Low German

Low German
Low Saxon
Spoken in	Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, United States, Canada
Native speakers	≈5 million  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Low German
Dialects	West Low German East Low German
Language codes
ISO 639-2	nds
ISO 639-3	nds – Low German (generic)
Linguasphere	52-ACB
The Low German (or Low Saxon) language area
This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters.

Low German or Low Saxon (Plattdüütsch, Nedderdüütsch; Standard German: Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch; Dutch: Nedersaksisch in the wider sense. See Nomenclature below.) is an Ingvaeonic^[1] West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands. It descended from Old Saxon, its earliest form.

The historical Sprachraum of Low German also included contemporary northern Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, and a part of southern Lithuania. German speakers in this area were expelled or murdered after the post-World War II boundary changes. The former German communities in the Baltic states (see Baltic Germans) also spoke Low German. Moreover, Middle Low German was the Lingua Franca of the Hanseatic League, and it had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages.

Geographical extent

Low German in Europe

City limits sign; this city is called Emlichheim in High German and Emmelkamp in Low German

Dialects of Low German are widely spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon) and are written there with an orthography based on Dutch orthography.

Variants of Low German were widely (and are still to a far lesser extent) spoken in most parts of Northern Germany, for instance in the states of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Small portions of northern Hesse and northern Thuringia are traditionally Low Saxon speaking too. Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of Poland as well as in East Prussia and the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia. The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city state of Berlin but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city the language vanished. (The Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of High German and typologically a Missingsch variety, although rarely recognized as the latter).

Today, there are still speakers outside of Germany and The Netherlands to be found 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 Braniewo)^{[citation needed]}. 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 can be considered moribund at this time.^{[citation needed]}

Low German outside Europe and the Mennonites

Main article: Plautdietsch

There are also immigrant communities where Low German is spoken in the western hemisphere, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Venezuela, South Africa, Central Asia, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In some of these countries, the language is part of the Mennonite religion and culture.^[2] There are Mennonite communities in Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Minnesota which use Low German in their religious services and communities; the people are largely ethnic Germans whose ancestors had moved to newly acquired Russian territories in Ukraine before emigrating to the Americas in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The type of Low German spoken in these communities and in the Midwest region of the United States has diverged since emigration. The survival of the language is tenuous in many places and has died out in some places where assimilation has occurred. Mennonite colonies in Paraguay, South America, Belize, and Chihuahua, Mexico have made Low German a "co-official language" of the community. Pommersch is also spoken in parts of Southern Brazil.

Nomenclature

Low German is called Plattdüütsch or Nedderdüütsch by its native speakers in the specific German area, and Nedersaksisch or Nederduuts by most of its native speakers in the Netherlands.

Officially, Low German is called Niederdeutsch (Nether/Low German) by the German authorities. In The Netherlands, the Dutch authorities call it Nedersaksisch (Nether/Low Saxon). Plattdeutsch/Niederdeutsch and Platduits/Nedersaksisch are seen in linguistic texts from the German and Dutch linguistic communities respectively.

In Danish it is called Plattysk, Nedertysk or, rarely, Lavtysk.

Mennonite Low German is called "Plautdietsch."

“Low” refers to the flat plains and coastal area of the northern European lowlands, contrasted with the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, where High German is spoken.^[3]

The colloquial term "Platt" denotes both Low German dialects and any non-standard variety of German; this use is chiefly found in northern and western Germany and is considered not to be linguistically correct.^[4]

The ISO 639-2 language code for Low German (Low Saxon) has been nds (nedersaksisch) since May 2000.

Disambiguation

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

1. A specific name of any West Germanic varieties that neither have 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.

