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Inlinguistics,Meuse-Rhenish (German:Rheinmaasländisch (Rhml.)) is a term with several meanings, used both inliterary criticism anddialectology.
As a dialectological term, it was introduced by the German linguistArend Mihm in 1992 to denote a group ofLow Franconian dialects spoken in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, which stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the riversMeuse (in Belgium and the Netherlands) andRhine (in Germany). It is subdivided into North Meuse-Rhenish and South Meuse-Rhenish dialects (nordrheinmaasländische (kleverländische) und südrheinmaasländische Mundarten).[1] It includes varieties ofKleverlandish (Dutch:Kleverlands) andLimburgish in the Belgian and Dutch provinces ofLimburg, and their German counterparts in German NorthernRhineland.
Inliterary studies,Meuse-Rhenish (German:Rheinmaasländisch,Dutch:Rijn-Maaslands or rarelyMaas-Rijnlands,French:francique rhéno-mosan) is as well the modern term for literature written in theMiddle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is nowadays usually calledMiddle Dutch.
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Low Rhenish (German:Niederrheinisch,Dutch:Nederrijns) is the collective name in German for the regionalLow Franconian language varieties spoken alongside the so-calledLower Rhine in the west of Germany.
Today, Low Franconian varieties are spoken mainly in regions to the west of the riversRhine andIJssel in theNetherlands, in the Dutch speaking part ofBelgium, but also in Germany in theLower Rhine area. Only the latter have traditionally been calledLow Rhenish, but they can be regarded as the German extension or counterpart of theLimburgishdialects in the Netherlands and Belgium, and ofKleverlandish (Kleverlands) in the Netherlands.
Low Rhenish differs strongly from High German. The more to the north it approaches the Netherlands, the more it sounds like Dutch. As it crosses the Dutch-German as well as the Dutch-Belgian borders, it becomes a part of the language landscape in three neighbouring countries. In two of them Dutch is the standard language. In Germany, important towns on the Lower Rhine and in theRhine-Ruhr area, including parts of the Düsseldorf Region, are part of it, among themKleve,Xanten,Wesel,Moers,Essen,Duisburg,Düsseldorf,Oberhausen andWuppertal. This language area stretches towards the southwest along cities such asNeuss,Krefeld andMönchengladbach, and theHeinsberg district, crosses the German-Dutch border into the Dutch province ofLimburg, where it is calledLimburgish, passing cities east of theMeuse river (in both Dutch and German calledMaas) such asVenlo,Roermond andGeleen, and then again crosses theMeuse between the Dutch and Belgian provinces of Limburg, encompassing the cities ofMaastricht (NL) andHasselt (B). The eastmost varieties of the latter, east of the Rhine from Düsseldorf to Wuppertal, are also referred to as "Bergish" (after the formerDuchy of Berg).
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This whole region between the Meuse and the Rhine was linguistically and culturally quite coherent during the so-calledearly modern period (1543–1789), though politically more fragmented. The former predominantly Dutch speaking duchies ofGuelders andLimburg lay in the heart of this linguistic landscape, but eastward the former duchies ofCleves (entirely),Jülich, andBerg partially, also fit in.The northwestern part of thistriangular area came under the influence of the Dutch standard language, especially since the founding of theUnited Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. The southeastern part became a part of theKingdom of Prussia at the same time, and from then it was subject toHigh German language domination. At the dialectal level however, mutual understanding is still possible far beyond both sides of the national borders.
By including Kleverlandish in this continuum, we are enlarging the territory and turn the wide circle of Limburgish into a triangle with its top along the lineArnhem –Kleve –Wesel –Duisburg –Wuppertal (along theRhine-IJssel Line). TheDiest-Nijmegen Line is its western border, theBenrath line (fromEupen toWuppertal) is a major part of the southeastern one.
Together they belong to the greater triangle-shapedMeuse-Rhine area, a large group of southeastern Low Franconian dialects, including areas in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German NorthernRhineland.
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