, insofern dort seither Niederdeutsch nurmehr in der Form der modernen Mundarten existiert. Ihre Behandlung fällt demgemäß in das Sachgebiet der Dialektologie, wo sie – neben den hochdeutschen Dialekten – ein Spezialgebit innerhalb der deutschen Dialekte darstellen.

The quoted works are:

• J. Goossens: Niederdeutsche Sprache. Versuch einer Defintion, in: Ders. (Hg.), Niederdeutsch. Sprache und Literatur, I, Neumünster 1973, S. 9-27
• C. Schuppenhauer, Niederdeutsche Literatur und niederdeutsche Literaturgeschichte, Quickborn 59 (1969), 1-21.

And the citation for Sanders is:

• W. Sanders: Sachsensprache – Hansesprache – Plattdeutsch. Sprachgeschichtliche Grundzüge des Niederdeutschen, Göttingen 1982

To summarise in English: Old and Middle Low German may be considered independent languages, but New Low German does not fit the criteria that can be established for determining whether a "diasystem" is an independent language or not. Sanders mostly follows the arguments of Prof. Goossens here, but the stance is not a private theory of him and Goossens, but rather accepted by linguists in general (or so he asserts).

I should also quote from Goossens directly, but my time was limited, so I was only able to jot down a few excerpts, which I chose because they were so unambiguous:

Das Nnd. ist also nicht als eine Sprache, sondern als eine Gruppe von Dialekten im dt. Sprachgebiet zu verstehen, wobei unklar bleibt, wie dieses Dialektgebiet im einzelnen abzugrenzen ist.

In English:

Thus, New Low German cannot be understood as a language, but as a group of dialects in the area of the German language, though it remains unclear how to delimit this area of dialects precisely.

Furthermore:

Wenn wir die Gesamtheit der heutigen nd. Dialekte nicht als eine Sprache betrachten können, so müssen wir doch feststellen, daß man in bestimmten Kreisen immer noch glaubt, das Nd. sei eine Sprache. Dieser Glaube beruht auf der Erinnerung an die alte "Eigensprachlichkeit". Heeroma hat ihn als "niederdeutschen Sprachmythos" charakterisiert. Dieser Mythos, so schreibt er, möge das Nd. "sprachsoziologisch" zu etwa mehr als einer "deutschen Mundart" machen, dieses "mehr" ist nicht so einfach zu formulieren und scheint auf jeden Fall nicht genug zu sein, um es zu einer Sprache, zu der östlichen Nachbarsprache des Niederländischen zu machen. […] Wir können also sagen, daß der Sprachwille in Norddeutschland seit der Romantik nicht groß genug gewesen ist, um eine Norm entstehen zu lassen mit einer Funktion, durch die das Nd. über die gesprochenen Dialekte hinaus zu mehr als einer Sammlung von "Literaturmundarten", nämlich zu einer Sprache wurde.

In English:

Even as we cannot view the entirety of contemporary Low German dialects as a language, we still have to observe that in certain circles the belief still exists that Low German is a language. This belief is caused by memories of the old "language independence" Heeroma characterised it as the "Low German language myth." This myth, he writes, may make Low German something more than a "German dialect" by way of "language sociology"; this "more" isn't easy to phrase and in any case appears to be insufficient to make it a language, to make it the Eastern neighbouring language of Dutch. […] So we can state that the will to language in Northern Germany since the age of Romanticism has not been great enough to let a standard arise that would make Low German, rising above the spoken dialects, more than a collection of "literature dialects," that is to say, a language.

I think in light of this we can easily dismiss the claim that "any linguist will tell me that it is indeed considered a separate language." On the contrary, it would appear linguistics come out in clear support of the "dialect" position. I feel my original phrasing was justified, and can be restored, but it might be worthwhile to elaborate on the point. Specifically, it should be made clear that Old and Middle Low German had a greater independence from German and can be considered separate languages even by people who would not ascribe the same status to New Low German. Furthermore I noticed that Goossens made a clear distinction between the Low German variants spoken in Germany and those spoken in the Netherlands, and I'm not sure at the moment how that should affect my understanding of his position. I don't have an immediate idea for a proper wording, but then I don't have to do all the work, do I? ;) --SKopp 21:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've now changed the article. --SKopp 09:28, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thanks, SKopp, for this very interesting and useful citation. As a general comment, I would say that linguists usually don't get too worked up about this question, and I am not sure linguistic science takes it seriously to have worked out a univerally accepted definition of the distinction between language and dialect. It is more a political and an identity question which gets very emotional and often becomes rather silly, and linguists are usually watching bemused from the sidelines. As a Scot in Bavaria I see the same arguments about Scots and Bavarian, and I have to smile. All these language varieties are precious, but that doesn't make me want to categorise Allemanic or Yorkshire English as languages just to make the point. --Doric Loon 12:14, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

That's my impression as well. The first book I looked up was Cordes' and Möhn's Handbuch zur niederdeutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin 1983), but browsing through its pages I didn't find any explicit mention of this issue; the terms "Sprache," "Mundart," and "Dialekt" get thrown around a lot, but apparently without any need to establish a clear distinction. It doesn't affect the study of the language or the literature. --SKopp 16:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't want to begin a discussion about the status of Low German, but I also read these books and the arguments given by Goossens and Sanders are also very unclear. First of all, Sanders refers to Goossens' work so I won't mention him further. If you read Goossens' definition you will find that it can only be used for Low German/High German. It's somewhat to specific. Furthermore it neglects historical and some linguistic critera. Just let me give you an example: if you take this definition by heart you might want to classify Frisian as a German dialect. You could also say the German dialects spoken in France could be French dialects. Goosens only refers to sociological aspects:

(3) offizielle und generelle Gültigkeit;

(4) Einheitlichkeit im Sinne einer Normierung;

(5) kommunikative Komplettheit.

I try to translate these points into English (hope, it's not too bad though): (3) official and general validity, (4) standardization (5) communicative completeness (i. e. one can use it for almost every topic in science, culture etc.). Goossens argues that Low German does not fulfil any of these criteria. Let's go back to history. In the Middle Ages none of our western languages fulfilled all these criteria but they are considered to be languages. But if you read de Saussure you can neglect that, so do I. There are at least two other languages that are spoken in Germany today: Frisian and Sorbian. Both have no general or official validity, standardization or communicative completeness. But even Goossens wouldn't say that these are German dialects. There are other languages, too that don't fit into that scheme. On the other hand Low German has some disctinct characteristics that Goossens and Sanders simply neglect: Low German hasn't undergone the Second consonant shift that only German dialects have (that includes Swiss German, too). The vocabulary of Low German is somewhat different from other German dialects, e g. he (HG er, E: he], töven (HG warten, E: to wait), böten (HG: heizen, E: to heat) or it differs in its meaning such as falsch (bad, HG wrong) or Deern (girl, HG Dirne: whore). Many words are more similar to their Dutch counterparts than to their High German ones. You can say Low German has some similarities to German but also to Dutch, Frisian and English. If you have a close look at Goosens' and Sanders' arguments you won't find references to these points I made. It is certainly unclear how to deal with them. Today Low Germany philology is still arguing about the status of Low German. I just quote some titles: Goossens, Jan (ed.): Niederdeutsch. Sprache und Literatur. Eine Einführung. (literal translation: Low German. Language and Literature. An Introduction.), Stellmacher, Dieter: Niederdeutsche Sprache. (Low German Language). I recommend this page for you: [4] (It's in German, I'm afraid.) It uses the term language (niederdeutsche Sprache) but also quotes Sanders. --89.53.14.103 23:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

PS: I just want to answer that question (I forgot, sorry): The first book I looked up was Cordes' and Möhn's Handbuch zur niederdeutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (Berlin 1983), but browsing through its pages I didn't find any explicit mention of this issue; the terms "Sprache," "Mundart," and "Dialekt" get thrown around a lot, but apparently without any need to establish a clear distinction. There is actually a clear distinction. Low German consists of many dialects, these are named Low German dialects. Low German language refers to all these dialects in general, you can talk about Low German dialects that means you refer to the characteristics of these dialect in detail e. g. "Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch", "Northern Low Saxon" etc. If you refer to Low German language you are talking about general charactics that most of these dialects have in common. I just give you an example. The words given above (he, töven etc.) refer to the language Low German. If I talked about the dialects I would have written: he, töven (Northern Low German), hei, täuben (Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch). Then I would have compared parts of the Low German language, i. e. two of its dialects. You can also find this distinction here [5]. --89.53.14.103 00:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Well of course, we don't actually need to settle this. There are clearly two views, and the job of our article must be to reflect those two views. What started this debate was that someone wanted to purge one of them and say only the other exits. That is just not on.

I remain a bit sceptical about the separate language business. The argument about some separate vocabulary would apply equally to Swabian and Allemannic and Bavarian, and before you know it, German becomes a series of twenty "languages", which really doesn't help anyone. These language forms are close and yet different. From my perspective, the phrase "one language" expresses the closeness, and "many dialects" expresses the differentness. I don't mind other categorisations, but I don't see really the point in them, and I am especially suspicious of the emotionality behind the argument.

