Low German

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Low German
Plattdüütsch, Nedderdüütsch, Nedersaksisch
Spoken in: Germany, Netherlands, Brazil, Uruguay
Total speakers: understood by 5 million, native to about 1.5 million [citation needed]
Language family: Indo-European
 Germanic
  West Germanic
   Low German
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: nds
ISO/FDIS 639-3: nds
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

Low German (also called Plattdeutsch, Plattdüütsch or Low Saxon) is a name for the regional language varieties of the West Germanic languages spoken mainly in Northern Germany where it is officially called Niederdeutsch ('Low German'), and in Eastern Netherlands where it is officially called Nedersaksisch ('Low Saxon'). "Low" refers to the flat sea coasts of north Germany and the Netherlands, as opposed to High German and the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany and the Alps.

There are speakers in the coastal areas of present Poland (minority of ethnic German Pommersch speakers who were not expelled from Pomerania, as well as the regions around Braunsberg). There are also immigrant communities in several places of the world, such as Canada, where Low German is spoken. In the Southern Jutland region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some German minority communities, but the Low German and North Frisian dialects of Denmark ought to be considered moribund, if not extinct, at this time.

The ISO 639-2 language code for Low German is nds since May 2000.

Contents

[edit] Disambiguation

There are three different uses of the term “Low German”:

  1. A specific name of any West Germanic varieties that have neither taken part in the High German consonant shift nor classify as Low Franconian or Anglo-Frisian; this is the scope discussed in this article.
  2. A broader term for the closely-related, continental West Germanic language family unaffected by the High German consonant shift, nor classifying as Anglo-Frisian, and thus including Low Franconian varieties such as Dutch.
  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.

Many people in Northern Germany are unaware that Low German does not abruptly stop at the German-Dutch border but continues on into the Eastern Netherlands. Among those who are aware of it, a measure of estrangement (especially Dutch versus German influences and Dutch versus German based spelling), besides alleged sensitivities remaining from the German occupation in World War II, is often used as an argument in favor of ignoring the dialects of the Netherlands. The general attitude among Low German speakers in the Netherlands, however, is that the Dutch Low Saxon varieties belong to a continuum with the Low German varieties of Northern Germany. Many Low German speakers in the Netherlands are willing and happy to participate in activities organized on the German side of the border, and Dutch people have won prizes in Low German literature contests in Germany.

[edit] Official status

Low German varieties (spoken on German territory) are considered dialects of the German language by some, but a separate language by others. Sometimes, Low German and Low Franconian are grouped together because both did not participate in the High German consonant shift.

Low German has been recognised by the Netherlands and by Germany (since 1999) as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Low German is not standardized. In Germany, however, Northern Low Saxon serves as a common intelligible language in TV and Wireless programmes.

[edit] Classification and related languages

Low German is a part of the West Germanic dialect continuum.

To the West, it fades to the Low Franconian languages which distinguish two plural verbal endings, opposed to a common verbal plural ending in Low German.

To the South, it fades to the High German dialects of Central German that have been affected by the High German consonant shift. The division is usually drawn at the Benrath line that traces the maken – machen isogloss.

To the East, it is neighboured by the Kashubian language (the only remnant of the Pomeranian language) and, since the expulsion of nearly all Germans from Pomerania following the Second World War, also by the Polish language. The Low German dialects of Pomerania are included in the Pommersch group.

To the North and Northwest, it is neighboured by the Danish language and by the Frisian language. Note that in Germany, Low German has replaced the Frisian in many regions. The Saterland Frisian is the only remnant of East Frisian language and is, outside East Frisia surrounded by Low German, as are the few remaining North Frisian varieties, and the Low German dialects of those regions have Frisian influences on account of Frisian substrates.

Some classify the northern dialects of Low German together with English, Scots and Frisian as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. However, most exclude Low German from that group often called Anglo-Frisian languages because some distinctive features of that group of languages are only partially observed in Low German, for instance the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law (some dialects have us, os for ‘us’ whereas others have uns, ons), and because other distinctive features do not occur in Low German at all, for instance the palatalization of /k/ (compare palatalized forms such as English cheese, Frisian tsiis to non-palatalized forms such as Low German Kees or Kaise, Dutch kaas, German Käse).

[edit] Varieties of Low German

The Low German or Low Saxon languages indicated in yellow shades.
Enlarge
The Low German or Low Saxon languages indicated in yellow shades.

[edit] In Germany

[edit] In the Netherlands

The Dutch Low Saxon varieties, which are also defined as Dutch dialects, consist of:

[edit] Elsewhere

There are several Low-German-speaking communities outside Europe. Mennonite communities use their Plautdietsch everywhere they live, especially in Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia, Germany and the Americas. Furthermore, there are communities in the Midwest of the United States, some of them with their own dialects that developed from dialects imported from Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony in the 19th century. There may be some remaining speakers or speaker communities in Northern Poland and in Southern Denmark, where the Low German language is at best moribund.

