Northern Europe in 1400, showing the extent of theHanseatic League
Extent of Middle Low German in red and as literary language (black lines tilted right)
Middle Low German[a] is a developmental stage ofLow German. It developed from theOld Saxon language in theMiddle Ages and has been documented in writing since about 1225–34 (Sachsenspiegel). During theHanseatic period (from about 1300 to about 1600), Middle Low German was the leading written language in the north ofCentral Europe and served as alingua franca in the northern half of Europe. It was used parallel tomedieval Latin also for purposes ofdiplomacy and fordeeds.[3]
Another medieval term isôstersch (lit. 'East-ish') which was at first applied to theHanseatic cities of theBaltic Sea (the 'East Sea'), their territory being calledÔsterlant ('East-land'), their inhabitantsÔsterlinge ('Eastlings'). This appellation was later expanded to other German Hanseatic cities and it was a general name for Hanseatic merchants in the Netherlands, e.g. inBruges where they had theirkomptôr (office; seeKontor).[1]: 5 [5]
In the 16th century, the termnedderlendisch (lit. 'Lowland-ish,Netherlandish') gained ground, contrasting Saxon with theGerman dialects in theuplands to the south. It became dominant in the High German dialects (asENHGniderländisch, which could also refer to the modernNetherlands), whilesassisch remained the most widespread term within MLG. The equivalent of 'Low German' (NHGniederdeutsch) seems to have been introduced later on by High German speakers and at first applied especially to Netherlanders.[1]: 6
Middle Low German is a modern term used with varying degrees of inclusivity. It is distinguished fromMiddle High German, spoken to the south, which was later replaced byEarly New High German. ThoughMiddle Dutch is today usually excluded from MLG (although very closely related), it is sometimes, especially in older literature, included in MLG, which then encompasses thedialect continuum of allhigh-medievalContinental Germanic dialects outsideMHG, fromFlanders in the West to the eastern Baltic.[6][1]: 1
Der Keyserliken Stadt Lübeck Christlike Ordeninge/ tho denste dem hilgen Evangelio/ Christliker leve/ tucht/ frede unde enicheyt/ vor de yöget yn eyner guden Schole[n] tho lerende. Unde de Kercken denere und rechten armen Christlick tho vorsorgende. Dorch Jo. Bugen. Pom. beschreven. 1531. Translates as 'The Imperial City ofLübeck'sChristian Ordinance at the service of the Holy Gospel of Christian life, discipline, peace and unity, to teach the youth in a good school, and to provide Christianly for the church servants and the righteous poor. Written byJohannes Bugenhagen the Pomeranian, 1531'.
Middle Low German covered a wider area than theOld Saxon language of the preceding period, due to expansion to the East and, to a lesser degree, to the North.[b]
In the East, the MLG-speaking area expanded greatly as part of theOstsiedlung (settlement of the East) in the 12th to 14th century and came to includeMecklenburg,Brandenburg,Pomerania and (Old)Prussia, which were hitherto dominated bySlavic andBaltic tribes. Some pockets of these native peoples persisted for quite some time, e.g. theWends along the lower Elbe until about 1700 or theKashubians of Eastern Pomerania up to modern times.
In the North, theFrisian-speaking areas along the North Sea diminished in favour of Saxon, esp. inEast Frisia which largely switched to MLG since the mid-14th century. North of theElbe, MLG advanced slowly intoSleswick, againstDanish andNorth Frisian, although the whole region was ruled byDenmark. MLG exerted a huge influence upon Scandinavia (see§ History), even if native speakers of Low German were mostly confined to the cities where they formed colonies of merchants and craftsmen. It was an official language ofOld Livonia, whose population consisted mostly ofBaltic andFinnic tribes.
In the West, at theZuiderzee, the forests of theVeluwe and close to theLower Rhine, MLG bordered on closely relatedLow Franconian dialects whose written language was mainlyMiddle Dutch. In earlier times, these were sometimes included in the modern definition of MLG (see§ Terminology).
In the South, MLG bordered onHigh German dialects roughly along the northern borders ofHesse andThuringia. The language border then ran eastwards across the plain of the middle Elbe until it met the (then more extensive)Sorb-speaking area along the upperSpree that separated it from High German. The border was never a sharp one, rather acontinuum. The modern convention is to use the pronunciation of northernmaken vs. southernmachen ('to make') for determining an exact border. Along the middleElbe and lowerSaale rivers, Low German began to retreat in favour of High German dialects already during Late Medieval times (cf.Wittenberg whose name is Low German but whose inhabitants already spoke mostly/exclusively High German when theReformation set in).[7]
The title of this passage readsEyne vorrede ouer dyt boek van reynken deme vosse, which translates as 'A prologue about this book ofReynard the Fox'. The typeface is typical for theblackletter used in MLG printing.