The High German Consonant Shift is unhelpful as an argument for a distinct language. The implication is that it marks a sharp boundery which is more than a dialect boundary. The problem, is that it is NOT a sharp boundary. It is a spectrum, a series of many isoglosses running roughly east to west, some in the north, some in the south, totally fragmenting the language area. The effect of this shift is precisely what we know as dialect continuum. --Doric Loon 12:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, both views must be presented but let say something about your arguments. I hope you won't get tired of all that linguistic stuuf I will show here and by the way, sorry for my poor, poor English. SKopp et. al. have brought us some wonderful arguments that vote in favour of dialect. Let me show you some that could be used to vote in favour of language. First of all I want to make absolutely clear that these arguments should only show the other side of view, it's not a vote. In the end I will give a conclusion. It is a spectrum, a series of many isoglosses running roughly east to west, some in the north, some in the south, totally fragmenting the language area. This is simply untrue. There are sharp boundaries, one called the "Benrather Linie" in German. All dialects north of it can be classified as Low German all others are High German dialects. There is no "maken" south of this frontier. Just have look at www.diwa.info and you will find that there is no fragmenting. The High German Consonant Shift is unhelpful as an argument for a distinct language. The implication is that it marks a sharp boundery which is more than a dialect boundary. But that is the point. Because of this boundaries linguists separate High German from Low German, Dutch, Frisian, and English. I just want to make this absoulutely clear: almost no one in linguistics believes that Low German belongs to the High German dialects because it would be wrong from a more historical view: "Bes. mit der zweiten Lautverschiebung [...] entfernt sich das Hochdeutsche vom Westgermanischen und damit auch vom Niederdeutschen. Kennzeichnend für das Deutsche wird dessen Zweiteilung in Hochdeutsch und Niederdeutsch (Hilkert Weddige: Mittelhochdeutsch. Eine Einführung. I try to translate these sentences into English though is't really bad I guess: Especially through the Second consonant shift High German gets separated from West Germanic and thus from Low German. The separation into High German and Low German becomes characteristical for German.) The main question is whether Low German can be seen as language or just as an independent group of dialects. Then these dialects can be seen as part of the German dialects. In this case German does not mean High German but German in a more general way (cf. Low German and High German). My English is very bad maybe you misunderstood me: I didn't want to vote for one side I just wanted to show that Goossens' arguments are not undisputable. The quoted works are rather old. Wirrer states that Low German is a language because of its linguistic characteristics and the territory. (Jan Wirrer [ed.]: Minderheiten- und Regionalsprachen in Europa). My arguments are not emotional but just linguistic facts and nothing more. I just showed you that Goossens' definfition just focuses on sociolingustic facts. There is one arguement that's left: similarity. It's very popular to separate between dialect and languages by simislartiy but is also very unclear. It is a spectrum, a series of many isoglosses running roughly east to west, some in the north, some in the south, totally fragmenting the language area. Swedish, Danish and Norwegian are very similar. The have lots of isoglosses. But no one would say these are just dialects. The dialect continuum you are talking about is just about north and south but also about east and west. There are many Isoglosses between Dutch and High German, even more between Low German and Dutch:

Nummerals

Dutch	Low German	High German	English
een	een (ein)	eins	one
twee	twee (twei)	zwei	two
drie	dree (drei)	drei	three
vier	veer (vier)	vier	four
vijf	fief	fünf	five
zes	ses (söss)	sechs	six
zeven	seven (söven)	sieben	seven
acht	acht	acht	eight
negen	negen	neun	nine
tien	teen (tein)	zehn	ten

personal pronouns

Dutch	Low German	High German	English
ik	ik	ich	I
jij (Middle Dutch du)	du	du	you (Middle English thou)
hij, zij, het	he (hei), se (sei), dat (et)	er, sie, es	he, she, it
wij	wi	wir	we
jullie	ji	ihr	you
zij	se (sei)	sie	they

You can see the reference between Dutch, Low German and Englsih. If you take a closer look you will find that Dutch an Low German are very close related to English. But these are just basic words. However the 3rd. person singular is another difference between High German dialects and the other West Germanic languages/dialects. Only High German uses "er". (I could explain why but that would take to much time and doesn't matter.) So let's take a closer look:

Phonology

If you have a look at five you will find that English, Low German and Dutch have lost the "n" and the vowel (which has changed though) was stretched (sometimes). You can find that in lots of words: zachtjes - sacht - sanft - soft or zeis - Sees (Seis), Sense, scythe or gans - Goos - Gans - goose or süss (LG) - sonst (HG) - else. In High German you have "chs" (pronounced just like "x" in "box"), in LG you don't: wachsen - wassen - to grow, wechseln - wesseln - to change (D: wisselen), Wachs - Wass - wax (D: was) etc. You also have a shift between "f" and "ch" in Dutch, LG an HG, I just take the example from above: zachtje - sacht - sanft - soft. You can see that if you look at "after": achter - achter - hinter (Old High German: after) - after. Another example would be Schacht (LG) and Schaft (HG). Schacht was later brought into High German. Now let me describe some historical developments. The Second German consonant shift is only one example. In the consonant system "d" sometimes changed into "t" in the beginning and the middle of a word in HG, cf.: Tochter (LG: Dochter, D: dochter, E: daughter) or Zeiten (LG Tieden, D: tijden, E: times, but cf. tide). There were also changes in the High German vowel system that the other West Germanic languages/dialects didn't undergo:

Germanic "e": LG unchanged, Old HG splits it into two different diphthongs: 1.: ia, ie, etc, Middle HG: ie (diphthong), New HG: ie (long i). In most of the LG dialects the e remained unchanged, hence: Leev - Liebe - love, scheev - schief - wrong, crooked, leaning etc., deep - tief - deep. In Middle Dutch some long "e" became "ie" but that must be separated from the HG development: liefde (love), diep (deep). There are only a few LG dialects that changed the "e" into the diphthong ei (pronounced as in "bike"), mainly after 1600: deep -> deip, etc. 2.: MHG ei (pronounced as in "hey" or similiar to that), NHG ei (pronounced as in "bike"): Kleed - Kleid - dress (cf. cloth), Been - Bein - leg (cf. bone), een - eins - one. In Dutch it is similiar: been (leg), een (one). Some LG dialects changed "e" into the vowel "ei": ein, Bein. However this all happened separately after 1600 and had nothing to to with this changed mentioned here.

Germanic "o": LG unchanged, OHG splits it into two different diphtongs: 1.: ua, uo, etc, MHG uo, HG u: good - gut - good, Broder - Bruder - brother, Pool - Pfuhl - puddle (cf. pool), etc. Some LG dialects have an "au" now: Broder -> Brauder. 2.: MHG ou, NHG au: Boom - Baum - tree, ook - ouch - also, too, etc, Og - Auge - eye etc.

There were also some change in LG that time but I think it's enough. Now let me show you some differences between MHG and NHG:

Diphtongs became monophthongs: ie -> ie (see above), uo -> u (see above). Monophthongs became diphthongs : i -> ei (mîn -> mein [E: my]), u -> au (hûs -> Haus [E: house]) Short vowels were streched into long vowels in syllables with coda: sagen [zagɘn] -> sagen [zɑ:gɘn]. sw, sp, st, sn, sm, sl -> schw, sp [ʃp], st [ʃt], schn, schm, schl: Schwein, spielen, Stiefel, schneiden, schmieren, schlagen.

There were some more changes I will just refer to these because LG didn't undergo none of these phenomena, these are changes that only affected HG: mein - mien, Haus - Hus. sagen - seggen. Some HG dialects have preserve some of the old characteristics: Swiss Dutch dialcts: Hus instead of Haus, etc., Bavarian dialects: Bruoder instead of Bruder. In LG the tendency to speak [ʃ] instead of [s] has just begun, many speakers still say: Swien (pig, swine), spelen (play), Stevel (boot), snieden (to cut), smeren (to grease), slagen (beat). Some of these examples contain characteristics that I mentioned above (e. g. e vs. ie). There were some changes in MLG that can be found in the LG dialects: sometimes i became e: swemmen - schwimmen - swim, Spenn - Spinne - spider etc. LG has preserved many phonological characteristics that HG didn't: [f] instead of [p] at the coda of a syllable: leev - lieb (beloved), geev - gab (gave), and also gifft - gibt (gives). It's no coincidence that these examples are similiar to their English translation. In the middle of a word you can often find [v] instead of [f]: Deiwel - Teufel [devil], Stevel - Stiefel [boot] etc. I think that's enough. Let's go on:

Vocabulary

I could say a lot of about this but I will shorten it a bit. LG Vocabulary contains some words that do not exist in HG but sometimes in other West Germanic languages:

Dutch	Low German	High German	English
laat	laat	spät	late
achter	achter	hinter	after, behind, etc.
hij	he (hei)	er	he
uur	Klock	Uhr	clock
trekken	trecken	ziehen	draw, pull, etc.
treden	pedden	treten	step, kick etc.
broek	Büx	Hose	trousers
tussen	mang	zwischen	among
kruipen	krupen	kriechen	creep
klein	lütt	klein	little small, etc.

There are more words but I think it's enough. If you look closely at LG vocabulary you will find it is somewhat closer to Dutch than to HG (as a result of the phonological differences mentioned above:

Dutch	Low German	High German	English
pan	Pann	Pfanne	pan
vos	Voss	Fuchs	fox
helpen	helpen	helfen	help
voet	Foot	Fuß	foot
zoeken	söken	suchen	seek, search
kijken	kieken	schauen/gucken (informal)	look.
boven	baven	oben	above
buiten	buten	draußen	outside
binnen	binnen	innen	inside

These are just few examples. Have a look now at grammar:

Morphology

In German you have four cases: nominative, genetive, dative and accusative. In New LG only two remained: nominative and a so to say non-nominative which was derived from the dative case. In HG "Mann" is declinated as follows: 1. der Mann, 2. des Mannes. 3. dem Mann(e), den Mann etc. Now let's have a look at LG: 1. de Mann 2. den Mann. I just give you examples:

Der Mann ist klein. De Mann is lütt. The man is small.

Das Haus des Mannes ist groß. Den Mann sien Hus is groot. The man's house is big.

Ick gebe dem Mann(e) etwas. Ik geev den Mann wat. I give something to the man.

Er sieht den Mann. He süht den Mann. He sees the man.

You see, the genetive case doesn't exist and the accusative case, too. So let's look at the conjugation of Verbs. It's very similar to HG but the plural is somewhat different:

Low German	High German	English
ick leev	ich lebe	I live
du leevst	du lebst	you live
he, se, dat leevt	er, sie, es lebt	he, she, it lives
wi levt (west)/leven (east)	wir leben	we live
ji levt (west)/leven (east)	ihr lebt	you live
se levt (west)/leven (east)	sie leben	they live

In LG the plural endings of verbs do not differ, in HG they do. LG has a lot of verbs that are irregular while in German their conjugation is regular:

LG: ick frag, du frögst, he/se/dat frögt, wi, ji, se fragt/fragen HG: ich frage, du fragst, er/sie/es fragt, wir fragen, ihr fragt, sie fragen.

