Low German

Nomenclature

The language grouping of Low German is referred to, in the language itself as well as in its umbrella languages of German and Dutch, in several different ways, ranging from official names such as Niederdeutsch and Nederduits to more general characterisations such as "dialect". The proliferation of names or characterisations is due in part to the grouping stretching mainly across two different countries and to it being a collection of varieties rather than a standardised language.

There are different uses of the term "Low German":

• 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.
• A broader term for the closely related, continental West Germanic languages unaffected by the High German consonant shift, nor classifying as Anglo-Frisian, and thus including Low Franconian varieties.

In Germany, native speakers of Low German call their language Platt, Plattdütsch, Plattdüütsch, Plattdütsk, Plattdüütsk, Plattduitsk (South-Westphalian), Plattduitsch (Eastphalian), Plattdietsch (Low Prussian), or Nedderdüütsch. In the Netherlands, native speakers refer to their language as dialect, plat, Nedersaksisch, or the name of their village, town or district.

Officially, Low German is called niederdeutsche Sprache or plattdeutsche Sprache (Nether or Low German language), Niederdeutsch or Plattdeutsch (Nether or Low German) in High German by the German authorities, nedderdüütsche Spraak (Nether or Low German language), Nedderdüütsch or Plattdüütsch (Nether or Low German) in Low German by the German authorities and Nedersaksisch (Nether or Low Saxon) by the Dutch authorities. 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 (Highland German) is spoken.

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

The ISO 639-2 language code for Low German has been nds (Niedersächsisch or Nedersaksisch, Neddersassisch) since May 2000.

Classification

Low German is a part of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum. To the West, it blends into the Low Franconian languages, including Dutch. A distinguishing feature between the Low Franconian varieties and Low German varieties is the plural of the verbs. Low German varieties have a common verbal plural ending, whereas Low Franconian varieties have a different form for the second person plural. This is complicated in that in most Low Franconian varieties, including standard Dutch, the original second-person plural form has replaced the singular. Some dialects, including again standard Dutch, innovated a new second-person plural form in the last few centuries, using the other plural forms as the source.

To the South, Low German 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 the Polish part of Pomerania following the Second World War, also by the Polish language. East Pomeranian and Central Pomeranian are dialects of Low German.

To the North and Northwest, it abuts the Danish and the Frisian languages. In Germany, Low German has replaced the Danish and Frisian languages in many regions. 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 influences from Frisian substrates.

Most linguists classify the dialects of Low German together with English and Frisian as the North Sea Germanic or Ingvaeonic languages. However, most exclude Low German from the group often called Anglo-Frisian languages because some distinctive features of that group of languages are only partially preserved 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 almost do not occur in Low German at all, for instance the palatalization and assibilation of (compare palatalized forms such as English cheese, Frisian tsiis to non-palatalized forms such as Low German Kees or Kaise, Dutch kaas, German Käse but Low German Sever/Sebber while German Käfer) Because Old Saxon came under strong Old High German and Old Low Franconian influence early on and therefore lost many Ingvaeonic features that were to be found much more extensively in earlier language states.

Language or dialect

The question of whether today's Low German should be considered a separate language or a dialect of German or even Dutch has been a point of contention. Although Low German is mostly regarded as an independent language, linguistics offers no simple, generally accepted criterion to decide the question.

Scholarly arguments have been put forward for classifying Low German as a German dialect. As stated above, the arguments are not linguistic but rather sociopolitical and revolve 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" ("scheindialektisierte Abstandsprache"). In contrast, Old Saxon and Middle Low German are generally considered separate languages in their own right. Since Low German has strongly declined since the 18th century, the perceived similarities with High German or Dutch may often be direct adaptations from the dominating standard language, resulting in a growing inability by speakers to speak correctly what was once Low German proper.

Others have argued for the independence of today's Low German dialects, taken as continuous outflow of the Old Saxon and Middle Low German tradition. Glottolog classifies six varieties of Low German as distinct languages based on a low degree of mutual intelligibility. Eastern Low German and Plautdietsch are classified as part of Greater East Low German, while Eastphalian, Westphalic, and the North Low Saxon languages, German Northern Low Saxon and Gronings, are classified as part of West Low German.

Legal status

Low German has been recognized 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 1a), 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.).

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 on the same footing as Standard High German applications. 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, because applications in Low German are considered not to be written in the German language.

