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About the latest revert to the last version by Austronesier

@Austronesier: With this, you have undone all the edits which were made on this article in the last two days, something with which I cannot agree. First, my own reformulations were - of course- made for several good reasons. Second, even though I do disagree as well with the greater part of Vlaemink's edits here and on similar topics elsewhere, I think the addition/clarification "Sociolinguistically" was correct anyway here, and could easily have been kept.

So would you at least consider putting this previous version back? I ask this in particular because I don't want to revert you just this way. De Wikischim (talk) 14:06, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

No. "A group of homogenous language varieties" is meaningless. What is homogenous? South Low Franconian? That's obviously incorrect. Every source will tell you that South Low Franconian is hardly defined by any exclusively shared innovation, but rather as a traditional zone of isoglosses that link it either to other Low Franconian dialect groups or to Ripuarian and which cut right through the South Low Franconian area. Goossens (1965) gives a nice overview of it, for details there are multiple other good sources. Or are the indivdual varieties homogenous? The fact that the speech of one town is fairly homogenous is trivial, and we wouldn't mention it in any other article about a linguistic grouping. The contintental West Germanic (to the exclusion of Frisian) forms dialect continuum, and every grouping within this continuum is a "dialect group". This is most NPOV way to about it. "Refers to" is bad (see WP:REFERSTO).

The traditional assignment of SLFr dialects as dialects of either German or Dutch is not just based on sociolinguistics; that's Goossens' modern twist of it. It has largely to do with Dutch ressentments against the common German scholarly view of Dutch as part of Niederdeutsch at least in early times of Germanic studies. This ressentment deepened with the bitter experiences of WWII. It was a Belgian (Goossens) who broke the ice and paved the for cross-border studies by scholars like Giesbert and Bakker.

And is it two days or two hours? –Austronesier (talk) 14:34, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

With homogenous language varieties, I simply meant to express the fact that the diverse dialects which make up together the group linguistically referred to as "South Low Franconian" are mutually homogenous enough for this classification to be made. I do realize this may actually seem rather self-evident; yet I believe the formulation I had put down is preferable over calling it "a dialect group", which seems an oversimplification here. De Wikischim (talk) 14:56, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Drawing borders in a dialect continuum is always a simplification. It presupposes a hierarchy in the mesh of linguistic boundaries which sometimes does exist, but often not. For South Low Franconian, primacy is given to the Benrath line, and on the other side to the Uerdingen line (or the accent line in more modern approaches). It is a greater oversimplification to call this set of lects "homogenous" when "dialect group" gives due focus on its internal diversity (hence "group") and at the same time also its internal coherence (hence "group"). I gather from the first version of your comment that it is the very word "dialect" that initially triggered your aversion to the original text. –Austronesier (talk) 15:33, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Regarding this last issue: indeed, more or less. To my idea, "dialect" as a linguistic term is too often used in an improper way (for example, to denote a whole continuum of related dialects, as in this case too). Something that I think should certain be avoided is a description like "West Germanic dialect", which only creates new confusion. De Wikischim (talk) 15:47, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Improper according to whom? Every, yes, every source that takes a spatially fine-grained look at linguistic diversity uses the term "dialect". Dialects can form a dialect continuum; you can then slice the pie along territorial/political lines and get entities like Dutch, German, Luxembourgish or Limburgish, and proceed to call them "langauges", or you go by linguistic features: the ensuing clusters are called "dialect groups", regerdless of whether they cut through territorial/political lines or stay within a single territory. Central Hessian can safely be called a German dialect group, or South Hollandic a Dutch dialect group. For dialect groups like Moselle Franconian, Low Saxon and South Low Franconian, there is no such choice for a primary descriptor. Thus, the best solution is to talk about the larger entity that comprises them, i.e. the continental West Germanic dialect continuum. You can't get any more neutral than that. –Austronesier (talk) 18:09, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I don't follow. Why should the continental West Germanic dialect continuum be preferred over ″Low Franconian″? What's the problem with describing ″South Low Franconian″ as a subset of ″Low Franconian″? To me, this is like describing ″West Germanic″ as ″Indo-European″ ... Vlaemink (talk) 11:47, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Because it is a transitional area in the first place, straddling the German and Dutch diasystems. –Austronesier (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I still do not follow. South Low Franconian is a subdivision of Low Franconian, explicitly made obvious by the description South Low Franconian if nothing else. Now you talk about this dialect group being transitional ″within in the context of the Dutch-German diasystem″. What do you mean by that? It's typologically transitional, of course, but that goes for all dialects of the West Germanic continuum. The whole essence of the Dutch-German diasystem, is that it is not transitional at all, hence the name ″diasystem″. In fact, in a way, one could argue that the Dutch-German dialect system is the antithesis of the West Germanic continuum. So I have to ask again, not only what do you mean; but also, why oppose it being described as part of Low Franconian; as is incredibly common in the literature? Vlaemink (talk) 13:18, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Not "within in the context of the Dutch-German diasystem", but "straddling the German and Dutch diasystems". –Austronesier (talk) 15:36, 17

