Dutch influence on Low German

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This article or section needs to be revised: Introduction is incorrect: "Dutch influence on Low German" only describes the influence of Dutch on Low German - it does not describe Low German influence on Dutch or mutual language contact.
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Dutch influence on Low German describes the language contact between the two Germanic languages Dutch and Low German , which have influenced each other linguistically over centuries . The language influence of Dutch on Low German is to be weighted as more significant.

The direction of influence took place (due to the strong political importance of the Western language variety in the early Netherlands) mostly in the form of an influence of Dutch on the hardly standardized and heterogeneous Low German, but only rarely in the opposite direction.

Delimitation of Dutch and Low German

In the Old Low German and Old Dutch period, it is difficult to differentiate between these two languages. On the one hand, this was based on the (phonetic) similarity of the two languages, on the other hand, in the fact that in the eastern Dutch region, in which a language border or a transition area could roughly lie, the old written tradition is rather poor. You are then happy to help yourself with today's dialects and check whether they have typical “Saxon” characteristics, such as B. the unit plural of verbs: wi maakt (Saxon) versus wi maken (Lower Franconian) (see also unit plural line ). So the exact Old Low German border remains rather uncertain.

In historical times, today's state border was not a language border. In the south there were the Lower Rhine dialects , which in terms of language history and typology can be counted as Dutch. Further north there were the Eastern Dutch dialects, which can be counted as Low German. The East Dutch dialects thus formed a linguistic-historical unit with the West Munsterland and the Emsland . Only after the Second World War did the state border become a relatively stable dialect border.

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.
Evidence is lacking for "Today's linguistics is mostly of the opinion that only the dialects from the area of German culture language Low German, so the North German" (esp. For the "predominantly"), which would mean that Lower Saxon dialects in the Netherlands by the predominant current linguistic conception is not Low German.
In addition: "Low Franconian is attributed to Low German (Low German in the broader sense)" - this article or the target article needs a revision, since the target article only deals with Low German in the narrower sense.

In modern Low German, the question of the canopy through a written language plays an important role. Today's linguistics is predominantly of the opinion that only the dialects from the area of ​​the German cultural language are Low German, i.e. the northern German. The article also follows this modern view. In addition, there was still the traditional view, according to which Low Franconian is assigned to Low German (Low German in the broader sense).

Where Dutch is the cultural language, the "Saxon" dialects are to be understood as Dutch dialects, writes Dieter Stellmacher .

In the modern specialist literature on modern Low German, the dialects of the north-eastern Netherlands are accordingly largely excluded (e.g. in W. Sanders, D. Stellmacher and Cordes / Möhn).

Dutch influence on the Low German vernacular

settlement

In the 12th century , a comparatively large number of Dutch people emigrated from their homeland, including to Northern Germany . The emigrants were mainly farmers and hydraulic engineers .

Middle Elbe and Brandenburg

The area between the Elbe , Havel and Saale was an important settlement area . Some settlers are called Hollandrenses , Hollandri and similar in the texts of the time , so they may have come from the Holland region . Others are referred to as Flemings ( Flandrenses ), which at that time only affected people from the North Sea coast to the Scheldt , at best to the Dender. The Fläming area is named after these settlers.

Some of the settlers have named their places after Dutch places. Examples:

The two core areas of the Dutch settlement were:

From the middle Elbe and the lower Saale, Dutch influences have spread to the east, often reaching the whole of Brandenburg .

The Dutch settlers also left their mark on the dialects. In Brandenburg and in the eastern part of Saxony-Anhalt there is a larger dialect area in which the mole is called Moll , while the surrounding areas use other names. This name for the mole comes from the Dutch word mol ("mole").

Elbe and Wesermarschen, Eiderstedt, Ostholstein

From the 12th century onwards, the Dutch worked on the reclamation and cultivation of the Weser and Elbe marches , especially on behalf of the bishops of Bremen and Hamburg . A consequence of this activity and settlement are place names such as Hollerland ( Hollandria ) east of Bremen (see also the history of Osterholz-Scharmbeck and Holler colonization ) or Hollern-Twielenfleth in the Altes Land and the multitude of expressions that have to do with drainage and dyke construction . Examples of this are the words Schleuse and Deich , which now occur not only in Low German, but also in High German. The Dutch in the Holstein Elbmarschen were allowed to use their own Dutch law until 1470 . In the 16th century, the Dutch also settled on the North Frisian peninsula of Eiderstedt in southwest Schleswig. Terms such as Dutch still testify to the strong influence of Dutch today. Dutch was still used as a church language for a long time by the Remonstrants and Mennonites in Friedrichstadt .

