Talk:Low Franconian

Untitled

On these pages I completely miss the south low franconian language, which in germany is also known as Rheinmaaslaendisch or niederreinish and in the Netherlands and Belgium as Limburgs.

More about this language can be found at: http://taal.phileon.nl/eng/limburgish.php

Only other Germans consider these dialects Low Franconian. The "Low Franconians" and "Limburgians" themselves don't. :o)

I believe there are two reasons for this:

• In Germany the Low German dialects are seen as threatened and therefore worthy of protection: and so some of the Middle German dialects (although objectively much closer to High German) are artificially classified as Low German. Of course in the Low Countries the situation is reversed.

• In present-day Germany there is a strong (and justified) tendency to avoid any concept that might potentially lead to revanchism or irredentism. So if you equate Dutch with Low Franconian and then classify Limburgian as South Low Franconian, all the Germanic speaking people in the Low Countries simply use Dutch, right? The person who wrote this article even claimed that on the Lower Rhine all dialects had been completeley replaced by High German. What a pleasing thought! Such a clean solution! Dutch is Dutch and German is German and never the twain shall meet...

MWAK--84.27.81.59 10:19, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Picture

What is wrong with our Flevopolder here? It is not correct. Mallerd 07:56, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

You mean, the Markermeer is not and possibly will never be reclaimed? Of course, you are right here. Ad43 07:59, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Old Franconian is NOT equivalent with "Dutch"

All dogs are animals but not all animals are dogs. Simillarly, Dutch is a Franconian product but Franconian isn't necessarily "Dutch". The reason why there is a confusion regarding the status of Limburgish in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany is because petty nationalistic-minded linguists and others (probably activists) deliberately conflate different terminologies for the purpose of diluting their meanings in order to artificially expand the territorial extent of one language at the expense of another. The fact is that both Dutch and Limburgisch are separate and destinct descendants of Low Franconian. Moreover the two are NOT mutually intelligable, even today. Therefore because of these and other reasons Limburgisch is NOT a dialect of Dutch NOR is it a dialect of the other national language (German). This status by the way is official. However some are still trying to make it so by stealthily conflating the terms "Franconian" and "Dutch". This is wrong for another reason also: it hides the fact that Dutch, to a large extent, is also is a product of Frisian a language that once was spoken as far south along the North sea coast as Flanders.

Accordingly this Wikipedia article (including the statistical figures and maps) needs an overhaul. I have done my part. But this needs further attention. Loginigol (talk) 21:03, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

You are certainly right that Dutch descends almost entirely from old west low Frankonian and Limburgish from the eastern branch. That we cannot understand each other is a bit of a stretch. Overdrijven is ook een kunst. But you cannot understand that, right? Jcwf (talk) 00:22, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Category:West Germanic languages vs. Category:Dutch language

Category:Dutch language is itself a category within Category:West Germanic languages. — Robert Greer (talk) 14:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Dialect groups disputed

I've been suspicious of the dialectal division in the map in the infobox, reproduced here for reference. It extrapolates from Tacitus's De Germania. The division into Ingvaeonic, Istvaeonic and Irminonic is, however, not universally accepted:

According to Tacitus, the western Germanic peoples were divided into three major tribal groups, Ingvaeones, Istvaeones, and Erminones. It is not clear just what these names correspond to — ethnic, cultural or linguistic groups, or a bit of all three; but they serve to mark out some important geographical distributions that correspond to later dialect groups. (...) (only 'Ingvaeonic' is currently in use).

— Lass, Roger (1994). Old English: A Historical Linguistic Companion. Cambridge University Press. p. 14.

I think we should be more careful when presenting this map, which I've seen on several pages already. QVVERTYVS (hm?) 17:08, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Inappropriate redirect

Weser-Rhine Germanic redirects here. It shouldn't, since all Franconaion dialects belong to that grouping. I'm going to change the redirect to point to Franconian languages. --Pfold (talk) 13:35, 2 April 2017 (UTC)

"Netherlandic"

The term "netherlandic" is a general term for the duthc language Brittanica, dictionary.com, etc and is being confused with a set of specifc dialects (the low Frankish dialect in the Rhineland, and Limburg). The AKAKIOS provides "sources" which are untracable (e.g. "Het Nederlands" by one "G. Jansen") and hence not verifiable. I'd ask User:AKAKIOS to resepct WP:BRD and discuss his chages here. As a first I want him to provide ISBN numbers for all the cites, since none of them are tracable or do not call the languages "netherlandic" as far as I can ascertain. Kleuske (talk) 12:12, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