Legal status

Low German dialects (including Dutch)

The question of whether Low German should be considered a separate language, rather than a dialect of German or Dutch, has been a point of contention. Linguistics offers no simple, generally accepted criterion to decide this question.
Scholarly arguments have been put forward in favour of classifying Low German as a German dialect.^[5][6] As said, these arguments are not linguistical but rather socio-political and build mainly around the fact that Low German has no official standard form or use in sophisticated media. (The situation of Low German may thus be considered a pseudo-dialectized abstand language.)
In contrast, Old Saxon and Middle Low German are generally considered separate languages in their own rights. Since Low German has undergone a strong decline since the 18th century the perceived similarities with High German or Dutch may often be direct High German/Dutch adaptations due to the growing incapability of speakers to speak correctly what was once Low German proper.

At the request of Schleswig-Holstein the German government has declared Low German as a regional language.

German offices in Schleswig-Holstein are obliged to accept and handle applications in Low German in the same way as Standard High German applications.^[7] The Bundesgerichtshof ruled in a case that this was even to be done at the patent office in Munich, in a Non-Low German region, when the applicant then had to pay the charge for a translator,^[8] because applications in Low German are considered "nicht in deutscher Sprache abgefasst" (not written in the German language). Due to the nature of Bundesgerichtshof decisions creating Ständige Rechtssprechung ("permanent jurisdiction")^{[citation needed]} this can also be interpreted as the acceptance of Low German as a separate language through German law.

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. Within the official terminology defined in the charter, this status would not be available to a dialect of an official language (as per article 1 (a)), and hence not to Low German in Germany if it were considered a dialect of German. Advocates of the promotion of Low German have expressed considerable hope that this political development will at once lend legitimacy to their claim that Low German is a separate language and help mitigate the functional limits of the language that may still be cited as objective criteria for a mere dialect (such as the virtually complete absence from legal and administrative contexts, schools, the media, etc.).^[9]

Classification and related languages

Low German and Dutch languages colored pink. 1880

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

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

To the South, it blends into 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 abuts 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 abuts the Danish and the Frisian languages. Note that in Germany, Low German has replaced the Frisian languages in many regions. The Saterland Frisian is the only remnant of East Frisian language and is surrounded by Low German, as are the few remaining North Frisian varieties, and the Low German dialects of those regions have Frisian influences from 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).

Varieties of Low German

In Germany

• West Low German
  • East Frisian Low Saxon
  • Northern Low Saxon
  • Westphalian language
  • Eastphalian language
• East Low German
  • Brandenburgisch
  • Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
  • Mittelpommersch
  • East Pomeranian
  • Low Prussian
  • Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German, used also in many other countries)

In the Netherlands

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

• Westerkwartiers
  • Kollumerpompsters
  • Kollumerlands
  • Middaglands
  • Midden-Westerkwartiers
  • Zuid-Westerkwartiers
• Gronings and Noord-Drents
  • Hogelandsters
  • Stadsgronings
  • Westerwolds
  • Veenkoloniaals
  • Oldambtsters
• Stellingwerfs
• Midden-Drents
• Zuid-Drents
• Twents
• Twents-Graafschaps
• Gelders-Overijssels
  • Achterhoeks
  • Sallands
  • Urkers
• Veluws
  • Oost-Veluws
  • West-Veluws

History

Main article: History of Low German

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 texts preserved are Heliand and the Old Saxon Genesis.

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. 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.

Contemporary

After mass education in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries 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 elderly. However, the KDE project supports Low German (nds) as a language for its computer desktop environment ^[10] as well as the GNOME Desktop Project does. Several Open Source Software is getting translated into Low German today and most of them are managed by the NDS umbrella Project nds.sourceforge.net.^[11] Examples here are the Linux distributions Ubuntu or Fedora.