Mennonites and Reformed

In the first half of the 16th century the reign of terror of the Duke of Alba began in the Spanish Netherlands , which led to Mennonites and Reformed people in particular leaving the country. In the Low German region, they have left their linguistic traces especially on the lower Vistula , in the area around Danzig and Elbing and upstream to Thorn . The Mennonites held on to the Dutch language here for a long time. In Danzig, Dutch only disappeared as a church language around 1800. The Mennonites adopted the Vistula plateau as the spoken language, although they had already influenced its vocabulary. They adopted standard German as the written language. The Mennonites retained this Vistula plateau as Plautdietsch after numerous migrations to the Ukraine, Russia , Canada and South America .

Remote borrowing

Even in the time of the Hanseatic League , there were Dutch borrowings in Low German because of trade relations. After the liberation from Spanish rule, the political and economic importance of the area of ​​Holland (the county of Holland) grew (see also the Eighty Years War and the history of the Netherlands ). During this time, the Dutch influence on Low German also increased. This influence came mainly through trade relations and shipping, but also through Dutch religious refugees in northern German cities.

Many Dutch words were adopted in the Low German seaman's language and trade language and from there made their way into German.

Border neighborhood

The area between Emden and Bocholt bordered directly on the Dutch Republic . When the Dutch Republic gained strength after liberation from Spanish rule, the contacts between this West Low German area and the Dutch Republic also increased.

The influence of Dutch on these two West German areas is related to the rise of the Holland region to become a linguistic, political and cultural pioneer in the Netherlands. The eastern Dutch regions came under the influence of Holland, as did these two German regions. This strong Dutch influence on the rest of the Netherlands is also called "Dutch expansion".

Ostfriesland

In the southwest of East Frisia there was a particularly strong Dutch influence.

  • There were opportunities for language contacts across the sea, i.e. via the port city of Emden.
  • In addition, there were many Dutch emigrants in East Frisia.
  • The south-west of East Frisia, i.e. the Emden area, had adopted the Reformed faith, in contrast to the Aurich area .

This resulted in denominational harmony with the Dutch republic, in which the Reformed constituted the majority of the population (apart from the Catholic generals countries ). In addition, for political reasons, the East Frisian Reformed had to rely on the support and protection of the Dutch Republic. For the East Frisian Reformed, Dutch was the church, school and written language from around 1650. At the beginning of the 19th century it was replaced by the German under Prussian pressure.

  • In the 19th century, many seasonal workers moved to the Netherlands to work.

The Dutch words were most common in the south-west of East Frisia and became rarer in the north-east. The confessional boundary between the southwest and northeast was partly also a language boundary, partly Dutch words could also be found in non-reformed areas.

County of Bentheim

The county of Bentheim , on the border of the Dutch Republic, adopted the Reformed faith in 1588. Around 1650, Dutch replaced German as the church, school and written language. Dutch was used longer there as church and school language than in East Friesland. Therefore, the Dutch influence on the vernacular in the county was greater than in East Frisia. There was also merchant shipping on the Vechte , i.e. close trading relationships with the eastern Dutch city of Zwolle . An example of the influence of the school and church language is the word tien ("ten"), which, because of its sound form, cannot come from the East Dutch dialects, but from the standard Dutch language. Dutch was only replaced by High German under the rule of the National Socialists (1936) in Bentheim.

Western Münsterland

Dutch has also influenced the local Low German dialects in western Münsterland . One example of this is the Westphalian refraction. A specialty of Westphalian is the breaking of vowels, a form of diphthongization . This refraction also occurred earlier in the east of the Netherlands. However, it was pushed back in the east of the Netherlands and in the west of the Münsterland (in a narrow border strip between Essen and Lingen ) under Dutch influence, and the "broken" short diphthongs were replaced there by normal short vowels. Example: bruoken became brokken .