@Austronesier: Let's not devolve into semantics. I'm asking you two things: 1) what do you mean, concretely, when you say that the "dialect of the West Germanic continuum" is preferred due to these dialects "straddling the German and Dutch diasystems" and 2) why do you seemingly oppose classifying South Low Franconian as part of Low Franconian? Vlaemink (talk) 18:39, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@De Wikischim: Just a trifle, but this is a nice'n compelling stylistic argument that turns the whole thing into a c/e-matter. –Austronesier (talk) 12:37, 17 October 2024 (UTC) October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Austronesier, sorry but could you perhaps explain a little better what you mean exactly? Do you just disagree with the use of "subgroup" in the definition? Anyway you've left this unchanged thus far. De Wikischim (talk) 12:46, 17 October 2024 (UTC) OK, seen everything well now after all. Hereabove you wrote ... is a nice'n ...., not: .. isn't a nice ... or something similar. Thanks as well for giving the compliment. De Wikischim (talk) 14:51, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

No it is just my contrived way to say that I'm fine with it ;) –Austronesier (talk) 13:05, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier: I cannot help but ask how the above relates to your comments here, where you urge consensus before everything else and berated me for implementing changes to the article when 2/3 of the editors were involved? How is this any different from what it seemingly happening here? The discussion on what wording to use in the lead is clearly not over, yet you seem to be fine with De Wikischim changing it already. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, wouldn't you agree? Vlaemink (talk) 14:15, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to honestly contest it for reasons that you also would have applied if the edit had been made by someone of the Guild of Copy Editors and not @De Wikischim. Because this is exactly how I have approached the edit in spite of the fact that I have lengthily argued in favor of "dialect group" before. Also, both of you haven't edit-warred over this page as vehemently as you have done in Limburgish, so some friendly micro-tuning on the fly is certainly good as long as it doesn't completely run counter WP:BRD. –Austronesier (talk) 15:35, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Austronesier:If you implore me to assume good faith, then please, do not question my honesty or suggest that I only contest this matter merely because De Wikischim is involved.

My comment concerned you and your choices, not his. I was clearly not on board with your changes and was clearly still engaged in discussing these matters — as I still am — and I was asking you to hold yourself to your own standards when it comes to achieving consensus. I am asking youto bring into practice what you preach, consistently, not merely when you are trying to assert moral high ground in a heated debate. I do not think that is an unreasonable request — and if you think it is, then please remember that I'm repeating your own words.Vlaemink (talk) 18:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Feel free to contest it. I haven't seen yet that you do. And if you contest it, then hopefully for reasons ... . –Austronesier (talk) 19:09, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Well I've already been doing that by asking you several critical questions , but I also made my argument in another section . Vlaemink (talk) 19:53, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Subgroup of Low Franconian or Continental West Germanic dialect continuum

The present introductory text gives South Low Franconian (SLF) as a subgroup of the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum (CWGDC), instead of Low Franconian, which I think isn't the best possible or most common definition.

Because, while South Low Franconian indisputably forms a transitional area between Low Franconian and Central German, this does make SLF an ″additional main category″ within the historical West Germanic dialect continuum, which are traditionally either given as either comprising of ″Low Franconian, Low Saxon, Central German and Upper German″ or as ″Dutch, Low German and High German″. In other words, by omitting that South Low Franconian as being a subgroup of Low Franconian by mentioning the CWGDC instead, a taxonomic ″tier″ (if you will) is being skipped. This is problematic for a number of reasons:

• The taxonomy in the article does show South Low Franconian as a subgroup of Low Franconian.
• For the average reader this wording can be confusing, possibly prompting the question why South Low Franconian isn't part of Low Franconian as a whole — when it is.
• The literature doesn't seem to support this, to name a few:

Goossens (1984) explicitly positions South Low Franconian on a micro-level, whereas Low Franconian is described as existing on the macro-level.

Boersma (2017) in a paper on Franconian tone is interesting, because he also mentions the dialect continuum in his definitions, writing:

In continental West-Germanic, a contiguous group of Low Franconian dialects (″Limburgian or “Southern Low Franconian”) and Central Franconian dialects (Ripuaric and Moselle Franconian) exhibit a binary lexical tone contrast on long vowels and diphthongs, which interacts with the intonation contour of the sentence.″

• I haven't been able to find any publication which explicitly positions South Low Franconian outside of the larger Low Franconian grouping; or which positions SLF as an equal category to Low Franconian, Low Saxon, Central German and Upper German.

