Low German

Low German or Low Saxon in the language itself: , & other names; listen is a West Germanic language variety spoken mainly in Northern Germany in addition to the northeastern element of the Netherlands. it is for also spoken to a lesser extent in the German diaspora worldwide; e.g., Plautdietsch.

Low German is near closely related to Frisian and English, with which it forms the North Sea Germanic combine of the West Germanic languages. Like Dutch, this is the spoken north of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses, while Standard High German is 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 upon High German dialects. Low German evolved from Old Saxon Old Low German, which is almost closely related to Old Frisian and Old English Anglo-Saxon.

The Low German dialects spoken in the Netherlands are mostly referenced 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. 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 a Slavic-speaking population Germania Slavica.

It has been estimated that Low German has approximately 2.2–5 million speakers in Germany, primarily Northern Germany, and 2.15 million in the Netherlands.

Nomenclature

The Linguistic communication format of Low German is target to, in the language itself as well as in its umbrella languages of German and Dutch, in several different ways, ranging from official designation such as Niederdeutsche and Nederduits to more general characterisations such(a) as "dialect". The proliferation of title or characterisations is due in factor to the outline stretching mainly across two different countries and to it being a collection of varieties rather than a standardised language.

There are different uses of the term "Low German":

In Germany, native speakers of Low German call their language , , , , , South-Westphalian, Eastphalian, Low Prussian, or . In the Netherlands, native speakers refer to their language as , , , or the gain of their village, town or district.

Officially, Low German is called or Nether or Low German language, or Nether or Low German in High German by the German authorities, Nether or Low German language, or Nether or Low German in Low German by the German authorities and Nether or Low Saxon by the Dutch authorities. , and , are seen in linguistic texts from the German and Dutch linguistic communities respectively.

In Danish it is called , or, rarely, . Mennonite Low German is called .

"Low" refers to the flat plains and coastal area of the northern European lowlands, contrasted with the mountainous areas of central and southern Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, where High German Highland German is spoken. Etymologically however, Platt meant "clear" in the sense of a language the simple people could understand. In Dutch, the word can also intend "improper", "rude" or "too simple" which is why the term is not popular in the Netherlands.

The colloquial term denotes both Low German dialects and any non-standard Western manner of German; this ownership is chiefly found in northern and Western Germany and is not considered to be linguistically correct.

The ISO 639-2 language code for Low German Low Saxon has been nds or since May 2000.