Early Middle Low German (Standard High German:Frühmittelniederdeutsch): 1200–1350, or 1200–1370
Classical Middle Low German (klassisches Mittelniederdeutsch): 1350–1500, or 1370–1530
Late Middle Low German (Spätmittelniederdeutsch): 1500–1600, or 1530–1650
Middle Low German was thelingua franca of theHanseatic League, spoken all around theNorth Sea and theBaltic Sea. It used to be thought that the language ofLübeck was dominant enough to become a normative standard (the so-calledLübecker Norm) for an emergent spoken and written standard, but more recent work has established that there is no evidence for this and that Middle Low German was non-standardised.[10]: 118 [11]
Beginning in the 15th century, Middle Low German fell out of favour compared to Early Modern High German, which was first used by elites as a written and, later, a spoken language. Reasons for this loss of prestige include the decline of the Hanseatic League, followed by political heteronomy of northern Germany and the cultural predominance of central and southern Germany during theProtestant Reformation andLuther's translation of the Bible.
The description is based on Lasch (1914)[1] which continues to be the authoritative comprehensive grammar of the language but is not necessarily up-to-date in every detail.
Round brackets indicate phonemes that do not have phoneme status in the whole language area or are marginal in the phonological system.
It is not rare to find the same word in MLG affected by one of the following phonological processes in one text and unaffected by it in another text because the lack of a written standard, the dialectal variation and ongoing linguistic change during the Middle Low German (MLG) era.
General notes
Final devoicing: Voiced obstruents in the syllable coda are devoiced, e.g.geven (to give) butgift (gift). The change took place early in MLG but is not always represented in writing.Proclitic words likemid (with) might remain voiced before a vowel because they are perceived as one phonological unit with the following word. Also, as can already be seen in Old Saxon, lenited/b/ is devoiced to[f] before syllabic nasals or liquids, e.g.gaffel (fork) fromPG*gabalō.
Grammatischer Wechsel: Because of sound changes in Proto-Germanic (cf.Verner's law), some words had different sounds in different grammatical forms. In MLG, there were only fossilised remnants of the "grammatischer wechsel" (grammatical change), namely for/s/ and/r/, e.g.kêsen (to choose) butkoren ((they) chose), and for/h/ and/ɡ/, e.g.vân < PG*fanhaną (to take hold, to catch) butgevangen < PG*fanganaz (taken hold of, caught).
Assimilation: A sound becoming more similar to a (usually) neighbouring sound, usually in place or manner of articulation, is very common across all languages. Early MLG did mark assimilation much more often in writing than later periods, e.g.vamme instead ofvan deme (of the).
Dissimilation: In MLG, it frequently happened with/l/ vs./r/ or/l/ vs./n/, e.g.balbêrer <barbêrer (barber), orknuflôk <kluflôk (garlic). Both forms frequently co-existed. The complete loss of a sound in proximity to an identical sound can also be explained in such a way, e.g. the loss of/l/ inWillem (William) <Wilhelm.
Metathesis: Some sounds tended to switch their places, especially the "liquids"/l/ and/r/. Both forms may co-exist, e.g.brennen vs. (metathesised)bernen (to burn).
Gemination: In MLG, geminate consonants, which came into being by assimilation orsyncope, were no longer pronounced as such. Instead, geminate spelling marks the preceding vowel as short. Many variants exist, like combinations of voiced and voiceless consonants (e.g.breifve letters,sontdage Sundays). Late MLG tended to use clusters of similar consonants after short as well as long vowels for no apparent reason, e.g.tidth fortîd (time).
h spellings: A muteh appeared sporadically after consonants already in Old Saxon. Its use greatly increased in MLG, first at the end of a word, when it often marked the preceding vowel as long, but it later appears largely randomly. In very late times, the use ofh directly after the vowel is sometimes adopted from Modern High German as a sign of vowel length.
Specific notes on nasals(Indented notes refer to orthography.)
/m/ had a tendency to shift to/n/ in the coda, e.g.dem >den (the (dat.sg.m.)).