Especially the past tense and the participle differ in some ways:

fragen - fröög - fragt vs. fragen - fragte - gefragt (E: ask - asked - [have] asked) seggen - sää - seggt vs. sagen, sagte, gesagt (say - said -said , similar to LG, D, too.) steken - stöök - steken vs. stecken - steckte - gesteckt (cf. stick - stuck - stuck) kriegen - kreeg - kregen vs. kriegen - kriegte - gekriegt (get) etc.

The conjugation of irregular verbs differs from HG:

stahn - stünn - stahn vs. stehen, stand, gestunden (stand): LG preserved the old form (cf. MHG: stuont). sien (or wesen) - weer (was) - west vs. sein - war - gewesen lesen - lees - lest vs. lesen - las - gelesen kamen - keem - kamen vs. kommen - kam - gekommen fangen - füng - fungen vs. fangen - fing - gefangen geven - geev - geven vs. geben - gab - gegeben ropen - reep - ropen vs. rufen - rief - gerufen etc.

Some of these form differ due the changes described above (e. g. ropen) some have changed since MLG: In NLG there is no conjunctive mood (cf. HG traf - träfe : met - would meet). Some of the old conjunctive forms became indicative: MLG kwamm - kwem (came - would come) -> k(w)eem (came). In some cases HG "lost" the unregular forms (e. g. kriegen). As you can see the particple of most LG dialects has no ge- (today only some Westphalian regions use e- or ge-).

All these arguments can be used to show the close relations to Dutch and other West Germanic languages. You can see there aren't just some isoglosses. The differences shown above separate LG from HG. Swiss German for example underwent most of the phonolgical changes I described, LG didn't. Every dialect has his own vocabulary but unlike Swiss German or other High German dialects LG has much in common with the vocabulary that you can find in other West Germanic languages. You can find the word "Brink/brink" in LG as well as in English (although its meaning has changed in LG). You can also say that if you look at grammatical structures. Though LG is mostly influenced by HG today you can find structures that would be wrong in HG, e.g.: so groot as he - so groß wie er - as tall as him. That's why LG dialects are not High German dialects. I could provide more differences but I think it's enough.

Main problems of those views

This view only contains linguistic arguments. If you take a close look at them and might say Swedish is a dialect of Danish or viceversa. It also lacks of some points such as those sociolinguistic ones provided by Goosens et al. I already mentioned Frisian which couldn't be defined as a language by Goossens definition. In the end there is just an emotional view in those cases where sociolinguistic views fail: similarity. And that is the point. Frisian differs in many ways from HG. LG isn't that different. The arguments I provided above could be used to determine: 1. LG dialects are no High German dialects. That doesn't neccessarily mean that they form a language. They can be seen as a group of dialects. or 2. LG is a language formed by its dialects. The decision for 1. or 2. is emotional: I remain a bit sceptical about the separate language business. Others might say, I think it's a language then. That's why even LG philology is not certain about the status of LG. But one thing is absolutely clear: LG dialects don not belong to High German dialects. Swabian, Alemannic, Bavarian etc. ,may differ but they these things in common: Second consonant shift, changes in the vowel systems (Germanic "e" and "o") and their vocabulary is somewhat different from English/Dutch/LG. These are just linguistic facts. Low German is a special subject in German philology in spite of its status.--89.53.61.232 19:06, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

What this line of reasoning comes down to is that the differences between Low and High German are great. But we don't have much of an idea of how much a dialect is allowed to differ from other dialects of its "mother language." One would have to establish a line first, beyond which the separate language lies, and then ask: Does Low German cross that line? As far as I know, linguistics adamantly refuses to draw such a line.

Another property of your reasoning is that it is specifically geared towards showing that Low German is different from German, but it doesn't explain why it can't be a dialect of Dutch.

As for the status, it's my understanding that the thing called "Low German" is a group of dialects alongside the Central German and High German dialects, which also differ in the extent to which they are affected by the High German sound shift. --SKopp 19:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I try to answer some of your questions: 'But we don't have much of an idea of how much a dialect is allowed to differ from other dialects of its "mother language."' There is no "mothertongue": "Die sprachlichen Übereinstimmungen in der westgermanischen (wgerm.) Sprachen gehen nicht auf eine urspr. Einheit zurück, sondern sind wohl Produkte späterer Ausgleichsentwicklungen." (Hermann Paul et al.: Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik. You can speak German and your English is much better than mine, so I do not try to translate this sentence. If you like you can translate it into English.) Low German was different from High German in the very beginning. There is no original mother toungue. Some things I mentioned above can also be found in: Stefan Sonderegger: Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur and in Paul's Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik. Another property of your reasoning is that it is specifically geared towards showing that Low German is different from German, but it doesn't explain why it can't be a dialect of Dutch. LG also differs from Dutch: du - jij (you), e -> ie (D.: diep, LG deep) or het - dat (it). D: preserved some words that died out in LG, e. g.: orloog - Krieg (war). The syntax of Low Germans is more likely to High German now (though there are differences, too). These are just a few examples. Dutch has its own cultural tradition in writing that was also different from Low German in Medivial times: huis - Hus, tijd - Tiet. Written New Low German often uses High German conventions because speakers of Low German see themselves as Germans and not Dutch (this is a more sociological argument, I know). As for the status, it's my understanding that the thing called "Low German" is a group of dialects alongside the Central German and High German dialects, which also differ in the extent to which they are affected by the High German sound shift. Central German dialects are High German dialects (I just write this in German because I don't know the proper names in English: Hochdeutsch consists of: Mitteldeutsch and Oberdeutsch.). I just mentioned that there are more phonological characteristics that separate Low German form High German dialects. This line simply devides High German from other West Germanic dialects on the Continent. There are other lines, too, that separate Mitteldeutsch from Oberdeutsch. But these lines only separate High German dialects from each other. As I said above, I do not vote for one side, all these categorisations are problematic. However my claim that Low German dialects are no High German dialects is true: Middle High German only contains Mittel- and Oberdeutsch. The works quoted above only contain these dialects. Sonderegger (Althochdeutsche Grammatik) clearly distinguishes between Low and High German. This distinction is also made between New High and Low German (cf. Weddige, p. 20). He also talks about "Zweiteilung der deutschen Sprache in Hochdeutsch und Niederdeutsch." (dichtomy of the German language in High German and Low German). You are talking about German. Well, Low and High German consist of course of German dialects (Look at their names.) Today people speak of German and mean High German, in dialectology German simply means German which is separated into High German and Low German dialect groups. The separation into these two groups can be seen in linguistic literature (see above) but also how departments of the German language are organized and namend in Northern Germany (in Southern Germany Low German isn't researched):

• University of Münster: "Abteilung Niederdeutsche Sprache und Literatur" [6]
• University of Göttingen "Niederdeutsche Sprache und Literatur" [7]
• University of Hamburg: "Niederdeutsche Sprache und Literatur" [8]
• University of Kiel "Lehrstuhl Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft, insbesondere Niederdeutsche Sprache und Literatur"
• University of Rostock "Niederdeutsche Philologie" [9]
• University of Greifswald "Niederdeutsche Philologie" [10]

I mentioned only a few but you can see that they form a special branch in German research. You can't find such a focus on High German dialects cf. the organisation of department of the university of Munich [11]. So you might get an impression that Low German is something different. --89.53.61.232 21:09, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

WOW!! I can't believe the effort you have put into making this case. Congratulations! First a disclaimer: I did not say that everyone who believes LG is a separate language is being emotional following a political agenda based on local patriotism - I just said a lot of them are, and that makes me sceptical.

Nobody is suggesting that Low German is a subcategory of High German. The traditional view, however, is that LG and HG are dialects of a single continuum. (I know you are aware of the ambiguity of the term "High German", but for anyone else reading here, HG in this context means the southern dialects, where the mountains are, it doesn't mean the standard language!)

You still haven't got the point about the HG shift. Yes, the Benrath line is a fixed isogloss, and you don't get machen north of it. If you define LG as the dialects which have maken then the Benrath line is the boundary of LG. But why should we make that arbitrary judgment? Why shouldn't we say that LG begins at the Uerdingen Line, the ik/ich line, which is further north than Benrath. Or, if we are going to divide the continuum into two languages, why don't we make the Speyer line (appel/Apfel) the boundary. That would be grouping Central German together with Low German, instead of with Upper German, which is not the traditional category, but if you declare LG to be a separate langauge, you are rejecting traditional categories anyway, so why not? Look at the table of the Rheinischer Fächer on High German consonant shift; THAT is what I mean by fragmentation - the shift does NOT give a clean, surgical incision.

