Meuse-Rhenish
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Low Franconian
Low Franconian/Ripuarian Low Saxon |
(Southeast Limburgish around Aachen excluded)
Meuse-Rhenish is a modern, superordinating term in the geography of the southeastern Low Franconian dialects spoken in the greater Meuse-Rhine area. This area stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse (in Belgium and the Netherlands) and Rhine (in Germany). It includes varieties of South Guelderish (Zuid-Gelders) and Limburgish in the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, and their counterparts Low Rhenish (including Eastern Bergish) in German Northern Rhineland. This group is called Meuse-Rhenish (Dutch: Maas-Rijnlands, German: Rheinmaasländisch, and French: francique rhéno-mosan), as suggested by the Amsterdam linguist Ad Welschen. Although some dialects of this group are spoken within the language area where German is the standard, they actually are Low Franconian in character, do stand on a shorter distance to Dutch than to High German, and could therefore also be called Dutch (see also Dutch dialects).
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[edit] Low Rhenish and Limburgish
Low Rhenish is the German name for the regional Low Franconian language varieties of the Dutch / German language spoken alongside the so-called Lower Rhine in the west of Germany and the adjacent regions in the Netherlands. Low Rhenish differs strongly from High German. The more to the north it approaches the Netherlands, the more it sounds like Dutch. In Germany, important cities at the Lower Rhine and in the Rhine-Ruhr area, including the entire Düsseldorf Region, are part of it, among them Cleves, Xanten, Wesel, Moers, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Oberhausen and Wuppertal. This language area stretches towards the west along cities such as Krefeld and Mönchengladbach, where it is called Bergish in German or Limburgish in Dutch, crosses the German-Dutch border into the Dutch province of Limburg, passing cities east of the Meuse river (in both Dutch and German called Maas) such as Venlo, Roermond and Sittard, and then again crosses the Meuse between the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg, encompassing the cities of Maastricht (NL) and Hasselt (B). As it crosses the Dutch-German as well as the Dutch-Belgian borders, it becomes a part of the language landscape in three neighbouring countries. In two of them Dutch is the standard language. Thus a mainly political-geographic division can be made into western (Dutch) South Guelderish and Limburgish at the west side, and eastern (German) Low Bergish and Low Rhenish at the east side of the border.
[edit] The Meuse-Rhine triangle
This whole region between the Meuse and the Rhine was linguistically and culturally quite coherent during the period of the so-called Early Modern History (1543-1789), though politically more fragmented. The former predominantly Dutch speaking duchies of Guelders and Limburg lied in the heart of this linguistic landscape, but eastward the former duchies of Cleves (entirely), Jülich, and Berg partially, also fit in. The northwestern part of this triangular area came under the influence of the Dutch standard language, especially since the founding of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. The southeastern part became a part of the Kingdom of Prussia at the same time, and from then it was subject to High German language domination. At the dialectal level however, mutual understanding is still possible far beyond both sides of the national borders.
[edit] Southeast Limburgish around Aachen
Southeast Limburgish is spoken around Kerkrade, Bocholtz and Vaals in the Netherlands, Aachen in Germany and Raeren and Eynatten in Belgium. In Germany it is mostly considered as Ripuarian, not always as Limburgish. According to a contemporary vision, all varieties in a wider half circle some 20 KM around Aachen, including 2/3 of Dutch South Limburg and also the so-called Low Dietsch area between Voeren and Eupen in Belgium, can be taken as a group of its own, which recently has been named Limburgish of the Three Countries Area (Dutch: Drielandenlimburgs, German: Dreiländerplatt), referring to the place where Holland, Belgium and Germany meet. Its concept was introduced by Ad Welschen, mainly based on research by Jean Frins (2005, 2006). This variety still possesses interesting syntactic idiosyncrasies, probably dating from the period in which the old Duchy of Limburg existed. In Belgium, the south-eastern boundary between Meuse-Rhenish or (French) francique rhéno-mosan and Ripuarian is formed by the Low Dietsch language area.
(Limburgish in the Heinsberg District excluded)
If only tonality is to be taken as to define this variety, it stretches several dozen KM into Germany. In Germany, it is consensus to class it as belonging to High German varieties. But this is a little over-simplified. In order to include them properly, a more encompassing concept is needed. The combination of Meuse-Rhenish and Ripuarian, including their overlapping transitional zones of Southeast Limburgish and Low Dietsch, will do.
[edit] Classification
- Indo-European
- Germanic
- West Germanic
- Low Franconian
- Meuse-Rhenish
- Low Franconian
- West Germanic
- Germanic
[edit] Source
- Ad Welschen 2000-2005: Course Dutch Society and Culture, International School for Humanities and Social Studies ISHSS, Universiteit van Amsterdam (permission granted)
[edit] References
- Georg Cornelissen 2003: Kleine niederrheinische Sprachgeschichte (1300-1900) : eine regionale Sprachgeschichte für das deutsch-niederländische Grenzgebiet zwischen Arnheim und Krefeld [with an introduction in Dutch. Geldern / Venray: Stichting Historie Peel-Maas-Niersgebied, ISBN 90-807292-2-1] (German)
- Frins, Jean (2005): Syntaktische Besonderheiten im Aachener Dreilãndereck. Eine Übersicht begleitet von einer Analyse aus politisch-gesellschaftlicher Sicht. Groningen: RUG Repro [Undergraduate Thesis, Groningen University] (German)
- Frins, Jean (2006): Karolingisch-Fränkisch. Die plattdůtsche Volkssprache im Aachener Dreiländereck. Groningen: RUG Repro [Master's Thesis, Groningen University] (German)