It seems your moving of the article has caused the respective talk pages to be become disaligned. My argument in favor of Netherlandic (which does not equal "Dutch", as claimed above) in favor of "Low Frankish" (which certainly does not solely refer to specific dialects in the Rhineland or Limburg, as claimed above) can be found here: Talk:Netherlandic languages (here). I invite everyone to discus this matter, with civility and while assuming good faith. Thank you. AKAKIOS (talk) 14:31, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I checked several dictionaries and they *all* refer to Dutch. Kleuske (talk) 16:35, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Checked them for what? AKAKIOS (talk) 17:16, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

The term "netherlandic", which is quite distinct from Old Dutch and Old Low Franconian. The current title is humbug and is even flatly contradicted by your sources, which refer to "oudnederfrankisch". Kleuske (talk) 21:14, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

No, it does not ... My source material (plural, you seem to like focusing on a single source, but there are more) does not conflate Old Dutch / Old Low Franconian (which are actual historical languages) but concerns the grouping Nederlands/Niederländisch/Netherlandic/Low Frankish/Low Franconian. As I already explained to you, extensively here. You have to actually read what I say, otherwise discussing is pointless. AKAKIOS (talk) 21:40, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Then provide the damn sources and cite them properly. The only source I can trace flatly contradicts your claims and refers to "oudnederfrankisch" (Old low franconian). You did not even manage to get the title and authors (plural) right. Kleuske (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

No, you keep repeating that, but it doesn't. Look, I can continue arguing with you till kingdom come about this, but as long as you cannot differentiate between these terms its pointless. I've said it here, your comments suggest to me that you are very much out of your comfort zone with this subject. I have provided sources and will provide more, but the fact remains that if you are unable to grasp the matter and concepts being discussed here, it's pointless to discuss them with you. I'm not a teacher, this is not a university course. AKAKIOS (talk) 21:55, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

I provided sources as to the meaning of the word. You have provided no sources whatsoever to dispute those. We are not here to argue, we are here to write an encyclopedia. That relies on sources, which are required by policy. Kleuske (talk) 22:25, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

No, you referred to dictionaries... a dictionary doesn't equal specialized linguistic literature. Besides, you referred to Britannica, which supports my point, not yours. As I already explained and mentioned to you in my rationale. AKAKIOS (talk) 23:17, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Dictionaries are quite authorative when it comes to the meaning of words. In fact, an entire branch of linguistics (lexicography) is dedicated to writing them. But once more you try to avoid providing any actual sources using a lame excuse. Kleuske (talk) 23:31, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

No they are not. The word "dog" in a dictionary tells you close to nothing about the details of the animal. You 'll need specialized literature for that. Sources have been provided a long time ago, here: Talk:Netherlandic languages (link) where you have yet to reply.AKAKIOS (talk) 23:38, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Dictionaries are not authorative when it comes to the meaning of words? Well, welll, well... People at Merriam-Webster will be surprised. In the TP you reference you provide a whole lot of WP:OR and WP:SYNTH and your private POV, but no sources. Kleuske (talk) 23:42, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Honesty, do you get off on this? I provided you with a book whose title is Niederländisch and Niederdeutsch, what part of that don't you understand? Are you honestly going to tell me that dictionaries are more authoritative than scientific literature? Are you honestly going to ignore the fact that I provided a Britannica reference as well as Anglophone literature that uses the term Netherlandic in the way the article uses it? AKAKIOS (talk) 23:54, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, you don't understand the concept of a personal attack? The brittanica reference above was provided by me and refers to present day Dutch, Niederländisch also means Dutch (and yes, i'm fluent in Dutch, German *and* English). That's not an error, it's just a different language. None of the sources, none use it to refer to any form of proto-dutch such as old low franconian. Instead Het Nederlands vroeger en nu (G. Janssen, 2005)specifically refers to "oudnederfrankisch", Old Low Franconian for that language. Kleuske (talk) 00:22, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

And again, you do not provide any sources. Color me surprised. Kleuske (talk) 00:23, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 21 November 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: page moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) —Nnadigoodluck███ 09:45, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

