Northern Low Saxon Explained
| Northern Low Saxon |
| Also Known As: | North Low Saxon, North Saxon |
| States: | Germany, Northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark |
| Region: | Lower Saxony, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Groningen, Drenthe |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Indo-European |
| Fam2: | Germanic |
| Fam3: | West Germanic |
| Fam4: | North Sea Germanic |
| Fam5: | Low German |
| Fam6: | West Low German[1] |
| Dia1: | Schleswigsch |
| Dia2: | Holsteinisch |
| Dia3: | Oldenburgisch |
| Dia4: | East Frisian Low Saxon |
| Dia5: | North Hanoveranian |
| Dia6: | Dithmarsisch |
| Dia7: | Emsländisch |
| Dia8: | Gronings |
| Iso2: | nds |
| Iso3: | nds |
| Iso3comment: | (partial) |
| Glotto: | ostf1234 |
| Glottoname: | North Low Saxon |
| Glotto2: | nort2628 |
| Glottoname2: | German Northern Low Saxon |
Northern Low Saxon (in Standard High German: German: Nordniedersächsisch, also German: Nordniederdeutsch, lit. North(ern) Low Saxon/German; in Standard Dutch: Dutch; Flemish: Noord-Nedersaksisch) is a subgroup of Low Saxon dialects of Low German. As such, it covers a great part of the West Low German-speaking areas of northern Germany, with the exception of the border regions where South Low Saxon (Eastphalian and Westphalian) is spoken, and Gronings dialect in the Netherlands.
Dialects
Northern Low Saxon can be divided into Holsteinian (German: Holsteinisch), Schleswigian (German: Schleswigsch), East Frisian Low Saxon, Dithmarsch (German: Dithmarsisch), North Hanoveranian (German: Nordhannoversch), Emslandish (German: Emsländisch), and Oldenburgish (German: Oldenburgisch) in Germany,[2] with additional dialects in the Netherlands such as Gronings.[3]
German: Holsteinisch is spoken in Holstein, the southern part of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, in Dithmarschen, around Neumünster, Rendsburg, Kiel and Lübeck.
German: Schleswigsch (pronounced as /de/) is spoken in Schleswig, which is divided between Germany and Denmark. It is mainly based on a South Jutlandic substrate. Therefore, it has some notable differences in pronunciation and grammar with its southern neighbour dialects. The dialects on the west coast of Schleswig (Nordfriesland district) and some islands show some North Frisian influences.
German: Oldenburgisch is spoken around the city of Oldenburg. It is limited to Germany. The main difference between it and East Frisian Low Saxon, which is spoken in the Frisian parts of Lower Saxony, is the lack of an East Frisian substrate. Oldenburgisch is spoken in the city of Bremen as "Bremian", which is the only capital where Oldenburgisch is spoken.
Overviews
a)[4]
- German: Schleswigsch
- German: Holsteinisch
- German: Hamburgisch
- German: Bremisch-Oldenburgisch
- German: Ostfriesisch (East Frisian)
- German: Emsländisch
b)[5]
- German: Ostfriesisch (East Frisian)
- German: Emsländisch
- German: Bremisch-Oldenburgisch
- German: Nordhannoversch
- German: Niederelbisch (Hamburg, Elbmarschen)
- German: Holsteinisch
- German: Schleswigsch
c) [6]
- Dithmarsch
- Schleswigsch / Schleswigian
- Holsteinisch / Holsteinian
- Oldenburgisch
- Emsländisch
- Nordhannoversch
Emsländisch and Oldenburgisch are also grouped together as Emsländisch-Oldenburgisch, while Bremen and Hamburg lie in the area of Nordhannoversch (in a broader sense).[7] [8]
Characteristics
The most obvious common character in grammar is the forming of the perfect participle. It is formed without a prefix, as in all North Germanic languages, as well as English and Frisian, but unlike standard German, Dutch and some dialects of Westphalian and Eastphalian Low Saxon:
- gahn pronounced as /[ɡɒːn]/ (to go): Ik bün gahn pronounced as /[ɪkbʏŋˈɡɒːn]/ (I have gone/I went), Standard German: gehen; ich bin gegangen/ich ging
- seilen pronounced as /[zaˑɪln]/ (to sail): He hett seilt pronounced as /[hɛɪhɛtˈzaˑɪlt]/ (He (has) sailed), Standard German: segeln; er ist gesegelt/er segelte
- kopen pronounced as /[ˈkʰoʊpm̩]/ (to buy): Wi harrn köfft pronounced as /[vihaːŋˈkœft]/ (We had bought), Standard German: kaufen; wir haben gekauft/wir kauften
- kamen pronounced as /[ˈkɒːm̩]/ (to come): Ji sünd kamen pronounced as /[ɟizʏŋˈkɒːm̩]/ (You (all) have come/You came), Standard German: kommen; ihr seid gekommen/ihr kamt
- eten pronounced as /[ˈeːtn̩]/ (to eat): Se hebbt eten pronounced as /[zɛɪhɛptˈʔeːtn̩]/ (They have eaten/They ate), Standard German: essen; sie haben gegessen/sie aßen
The diminutive (-je) (Dutch and East Frisian Low Saxon -tje, Eastphalian -ke, High German -chen, Alemannic -le, li) is hardly used. Some examples are Buscherumpje, a fisherman's shirt, or lüttje, a diminutive of lütt, little. Instead the adjective lütt is used, e.g. dat lütte Huus, de lütte Deern, de lütte Jung.