With this in mind, I propose describing Southern Low Franconian as a subgroup of Low Franconian.Vlaemink (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC) Vlaemink (talk) 19:52, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to leave out Continental West Germanic dialect continuum from the definition. The taxonomic infobox on the right already gives enough info on this point, so I don't think many readers of this article will actually start to wonder why South Low Franconian isn't part of Low Franconian as a whole. However, should somebody still believe it's definitely necessary to mention this explicitly in the main text too (making it a duplicate with the infobox), the definition might become something like a subgroup of Low Franconian, belonging as a whole to the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum, which however sounds rather awkward. De Wikischim (talk) 20:34, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

Having been victimized due to minority issues in Germany, I support to either use the concept Limburgish or this refuted Goossens scheme South Low Franconian as defined by him. Sarcelles (talk) 11:57, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi Sarcelles, the two terms "Limburgish" and "South Low Franconian" should remain distinguished (as the latter includes Germany). Otherwise, what's your point here exactly? Perhaps I don't get it fully. De Wikischim (talk) 22:32, 25 October 2024 (UTC)

There is Limburgish as to exclude Germany. Is South Low Franconian defined as between the lines? Sarcelles (talk) 06:25, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Ideally, the definition of a topic in the first sentence should be precise and accurate, recognizable to our readers, and only mention primary charactistics.

Starting with the last point, a (made-up) bad example will show what I mean: "Hausa is a tonal language spoken in West Africa". Sure, Hausa is tonal, but that's not the first thing that people usually have to say about it.

"West Germanic" and "Low Franconian" are both familiar to readers with a certain degree of interest in languages and linguistics, the former obviously more than the latter. But then, the "Continental West Germanic dialect continuum" arguably ranks lower than "Low Franconian". "Low Franconian" is a familiar term for readers of texts about Dutch and German dialectology, while "Continental West Germanic dialect continuum" appears in more specialized literature that covers a broad, transnational picture of the linguistic landscape from the North Sea to the Alps.

"Continental West Germanic" is accurate, but seemingly less precise than "Low Franconian". It appears to be like saying that Bengali is a Indo-Iranian language, when it is an Indo-Aryan language in the first place. This however presupposes that the classification of "South Low Franconian" as cladistically nested within "Low Franconian" is undisputed. And here's the rub: it is not.

In 1975, Wiesinger summarized 100 years of Belgian (referred to by him as "Belgian-Limburgian"), Dutch and German scholarship in his article "Strukturgeographische und strukturhistorische Untersuchungen zur Stellung der bergischen Mundarten zwischen Ripuarisch, Niederfränkisch und Westfälisch". Referring to the dialect group that is roughly demarcated by the Uerdingen and Benrath lines as the "the large Ripuarian-Low Franconian transitional area in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany" and after listing German scholars who give preference either to the Uerdingen line or to the Benrath line as a primary linguistic boundary, he goes on as follows:

Hence, the transitional area is either considered part of Ripuarian and sometimes also called "North Ripuarian" , or is it included – always so in Limburgian and Dutch research – within Low Franconian as "South Low Franconian".

Thus, as of 1975, there was no universal consensus about South Low Franconian being part of Low Franconian, although Wiesinger does not fail to mention that alternative classifications had only been brought forward by German scholars, while Dutch and Belgian scholarship is unequivocal about its inclusion in Low Franconian. (Personally, Wiesinger belonged to the former "camp", as can be seen in several other publications where he primarily classifies the Ripuarian-Low Franconian transitional area as Ripuarian because of its structually High German vocalism.)

What about scholarship post-Wiesinger? At least in German research, this alternative view is still relevant more than ever. In the chapter "Historisches Westdeutsch/Rheinisch" in Sprache und Raum - Ein internationales Handbuch der Sprachvariation, Band 4: Deutsch, South Low Franconian is classified together with Moselle Franconian and Ripuarian in a distinct "Rhenish" dialect group. While the volume only discusses dialects in the area that has German as Dachsprache, the authors don't fail to mention that the South Low Franconian dialect area extends to the Netherlands and Belgium, which means that South Low Franconian spoken across the border nevertheless are part of the wider "Rhenish" dialect group.

Given that the inclusion of South Low Franconian within Low Franconian still remains a matter of debate, I consider "subgroup of the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum" maximally precise. But sure, an additional sentence that explains the details is perfectly fine, something like: "It is usually classified as a subgroup of Low Franconian, but shares many linguistic features with High German dialects, especially Ripuarian. Some scholars alternatively classify South Low Franconian as closer to Ripuarian than to Low Franconian." –Austronesier (talk) 18:51, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for this summary, which seems rather adequate. Low Franconian as a dialectological term seems less demarcated than some other sources imply. Anyway, it should definitely not be considered as an equivalent of Dutch which, most of the time, refers only to Standard Dutch (which, historically, is actually nothing but a linguistic construct made up of mainly Low Franconian elements). De Wikischim (talk) 10:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

1. J.J. Goossens: Die Herausbildung der deutsch-niederländischen Sprachgrenze, 1984, pp. 4.
2. Paul Boersma: The history of the Franconian tone contrast, 2017 pp. 27.

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