[edit] History

Main article: History of Low German

[edit] Old Saxon

Main article: Old Saxon

Old Saxon, also known as Old Low German, is a West Germanic language. It is documented from the 9th century until the 12th century, when it evolved into Middle Low German. It was spoken on the north-west coast of Germany and in Denmark by Saxon peoples. It is closely related to Old Anglo-Frisian (Old Frisian, Old English), partially participating in the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law.

Only a few texts survive, predominantly in baptismal vows the Saxons were required to perform at the behest of Charlemagne. The only literary text preserved is Heliand.

[edit] Middle Low German

Main article: Middle Low German

The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of modern Low German. It was spoken from about 1100 to 1500, splitting into West Low German and East Low German. The neighbour languages within the dialect continuum of the West Germanic languages were Middle Dutch in the West and Middle High German in the South, later substituted by Early New High German. Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, spoken all around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Based on the language of Lübeck, a standardized written language was developing, though it was never codified.

[edit] Contemporary

After mass education in Germany in the 19th and 20th century the slow decline which Low German was experiencing since the end of the Hanseatic league turned into a free fall. Today efforts are made in Germany and in the Netherlands to protect Low German as a regional language. Various Low German dialects are understood by 10 million people, and native to about 3 million people all around northern Germany. Most of these speakers are located in rural villages and are often senior citizens.

[edit] Sound Change

Low German has commonality with the English language, the Scandinavian languages and Frisian in that it has not been influenced by the High German consonant shift except for old /ð/ having shifted to /d/. Therefore a lot of Low German words sound similar to their English counterparts. One feature that does distinguish Low German from English is final devoicing of obstruents, as exemplified by the words 'good' and 'wind' below. This is a characteristic of Dutch and German as well and involves positional neutralization of voicing contrast in the coda position for obstruents (i.e. t = d at the end of a syllable.)

For instance: water [wɒtɜ, watɜ, wætɜ], later [lɒːtɜ, laːtɜ, læːtɜ], bit [bɪt], dish [dis, diʃ], ship [ʃɪp, skɪp, sxɪp], pull [pʊl], good [gout, ɣɑut, ɣuːt], clock [klɔk], sail [sɑil], he [hɛi, hɑi, hi(j)], storm [stoːrm], wind [vɪˑnt], grass [gras, ɣras], hold [hoˑʊl(t)], old [oˑʊl(t)].

Low German is a West Germanic language of the lowlands and as such did not experience the High German consonant shift. The table below shows the relationship between English and Low German consonants which were unaffected by this chain shift and gives the modern German counterparts, which were affected by the sound shift.

Proto-Germanic High German Low German Dutch English German
k ch maken maken to make machen
k kch Karl Karel Carl Karl
d t Dag dag day Tag
t ss eten eten eat essen
t z (/ts/) teihn tien ten zehn
t tz, z (/ts/) sitten zitten sit sitzen
p f, ff Schipp schip ship, skiff Schiff
p pf Peper peper pepper Pfeffer
β b Wief, Wiewer wijf, wijven ¹ wife, wives Weib, Weiber ²

¹ The correct translation for "wife" in Dutch is "vrouw", using wijf of a human is considered derogatory, and comparable to "bitch".

² The correct translation for "wife" in German is "Ehefrau" or "Frau"; using "Weib" of a human is considered archaic and derogatory.

[edit] Grammar

Generally speaking, Low German grammar shows similarities with the grammars of Dutch, Frisian, English and Scots, but the dialects of Northern Germany share some features (especially lexical and syntactic features) with German dialects.

[edit] Nouns

Low German declension has only three morphologically marked noun cases, where accusative and dative together constitute an objective case.

Example case marking: Boom (tree), Bloom (flower), Land (land)
  Masculine Feminine Neuter
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative een Boom, de Boom Bööm, de Bööm een Bloom, de Bloom Blomen, de Blomen een Land, dat Land Lannen, de Lannen
Objective een Boom, den Boom Bööm, de Bööm een Bloom, de Bloom Blomen, de Blomen een Land, dat Land Lannen, de Lannen

Dative dan

In most modern dialects, the nominative and the objective cases are primarily distinguished only in the singular of masculine nouns. In some Low German dialects, the genitive case is distinguished as well (e.g. varieties of Mennonite Low German.) It is marked in the masculine gender by changing the masculine determiner 'de'-the' from de to dän. By contrast, German distinguishes four cases; nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. So, for example, the definite article of the masculine singular has the forms: der (nom), den (acc), des (gen), and dem (dat.) Thus case marking in Low German is simpler than German's.

[edit] Verbs

In Low German verbs are conjugated for person, number and tense. Verb conjugation for person is only differentiated in the singular. There are five tenses in Low German: Present tense, Preterite, Perfect, and Pluperfect and in Mennonite Low German a tense whose name I don't know but it signals a remaining effect from a past finished action. For example 'Ekj sie jekomen'-'I am come'-means that the speaker came and he is still at the place to which he came as a result of his coming there.