You have given lots of nice examples of how LG is different from other German dialects. These are fun, and I am grateful for some of them (though I already speak German and Dutch fluently, so most of it was not new to me). What you have not done is to make a comparison with, say, Bavarian. I contend that the new Bayerisches Wörterbuch contains just as many regional varitions in vocabulary as you can find for LG. And there are just as many grammatical differences, too. For example, in Bavarian they also say "Dem Mann sein Haus ist groß". LG has many glorious ideosynracies, but to make a claim for a separate language on purely linguistic grounds you would have to show that those unique features are more than the concept of a dialect can tolerate. And you haven't begun to address that. To do it would involve a massive comparative study, and I doubt if it is worth the effort. --Doric Loon 08:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for your effort to provide a good discussion here. It's nice to talk to people who just argument by facts and not by emotions. I just answer your questions first: Why shouldn't we say that LG begins at the Uerdingen Line, the ik/ich line, which is further north than Benrath. This line is somewhat newer, literature still talks about the Benrather line ("Das Niederdeutsche hat nicht teil an der zweiten oder hochdeutschen Lautverschiebung der Konsonanten [vgl. auf Abb. 3 die sog.Benrather Linie]). Weddige who I quoted here obviously makes no difference between ick and maken, in fact the ick-line was the Benrather line then. The lines were only different in the east since the ick line ended south of Berlin and the maken line north of the town. You can see that on Weddiges map on p. 20. The Wenker-Atlas then made a difference between ick and maken (see www.diwa.info). I can't say when these differences had happened and obviousily "ech" was neglectable for some dialectologists because it was just one word while south of Benrath the shift of k to ch was completed. Furthermore these dialects are neighbouring High German dialects it could be that they borrowed that word from them. Actually you can see what the main problem of dialectography is: lines must be found which are often changed because languages and dialects are always in flux. But I think I've already told you why this line is more than just a dialect line. So I will show you another point of view. First of all I just want to make somtehing very clear: I haven't written that whole stuff to prove that LG is a language (I've already written that it is more an emotional thing) but has nothing to do with High German dialects. Low German dialects are dialects of their own. Maybe you can say they all form a language or you can say the are just a group of dialects, but they are not High German dialects. A dialect continuum can bear dialects that have no common origin, I've already said that there is a dialect continuum from east to west, too (including Dutch dialects which are also no High German dialects). I think the most confusing thing is the name "German" which assumes that there must be a historical relationship between Low and High German (I mean in a linguistical way, not in a political). So let's have a closer look at that. I just take the German names because it's easier to explain: Niederdeutsch (Low German) and Hochdeutsch (High German). I could talk about much historical stuff here but I just want to quote the "Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik" instead because it's much shorter: "Der Terminus 'diutsch' [i. e. German] ist Sammelbegriff für die im 'deutschen Land' vereinten wgerm. Stammessprachen und Mundarten und wird erst in nhd. [i. e. New High German] Zeit zur Bezeichnung für die überregionale Einheitssprache." (The name 'duitsch' [German] is a collectivum for all those West Germanic clan languages and dialects that were spoken in 'Germany' and it became the name of the supra-regional language not until New High German was established.) I just want to explain what 'deutschen Land' ('Germany') means in that case. It does not mean the frontiers of recent Germany but those of the Frankish Empire where Germanic languages were spoken. These languages were called "theodiscus". So German consisted of many different languages such as Dutch, Low German (at that time it was definitely a language) and High German. Low German consisted of those languages that have not undergone the Second consonant shift (the boundary was the Benrather line and due to linguists is still today). The definition of Low German that is used in this article and by linguists today was made in the 19th century. I just give you two examples: Dutch lingists and Dutch people called their language "Nederdiutsch" then (i. e. Low German literally translated). They changed the name at the end or at the beginning of the 20th century into "Nederlands" because Dutch has its own literature and culture. Some Germans argumented at that time Dutch were of course German (what is nonsense in deed). That might also be part of the reason why the name was changed. In Grimm's "Deutsches Wörterbuch" which is one of the most important dicitionaries for German "Niederdeutsch" is defined as follows: "die niederteutsche oder niedersächsische sprache hat .. mancherlei mundarten, als die holländische, brabandische, friesländische, westphalische, braunschweigische, hollsteinische, mekelburgische, pommerische etc." (the Low German or Low Saxon language consists of many dialects such as Hollandic, Brabantic, Frisian, Westphalian, Braunschweigisch, Holsteinisch, Mecklenburgisch, Pommeranian etc.) [12]. Obviousily Low German is definend as West Germanic languages that have not undergone the Second consonant shift. That also includes Dutch (Deutsch!). This definition was also used by the Low German writer Fritz Reuter, who wrote:

Ik weit einen Eikbom, de steit an de See,

De Nurdstorm, de brus't in sin Knäst,

Stolz reckt hei de mächtige Kron in de Höh';

So is dat all dusend Johr west;

Kein Minschenhand,

De hett em plant't;

Hei reckt sik von Pommern bet Nedderland. [13]

(My humble translation would be: I know an oak that stands at the sea, the north storm booms in his knots, it has proudly drawn out its crown for thousand years. No human hand has planted it, it is streching from Pommeriana till the Netherlands.) Today the definition Low German only contains those dialects that are situated mostly in Germany, Dutch isn't part of that. But now you can imagine that German or Deutsch was not a qualification for a language but for a certain territory. The German in Low German says nothing about its connection to High German, it just refers to those dialects that are spoken in Northern Germany it is just a geographical term. There is no linguistical connection I tried to show and prove that. But now I try to answer your questions:

That would be grouping Central German together with Low German, instead of with Upper German, which is not the traditional category, but if you declare LG to be a separate langauge, you are rejecting traditional categories anyway, so why not? Look at the table of the Rheinischer Fächer on High German consonant shift; THAT is what I mean by fragmentation - the shift does NOT give a clean, surgical incision. First of all I did not claim LG is a language I only said it colud be seen as a language or a group of dialect. I've already showed that the status of Low German is not clear in linguistics (that's why I argued about Goossens' definition). The "Rheinischer Fächer" is no fragmentation. It divides certain Central German dialects from each other who are part of the High German dialect group. This "Fächer" is something special in German and very interesting. But it is no fragmentation because there are clear lines that separates those dialects from each other. All have on thing in common: the shift from k to 'ch' is complete while the shift from p to ff and t s are rather incomplete. That's the difference between these dialects. I just give you some examples (I take the German names, sorry for that):

Low German	Ripuarisch	Moselfränkisch	English
kaken	kochen	kochen	to cook
Appel	Appel	Appel	apple
dat	dat	dat	the (Neuter)
ut	us	aus	out, off etc.
groot	gruus	groß	big, tall, etc.
heet	hees	haas	hot
Aap	Ap	Aff	monkey
Kaklepel	Kochlöffel	Kochlöffel	wooden spoon

You can find all these words at www.diwa.info, including audio material and some sheets where you can see the words in written form (in Kurrent though). As for LG I just took a more "general" form because there are many dialects but all have k, t and p. Now hopely you can see what I mean: while Low German only contains words that are unshifted the Central German words are somewhat different. The 'k' went to 'ch' while 'p' is stronger. In Ripuarisch you can also find "Dorp", in Moselfränkisch it's "Dorf". However some words have even changed, cf. Kochlöffel. 't' is also not that strong, you have "dat" but even in Ripuarisch it's us, gruus, hess, etc. The "Rheinische Fächer" only shows the degree how these dialects are involved in the Second Consonant shift. And that's the important thing, they are involved, LG isn't (like Dutch and Frisian). You can also see why it is called a dialect continuum because the degree of completeness of the Second consonant shift increases if you go south: kaken (LG), kochen (Central German and most parts of High German in general), kchochen (some Swiss dialects). But you can see that there are a lot of words even in Ripuarisch that underwent the shift (I listed only a few). In every High German dialect it's Löffel, in every LG dialect it's Lepel (I could bring more examples but I think, it's enough). That's why the "Rheinische Fächer" is part of High German and the dialects north of it are not.

What you have not done is to make a comparison with, say, Bavarian. Actually I don not speak Bavarian but I'll try. You did not specify which Bavarian you mean (Nord-, Mittel- or Südbairisch), so I take Mittelbairisch (around Muinch, Vienna) The division between High German, Low German, and Dutch are more phonological. I will just give you some examples:

• Second consonant shift:
  • aap (D) - Aap (LG) - Aff (Bavarian)
  • heet (D) - heet (LG) - hoas (B)
  • peper (D) - Peper (LG) - Pfeffer (B)
  • koek (D) - Koken (LG) - kuacher (B, Wenker-Bogen, Muinch [14])

And then you have of course changes from OHG to MHG and NHG (monophtong -> diphthong):

• • zijn (D) - sien (LG) - sein (B) (E: his)
  • boer (D) - Buer (LG) - Bauer (B)
  • lui (D) - Lüü(d) (LG) - Leit (B)
  • broer (D) - Broder (LG) - bruader (B, Muinch, cf. above)
  • lief (D) - leev (LG) - liab (B)

You can see that Bavarian has more diphthong than written High German. That's why in Bavarian the "Neuhochdeutsche Diphthongierung" (monophtongs became diphtongs such as î to ei or u to au, ui [i.e a long ü in MHD] to eu [B: ei], cf. examples) could first be viewed at that dialect (This change went from south to north. In Bavarian it begun around the 12th century.). Some dialects are more monophtongish and didn't undergo that change e. g. some Alemannic dialects. LG wasn't affected at all. On the other hand Bavarian preserved old MHG diphthongs as you can see at "Bruader" ([OHG/]MHG bruoder, NHG Bruder) or "liab" (MHG liëp, NHG lieb [long vowel]). LG didn't have these diphthongs it preserved the Germanic "o" (which became "au" in some dialects).

• • zeggen (D) - seggen (LG) - sogen (sagen) (B)

While in D and LG have a short vowel here, B has a long one. This phenomena is called "Neuhochdeutsche Vokaldehung in offenen Tonsilben" (NHG vowel strechting in syllables that have no coda). On the other hand there were long vowels in syllables with a coda which were shortened:

• • hamer (D) - Hamer (LG) - Hammer (HG, can't say if it's in B., too).

Then some MHG diphthongs changed such as ou into au (boum -> Baum), originally derived from Germanic "o", see above. LG still has this Germanic "o", cf.:

• • MHG boum, NHG Baum
  • MLG bom, NHG Boom (I could also write Bom, it doesn't matter because the "o" has always been a long vowel.)