Varieties of Low German

• Low Saxon or West Low German
  • East Frisian Low Saxon
  • Northern Low Saxon
    • Holsteinian (Holsteinisch)
    • Schleswigian (Schleswigsch)
    • Dithmarsch (Dithmarsisch)
    • North Hanoverian (Nordhannoversch)
    • Emslandish (Emsländisch)
    • Oldenburgish (Oldenburgisch)
    • Gronings and Noord-Drents
      • Hogelandsters
      • Oldambtsters
      • Stadsgronings
      • Veenkoloniaals
      • Westerkwartiers
        • Kollumerpompsters
        • Kollumerlands
        • Middaglands
        • Midden-Westerkwartiers
        • Zuid-Westerkwartiers
      • Westerwolds
  • Westphalian (Westfälisch)
    • Westmünsterländisch
    • Münsterländisch
    • South Westphalian (Südwestfälisch)
    • East Westphalian (Ostwestfälisch)
    • Stellingwerfs
    • Drents
      • Midden-Drents
      • Zuid-Drents
    • Twents
      • Twents-Graafschaps
      • Twents
    • Gelders-Overijssels
      • Achterhoeks
      • Sallands
      • Oost-Veluws (partly classified as Veluws)
      • Urkers
    • Veluws
      • Oost-Veluws (partly classified as Gelders-Overijssels)
      • West-Veluws
  • Eastphalian (Ostfälisch)
• East Low German
  • Brandenburgisch
  • Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch
  • Central Pomeranian (Mittelpommersch)
  • East Pomeranian (Ostpommersch)
    • Neumärkisch (partly classified as Marchian Brandenburgish, Central Pomeranian and South Märkisch)
  • Low Prussian (Niederpreußisch)
  • Plautdietsch (Mennonite Low German, used also in many other countries)
  • Koschneiderisch language (partly classified as East Pomeranian)

History

Old Saxon

Old Saxon (Altsächsisch), also known as Old Low German (Altniederdeutsch), 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 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

The Middle Low German language (Mittelniederdeutsch) is an ancestor of modern Low German. It was spoken from about 1100 to 1600. At the time it was known as Sassisch or de Sassische sprâke in Middle Low German and the region in which it was spoken Sassenlant. The neighbouring languages within the dialect continuum of the West Germanic languages were Middle Dutch in the West and Middle High German in the South; the latter developed into 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. It had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages and other languages around the Baltic Sea. Based on the language of Lübeck, a standardized written language was developing, though it was never codified.

Contemporary

There is a distinction between the German and the Dutch Low Saxon/Low German situation.

Germany

After mass education in Germany in the 19th and 20th centuries, the slow decline which Low German had been experiencing since the end of the Hanseatic League turned into a free fall. The decision to exclude Low German in formal education was not without controversy, however. On one hand, proponents of Low German advocated that since it had a strong cultural and historical value and was the native language of students in northern Germany, it had a place in the classroom. On the other hand, High German was considered the language of education, science, and national unity, and since schools promoted these values, High German was seen as the best candidate for the language of instruction.

Initially, regional languages and dialects were thought to limit the intellectual ability of their speakers. When historical linguists illustrated the archaic character of certain features and constructions of Low German, this was seen as a sign of its "backwardness". It was not until the efforts of proponents such as Klaus Groth that this impression changed. Groth's publications demonstrated that Low German was a valuable language in its own right, and he was able to convince others that Low German was suitable for literary arts and was a national treasure worth keeping.

Through the works of advocates like Groth, both proponents and opponents of Low German in formal education saw the language's innate value as the cultural and historical language of northern Germany. Nevertheless, opponents claimed that it should simply remain a spoken and informal language to be used on the street and in the home, but not in formal schooling. In their opinion, it simply did not match the nationally unifying power of High German. As a result, while Low German literature was deemed worthy of being taught in school, High German was chosen as the language of scholarly instruction. With High German the language of education and Low German the language of the home and daily life, a stable diglossia developed in Northern Germany. Various Low German dialects are understood by 10 million people, but many fewer are native speakers.

The KDE project supports Low German (nds) as a language for its computer desktop environment, as does the GNOME Desktop Project. Open-source software has been translated into Low German; this used to be coordinated via a page on SourceForge, but as of 2015, the most active project is that of KDE.