---

Low Franconian languages → Low Franconian – The addition of "languages" is unnecessary, uncommon and somewhat confusing. Vlaemink (talk) 14:24, 21 November 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. Vpab15 (talk) 20:06, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support, per as above. Vlaemink (talk) 08:20, 27 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose it's not one language but a group of them. Every other language grouping has 'languages' at the end why should this one be different? blindlynx (talk) 20:21, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

It's is not a language or collection of languages, it's a linguistic category to which various languages belong. Compare: Dutch (nl:Nederfrankisch) and German de:Niederfränkisch. Similarly, English Wikipedia speaks of Low Saxon rather than "Low Saxon languages" and High German rather than "High German languages".Vlaemink (talk) 08:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

@Vlaemink: High German redirects to High German languages. As far as I can see, most groups of languages have "languages" in their article name. Vpab15 (talk) 20:12, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

@Vpab15, but this isn't a group of languages. It's a linguistic marker used in dialect/variety classifications. It's better to compare: Category:German_dialects and Category:Dutch_dialects or Category:English language in England. Vlaemink (talk) 11:39, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

The first sentence says they "are a group of several West Germanic languages". You might be right when you say they are not a group, but then that sentence needs to be changed with references provided. Vpab15 (talk) 12:53, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

Well sadly, this article is in a sorry state. I recently did a clean up of half the Franconian languages-article; which might give some context surrounding the term "Franconian" in generall, I used quite a few references. As for this article; it uses three sources; two of which use "Low Franconian" (one in English, the other in German) instead of "Franconian languages". Ultimately the difference between a language and a dialect tends to be arbitrary, but in the field of Germanic linguistics it's far more common to refer to natural varieties (ie. non standardized forms) as dialects or varieties instead of languages. In this case, most of the article is more concerned with dialectal subgroups rather than standard languages (Dutch and Afrikaans) so using "languages" is somewhat confusing. Using "Low Franconian" (as do the Dutch, French and German Wikipedias) avoids this ambiguity and allows the article to focus on what it is really about: distinct linguistic typologies rather than a listing of dialects and standard forms. Vlaemink (talk) 15:06, 3 December 2020 (UTC)

• Support: sources do not consistently describe these varieties as languages. If further specification is needed, "Low Franconian dialects" 95 hits on Google scholar should be preferred to the current title, which only gets 10 results. (t · c) buidhe 16:03, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Limburgish

Hello, https://www.academia.edu/30823402/Raumstrukturen_im_Niederdeutschen_Eine_Re_Analyse_der_Wenkerdaten is a quite comprehensive study of dialects in Germany. It has a border between districts speaking Low Franconian and Central Franconian. Central Franconian is to include at least most of Limburgish/South Low Franconian of Germany according to this study. It has Central Franconian as outside both Central German and High German. However, this study has the major drawback of being limited to Germany. Furthermore, other sudies see Limburgish as Low Franconian. Kind regards, Sarcelles (talk) 20:33, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, linguistically Limburgish represents Middle German dialects, using the traditional criterion of partial participation in the consonant shift. Since WW II, for political reasons Dutch and Belgian scientists subsumed them all under Low Franconian. The concept "Central" allows for vague definitions that indulge such sensitivities.--MWAK (talk) 07:14, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

nl:Wikipedia:Taalcafé#Recente_edits_van_Sarcelles suggests to include Limburgish.Sarcelles (talk) 17:53, 16 February 2021 (UTC)

Citation needed

The following was moved from the CN tag in the terminology section:

for the term's history:

• That Wilhelm Braune coined it (when? in which form: probably High German "Fränkisch" or "fränkisch")?
• That it's initially only for High German and was later (when?) expended.

Wilhelm Braune's Althochdeutsche grammatik (1886 and 2nd ed. 1891, lacking general capitalisation of substantives) already has:

in old times:

• althochdeutsch
  • fränkisch
  • oberdeutsch

in modern times:

• hochdeutsch
  • "fränkische dialekt hochdeutschen sprachgebiets"
    • oberfränkisch
      • ostfränkisch (he notes that Müllenhoff called it "hochfränkisch" (2nd ed. misprint: "hochfränkizch"))
      • rheinfränkisch (he notes that he once called it "südfränkisch", and that Müllenhoff used "südfränkisch" für "südrheinfränkisch")
        • (südrheinfränkisch)
    • mittelfränkisch
• niederdeutsch
  • niederfränkisch
  • sächsisch

His Zur kenntnis des fränkischen und zur hochdeutschen lautverschiebung in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur. I. Band (1874) has:

• fränkisch
  • oberfränkisch (he mentions that Müllenhoff simply called it fränkisch, dividied into hoch-, rhein- and südfränkisch)
    • ostfränkisch ("Müllenhoffs hochfränkisch")
    • südfränkisch
  • mittelfränkisch
  • niederfränkisch (together with sächsisch also part of niederdeutsch)

That seems like Müllenhoff (and maybe others) were before him and that at least Braune always had some divisions.

