LL-L "Resources" 2004.03.20 (03) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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A=Afrikaans Ap=Appalachian B=Brabantish D=Dutch E=English F=Frisian
L=Limburgish LS=Lowlands Saxon (Low German) N=Northumbrian
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From: Helge Tietz <helgetietz at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2004.03.15 (04) [E]

Hi Ben,

Finally I came around replying to your mail about the
Benrath Line.
On encyclopedia.org I have found the following:

A. THE LOW GERMAN DIALECTS

The Low German dialects, as we have seen, stand
nearest to the English and Frisian languages, owing to
the total absence of the consonantal shifting which
characterizes High German, as well as to other
peculiarities of sounds and inflections, e.g. the loss
of the nasals m and n before the spirants f, s and p.
Cf. Old Saxon fif (five), us (us), kup (cf. uncouth).
The boundary-line between Low and High German, the
so-called Benrather Linie, may roughly be indicated by
the following place-names, on the understanding,
however, that the Ripuarian dialect (see below) is to
be classed with High German: east of Eupen, north of
Aachen, north of Benrath, south of Duesseldorf, north
of Siegen, north of Cassel, north of Heiligenstadt,
Harzgerode, to the Elbe south of Magdeburg; this river
forms the boundary as far as Wittenberg, whence the
line passes to Lubben on the Spree, Furstenwald on the
Oder and Birnbaum near the river Warthe. Beyond this
point the Low Germans have Slavs as their neighbors.
Compared with the conditions in the 13th century, it
appears that Low German has lost ground; down to the
14th and 15th centuries several towns, such as
Mansfeld, Eisleben, Merseburg, Halle, Dessau and
Wittenberg, spoke Low German.

Addition: Such towns as Nuys/Neuss,
Glabbeek/Moenchengladbach, Krieveld/Krefeld, Solingen
and Duesseldoerp/Duesseldorf are north of this line
and elderly people in particular speak the old Low
Franconian dialects of this places. Example: In
Dueseldoerp people still say "Lott jonn" in compare
"Loss jonn" in Cologne.

Low German falls into two divisions, a western
division, namely. Low Franconian, the parent, as we
have already said, of Flemish and Dutch, and an
eastern division, Low Saxon (Plattdeutsch, or, as it
is often simply called, Low German). The chief
characteristic of the division is to be sought in the
ending of the first and third person plural of the
present indicative of verbs, this being in the former
case -en, in the latter -et. Inasmuch as the
south-eastern part of Low Franconianinclusive of
Gelderland and Clevesshifts final k to ch (e.g. ich,
mich, auch, -lick), it must obviously be separated
from the rest, and in this respect be grotiped with
High German. Low Saxon is usually divided into
Westphalian (to the west of the Weser) and Low Saxon
proper, between Weser and Elbe. The southeastern part
of the latter has the verbal ending -en and further
shows the peculiarity that the personal pronoun has
the same form in the dative and accusative (mile,
dick), whereas the renjainder, as well as the
Westphalian, has ml, di in the dative, and ml, di or
mik, dik in the accusative. To these Low German
dialects must also be added those spoken east of the
Elbe on what was originally Slavonic territory; they
have the ending -en in the first and third person
plural of verbs.5

Helge

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