Netherlands

In the early 20th century, scholars in the Netherlands argued that speaking dialects hindered language acquisition, and it was therefore strongly discouraged. As education improved, and mass communication became more widespread, the Low Saxon dialects further declined, although decline has been greater in urban centres of the Low Saxon regions. When in 1975 dialect folk and rock bands such as Normaal and Boh Foi Toch became successful with their overt disapproval of what they experienced as "misplaced Dutch snobbery" and the Western Dutch contempt for (speakers of) Low Saxon dialects, they gained a following among the more rurally oriented inhabitants, launching Low Saxon as a sub-culture. They inspired contemporary dialect artists and rock bands, such as Daniël Lohues, Mooi Wark, Jovink en de Voederbietels, Hádiejan Nonetheless, the position of the language is vulnerable according to UNESCO. Low Saxon is still spoken more widely than in Northern Germany. Efforts are made in Germany and in the Netherlands to protect Low German as a regional language.

Phonetic and grammatical changes

High German consonant shift

As with the Anglo-Frisian and North Germanic languages, Low German has not been influenced by the High German consonant shift except for old having shifted to . 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 in the Yorkshire dialect, where there is a process known as Yorkshire assimilation.

For instance: water , later , bit , dish , ship , pull , good , clock , sail , he , storm , wind , grass , hold , old .

The table below shows the relationship between Low German consonants which were unaffected by this chain shift and their equivalents in other West Germanic languages. Contemporary Swedish and Icelandic shown for comparison; Eastern and Western North Germanic languages, respectively.

Ingvaeonisms

Like English and Frisian, Low German is often recognized as a North Sea Germanic language and therefore has so-called Ingvaeonisms. However, these are not distributed equally regionally everywhere. Some dialects have more and others fewer of these features, while some only occur in older forms of language and only leave relics in modern Low German.

Cases that do not follow the rules described in the first column are in bold.

Other changes

In addition, there are of course numerous other changes that are not related to Ingwaonic phenomena, but that arose in exchange with other languages or something else. The table below reflects some of these developments insofar as they affect several dialects and are therefore not exceptional phenomena.

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.

Personal pronouns

The following table tries to reflect the linguistic situation of the individual dialects as diverse as possible and to name as many case forms of the respective pronouns, but it is not able to do justice to every dialect. So the pronoun of the third person singular feminine can be pronounced as follows: se(e), sey, soi, etc. Only one of these variants can be found in the table. This also applies to all other pronouns.

Verbs

In Low German verbs are conjugated for person, number, and tense. 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.

Unlike Dutch, High German, and southern Low German, the northern dialects form the past participle without the prefix ge-, like the Scandinavian languages, Frisian and English. Compare northern Low German slapen to the German past participle geschlafen. This past participle is used with the auxiliary verbs hewwen/hebben "to have" and wesen/sin/sien "to be". When the past participle ends with -en or in a few oft-used words like west (been).

Synthetic subjunctive verb forms are mostly identical to the indicative forms of the past tense and the pluperfect tense - much like Dutch and English. It is thus only recognizable from the context of a sentence. It is often formed periphrastically by using the helping verbs woor, schull, wull, and dee: "Ik woor/wöör/worr/wurr mi freuen, wenn Vader noch lang leev" (I would be glad if father still lived for a long time).

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).

¹ Instead of wesen, sien (to be) Saxon uses doon (to do) to make to present continuous.

² Many see the 'n as an old dative ending of dat which only occurs when being shortened after prepositions. This is actually the most frequently-used form in colloquial Low German.

³ This form is archaic and mostly unknown to Low German speakers. It is the same pattern as in the English example "I am making." The present participle has the same form as the infinitive: maken is either "to make" or "making".

Adjectives

The forms of Low German's adjectives are distinct from other closely related languages such as German and English. These forms fall somewhere in between these two languages. As in German, the adjectives in Low German may make a distinction between singular and plural to agree with the nouns that they modify, as well as between the three genders, between the nominative and oblique cases and between indefinite (weak) and definite (strong) forms. However, there is a lot of variation in that respect and some or all of these distinctions may also be absent, so that a single undeclined form of the adjective can occur in all cases, as in English. This is especially common in the neuter. If the adjective is declined, the pattern tends to be as follows:

As mentioned above, alternative undeclined forms such as dat lütt Land, de lütt Lannen, en stark Kerl, de stark Kerl, stark Kerls, de stark Kerls etc. can occur.

Phonology

Consonants

• A common feature of Low German dialects is the retraction of / / to .
• The sound [] can occur as an allophone of // among dialects.
• // and // can have allophones as [] and [].
• // can be articulated as uvular [] among Northern dialects and younger speakers.
• The sound // can also be realized as fricative or affricate sounds [~~], [], in word-initial position.