You see, there are differences between Bavarian and LG and they are very old. High German dialects differ a lot but they have at least some of these characteristics in common (not all of them though). I just want to quote the Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik because it underlines what I showed here (You can find it under "Zeitliche Gliederung des Deutschen"): "Hinzu kommt die Aufteilung in die großräumigen Varietäten Niederdeutsch und Hochdeutsch und u. U. Niederfränkisch/Niederländisch, die wegen je eigener Sprachentwicklungen in ihrer Periodisierung meist getrennt betrachtet werden. (Moreover there is a separation into the spacious varieties [i. e. of German] Low German and High German and possibly Low Frankish/Dutch, which are often viewed sparatedly in their periodisation due to their own development.). Then you can find another interesting sentence: "Das Neuniederdeutsche (1600 - Gegenwart) büßte, bedingt durch den Niedergang der Hanse und das Vordringen des Hochdt., diese Bedeutung ein und bleib nur als (meist ländliche) Umgangssprache auf Dialektebene ('Plattdeutsch') erhalten." (New Low German (1600 - present) lost that importance [i. e. as a lingua franca in the Baltic Sea] due to the fall of the Hanseatic League and the the expansation of High German and it remained as a (rural) common speech on a dialectical level ['Plattdeutsch'].) I don't want to talk about whether LG is a language or a group of dialects (though this book claims, it is a language, but that's really unimportant), but about how LG is treated here. It is definitely treated separately from High German. The book says there is a different periodisation, I will show it to you (because you will only find information about MHG in there):

High German:

• Old High German (750-1050)
• Middle High German (1050-1350):
  • Early MHG (1050-1170)
  • Classic MHG (1170-1250)
  • Late MHG (1250-1350)
• Early New High German (1350-1650)
• New High German (1650 - present)

There are other periodisations as well but this one is the most used today. LG differs from that:

Low German:

• Old Saxon (Old Low German) (800-1200)
• Middle Low German (1150/1200-1600/1650):
  • Early MLG (1150-1370)
  • Classic MLG (1370-1560)
  • Late MLG (1560-1650)
• New Low German (1650 - present)

The classical period of LG begins in Early NHG time, that means Middle Low German and Middle High German have similar names but their chronology is different (I know such periodisation are somewhat odd, that's at least you can say about LG and HG). Most of the text written in MLG do not correspond to MHG but to Early NHG. Luther translated the bible into Early New High German while his co-worker Bugenhagen translated it into Middle Low German (they worked together and Bugenhagen took Luthers High German translation to translate it into LG). You can see LG has another development than HG. It’s the same with Dutch. LG and Dutch have had similar developments until 1650. They were really close related though Dutch has its own tradition. If you look at texts written in MLG and MD you will find out that they have a lot in common in writing conventions, grammar, and vocabulary. So they had a common culture (cf. the translation of Reyneke de vos from MD into MLG, North German seamen used texts written in MD for navigation, etc.). However, Dutch preserved its status as written language, LG didn’t. So both took different directions (linguistically and culturally). Modern Dutch still has much in common with MLG (vocabulary, syntax). LG has been influenced by HG since then. It has its own development und came closer to HG (syntax, vocabulary) but it is still not HG because it preserved all these phonological characteristics that I showed here. So Bavarian and other High German dialects must be separated from Low German dialects.--89.53.41.91 16:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear! You've spent a lot of time writing out the familiar history of German, but unfortunately I think you have missed the point I was making about Bavarian. By demonstrating how different it is from other HG varieties you confirm my point; if you wanted to argue against me, you would have to try to show that Bavarian (and Swabian and any other dialect one might mention) is NOT dissimilar from the rest of the continuum, or at least not in the crucial sense that LG is. Again, you have obviously not understood what I meant by fragmentation. Your beautiful little table showing how some dialects have more of the HG shift than others confirms my point; if you wanted to argue against me, you would have to give some reason why maken/machen is a more decisive incision into the continuum than appel/apfel. However, since you say you DON'T view LG as a separate language, I am not quite sure what you ARE arguing for.

I am rather unhappy with your contention that LG and HG have no common historical roots. I know there are different theories about how and when and in what order the Germanic languages diverged, but most of them see HG and LG as being very close until the shift. --Doric Loon 21:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Well what else can I say? Did you read my texts, my quotations? I am rather unhappy with your contention that LG and HG have no common historical roots. I just repeat that again: "Die sprachlichen Übereinstimmungen in der westgermanischen (wgerm.) Sprachen gehen nicht auf eine urspr. Einheit zurück, sondern sind wohl Produkte späterer Ausgleichsentwicklungen." (Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik, a standard work in German linguistics by the way) That's it, simply and today's most accepted theory. That's what I wanted to show. If you hear something about Germanic, well that's a construction, nothing more. All linguistics forms older than Old Saxon, Old High German, Old Nordic, etc. are whether Gothic or theoretical forms (shown by an asteric in linguistics). There is no proof that there was something like a Germanic language from which all Germanic languages are derived from. And that's the reason why this "Rheinischer Fächer" is so different, that's why you call it a dialect continuum. Otherwise it wouldn't be one. I showed you that there is not just "maken" but other words, how many do you want? If you visit a lecture on the history of German you will hear exactly what I've written here (Not exactly, there's a little mistake I made, happens if you are in a hustle: Germanic au [Gothic] became ou in OHG, o in the other West Germanic languages: *baum -> boum [OHG/MHG]-> Baum [NHG] vs. *baum -> bom [OSaxon etc.] -> Boom [NLG]). If you are interested in these facts please read the books I quoted above. Look at the examples that they provide. I know there are different theories about how and when and in what order the Germanic languages diverged, but most of them see HG and LG as being very close until the shift. I never said that they couldn't be close related before all that happend. But that's also true for Dutch, Frisian, English, and - well, let's say all Germanic languages. So what's your point? Then we can also say Dutch is simply German, but it isn't. We could say, well Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, they are so similar, it's all the same. There are differences, I showed you that LG is close related to Dutch, that they have had a common culture, that their development was different from HG. I show you, that Bavarian has undergone all these things I said about HG, I showed you that Dutch and LG have a similar vocabulary that differs from HG including Bavarian (look at the examples), I showed you, that only a few groups of words did not undergo the Second consonant shift in the Central German dialects (mainly words with a 'p' but some of them did), I could say a lot about the development of these dialects and why certain words have a 'p' instead of "ff" or "pf" (see again the quote in German, it explains that without all the historical stuff) but it won't help, I'm afraid. If the Central German dialects completely underwent the shift then there won't be a dialect continuum, that is why it is a continuum. In Bavarian p, t, k, are completely shifted that's why it is a Oberdeutscher dialect. What facts do you need? I showed you that Bavarian also changed its vowel system in the manner HG did. LG didn't. Your beautiful little table showing how some dialects have more of the HG shift than others confirms my point; if you wanted to argue against me, you would have to give some reason why maken/machen is a more decisive incision into the continuum than appel/apfel. However, since you say you DON'T view LG as a separate language, I am not quite sure what you ARE arguing for. Well, as I said, Dutch dialects also belong to that continuum. If I follow your argumentation then all Dutch dialects are German dialects. You didn't understand what this dialect continuum is about. It's not simply a German dialect continuum, it's a continuum of continental West Germanic. Where would you draw the line then? You couldn't draw a line between LG and Dutch dialects and you couldn't draw a line between LG and HG. This discussion leads to nowhere. The arguments you are talking about are very old. The were used by Germans for almost every Germanic language that are neighbouring German territory. Just look the other way round: you certainly agree that Dutch dialects have nothing to do with High German. They are also separated by the Benrather line. Why should LG then become something special in this observation? My only point is just, I don't know how often I repeated it: LG dialects can't be seen as High German dialects. That's it, nothing more. You said arguments towards language were emotional. So are arguments toward dialect, too. But I mean emotional in another way: feeling. Some feel that these differences are very strong, some feel that they are neglectable. Obviously you belong to group No. 2. That's why I don't vote for any side, it has nothing to do with linguistic terms. I just provide historical background why LG dialects don't belong to High German. And that has nothing to do with feelings but with linguistic facts. By demonstrating how different it is from other HG varieties you confirm my point [...] What exactly did I confirm? All High German dialects have undergone the Second consonant shift. That is the point in German linguistics, nothing more. That's what you learn if you study German. You also learn that High German dialects are also different from each other (I never claimed something else, did I?), but that's what separates them all (no matter how different they are) from LG and Dutch. That's it, nothing more. That's why LG has a another status in German linguistics than Central German dialects have (look at the websites of universities I quoted above). It is separated whether you say it's a language or just a group of dialects (cf. the quotations from above, e. g. Weddige). So just in case I will repeat it again: I wrote to whole stuff to proof one thing: LG does not belong to High German (like Central German does, like Bavarian does, etc.), nothing more.--89.53.41.91 00:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, nobody has ever said LG belongs to HG. So if that is all you wanted to prove, you deserve a prize for using so many words to say so little. Sorry if that seems a little blunt, but it is very hard to know what to say to you. You write vast paragraphs, full of details which are mostly correct, but which don't actually lead anywhere, possibly because you don't know yourself where you stand.

PS: I don't need to take a course on German language history, thank you - I teach such courses. --Doric Loon 10:02, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then we can go further. You just asked me what the difference was between "Rheinischer Fächer" and Bavarian and why the Benrather line was so important, that's why I wrote all that stuff. But now I think we can go further because we have the same opinion about LG (I just wanted to confirm, sorry if it got on your nerves.). And I deeply excuse, if I hurt any of your feelings, reputation, etc. I didn't want to offend you. The whole discussion began because of Goossens arguments. I just want to show why LG can be seen as a group of dialects or as a language (I do have an opinion about that, but I think, it doesn't really matter) because I think the paragraph about that topic is somewhat poor. The stuff I provided above is surely important for that. It is used by some linguists to claim that NLG is a language. NLG still has all these characteristics. Goossens' view is only sociolinguistic because all of the arguments given in the article against language are also true for North Frisian. But it is defintely a language, no one argues about that. So there must be criteria that go beyond these few. The Goossens' and Sanders' definition also includes some arguments dealing with the characterics of the LG dialects but they are rather unclear. So you can easily argue against that definition that it only works for LG/HG relations but fails for other languages/dialects. These arguments are not very emotional but show the lack of this definition. That was where I stopped. On the other hand there are arguments that vote for dialect that are also mentioned here: the differences of all these LG dialects. Some linguists just argue that these dialects are so different from each other (that's why I took a "common" LG form in my examples) that they can't form a language anymore. That was also true in the Middle Ages (there was no common MLG or MHG or Early NHG). Actually there are no technical texts in Old Saxon, they were written in Latin, there was no grammar, no standardization, too. It was spoken on a daily basis (So I would take out OS from the discussion.). Today, it's also true for Frisian or Sorbian. Again, these are just facts that do not refer to the differences between LG and HG. So it isn't that easy to say. So I would disagree to that claim: They are often motivated by efforts to paint an uplifiting, positive picture to combat the perceived image of Low German as a dying and irrelevant idiom, and show comparatively little interest in establishing objective criteria and measuring Low German by these. Instead, they focus on different points such as. These are objective arguments, aren't they? It is not that simple that arguments in favour of dialect are objective and arguments in favour of language only emotional. If we look more closely to the subject we can only say that: The status of LG is rather unclear.