Sound change

As with the Anglo-Frisian languages and the North Germanic languages, Low German 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 generally 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.) This is not used in English except for in the English county of Yorkshire, where there is a process known as Yorkshire assimilation.^[12]

For instance: water [wɒtɜ, watɜ, wætɜ], later [lɒːtɜ, laːtɜ, læːtɜ], bit [bɪt], dish [dis, diʃ], ship [ʃɪp, skɪp, sxɪp], pull [pʊl], good [ɡout, ɣɑut, ɣuːt], clock [klɔk], sail [sɑil], he [hɛi, hɑi, hi(j)], storm [stoːrm], wind [vɪˑnt], grass [ɡras, 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	Frisian
k	ch	maken, moaken, maaken	maken	make	machen	meitsje
k	kch	Karl, Korl	Karel	Carl, Ceorl, Churl	Karl	Kirl, Tsjirl
d	t	Dag, Dach	dag	day	Tag	Dei
t	ss	eten, äten	eten	eat	essen	ite
t	z (/ts/)	teihn, tian	tien	ten	zehn	tsien
t	tz, z (/ts/)	sitten	zitten	sit	sitzen	sitte
p	f, ff	Schipp, Schepp	schip	ship, skiff	Schiff	skip
p	pf	Peper, Päpa	peper	pepper	Pfeffer	piper
β	b	Wief, Wiewer	wijf, wijven *	wife, wives	Weib, Weiber *	wiif, wiven

Note: The words shown are phonetic cognates. The semantic values of some of these words have shifted over time. For example, the correct equivalent term for "wife" in modern Dutch and German is vrouw and Frau respectively; using wijf or Weib for a human is considered archaic in German and derogatory in Dutch, comparable to "bitch". There is no surviving phonetic equivalent to Frau/vrouw in English (cf. Old English frōwe "lady").

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.

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 dän

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 definite determiner 'de' 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.

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 the present perfect which signifies 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 completed action.

Example verb conjugation: slapen, "to sleep"

	Present		Preterite		Perfect
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
1st Person	ik 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 oft-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 Mecklenburg^{[examples needed]} and further east use -en. The -en suffix is of Dutch influence.

There are 26 verb affixes.

There is also a progressive form of verbs in present, corresponding to the same in the Dutch language. It is formed with wesen (to be), the preposition an (at) and "dat"(the/it).

Ik bün an't maken. (Low German)

Ik ben aan het maken. (Dutch)

I am making.

Phonology

Vowels

The list given represents the phonology of the Plautdietsch dialect.

IPA	Description	word
monophthongs
i~iː	Close front unrounded vowel	hia
ɪ	Near-close near-front unrounded vowel	Kjint
ɛ	Open-mid front unrounded vowel	met
æ	Near-open front unrounded vowel	Kjoakj
ɒ	Open back rounded vowel	Gott
ʊ	Near-close near-back rounded vowel	Bock
y	Close front rounded vowel	Hüs
ʌ~ɐ	Open-mid back unrounded vowel, Near-open central vowel	Lost
ɜ~ɜː	Open-mid central unrounded vowel	ferhäa
ə	Schwa	schmäare
e	Close front unrounded vowel	Tän

Consonants

Since there is no standard Low German, there is no standard Low German consonant system. The table shows the consonant system of North Saxon, a West Low Saxon dialect.^[13]

	Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Palatal-Velar	Glottal
Plosive	p  b	t  d		k  ɡ
Fricative	f  v	s  z	ʃ	x  ɣ	h
Nasal	m	n		ŋ
Approximant		r	l

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. Most of these systems aim at representing the phonetic (allophonic) output rather than underlying (phonemic) representations. Furthermore, many writers follow guidelines only roughly. This adds numerous idiosyncratic and often inconsistent ways of spelling to the already existing great orthographic diversity.

See also

Low Saxon portal

• Bible translations into German
• Fritz Reuter
• Gorch Fock
• Klaus Groth
• Meuse-Rhenish
• Moin
• 1614 Low German Bible
• Hamborger Veermaster
• Ohnsorg-Theater

Resources

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 framework to understand the history, current situation and features of the language.

