Low Rhenish
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![Low Franconian language area with West Meuse-Rhenish: ([5] and [6])](../../../upload/shared/9/9d/Nederfrankisch.png)
Low Rhenish is the German name for the regional Low Franconian language variety of the Low Germanic language spoken alongside the so-called Lower Rhine in the west of Germany and the Netherlands. Important cities at the Lower Rhine in Germany and in the German Rhine-Ruhr area, both regions together covering the entire Dusseldorf Region, are part of it, among them Cleves, Xanten, Wesel, Moers, Essen, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Oberhausen and Wuppertal. This language area stretches out towards the west along cities such as Krefeld and Mönchengladbach, and cities at the Meuse (Dutch and German: Maas) river in the Dutch province of Limburg, such as Venlo and Roermond, and then crosses the Meuse between the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg, where cities lie such as Maastricht and Hasselt. As it crosses the Dutch-German border, a mainly political-geographic division can be made into Western and Eastern Low Rhenish.
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[edit] Meuse-Rhenish
Within the Dutch speaking area, Western Low Rhenish is divided into Limburgish (spoken in the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, marked as [6] on the map above, and Zuid-Gelders (Nederrijns), marked as [5]. Together they belong to the greater Meuse-Rhine area, a large group of southeastern Low Franconian dialects, including areas in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German Northern Rhineland. The northwestern part of this triangle became 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. This superordinating group is called Meuse-Rhenish (Dutch: Maas-Rijnlands, German: Rheinmaasländisch), as suggested by the Amsterdam linguist Ad Welschen.
[edit] Classification
- Indo-European
- Germanic
- West Germanic
- Low Franconian
- Meuse-Rhenish
- Limburgish and Zuid-Gelders / Low Rhenish
- 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] Reference
- Georg Cornelissen: Kleine niederrheinische Sprachgeschichte (1300-1900) : eine regionale Sprachgeschichte für das deutsch-niederländische Grenzgebiet zwischen Arnheim und Krefeld : met een Nederlandstalige inleiding. Stichting Historie Peel-Maas-Niersgebied, Geldern / Venray 2003, ISBN 90-807292-2-