Well, I know it's not the right place here and I don't mean to offend you but have a look at the article about Second consonant shift. I just went trough it. There mihgt be a mistake in it (maybe you overlooked that): þ is not necessarily part of that development, it's something different. The shift only refers to p, t, and k and separated High German from the other West Germanic languages (that's why the Benrath line [and today also the Uerdingen line] is so important) --89.53.22.195 11:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh don't worry, no offence taken. Yes, I think that article does say that the þ>d shift is not always seen as part of the HGCS. It's a question of categories, like the dialect question, it's all just constructs to help us find our way in complex fields, and categories are always negotiable. --Doric Loon 20:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Puh, then I'm really happy, because I'm no one who just insults people. Second consonant shift: Well, then I must overlooked that. There's no problem that the þ>d shift is mentioned there, however there seems be uncertainty about that (this would be an addition to that article then.) I will just quote four books, two Introductions (OHG and MHG) and two handbooks. Weddige (Mittelhochdeutsch. Eine Einführung, 4th ed., p. 28.) says that this shift belongs to the shift: "Im Germ. begegnen also nach ursprünglich betontem Vokal sowie im Anlaut die stimmlosen Sprianten f, þ, h und s, die sich im Zuge der zweiten Lautverschiebung zu hd. f, d, h und s entwickeln." The "Mittelhochdeutsche Grammatik" by Paul et al. (24th ed., the 23rd is also mentioned in the article but I can' say if there differences in that point) is somewhat uncertain. This shift has its own paragraph (§91, p. 121) and states: "Die Reihe der germ. stl. Reibelaute /f, þ, h, s/ verändert sich nicht geschlossen und z. T. später als die 2. LV.; ob dieser die Veränderungen zugerechnet werden dürfen, ist daher umstritten." Sonderegger (Althochdeutsche Sprache und Literatur, 3rd ed., p. 16) on the other side clearly distuingishes between these the shifts: "zweite oder hochdeutsche Lautverschiebung: "t, p, k > ʒʒ (ss) [...]" [I just cut here because you know what I mean] and "Entwicklung von þ (th) > d". Braune et al. (Althochdeutsche Grammatik, 15th ed.) first show the pre-Olduppergerman (is that the correct name in Englsh? It says "Voraltoberdeutsch") consonants (§84, p. 82), point 3 marks f, þ, s, and h (p. 82). In § 85(p. 84) you find this statement: "Dieser Wandel von þ>d ist kein Teilprozess der LV." So you can find this development in §102a. (Sorry that I didn't translate it.) --89.53.42.51 16:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That's very useful, thanks, and should possibly be put into that article as a footnote. --Doric Loon 17:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, you're welcome. It's a question of categories, like the dialect question, it's all just constructs to help us find our way in complex fields, and categories are always negotiable. I couldn't have said it any better. I think that's why there's a real fight between those who claim LG is a language and others who say it's a dialect. Linguistics offer no simple, generally accepted criteria to decide this question, as it is of little academic interest. I've just run through some literature about that topic due to my own work. Most of the definitions really base on (it's also in the article, sorry that this is a "Textwüste" or "Bleiwüste" as we call it in German but I can't write it that briefly):

• pro-language: long tradition in culture, literature, high importance in the Middle Ages, reconquest of lost, oet me say, fields of communications such as TV, newspapers, computing (e. g. translations, see here [15]), differences between LG and HG
• prodialect: communication (still) restricted, no stanardization, etc.

The most interesting part about that is, that indeed the pro-dialect arguments still refer to those old, that I mentioned above. They are still used. Stellmacher (Niederdeutsche Sprache, 2nd ed., 2000) uses a very sophisticated system of national language ("Nationalsprache"), standard language, dialect, etc. to show that NLG isn't a language anymore (though he roughly went through older periods one might asked why he then titled the book "Niederdeutsche Sprache" although most parts just refer to NLG). Well, after all it's just a modified system that Goossens introduced thirty years ago. Lesle (Plattdeutsch zwischen gestern und morgen: Geschichtsbeschleunigung und die Suche nach der identitas, in: Peters et al.: Vulpis Adolatio. Festschrift für Hubertus Menke zum 60. Geburtstag, p. 430-448) remarks that there is a strong cultural alliance fighting for the status of LG as a language (which is true). His article is more a history of NLG culture and its instrumentalisation. All those institutions claim that there's a common identity, something that holds such dialects together: the language Low German. However, he doesn't give a reason why NLG is a dialect, he just uses Goossens arguments to vote in favor for. Even those who say it's a language - I just name Wirrer - think in such categories and enphasize on cultural achievements NLG has made since the 19th century. Well, it's easy to disprove that. However all those arguments against language refer to that old model. The can be disproven if you simply change the view of LG and HG. As we both confirmed LG doesn't belong to HG. They so to speak a group of independent dialects that formed the language MLG. We can simply ask the question: if MLG was a language, why not NLG? The answer was given above? Well, that's just one point of view (I just mentioned something about it above). Of course LG doesn't fulfil these criteria given by Goossens, but is that really neccessary? I will just give two examples: Frisian and Sorbian. As I mentioned above, both fail these criteria, too. Both are spoken in Germany, both don't belong to HG. If you are consquent you have to say: Frisian is a dialect and Sorbian is a dialect. I've never found that claim. Both are categorised as language. There are other languages all over the world that would be dialects if you use Goossens definition on them. The sociolingustical position simply seems to define something like a national language. So we can take a look at important questions like: LG is very different for HG standard language so is Swiss German. Why should LG be a language and Swiss German not? I would answer as follows: it doesn't matter that Swiss German is also different, it could even more different than LG. But it doesn't matter. LG doesn't belong to HG, Swiss German does. The question if Swiss German should be considered a language is another question because you must then find reasons that justify that. In case of LG you have a justification: LG doesn't belong to HG so it could be a language (it's pretty irrelevant how similar HG and LG are). The reason could also be very simple, it's just a question: If Frisian and Sorbian are language, why should LG get a special treatment. What makes LG so different that it can't be a language? Frisian does not fulfil one of Goossens point. Frisian consists of different dialects, there is no standardization, it's spoken by few speakers on a small territory, it's not used in scientfic texts etc. I could also say that about Sorbian. In the end voters for dialect are using the same arguments that voters for language have (however vice versa). I will give you two examples: Lesle states: "Der Einfluß der hochdeutschen Standardsprache über Jahrhunderte hinweg hat jedenfalls sowohl zu erheblichen Strukturveränderungen in den Formen geführt als auch einen generellen Funktionsverlust der gesprochenen Sprache nach sich gezogen." I don't need to say about point 2 of his argumentation because that is also true for Frisian or Sorbian. The question about point is: what degree of change do you need that we can say it's no language annymore (It's simliar to ask: if LG is so different from HG and a language, why can't we say Swiss German is one?). You can't objectively answer that question because it's not like Berlinerisch then became a Central German dialect. I would like to quote another linguists that was also cited by Goossens, Gernentz (Niederdeutsch - gestern und heute. Beiträge zur Sprachsituation in den Nordbezirken der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik in Geschichte und Gegenwart)

"In der historisch gewachsenen Struktur steht zum Beispiel das Mecklenburgische dem Westfälischen sehr nahe, aber es gibt kein engeres Band mehr, das diese Mundarten fester miteinander verknüpft. Und genauso ist es mit den Verhältnissen der übrigen nd. Mundarten miteinander. Dafür sind alle nd. Dialekte nun näher an die sich ausbreitende deutsche nationale Literatursprache herangerückt. Ja, man kann sagen, daß sie im gleichen Verhältnis zur deutschen Literatursprache wie die Mundarten des hd. Sprachgebietes stehen. Das Bairische und das Mecklenburgische zum Beispiel unterscheiden sich in ihren Merkmalen zwar deutlich, aber beide sind deutsche Mundarten, beide gehören sie in das Gefüge der sprachlichen Existenzformen des Deutschen."

Gernentz claims that e. g. Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch is just as near as Bavarian to the standard language (that's what he meant by writing "Literatursprache"). The question is why it should be import that LG dialects are not so different to HG? They don't belong to HG, that's more important, hence it doesn't matter. The argument of difference is something very unclear, you have to ask: how manny differences does it take that a dialect can be seen as a language (you can also ask the question vice versa: how many smiliarities do you need that you can claim it's dialect)? So the answer is very difficult, more emotional then. --89.53.42.51 20:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

You've criticised Goossens for selecting criteria that do not produce reasonable results for Sorbian and Frisian (i.e. failing to categorise them as separate languages, which they are generally accepted to be). Please note that Sorbian and German obviously don't form a diasystem, so the criteria could never be applied to them anyway. The arguably more interesting case of Frisian I can't comment on at the moment.

