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Northern Low Saxon (in Standard High German: Nordniedersächsisch, also Nordniederdeutsch, lit. North(ern) Low Saxon/German; in Standard Dutch: 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 (Holsteinisch), Schleswigian (Schleswigsch), East Frisian Low Saxon, Dithmarsch (Dithmarsisch), North Hanoveranian (Nordhannoversch), Emslandish (Emsländisch), and Oldenburgish (Oldenburgisch) in Germany, with additional dialects in the Netherlands such as Gronings.

Holsteinisch is spoken in Holstein, the southern part of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany, in Dithmarschen, around Neumünster, Rendsburg, Kiel and Lübeck.

Schleswigsch (German pronunciation: [ˈʃleːsvɪkʃ]) 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.

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)

• Schleswigsch
• Holsteinisch
• Hamburgisch
• Bremisch-Oldenburgisch
• Ostfriesisch (East Frisian)
• Emsländisch

b)

• Ostfriesisch (East Frisian)
• Emsländisch
• Bremisch-Oldenburgisch
• Nordhannoversch
• Niederelbisch (Hamburg, Elbmarschen)
• Holsteinisch
• Schleswigsch

c)

• 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).

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 (to go): Ik bün gahn (I have gone/I went), Standard German: gehen; ich bin gegangen/ich ging
• seilen (to sail): He hett seilt (He (has) sailed), Standard German: segeln; er ist gesegelt/er segelte
• kopen (to buy): Wi harrn köfft (We had bought), Standard German: kaufen; wir haben gekauft/wir kauften
• kamen (to come): Ji sünd kamen (You (all) have come/You came), Standard German: kommen; ihr seid gekommen/ihr kamt
• eten (to eat): Se hebbt eten (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 (like Dutch ik, standard German form ich), du (like German Du, standard German form du), he (like Dutch hij, standard German form er), se (like Dutch zij, standard German form sie), dat (Dutch dat, standard German form es/das), wi , ji (similar to English ye, Dutch jij, standard German forms wir, ihr), se (standard German form sie).
• Interrogatives (English/High German): wo , woans (how/wie), wo laat (how late/wie spät), wokeen (who/wer), woneem (where/wo), wokeen sien / wen sien (whose/wessen)
• Adverbs (English/High German): laat (late/spät), gau (fast/schnell), suutje (slowly, carefully/langsam, vorsichtig, from Dutch zoetjes ‘nice and easy’, adverbial diminutive of zoet ‘sweet’), vigeliensch (difficult, tricky/schwierig)
• Prepositions (English/High German): bi (by, at/bei), achter (behind/hinter), vör (before, in front of/vor), blangen (beside, next to, alongside/neben), twüschen (betwixt, between/zwischen), mang, mank (among/unter)

See also

• Languages of Germany
• Middle Low German

References

1. ^ Reinhard Goltz, Andrea Kleene, Niederdeutsch, in: Rahel Beyer, Albrecht Plewnia (eds.), Handbuch der Sprachminderheiten in Deutschland, 2020, p. 191
2. Noble, Cecil A. M. (1983). Modern German dialects, New York / Berne / Frankfort on the Main, Peter Lang, p. 103-104
3. Hammarström, Harald; Forke, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin; Bank, Sebastian, eds. (2020). "North Low Saxon". Glottolog 4.3.
4. Wolfgang Lindow, Dieter Möhn, Hermann Niebaum, Dieter Stellmacher, Hans Taubken and Jan Wirrer, Niederdeutsche Grammatik, 1998, p. 18f.
5. Heinrich Thies. Fehrs-Gilde (ed.). "1.1.1.4 Sog. Nordniedersächsisch (Nordniederdeutsch)". Retrieved 21 September 2023., in: Heinrich Thies. Fehrs-Gilde (ed.). "SASS Plattdeutsche Grammatik". Retrieved 21 September 2023.
6. C. A. M. Noble, Modern German dialects, 1983, p. 117
7. 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))
8. Jan Wirrer, Sprachwissen – Spracherfahrung: Untersuchungen zum metasprachlichen Wissen sprachwissenschaftlicher Laien, (series: Deutsche Dialektgeographie 116), Georg Olms Verlag, Hildesheim, 2021, p. 10

External links

• Plattmakers' Northern Low Saxon dictionary

• Dutch dialects
• German dialects
• Northern Low Saxon dialects
• Low German