Online dictionaries:

• Plattmakers dictionary with more than 10,000 word entries, with translations and interface available in several languages (English too)
• Dictionary of the Drents dialect (Dutch)
• Mennonite Low German-English Dictionary
• List of more than 100 published dictionaries

Information:

• Low German Podcasts, Audio and Videos (Plautdietsch dialect)
• Low German Podcasts, Audio and Videos (Oolland dialect)
• News program in Low Saxon
• Ethnologue report for Low German (very imprecise, but Ethnologue are not planning an update any time soon)
• List of links, provided by the Lowlands List;
• Streektaal.net, information in and about various Low German dialects;
• Nu is de Welt platt! International resources in and about Low German;
• Niederdeutsch/Plattdeutsch in Westfalen, by Olaf Bordasch;
• Mönsterlänner Plat, by Klaus-Werner Kahl;
• Plattdeutsch heute
• Building Blocks of Low Saxon (Low German), an introductory grammar in English and German

Organizations:

• Van Deinse Instituut (Twente, the Netherlands)
• IJsselacademie (Overijssel and Veluwe, the Netherlands)
• Staring Instituut (Achterhoek, the Netherlands)
• Oostfreeske Taal (Eastern Friesland, Germany)
• Drentse Taol (Drenthe, the Netherlands)
• Stichting Stellingwarver Schrieversronte (Friesland, the Netherlands)
• SONT (General, the Netherlands)
• Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache e.V. (General, Germany)
• Diesel - dat oostfreeske Bladdje (Eastern Friesland, Germany)
• http://nds.sourceforge.net (Open Source Software Translation Project into Low German)

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

Writers:

• Gertrud Everding (Northern Low Saxon - Hamburg, Germany)
• Marlou Lessing (Northern Low Saxon - Hamburg, Germany)
• Clara Kramer-Freudenthal (Northern Low Saxon - Norderstedt, Germany)
• Johan Veenstra (Stellingwarfs - Friesland, the Netherlands)

Musicians:

• 3molPlaut (Ken Sawatzky, Vern and Christina Neufeld - Manitoba, Canada)
• 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)
• Helmut Debus (Lower Saxony - Niedersachsen, Germany)
• Wunnerwark (Lower Saxony - Niedersachsen, Germany)

Unorganized links:

• http://www.plattmaster.de/
• http://www.platt-online.de/
• http://www.zfn-ratzeburg.de/
• http://www.deutsch-plattdeutsch.de/

References

1. ^ Friedrich Maurer (1942), Nordgermanen und Alemannen: Studien zur germanischen und frühdeutschen Sprachgeschichte, Stammes- und Volkskunde, Bern: Francke Verlag.
2. ^ "Platdietsch". 2008-01-27. http://www.plautdietsch.ca/. Retrieved 2008-02-29. 
3. ^ See the definition of high in the Oxford English Dictionary (Concise Edition): “. . . situated far above ground, sea level, etc; upper, inland, as . . . High German”.
4. ^ Atlas zur deutschen Alltagssprache (AdA)
5. ^ Sanders, W: "Sachsensprache — Hansesprache — Plattdeutsch. Sprachgeschichtliche Grundzüge des Niederdeutschen, Göttingen 1982
6. ^ J. Goossens: Niederdeutsche Sprache. Versuch einer Defintion, in: J. Goossens (ed.), Niederdeutsch. Sprache und Literatur, I, Neumünster 1973
7. ^ http://www.schleswig-holstein.de/cae/servlet/contentblob/633574/publicationFile/SprachenchartaberichtDownload.pdf
8. ^ http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niederdeutsche_Sprache#Stellung_des_Niederdeutschen
9. ^ Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache - Zeitschriften
10. ^ http://l10n.kde.org/stats/gui/trunk-kde4/nds/
11. ^ http://nds.sourceforge.net
12. ^ See John Wells, Accents of English, pages 366-7, Cambridge University Press, 1981
13. ^ R.E. Keller, German Dialects. Phonology and Morphology, Manchester 1960