There are a lot of special characteristics in the vocabulary, too, but they are shared partly with other languages and dialects, e.g.:
- Personal pronouns: ik pronounced as /[ɪk]/ (like Dutch ik, standard German form ich), du pronounced as /[du]/ (like German Du, standard German form du), he pronounced as /[hɛɪ]/ (like Dutch hij, standard German form er), se pronounced as /[zɛɪ]/ (like Dutch zij, standard German form sie), dat pronounced as /[dat]/ (Dutch dat, standard German form es/das), wi pronounced as /[vi]/, ji pronounced as /[ɟi]/ (similar to English ye, Dutch jij, standard German forms wir, ihr), se pronounced as /[zɛɪ]/ (standard German form sie).
- Interrogatives (English/High German): wo pronounced as /[voʊ]/, woans pronounced as /[voʊˈʔaˑns]/ (how/wie), wo laat pronounced as /[voʊˈlɒːt]/ (how late/wie spät), wokeen pronounced as /[voʊˈkʰɛˑɪn]/ (who/wer), woneem pronounced as /[voʊˈneːm]/ (where/wo), wokeen sien pronounced as /[voʊˈkʰɛˑɪnziːn]/ / wen sien pronounced as /[vɛˑnziːn]/ (whose/wessen)
- Adverbs (English/High German): laat pronounced as /[lɒːt]/ (late/spät), gau pronounced as /[ɡaˑʊ]/ (fast/schnell), suutje pronounced as /[ˈzutɕe]/ (slowly, carefully/langsam, vorsichtig, from Dutch zoetjes pronounced as /[ˈzutɕəs]/ ‘nice and easy’, adverbial diminutive of zoet pronounced as /[ˈzut]/ ‘sweet’), vigeliensch pronounced as /[fiɡeˈliːnʃ]/ (difficult, tricky/schwierig)
- Prepositions (English/High German): bi pronounced as /[biː]/ (by, at/bei), achter pronounced as /[ˈaxtɐ]/ (behind/hinter), vör pronounced as /[fœɐ̯]/ (before, in front of/vor), blangen pronounced as /[ˈblaˑŋ̍]/ (beside, next to, alongside/neben), twüschen pronounced as /[ˈtvʏʃn̩]/ (betwixt, between/zwischen), mang, mank pronounced as /[maˑŋk]/ (among/unter)
See also
External links
Notes and References
- Reinhard Goltz, Andrea Kleene, Niederdeutsch, in: Rahel Beyer, Albrecht Plewnia (eds.), Handbuch der Sprachminderheiten in Deutschland, 2020, p. 191
- Noble, Cecil A. M. (1983). Modern German dialects, New York / Berne / Frankfort on the Main, Peter Lang, p. 103-104
- Web site: Hammarström. Harald. Forke. Robert. Haspelmath. Martin. Bank. Sebastian. 2020. North Low Saxon . Glottolog 4.3.
- Wolfgang Lindow, Dieter Möhn, Hermann Niebaum, Dieter Stellmacher, Hans Taubken and Jan Wirrer, Niederdeutsche Grammatik, 1998, p. 18f.
- Web site: Heinrich Thies . Fehrs-Gilde . 1.1.1.4 Sog. Nordniedersächsisch (Nordniederdeutsch) . 21 September 2023., in: Web site: Heinrich Thies . Fehrs-Gilde . SASS Plattdeutsche Grammatik . 21 September 2023.
- C. A. M. Noble, Modern German dialects, 1983, p. 117
- Michael Elmentaler and Peter Rosenberg (with the collaboration of others), Norddeutscher Sprachatlas (NOSA). Band 1: Regiolektale Sprachlagen, (series: Deutsche Dialektgeographie 113.1), Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 2015, p. 89 (map: Karte 1: Untersuchungsregionen und -orte des Projekts „Sprachvariation in Norddeutschland“), 97 (map: Karte 6: Vergleichskorpus (2): Sprachdaten aus dem KÖNIG-Korpus (1975/76))
- Jan Wirrer, Sprachwissen – Spracherfahrung: Untersuchungen zum metasprachlichen Wissen sprachwissenschaftlicher Laien, (series: Deutsche Dialektgeographie 116), Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 2021, p. 10