Intervocalic/m/ is sometimes spelledmb whether or not it developed from Old Saxon/mb/.
/n/ assimilated to[ŋ] before velars/k/ and/ɣ/.
Final/n/ often dropped out in unstressed position before consonants, e.g.,hebbe(n) wi (we have), cf. Modern Dutch for a similar process. Similarly, it often dropped from/nɡ/-clusters after unstressed vowels, especially in Westphalian, e.g.jârlix (annually) <jârlings.
Furthermore,/n/ had been deleted in certain coda positions several centuries earlier (the so-calledIngvaeonic nasal spirant law), but there were many exceptions and restorations through analogy: the shifted formgôs (goose <PG*gans) with an unshifted pluralgense (geese) was quite common. Non-shifted forms have been common in the more innovative Eastern dialects.
Specific notes on stops and fricatives
/b/ as a stop[b] is always word-initially (blôme flower, bloom), at the onset of stressed syllables (barbêrer barber) and (historically) geminated (ebbe ebb, low tide). Its allophones in other cases are word-internal[v] and word-final[f] (e.g.drêven to drive, vs.drêf drive (n.)).
Voiceless/f/ usually appeared word-initially (e.g.vader father), word-finally (merged with historical/b/, see above), otherwise between short vowels and nasals/liquids (also from historical/b/, e.g.gaffel fork) and in loans (e.g.straffen to tighten, fromHigh German).
It was mostly writtenv in the syllable onset,f(f) in the coda. Exceptions include loans (figûre), some proper names (Frederik), cases likegaffel as mentioned earlier and sporadically beforeu (wherev would be too similar graphically) and beforel andr. Sometimes,w is used forv, andph forf.
In MLG (like in other medieval) texts, there is usually no clear graphic distinction betweenv andu. The distinction between both (consonant value asv, vocalic value asu) is used in modern dictionaries, in grammars and in this article simply for better readability. Thus, in the manuscripts, e.g.auer isaver (but).
/w/ was originally an approximant[w~ʋ] but seems to have later shifted towards a fricative. Its exact articulation likely differed from dialect to dialect, and many of them merged word-internally with[v], an allophone of/b/.
In writing,w for word-internal/w/ was kept strictly separate from[v] at first, but the use ofw later also expanded to[v].
The clusters/dw-/,/tw-/,/sw-/,/kw-/ were originally often written withv/u (svager brother-in-law) but later mostly shifted to aw-spelling, except for/kw-/, which keptqu from Latin influence.
The dentals/t/ and/d/ tended to drop out between unstressed vowels, e.g.antwēr (either) instead ofantwēder, and in word-final clusters like/-ft/,/-xt/ or/-st/, e.g. oftenrech next torecht (law, right),schrîf next toschrîft ((he/she) writes).
Remnants of Old Saxon/θ/ shifted via/ð/ into/d/ in the early MLG era. After/l/ and/n/, it was the case already in late Old Saxon. For/rθ/, word-final/-θ/ and some frequent words likedat (that, the (neut.)), the change also happened very early. The changes happened earliest in Westphalian and latest in North Low Saxon.
/s/ was voiced intervocalically as[z]. Whether it was voiced word-initially is not fully clear. There seems to have been dialectal variation, with voiceless[s] more likely for Westphalian and voiced[z] more likely for East Elbian dialects.
Because of the variation, voiceless/s/ (for example in loans from Romance or Slavic) was often writtentz,cz,c etc. for clarity.
The phonemic status of/ʃ/ is difficult to determine because of the extremely irregular orthography. Its status likely differed between the dialects, with early MLG having/sk/ (Westphalian keeping it until modern times) and no phonemic/ʃ/, and e.g. East Elbian and in general many later dialects had/ʃ/ from earlier/sk/. If there is phonemic/ʃ/, it often replaces/s/ in clusters like/sl-/ and/sn-/.
Connected with the status of/ʃ/ is the manner of articulation of/s/. Orthographic variants and some modern dialects seem to point to a more retracted, moresh-like pronunciation (perhaps[s̠]), especially if there was no need to distinguish/s/ and/ʃ/. This is consistent with modern Westphalian.
/t͡s/ is at best a marginal role as a phoneme and appears in loans or develops because of compounding orepenthesis. Note the palatalised/k/ (next point).
In writing, it was often marked by copious clustering, e.g.ertzcebischope (archbishop).
