West Low German

West Low German, also known as Low Saxon (German: Westniederdeutsch, literally West Low German, or Niedersächsisch (in a stricter sense), literally: Low Saxon, Nether-Saxon; Low German: Nedersassisch, Nedersaksies; Dutch: Nedersaksisch) is a group of Low German (also Low Saxon; German: Plattdeutsch, Niederdeutsch, Dutch: Nederduits) dialects spoken in parts of the Netherlands, northwestern Germany and southern Denmark (in North Schleswig by the German minority). It is one of two groups of mutually intelligible dialects, the other being East Low German dialects. A 2005 study found that there were approximately 1.8 million "daily speakers" of Low Saxon in the Netherlands.[2]

For other uses, see Low German (disambiguation) and Low Saxon.
West Low German
German: Westniederdeutsch
Native toGermany, Netherlands, Southern Denmark
Language codes
ISO 639-2nds for Low German
ISO 639-3Variously:
wep – Westphalian
nds – (partial)
frs – Eastern Frisian
gos – Gronings
stl – Stellingwerfs
drt – Drents
twd – Twents
act – Achterhoeks
sdz – Sallands
vel – Veluws
Glottologwest2357[1]
Low German area in yellow; Low Saxon dialects are roughly demarcated by the Germany–Netherlands border

Extent

The language area comprises the North German states of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia (the Westphalian part), Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony-Anhalt (the northwestern areas around Magdeburg) as well as the northeast of The Netherlands (i.e. Dutch Low Saxon, spoken in Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel and northern Gelderland) and the Schleswigsch dialect spoken by the North Schleswig Germans in the southernmost part of Denmark.

In the south the Benrath line and Uerdingen line isoglosses form the border with the area, where West Central German variants of High German are spoken.

List of dialects

Germany
Low Saxon language area in the Netherlands

Netherlands
Main article: Dutch Low Saxon

While Dutch is a Low Franconian language, the Dutch Low Saxon varieties, which the Dutch government considers to be Dutch dialects, form a dialect continuum with the Westphalian language. They consist of:

Denmark

References
  1. Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds. (2017). "West Low German". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
  2. [Bloemhoff, H. (2005). Taaltelling Nedersaksisch. Een enquête naar het gebruik en de beheersing van het Nedersaksisch in Nederland. Groningen: Sasland.]
  3. Noble, Cecil A. M. (1983). Modern German dialects. New York [u.a.], Lang, p. 103-104
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