Decline in Dutch influence

The German-Dutch border has played a bigger role since the beginning of the 19th century. West of the border the influence of the Dutch standard language increases, while east of the border the Dutch influence is limited by the German standard language and more eastern dialects. There are Dutch words that used to be widespread in the West Low German- speaking area, but can now only be found in West Low German border dialects. Examples:

  • west of Wiel or Wêl ("wheel", ndl. wiel ) instead of east wheel
  • west monitored ( "wait", NDL. monitored ) instead of east Toeven

Dutch influence on the Low German writing language

The Dutch influence on written Low German was much less than the influence on spoken Low German. This is also due to the fact that Low German has been replaced as a written language by High German. Dutch also played no role in the revitalization of Low German literature in the second half of the 19th century.

Flemish influence is assumed in the oldest texts in Hamburg's Low German. In Flanders , a vernacular writing tradition had already established itself at the end of the 13th century. The Flemish influence on the oldest written language in Hamburg can be seen in the stretch-e (e.g. ae for long a ), as well as in the spelling gh (instead of g ), cgh , ggh and ngh . However, it is difficult to clearly distinguish between Dutch, Cologne and South Westphalian influences. The Devotio moderna religious movement was very active in the 15th and early 16th centuries . Their written language was somewhere between Middle Low German and Middle Dutch . This written language was not only used in the east of the Netherlands, but also in Westphalia, so that some scripts from Westphalia are strongly influenced by Dutch.

Low German influence on Dutch

The influence of Low German on Dutch is comparatively small. A possible source of this influence could be the so-called "Westphalian expansion", which the Dutch linguist KH Heeroma in particular has accepted. This assumed Westphalian expansion implies that Westphalian language characteristics, especially from the vocabulary, were carried further west in the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries. However, this linguistic expansion can also be viewed as an internal Low German phenomenon. Another possible source are the Eastern Dutch dialects, which have contributed to some of the standard Dutch vocabulary (see also New Dutch ).

The Low German words, which came to Dutch after around 1500, are already part of a general German influence on Dutch. In this period were German from the language of mercenaries and mercenaries adopted many High German and Low German expressions.

Examples: lont (“fuse”), powder (“powder”), ransel (“satchel”, “knapsack”), tonder (“tinder”, today tondel ). Several Low German expressions in the pub language are also likely to come from German mercenaries or Low German immigrants. Examples: kroeg (“jug” in the sense of “pub”), troef (“trump”), schransen (new Low German “schrantsen”, meaning “greedy eat”), snoepen (“nibble”).

See also

literature

  • Hans Taubken: Low German, Dutch, High German. The history of the written language in the city and in the former county of Lingen from the 16th to the 19th century . Böhlau, Cologne 1981, ISBN 3-412-01480-X (groundbreaking regional study on the influence of Dutch on Low German).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 731.
  2. ↑ Willy Sanders: Saxon language, Hanseatic language, Low German - Linguistic history basics of Low German . Göttingen 1982, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ISBN 3-525-01213-6 , here pp. 57-58.
  3. ^ A b Willy Sanders: Saxon language, Hanseatic language, Low German - linguistic history basics of Low German . Göttingen 1982, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ISBN 3-525-01213-6 , here pp. 58–59.
  4. ↑ Dieter Stellmacher: Low German language . 2nd edition, Weidler Buchverlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89693-326-4 , pp. 112-113.
  5. ^ Gilbert de Smet : Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 733.
  6. ^ A b Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 735.
  7. ↑ Willy Sanders: Saxon language, Hanseatic language, Low German - Linguistic history basics of Low German . Göttingen 1982, Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ISBN 3-525-01213-6 , p. 60.
  8. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 738 f.
  9. ^ Society for Schleswig-Holstein History: The Netherlands and the West Coast of Schleswig-Holstein ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.geschichte-sh.de
  10. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 739-740.
  11. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, pp. 740-742.
  12. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 742.
  13. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 743-744.
  14. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 742-743.
  15. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 743.
  16. ^ Heinz Klose: The development of new Germanic cultural languages ​​since 1800 , Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann Düsseldorf 1978, ISBN 3-590-15637-6 .
  17. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 744.
  18. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 745.
  19. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 745-746.
  20. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 746.
  21. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 748-749.
  22. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here p. 751.
  23. ^ Gilbert de Smet: Dutch influences in Low German . In: Gerhard Cordes and Dieter Möhn (ed.): Handbook for Low German Linguistics and Literature Studies . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-503-01645-7 , pp. 730-761, here pp. 752-753.