/k/ before front vowels is strongly palatalised in Old Saxon (note the similar situation in the closely relatedOld English) and at least some of early MLG, as can be seen from spellings likezint forkint (child) and the variation of placename spellings, especially inNordalbingian andEastphalian, e.g.Tzellingehusen for modernKellinghusen. The palatalisation, perhaps as[c] or[t͡ɕ], persisted until the High Middle Ages but was later mostly reversed. Thus, for instance, the old affricate in the Slavic placenameLiubici could be reinterpreted as a velar stop, giving the modern nameLübeck. A few words and placenames completely palatalised and shifted their velar into a sibilant (sever beetle, chafer, fromPG*kebrô; the city ofCelle < Old SaxonKiellu).
Early MLG frequently usedc for/k/ (cleyn small), which later became rarer. However, geminatek (after historically short vowels and consonants) continued to be writtenck (e.g.klocke bell), more rarelykk orgk.
gk otherwise appeared often after nasal (ringk ring, (ice) rink).
/ks/ was often writtenx, especially in the West.
/kw/ usually appeared asqu, under Latin influence (quêmen to come).
Furthermore, after unstressed/ɪ/,/k/ often changed into/ɣ/, e.g. in the frequent derivational suffix-lik (vrüntligen friendly (infl.)) or, withfinal devoicing, insich instead ofsik (him-/her-/itself, themselves).
Sometimes,ch was used for a syllable-final/k/ (ôch also, too). Theh can be seen a sign of lengthening of the preceding vowel, not ofspirantisation (see "h-spelling" below).
/ɣ/ was a fricative. Its exact articulation probably differed by dialect. Broadly, there seem to have been dialects that distinguished a voiced palatal[ʝ] and a voiced velar[ɣ], depending on surrounding vowels ([ʝ]: word-initially before front vowels, word-internally after front vowels;[ɣ] in those positions, but with back vowels), and dialects that always used[ʝ] word-initially and word-internally (Eastphalian, Brandenburgian, e.g. word-internally after a back vowel:voyetvogt, reeve). Nevertheless,[ʝ] was kept separate from old/j/. In the coda position,/ɣ/ became a dorsal fricative (palatal[ç] or velar[x], depending on the preceding sound), thus merging with/h/.
The spellinggh was at first used almost exclusively beforee or word-finally but began to spread to other positions, notably beforei. It did not indicate a different pronunciation but was part of an orthographic pattern seen in many other parts of Europe. Furthermore, in early western traditions of MLG, sometimesch was used for/ɡ/ in all positions, even word-initially.
Coda/ɡ/ was mostly spelledch because it completely merged with historic/h/ (see below).
After nasals and as a geminate,/ɣ/ appeared as a stop[ɡ], e.g.seggen "to say",penninghe "pennies". In contrast to modern varieties, it remained audible after a nasal. Pronouncingg word-initially as a stop[ɡ] is likely a comparatively recent innovation under High German influence.
gg(h) could be used for/ŋɡ/ in older MLG, e.g.Dudiggerode for the town ofDüringerode.
/ɣ/ was frequently dropped between sonorants (except after nasals), e.g.bormêster (burgomaster, mayor) <borgermêster.
/ɣ/ was often epenthetised between a stressed and an unstressed vowel, e.g.neigen (to sew) < Old Saxon*nāian, orvrûghe (lady, woman) < Old Saxonfrūa. In Westphalian, this sound could harden into [g], e.g.eggere (eggs).
/h/ in the onset was a glottal fricative[h], and it merged with historic/ɣ/ in the coda (see above). Word-final/h/ after consonant or long vowel was frequently dropped, e.g.hôch orhô (high). In a compound or phrase, it often became silent (Willem <Wilhelm William).
Onset/h/ was writtenh, while coda/h/ =[ç~x] was mostly writtench but alsog(h) and the like because of its merger with/ɣ/.
Coda/h/ =[ç~x] frequently dropped between/r/ and/t/, e.g.Engelbert (a first name) with the common component-bert < Old Saxon-ber(a)ht (bright, famous). In unstressed syllables, it could also occur between a vowel and/t/, e.g.nit (not) < Old Saxonniowiht (not a thing).
Often,h was used for other purposes than its actual sound value: to mark vowel length (seeh-spelling under "General Notes" above), to "strengthen" short words (ghân to go), to mark a vocalic onset (hvnsen our (infl.)) or vowelhiatus (sêhes (of the) lake).
Specific notes on approximants
/j/ was a palatal approximant and remained separate from[ʝ], the palatal allophone of/ɣ/.