Vowels

• [] and [] can occur as allophones of // and //.
• Vowel backness of // to [] may also occur among dialects.

• [] can be heard as an allophone of // within diphthongs.
• Long phonemes //, //, //, occur mostly in the Geest dialects, while in other dialects, they may be realized as diphthongs.

Writing system

Low German is written using the Latin alphabet. There is no official standard orthography, though there are several locally more or less accepted orthographic guidelines. Those in the Netherlands are mostly based on Dutch orthography and may vary per dialect region, and those in Germany mostly follow German orthography. To the latter group belongs the orthography devised by Johannes Sass. It is mostly used by modern official publications and internet sites, especially the Low German Wikipedia. This diversity, a 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. This severely hampers interregional and interdialectal written communication. Most of these systems aim at representing the phonetic (allophonic) output rather than underlying (phonemic) representations.

A commonly voiced idea on both sides of the border on the topic of spelling is 'Write it as you say it', which results in semi-phonetic spellings based on either German or Dutch spelling conventions. This seriously affects international legibility, as pronunciation can vary wildly, resulting in many different written forms of what are essentially the same words. An attempt to unify the dialects in spelling was created by Reinhard Franz Hahn, a German-American linguist. He created the Algemeyne Schryvwys on etymological principles. He however restricted his spelling's focus mostly to the northern German dialects. A group of enthusiasts from both sides of the border took his principles and expanded them for the majority of the Low German dialects in both the Netherlands and Germany. This reworked version is called the Nysassiske Skryvwyse (New Saxon Spelling).

Spoken examples

Notable Low German writers and performers

• Heinrich Bandlow
• Hans-Friedrich Blunck
• John Brinckman
• De fofftig Penns
• Gorch Fock
• Friedrich Wilhelm Grimme (Westphalian: Sauerländisch)
• Klaus Groth (Dithmarsisch)
• August Hermann
• Joachim Mähl
• Johann Meyer (Dithmarsisch)
• Martha Müller-Grählert
• Fritz Reuter (Mecklenburgisch-Vorpommersch)
• Willem Schröder
• Julius Stinde
• Rudolf Tarnow
• Augustin Wibbelt (Westphalian: Münsterländisch)
• Wilhelm Wieben
• Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi
• Normaal
• Daniël Lohues

Middle Low German authors:

• Eggerik Beninga
• Balthasar Russow
• Albert Suho

Plautdietsch authors:

• Arnold Dyck
• Reuben Epp
• Jack Thiessen

Low German in education, media and culture

As an important identity-forming element, the Low German language has been taught in schools in northern Germany for several years. In 2023, for example, the first class in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania graduated in the subject Low German. The social position of Low German has improved significantly in recent years and enjoys a high level of prestige, especially in modern cities such as Hamburg and Bremen.

Numerous formats in Low German are also offered on Norddeutscher Rundfunk.

The television moderator Yared Dibaba has been campaigning for the preservation of Low German languages for years.

The internet magazine Wearldspråke (alternatively also: Wearldsproake) is run by the musician and language activist Martin ter Denge.

In 2020 the film "The Marriage Escape" was released, which is mostly in Tweants.

Linguistically, historically and culturally there are close contacts with the Netherlands, Denmark and other predominantly Protestant inhabitants of the North and Baltic Seas such as Great Britain, the rest of Scandinavia and the Baltic states. In German usage, for example on Norddeutscher Rundfunk, northern Germany is occasionally viewed as part of Northern Europe, while the remaining part of Germany is less questioned as belonging to Central Europe.

Historically, close relationships also existed in the field of literature and poetry, for example the Norwegian Thidrekssaga (13th century) is based, according to its own information, on "Low German" and "Saxon" templates.

However, there are numerous other cultural and historical features that are common to the entire Low German-speaking area, such as the special architectural style of the "Low German hall house". These houses are often provided with traditional gable decorations, which are also known under the terms 'Hengst' and 'Hors'. Rudolf Simek notes that these horse-head gables can still be seen today, and says that the horse-head gables confirm that Hengist and Horsa were originally considered mythological, horse-shaped beings.

Since the Brothers Grimm were friends with the von Haxterhausen family, numerous fairy tales by the Grimm children and household tales come from the Westphalian and thus Low German cultural area. However, there are a remarkable number of Grimm's fairy tales that are written in Low German in their original version.