Klepsch in Lexikon Bayerns states this:

• "Die Benennung und Abgrenzung geht zurück auf den Sprachhistoriker Wilhelm Braune (1850-1926)"
  • That could mean that Braune coined the term Fränkisch, but could also mean that he coined some *fränkisch terms and did much for clarifing and naming the divisions and for spreading the terms, and not mean that he coined Frankisch and was the first using it.
• "Die traditionelle Einteilung der deutschen Dialekte ... wird seit dem ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert modifiziert"
  • That's not restricted to Fränkisch or High German and doesn't mean that at the beginning there was only "Fränkisch". Instead it could mean that there was Ober-, Mittel- and Niederfränkisch from the beginning and that new terms were coined (Ripuarisch-Fränkisch, Moselfränkisch) and that the division of other dialects was modified (like Bairisch split into Nord-, Mittel- and Südbairisch, further split into Niederbayrisch, Oberbayrisch, Oberösterreichisch, Niederösterreichisch, Steirisch, Kärntnisch, Tirolisch).

Friedrich Adelung in Uebersicht aller bekannten Sprachen und ihrer Dialekte (1820) already has:

• IV. Germanischer Sprachstamm.
  • A. Deutscher Hauptstamm.
    • 1. Oberdeutsch.
      • a. Gothisch.
      • b. Alemannisch.
      • c. Fränkisch. [= Bavarian?]

      Volksdialekte:

      • ... [Alemannic, Swabian, Bavarian [= Bavarian in Bavaria], Austrian [= Bavarian in Austria], in Tredeci Commune and Sette Commune, Silesian, Jiddisch, ...]
    • 2. Nieder-Deutsch.
      • .... [Frisian, Low Franconian, Low Saxon]
    • 3. Mittel-Deutsch. (Ost-Fränkisch.)
      Obersächsisch.
      • ...
      • e. Hessisch.
      • f. Fränkisch. [= East Franconian in Franken?]
      • g. Nürnbergisch.
      • ...
    • 4. Hoch-Deutsch.

Thus: Braune didn't coin it. But: Müllenhoff and Braune could be responsible for clearer namings and divisions.

--2003:DE:3728:C288:A47A:57D2:7137:7187 (talk) 18:01, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

Mutual intelligibility

@Rapha689Pro: Do you have any sources for Zeelandic being mutually intelligible with standard Dutch? I also noticed that you removed Low Rhenish and readded it as a language family. Is there any particular reason for this? I'd also like to ask if there are any sources for Kaaps being mutually intelligible with Afrikaans. Thanks! ~Cherri of Arctic Circle System (talk) 09:33, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I speak a bit of Dutch and I understand a lot of zeelandic without no knowledge of the dialect,most people report that they can understand it in written form,it’s obviously subjective personal experiences and not “objective” but mutual intelligibility is usually also subjective. Rapha689Pro (talk) 02:57, 6 May 2023 (UTC)

Old Low Franconian in a western sense or West Frankish

From the article:

Some linguists use the terms Old Low Franconian or West Frankish to specifically refer to the (very sparsely attested) varieties of Old Dutch spoken prior to its assimilation in the coastal dialect.

Guy Janssens: Het Nederlands vroeger en nu, ACCO, 2005, p. 47-50.