Please don't take this too harshly, but to me your contributions looks like acres of text that I find trouble mustering up the motivation to plough through, so to speak. Also, I'm afraid I've quite lost track of what exactly is being discussed here and how it pertains to the main article. It's true that I opened this discussion with a rather lengthy contribution myself; but I merely attempted to give an example of a linguistic standpoint. --SKopp 14:09, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all I would like to apologize that I wrote so much stuff that you lost track. I hope you will fight through this text ;-) So I will give you a brief recap. First of all I made clear that LG is a separate group of dialects compared to the HG dialects. I think we all agree to that, don't we? Then I went on to Goossens linguistic arguments and tried to show where they fail. Please note that Sorbian and German obviously don't form a diasystem, so the criteria could never be applied to them anyway. Well, that's the problem. Gossens didn't really define an intelligible diasystem. I just will give you his definition: "Unter 'Diasystem' verstehen wir eine linguistische Konstruktion, zusammengesetzt aus den Elementen einer Reihe von Kommunikationssystemen (Sprachen gemäß Auffassung 1.2.1), die alle in einer Formel untergebracht werden können, weil jedes dieser Systeme fundamentale Übereinstimmungen mit jedem einzelnen anderen System aufzeigt, aber in bestimmten Punkten von ihen afweicht. Die grundsätzlichen Übereinstimmungen sind für die Konstruktion des Diasystems notwenig, weil sonst nichts die Vereinigung in einem Diasystem rechtfertigt und ermöglicht. Sie sind die sprachhistorische Folge der Verwandtschaft (d. h. des gemeinsamen Ursprungs) dieser Systeme und sekundär auch der Entlehnungen, die zwischen diesen Systemen stattgefunden haben." What does it say? It's very vague. What does "fundamentale Übereinstimmungen" (fundamental accordance) mean? He just states the systems must be similar due to their common origin and their influences on each other. But where shall we begin? If we are expecting something like a common German (which is also arguable) how is it defined? Well you can then eliminate Sorbian but what's with the indogermanic origin? Goossens writes "fundamental" so we can drop it. But then we can't drop Frisian either because in those times we are talking now no one can say how Frisian fits into that scheme. Furthermore LG was a language, so why does it now belong to that diasystem? Obviously no one sees such a certain common ground for the older periods. I just will give you an example how Goossens tries to define Old Saxon as a language in comparison to NLG: "Wohl scheint festzustehen, daß es als Konglomerat von Dialekten aufgefaßt werden muß, ohne überdachende Schriftsprache. M. a. W. [mit anderen Worten], jedes as. [altsächsische] Denkmal hat seine eigene Sprachgestalt und steht für sich. Doch scheinen die überlieferten Formen des As. sich in ihrer Gesamtheit so stark von den anderen kontinentalwestgermanischen abzuheben, daß man von einer eigenen Sprache reden kann: 'Der Unterschied war wohl nicht so groß wie der zwischen dem heutigen Deutsch und dem Holländischen, aber doch so bedeutend, daß die meisten Germanisten geneigt sind, das Altsächsische nicht als Dialekt, sondern als eigene germanische Sprache anzusehen." I just repeat Goossens' arguments: OS had no literary language, it consisted of many different dialects but it can be seen as a language because those dialects had pretty much in common and OS was different from other continental West Germanic languages (although it certainly had not that degree of difference that High German and Dutch have today). Look at the arguments that are provided in favour of language today. They are the same. Goossens can't really say why OS is a language he just claims it. The only difference between "yesterday" and "today" is a construct of diasystem. But it also bases on the argument of fundamental accordance between its subsystems. It is rather unclear at what degree of similarties you can say these dialects belong to that diasystem. Goossens just says that LG has a "Dachsprache" now and there's no real language border between LG and HG. But he also states: "Altsächsisch und Mittelniederdeutsch: Die Anwendung des Kriteriums erscheint nicht sinnvoll." He claims that because there where no language borders at that time. That's also true in these times if you look at the dialects. Why should we then say: We don't take that for OS and MLG but for NLG. Just because there are "Dachsprachen" today? We could also ignore that today. So his only argument (in comparison to Frisian) is the fundamental accordance between LG and HG. But he never stated what it is. One could also argue there are fundamental differences between these dialects. You see such an argument is quite uncertain and cannot be proven. We can only say: Frisian does not belong to that diasystem because it is not as similar as LG to HG. The system only refers to Germany. In the U.S. there is a (very) small population of Low German speakers. Their „Dachsprache“ is English. If you use Goossens definition on that, well then these dialects form a language. I could also say that about Plautdietsch. Just imagine this situation: A Russian born Plautdietsch speaker moves to Germany. In Russia he then spoke a language, in Germany it suddenly becomes a dialect. You can argue that Plautdietsch belongs to LG but does it belong to that diasystem, even in Russia? If the answer is yes then you successfully identified a LG dialect (which is necessary). Gernentz wrote (see above) that the LG dialects are so different to each other that there is no common ground anymore. Goossens uses that argument, too. If you identify Plautdietsch as a LG dialect you would disprove that. So Goossens also uses the argument of similarity (because that's left if you want to intergrate LG in such a diasystem) which is - as we all argued - rather uncertain. --89.53.23.145 16:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Disputed Neutrality Template

I added this template to the "Status with respect to German and Dutch" section, although I can see that this has already been argued to death on this discussion page. I think that I bring a new perspective to this debate, however. See, I have almost no knowledge of the German language, or any other Germanic language, save English. Thus, besides some of the word charts given above, I don't know much about the differences. However, I did notice that the wording (at least at the beginning of the section) heavily favors dialect status. And without checking the page history, I know that the bottom part, starting with "Low German has been recognised..." has been written by another person. This makes the article a bit choppy. I think that articles should be written by many people almost as if it were written by a single objective person.

One part says, "Linguistics offer no simple, generally accepted criteria to decide this question, as it is of little academic interest. However, scholarly arguments have been put forward in favour of classifying Low German as a German dialect." Yes, this last part is cited, but the wording is a little strange. In one breath, it says that linguistics doesn't itself come to any real conclusion with regards to Low German's status, but that "scholarly arguments", as opposed to "dumb-person arguments" say that it's a language. Well, these scholarly arguments have to use more than linguistics (such as the arguments listed below that) to come to that conclusion because linguistics doesn't give them that silver bullet. Now, Low-German speakers might just be proud of their speech and not want it to die off, but if linguistics itself doesn't come to a conclusion, I would say that their argument that it is a separate language (or a group of languages) holds weight.

On the Dialect or language section of the Wikipedia "Dialect" entry, it also says that "There are no universally accepted criteria for distinguishing languages from dialects, although a number of paradigms exist, which render sometimes contradictory results." Below that is something interesting - a Yiddish expression "A language is a dialect with an army and navy". This applies to the arguments given on this page that Low German is a dialect, namely that it doesn't have a written standard, it's not widely used, and it's not used in the government. However, for example, in New Guinea, there are not only many different languages, but also many different language FAMILIES. However, nearly all of these languages, which are far removed from any other in the world, don't have a written standard, and are not used in the government. I'm sure that many are used by fewer people than Low German is. Also, imagine this - if history had unfurled in another manner and the Low Germans had established their own nation, then would Low German then be a language?

Then, there is the argument that Claims to the contrary have also been made, ascribing to Low German the status of an independent language on par with German, Dutch, Danish, etc. They are often motivated by efforts to paint an uplifiting, positive picture to combat the perceived image of Low German as a dying and irrelevant idiom[3], and show comparatively little interest in establishing objective criteria and measuring Low German by these. Notice that the citation is only for the part before the somewhat demeaning last part. If linguistics itself cannot establish objective criteria, then how is it that pro-dialect scholars can but pro-language non-scholars (I would assume, according to this section) still can't. Again, the people who see Low German as just a dialect or group of dialects basically just used the "dialect with an army and navy" reasoning. This seems highly imperialist to me - to say that Low German is just a dialect because it can be subverted by a nation that doesn't use it.

I know that such distinctions are not so simple, but I would just like to know this: Can a High German speaker with absolutely no prior exposure to Low German understand the majority of what a Low German speaker says? Can a High German speaker have a full conversation with a Low German speaker, while each of them only uses their own dialect/language? If they can, then I (without any formal learning of German) would agree that Low German is a dialect. But if they can't, then I would classify Low German as a language. Sometimes, I think it's good to step away from all of the technical stuff and just understand it in simpler terms.

At any rate, no matter whether Low German is a dialect or a language, I think that the pro-dialect words are too strong and seem to imply that that position is objective and the other position is not objective, but rather "motivated" by some un-scientific, provincial reason. However, as far as I have read, the "linguistics jury" is out on this, and forever will be. Thus, even the "scholarly" dialect argument is based merely on a preference for that term instead of the other. --Riction 02:48, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Mutual comprehensibility is certainly not the key criterion. However, since it is not irrelevant either, and since you asked the question, the answer is that a speaker of standard German who has no prior knowledge of non-standard forms, can understand as much Low German as he can Bavarian or Swabian; how much that is will depend on his intelligence and innate linguistic adaptability, but at any rate, in so far as mutual comprehensibility contributes to a definition of dialect, it would suggest that either every German dialect is a language or none of them are. To say Bavarian is a dialect but Low German is a language is only possible if you are thinking politically rather than linguistically. --Doric Loon 12:51, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Riction: I was following you up to the point where you suddenly pulled a completely new criterion out of the hat and suggested we used that ;) — I think we will have to accept that the status of Low German won't be decided on this talk page. What should get across in the article in one way or another, I think, is this:

• There are two different opinions; one favouring the language category, the other favouring the dialect category.

• Linguistics isn't particularly interested in the question and doesn't offer a simple answer, but the community of Low German scholars [on German universities] seems more or less to operate on the assumption that Low German is a dialect of German.

• The language's "fans," that is to say, those who are promoting its use – by such means as reading contests, theatre groups, newspaper columns, radio features, etc. – oftentimes stress that in their opinion Low German is an independent language.

As for who has the better arguments, well … we know that the "dialect" side at least tries to establish some objetive criteria. --SKopp 15:24, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

but the community of Low German scholars [on German universities] seems more or less to operate on the assumption that Low German is a dialect of German. That's not quite right. That question is also discussed by Low German scolars. Wirrer for examples arguments in favour of language, Stellmacher in favour of dialect(s) (as I mentioned above).

we know that the "dialect" side at least tries to establish some objetive criteria. You just look the the Low German community. Its arguments are more "emotional". However, there are also objective criteria in favour of language:

• diachronical view: Old Saxon and Middle Low German are considered to be languages, the New Low German dialects mostly preserve the phonological criteria that separated OS and MLG from Old High German and Middle High German. (I just mentioned that above.) Of course that argument does not refer to similarities to High German but has only a historical dimension. The criterion of dissimilarity is quite emotional and is not an objective criterion (I just quote Doric Loon here, because I couldn't say it better: the answer is that a speaker of standard German who has no prior knowledge of non-standard forms, can understand as much Low German as he can Bavarian or Swabian; how much that is will depend on his intelligence and innate linguistic adaptability. I could also add Dutch dialects because they are also similiar to German.).
• sociolinguistic view: LG has no standardised orthography and is not used in all aspects of communication (scientific texts etc.). That would be the strongest objective criterion against language (cf. Goossens, Stellmacher et al.). However, you could also say that about other "languages", cf. Frisian, Sorbian, Indian and African languages etc.

