Rhinelander (population group)
Depiction of Uncle Sam with the US Interior Minister Carl Schurz , who emigrated from the Rhineland, sitting at the piano in front of a score entitled Mein Herz ist am Rhein ( Thomas Nast , published in Harper's Weekly on August 24, 1872)
Rhinelander refers to the inhabitants of the Rhineland . Currently, only residents of the North Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia and the former administrative districts of Koblenz and Trier as well as some areas in Rhineland-Palatinate detached from Hesse are referred to as Rhinelander - depending on your point of view, the members of the German-speaking community in eastern Belgium .
The origin of the Rhinelander lies in the Franconian tribe , which is only noticeable in family names and in the arrangement of villages and farms. There is no longer an awareness of “being Franconian” among the Rhinelanders.
There are essentially three regional languages in the Rhineland :
- Lower Franconian on the northern Lower Rhine and in the western Ruhr area, north of the Uerdinger line
- Central German dialects and Central Franconian Ripuarian dialects south of the Uerdinger line in the rest of North Rhine and beyond to the so-called Rhenish fan (Vinxtbach line)
- Middle Franconian and Moselle Franconian dialects in the other southern areas; Rhine-Franconian dialects also on the border with Hesse
See also
- Rhenish Republic (1923)