The sources doesn't seem to support the statement - or on what page exactly? That are four pages, while it's only a short information, hence it should be possible to give a more concrete page. The pages include:

• beginning and some part of chapter "2. Oudnederlands" (p. 47-50.)
  • intro (p. 47): "Oudnederlands ... vanaf de 8ste eeuw ... midden van de 12de eeuw"
  • "2.1 De Volksverhuizingen en het Frankische Rijk" (p. 47f.)
  • "2.1.1 Ingweonen of Kustgermanen" (p. 49): "Ingweoonse kustdialect"
  • "2.1.2 Franken" (p. 49f.): mentioning Sidonius Apollinaris and "Nederzettingssituatie in de 7de eeuw" (of Franken, Saksen, Friezen)

Also:

• The source is given incorrectly and improperly: it lacks the other author Ann Marynissen and that 2005 is the 2nd ed. (1st ed. 2003).
• On p. 54f. Janssens & Marynissen mention Old East Low Franconian (Oudoostnederfrankisch; e.g. in the Wachtendonckse psalmen) and Old West Low Franconian (Oudwestnederfrankisch), but that's something different.
• Following Sonderegger (Stefan Sonderegger, Grundzüge deutscher Sprachgeschichte, vol. I, 1979, p. 165 & 198), West Franconian/Frankish (Westfränkisch) is not part of Old Low Franconian (OLF; Altniederfränkisch) but like OLF and e.g. Middle Franconian (Mittelfränkisch) another daughter language of Old Franconian/Frankish (Altfränkisch).

--93.221.40.167 (talk) 23:00, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

So you think Central Franconian used to be part of Dutch? Sarcelles (talk) 18:14, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

No, and that wasn't stated anywhere. What was said was:

a) The statement seems unsourced.

b) Central Franconian is considered to descend from Old Franconian. As Frankish language states: "whereas the Frankish varieties spoken in the Rhineland were heavily influenced by Elbe Germanic dialects and the Second Germanic consonant shift and would form part of the modern Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian dialects of German".

--20:02, 17 September 2023 (UTC)~ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.40.167 (talk)

This sounds, as if Frankish and Franconian always were mere hodgepodges.Sarcelles (talk) 20:46, 17 September 2023 (UTC)

Map

I'm a bit confused by the map included in the infobox. Is there a controversial debate over which languages/dialects are in Low Franconian? Is the East Bergish dialect Low Franconian or not? What is the Low Saxon "Ubergangsgebiet"? It'd be nice to have a bit more clarification. Criticalthinker (talk) 14:22, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

East Bergish is a novelty construct in German dialectology by Georg Cornelissen. It is crudely based on two isoglosses, but unsupported by detailed dialect studies such as Wiesinger's study of Bergish dialects. It actually consists of a northern part of dialects that are mostly of South Low Franconian character but gradually transition into Westphalian, while the southern part comprises Westphalian dialects that have some Ripuarian characteristics—there is nothing really Low Franconian about these southern "East Bergish" dialects. It would be good to replace the map with a better one that doesn't display East Bergish, but I can't find a much better one in Commons on a quick search.

The same holds for the Low Saxon "transitional area", which is also only based in two isoglosses. Low Franconian is part of a dialect continuum and there are many more "transitional areas", even the boundary between West and East Low Franconian is a gradual one. –Austronesier (talk) 17:12, 29 July 2024 (UTC)

If you're going to take out Bergish and East Bergish, what is even the purpose, then, of referencing "Limburgs" in the list, particularly sense it says that the varieties are not called this on the other side of the international border? If anything, it seems if you're going to name this language variety, you'd name it more central with Bergish noting that in the Low Countries it has a different name (Limburgs) and is also associated with Ostbergish to the east. Criticalthinker (talk) 11:50, 30 July 2024 (UTC)

It's a dialect group. For much of the area, people used to call their language just plat/Platt. Limburgs is a common name for the mostly quite vital varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands that are very much in public awareness (and some scholars even have used Limburgs/Limburgisch/Limburgian for the entire SLF dialect group). So the idea is to mention something that's recognizable for many of our readers. Everybody in Belgium and the Netherlands knows what Limburgs is and what it sounds like, whereas there is no single term for the endangered/moribund/extinct SLF varieties spoken in Germany except for the scholarly term SLF itself (not counting clumsy terms such as niederrheinisch-ripuarisches Übergangsgebiet). Bergish in the narrow sense for the easternmost of these varieties is also a scholarly construct; in common parlance, "Bergish" can also refer to Ripuarian dialects such as spoken in Waldbröl or Engelskirchen. On the other hand, "Bergish" is never used to refer to the SLF dialects of Krefeld, Viersen or Mönchengladbach. I'm open for improvements, as long as we don't introduce inaccuracies (such as listing only Limburgish and Bergish as covering all of the SLF area) or promote novelties such as "Ostbergisch" (which we unfortunately already do with the map). –Austronesier (talk) 18:29, 30 July 2024 (UTC)