The second argument is also used by linguists [16] (it's in German, I'm afraid). The first one is often neglected because most of today's definitions (whether they vote for or against dialect)use a synchronic point of view (cf. Wirrer, Goossens Schuppenhauer). By the way: in Low German philology there is no fight between dialect and language. I've got the impression that only the Low German organisations fight for language because of its seemingly higher reputation. That's why LG is today one of Europe's "regional languages". I think it's a good idea to show both positions in that article. --89.53.11.29 21:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Broad sense of "Low German"

It says, "3. A non-specific term for any non-standard variety of German; this use is only found in Germany and is considered not to be linguistic."

This is also the way Harpo Marx uses it in his autobiography ("Harpo speaks"), Harpo's father was from Alsatia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.164.102.29 (talk) 18:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

But the Germans don't use the English "low German" in this sense, do they? I'd be surprised if the German word has the same ambiguous meaning as the English low? -Acjelen 22:16, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The normal colloquial term for "Low German" is "Plattdeutsch" or just "Platt", so the double meaning of English "low" is lost in German. Yet, "Platt" is an ambigous term, as it is informally used for many middle German dialects as well. It may also be pejorative.Unoffensive text or character 07:38, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Harpos mother was from East Frisia, she spoke Plattdüütsch. The father from Alsatia won't have called his tongue Plattdeutsch or Low German. So Marx fits the use specified in point 1.

The Term Plattdeutsch can have derogative meaning, cause in context of talking platt can mean something like insipid, unintelligent (it's related to the English word platitude). So some few people do use the word derogatory. But the vast majority is familiar with the term Plattdeutsch as a name of a specific language (and in this name the meaning of Platt was common originally) and won't use it derogatory nor do they perceive it as derogatory (at least not until you make it clear through the context, that it is derogatory). The German term Niederdeutsch which is the exact corresponding term to English Low German has no derogatory meaning at all and is not even used in colloquial speech. It's more a scientific term. The above-metioned point 3 has no basis in this form. It does speak about the English term "Low German". For this term the definition is not true. It is not true for the exact corresponding term Niederdeutsch too. It is to some degree true for the term Plattdeutsch, cause several non-standard forms of German, which are not part of the linguistic entity covered by this article, are called Platt or more rarely Plattdeutsch too. But the word any non-standard variety of German is wrong. You will have a hard time to find anybody in Bavaria ever having heard anybody calling the local dialect Plattdeutsch.

Point 3 only could be true, if you refer to the English term in English use and write low German with a small first letter. But then mentioning it in the definition list is pointless.

@Acjelen: I'd be surprised if the German word has the same ambiguous meaning as the English low? It may surprise, but it is true to some extent. the German term corresponding to English low is nieder or niedrig. It has quite the same meaning and has the same ambiguity. But it is not ambiguous in the word Niederdeutsch, cause for the second meaning it would have to be niederes Deutsch.

And one more point: If we speak about Plattdeutsch, we speak about use of words in the High German or Standard German language. The endonym is different and the Low German language use is different too. --::Slomox:: >< 13:05, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

The German word definitely has the same ambiguous or negative connotation as the Englisch "low".

As a matter of fact, I have been wondering about the explanation of the term at the beginning of this article: ""Low" refers to the flat sea coasts and plains of north Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, as opposed to High German and the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany". To tell the truth, this explanation sounds a bit euphemistic to me. Is there any evidence for this?

The idea that "High" German became the standard language particularly after Luther, the language spoken in church and in school, as opposed to the "Low" German spoken by the plain people, sounds more convincing to me. Low German definitely had this derogatory connotation for centuries, people feeling ashamed of not speaking High German when they had to visit some administrative office, for instance.

I don't mean to be a prophet on the chances that Low German may survive, but there has been a bit of a change during the past years (at least in East Frisia) towards a lot more Low German self-confidence. Agencies like the "Ostfriesische Landschaft" (http://www.ostfriesischelandschaft.de/ol/index.jsp?id=6) try to promote the use of Low German in families, schools, and in legal and administrative documents. Anna (talk) 22:15, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think there is a certain confusion at work. In linguistics, one distinguishes on the one hand betweeen "Niederdeutsch, Mitteldeutsch, and Oberdeutsch" which should be translated as "Lower, Middle, and Upper German". Those are the dialects. "High German" (indeed, like in High Church) is the Standard or Prestige Variety - which, by the way, is based on Eastern Middle German dialects, not on Upper German. Nobody actually ever should have identified "Upper" and "High" German, since they are quite distinct. Only because Low German has had a Prestige variant earlier (when it was an important lingua franca in Northern Europe, some people got the idea that Upper and High German must be related, since Upper German - in contrast to Low German - hardly ever has been written (it sometimes is, though). Hartmut Haberland (talk) 15:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

since Upper German - in contrast to Low German - hardly ever has been written (it sometimes is, though) What about Middle High German or Early New High German? Most MHG literature was written in Upper German dialects, e. g. Minnesang. You won't find that kind of poetry in Middle Low German literature because singers from that region also used MHG.--89.53.38.242 (talk) 00:49, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

There indeed is much confusion. @Anna Christians: At the time the terms Hochdeutsch and Niederdeutsch were coined, the idea behind these terms was geographic. Grimm says: zunächst hat das wort und das dazu gehörige substantiv Hochdeutschland eine rein geographische bedeutung und ist in dieser seit dem 15. jahrh. nachweislich gäng und gäbe. Negative connotations are of later date.

@Hartmut Haberland: The same. High German may be used quite often for the standard language as written today, but this is colloquial use of the term. Th historical, etymological meaning of the term Hochdeutsch is German of the lands of higher elevation (which is equalled with German that underwent the second Germanic sound shift). Mittel- and Oberdeutsch are of later date and are subdivisions of Hochdeutsch. The correct term for what you call "High German" is Standard German. --::Slomox:: >< 12:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Also in English it used to be common to call South Germany "High Germany". I have never heard this in modern use, but at school I did learn an old song about "the cruel wars in High Germany", referring I suppose to the 30-years war. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:57, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Consonants table

The table is too wide at the moment, and with un-necessarily large font size. Can someone (who knows how to do this; I don't!) edit the table to constrain it to the page width, please - MPF 16:46, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Subdivisions

Is it commonly agreed, that only subdivisions recognized by ISO should go into the infobox? Cause the subdivisions present now in the box have nothing to do with linguistics. ISO does not recognize based on linguistic evidence but based on "who asks gets it, if it's not made-up entirely". The more linguistics-based subdivisons are different. --::Slomox:: >< 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

missverständlicher Passage

at first I'm form the german wiki an my writen english is...problematic...so please can someone correct translate the topic? thanks.

'"Low" refers to the flat sea coasts and plains of north Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands, as opposed to High German and the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany (including Alsatian spoken by most German-French residents of Alsace, France in addition to French), and the Alps (Switzerland and Austria).'

sorry, but no one in the south really can speak "High german" (my birthplace is in east germany, brandenburg/Havel, and i learned high german in the school). Bayern (never(!) translate a name) and Baden-Württemberger speak dialects auf South German/Upper German. Pfälzer, Rheinländer, Sachsen and other peoples of mid german federal states speak different dialects of central german. Thats a twice times important fact, 'cos you have great problems to understand a Bayer, if he speaks his dialect and you maybe have greater problems to understand a Sachse, when he speaks sächsisch... so please soeone correct that (when my englisch would be better, than ich would do that...but...yeah...you know) -- User:Shadak from Germany 16:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Tut mir Leid, aber schon im Deutschen unterscheidet sich der wissenschaftliche von dem alltäglichen Wortgebrauch. Für Sprachwissenschaftler ist Bayerisch eindeutig eine hochdeutsche Sprachform. Ein Sprachwissenschaftler meidet den Terminus Hochdeutsch, wenn damit Standarddeutsch oder Schriftdeutsch gemeint ist. Im Englischen kommt das Problem nicht erst auf, denn High German existiert nur mit der wissenschaftlichen Bedeutung. Also: Upper German + Central German = High German. Übrigens: Bayern heißt auf Englisch Bavaria - manchmal soll man eben einen Namen übersetzen. --Doric Loon (talk) 23:21, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Übersetze keine Eigennamen ist ein Axiom, das als Mem einige Popularität gewonnen hat, aber nichtsdestotrotz so schlicht falsch ist. Ist gibt ein breiten Bogen von sozialen Konventionen, die für bestimmte Eigennamen Übersetzungen verbieten, zulassen oder auch erzwingen. Hängt immer vom Einzelfall ab. Bayern kannst du aber getrost übersetzen. Zum eigentlichen Thema Hochdeutsch hat Doric Loon ja bereits alles ganz korrekt gesagt. --::Slomox:: >< 16:04, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

And that's why Baden-Württemberg says: "Wir können alles. Außer Hochdeutsch." [17] but linguists say: Yes, you do [18]. By the way, what about that sentence: A non-specific term for any non-standard variety of German; this use is chiefly found in Germany and is considered not to be linguistic. (I know it has already been discussed.) I've never heard about that meaning before (though I speake German). von Polenz (Deutsche Sprachgeschichte vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, vol. II, p. 146) says that "Hochteutsch" was used "im Sinne von 'gehobenes Deutsch'" "im Gegensatz zu Schlechtteutsch, gemeines lantliches Deutsch, burgerisches/bäurisches/niedriges Deutsch". I would never call Bavarian "Niederdeutsch", I can't remember that anyone has ever said that. --89.53.59.107 (talk) 12:17, 14 February 2008 (UTC)