Low German
West Germanic language / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Low German[lower-alpha 2] is a West Germanic language[12][13] spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide.
| Low German | |
|---|---|
| Low Saxon | |
| Plattdütsch, Plattdüütsch, Plattdütsk, Plattdüütsk, Plattduitsk (South-Westphalian), Plattduitsch (Eastphalian), Plattdietsch (Low Prussian); Neddersassisch; Nedderdüütsch | |
| Native to | Northern and western Germany Eastern Netherlands Southern Denmark |
| Ethnicity | Dutch Germans Frisians Russian Mennonites Historically Saxons |
Native speakers | Estimated 4.35–7.15 million[lower-alpha 1][1][2][3] Up to 10 million second-language speakers (2001)[4] |
Early forms | |
| Dialects | |
| Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-2 | nds |
| ISO 639-3 | nds (Dutch varieties and Westphalian have separate codes) |
| Glottolog | lowg1239 Low German |
| Linguasphere | 52-ACB |
 Present-day Low German language area in Europe | |
| This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. | |
Low German is most closely related to Frisian and English, with which it forms the North Sea Germanic group of the West Germanic languages. Like Dutch, it has historically been spoken north of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses, while forms of High German (of which Standard German is a standardized example) have historically been spoken south of those lines. Like Frisian, English, Dutch and the North Germanic languages, Low German has not undergone the High German consonant shift, as opposed to Standard High German, which is based on High German dialects. Low German evolved from Old Saxon (Old Low German), which is most closely related to Old Frisian and Old English (Anglo-Saxon).
The Low German dialects spoken in the Netherlands are mostly referred to as Low Saxon, those spoken in northwestern Germany (Lower Saxony, Westphalia, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, and Saxony-Anhalt west of the Elbe) as either Low German or Low Saxon, and those spoken in northeastern Germany (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Saxony-Anhalt east of the Elbe) mostly as Low German, not being part of Low Saxon. This is because northwestern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands were the area of settlement of the Saxons (Old Saxony), while Low German spread to northeastern Germany through eastward migration of Low German speakers into areas with an originally Slavic-speaking population. This area is known as Germania Slavica, where the former Slavic influence is still visible in the names of settlements and physiogeographical features. [lower-alpha 3]
It has been estimated that Low German has approximately 2.2-5.0 million speakers in Germany, primarily Northern Germany (ranging from well to very well),[14] and 2.15 million in the Netherlands (ranging from reasonable to very well).[15]