Example verb conjugation: slapen - to sleep
  Present Preterite Perfect
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
1st Person ich slaap wi slaapt/slapen ik sleep wi slepen ik hebb slapen wi hebbt/hebben slapen
2nd Person du slöppst ji slaapt/slapen du sleepst ji slepen du hest slapen ji hebbt/hebben slapen
3rd Person he, se, dat slöppt se slaapt/slapen he, se, dat sleep se slepen he, se, dat hett slapen se hebbt/hebben slapen

Unlike Dutch, German and southern Low German, the northern dialects form the participle without the prefix ge-, like the Scandinavian languages and English. Compare to the German past participle geschlafen. This past participle is formed with the auxiliary verb hebben 'to have'. It should be noted that e- is used instead of ge- in most Southern (below Groningen in the Netherlands) dialects, though often not when the past participle ends with -en or in a few often used words like west (been).

The reason for the two conjugations shown in the plural is regional: dialects in the central area use -t while the dialects in East Frisia and the dialects in Mecklenberg and further east use -en. The -en suffix is of Dutch influence.

In Mennonite Low German, some verbs inflect into two moods: Declarative and Imperative.For the verb 'jäwen'-to give,for example, the Imperative form is 'jefs'.


There are 26 verb affixes.

[edit] Phonology

Here are some phonemes from some Low German dialects: Vowels a- the tongue is put right between the mouth's bottom and mouth's top and right behind the mouth's teeth and mouth's bach, and hum a-just below and behind the sound just mentioned, and hum a- like in date,plain,ray {the a has two dots over it} air- like in fairy e- like in death e - a schwa e- the tongue is put a little further forward than right in the center, and hum ie- like in heat,teeth,she i- like in hit o- like in story o- like in boat oo- like in tooth ur- like in hurry u- like in book u- like in pluck u{ the 'u' has two dots over it}- the tongue is put between the teeth and right behind them and hum


Consonants

b- like in bear b- like in ebb d- like in door d- like in bed ch- the tongue's top's middle is struck against the mouth's roof's middle but is not released f- like in fairy g- like in gate g- like in egg h- like in hat k- like in candy k- like in sick l- the tongue is put flat against the mouth's roof and hum l- the tongue is put against the mouth's roof and is curled up a little and hum m- like in marry n- like in not ng- like in thing p- like in pat p- like in hip r- rolled r r- the tongue is put midway through the mouth,close to the top, does not touch the roof nor the bottom, and hum s- like in s sch- like in share t- like in take t- like in bit w- like in vain,vex j- like in yes, yank z- like in zap zh- like in measure,

[edit] Writing system

Low German is written using the Latin alphabet. There is no true standard orthography, only several locally more or less accepted orthographic guidelines, those in the Netherlands mostly based on Dutch orthography, and those in Germany mostly based on German orthography. This diversity—being the result of centuries of official neglect and suppression—has a very fragmenting and thus weakening effect on the language as a whole, since it has created barriers that do not exist on the spoken level. Interregional and international communication is severely hampered by this. Having been created by persons with little or no phonological understanding, most of these systems aim at representing the phonetic (allophonic) output rather than underlying (phonemic) representations, thus call for superfluous and confusing detail. Furthermore, many writers follow guidelines only roughly. This adds numerous idiosyncratic and often inconsistent ways of spelling to the already existing great orthographic diversity.

[edit] Trivia

The Low German (specifically german Platt) greeting formula Moin and its duplication MoinMoin gave the name for the WikiWiki MoinMoin Project http://moin.sourceforge.net/

There are plans to create a computer vocabulary for Low German in order to translate Desktop environments such as KDE and GNOME. [1]

[edit] See also

[edit] Resources

Wikipedia
Low German (Germany) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wikipedia
Low Saxon (Netherlands) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There is a lot of information about Low German to be found online. A selection of these links can be found on this page, which will provide a good frame work to understand the history, current situation and features of the language.

Information:

Organizations:

If your organisation isn't listed here, feel free to add it.

Writers:

Musicians:

  • Skik (Drents/Dutch - Drenthe, the Netherlands)
  • Jan Cornelius (East Frisian - Ostfriesland, Germany)
  • Törf (Gronings - Groningen, the Netherlands)
  • Eltje Doddema (Veenkoloniaals - Groningen, the Netherlands)
  • Boh foi toch (Achterhoeks - Gelderland, the Netherlands)

Unorganized links:

Major Modern Germanic languages
Afrikaans | Danish | Dutch | English | German | Norwegian | Swedish | Yiddish
Minor Modern Germanic languages
Faroese | Frisian | Icelandic | Luxembourgish
Reg. acknowledged Germanic languages/dialects
Low German / Low Saxon | Limburgish | Scots
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