It was often spelledg before front vowels and was not confused withgh =[ʝ]. The varianty was sometimes used (yöget youth).
/r/ was likely an alveolar trill[r] or flap[ɾ], like in most traditional Low German dialects until recently. Post-vocalic/r/ sometimes dropped, especially before/s/.
/l/ was originally probably velarised, i.e. a "dark l"[ɫ], at least in the coda, judging from its influence on surrounding vowels, but it was never extensively vocalised as Dutch/l/ was. During the MLG era, it seems to have shifted to a "clear l" in many dialects and tended to be dropped in some usually unstressed words, especially in Westphalian, e.g.,as(se), instead ofalse (as).
Modern renderings of MLG (like this article) often use circumflex or macron to mark vowel length (e.g.â orā) to help the modern reader, but original MLG texts marked vowel length not by accents but by doubling vowels, by adding a lengtheninge ori, by doubling the following consonants (after short vowels) or by addingh after the following consonants.
This sectionneeds expansion with: description of the vowel system, possibly based onLasch (1914). You can help byadding to it.(March 2019)
Lasch distinguished the following large dialect groups,[1]: 12–20 emphasising that she based it strictly on the orthography, which may often omit strongly dialectal phenomena in favour of more prestigious/"standard" forms. Nevertheless, the dialect groups broadly correspond with modern ones.
Some features: In the West, strong influence from Low Franconian orthographic patterns (e.g.e ori as a sign of length, likeoi =/oː/). The "breaking" of old short vowels in open syllables and before/r/ was often marked in writing (e.g.karn instead ofkorn). Old geminated/jj/ and sometimes/ww/ was hardened into[ɡ];/ft/ frequently shifted to/xt/ (sometimes reversed in writing);/s/ instead of/ʃ/ (sal vsschal). The native present plural verbs was-et but the written norm often impressed-en. Similarly, the participle prefixge- was usually written, though probably only spoken in the Southwest. Lexically, strong connections with adjacent dialects further north (East Frisian and Oldenburgish), e.g.godensdach ('Wednesday') instead ofmiddeweke. Westphalian was and is often thought to be altogether the most conservative dialect group.
North Low Saxon (HG:Nordniedersächsisch,Dutch:Noord-Nedersaksisch): Spoken in a long stretch of coastal regions from theZuiderzee in the West toEast Prussia in the East. Its orthographic habits come closest to what was traditionally perceived as a MLG standard (theLübeck standard, nowadays disputed).
Some features: Short/e/ and/i/ in open syllables are stretched into a[ɛː]-like vowel. The personal suffixes-er and-ald appear as-ar and-old. The pronounsmî (1.sg.),dî (2.sg.) andjû (2.pl.) are used for both dative and accusative.
Three subgroups can be distinguished:
(1)East Frisian and Oldenburgish, i.e. the areas west of the lowerWeser, in the North including dialects onFrisian substrate. As can be expected, there is much Westphalian, Dutch and Frisian influence (hem next toem 'him'; plurals in-s;vrent next tovrünt 'friend').
(3)East Elbian, includingLübeck and the areas further east, likeMecklenburg,Pomerania, northernBrandenburg (Prignitz, Uckermark, Altmark),Old Prussia,Livonia. Very close toNordalbingian. While the Eastern dialects are today clearly distinguished from the West by their uniform present plural verb ending in-en (against Western uniform-(e)t), in MLG times, both endings competed against each other in West and East. Main towns: Lübeck,Wismar,Rostock,Stralsund. High German influence was strong in theTeutonic Order, due to the diverse regional origins of its chivalric elite, therefore MLG written culture was neglected early on.
Eastphalian (HG:Ostfälisch): Roughly the area east of the middleWeser, north and partly west of theHarz mountains, reaching the middleElbe, but leaving out theAltmark region. In the north, the sparsely populatedLunenburg Heath forms something of a natural border. Main cities:Hanover,Hildesheim,Brunswick,Goslar,Göttingen,Magdeburg,Halle (early times). The area within the Elbe's drainage was established by colonisation and is in many ways special. The southern part of thisElbe Eastphalian (HG:Elbostfälisch) area switched to High German already in Late Medieval times.[12]
Some features:Umlaut is more productive, occurring before-ich and-isch (e.g.sessisch 'Saxon, Low German') and shifting alsoe toi (e.g.stidde forstêde 'place'). Diphthongised short/o/ is rarely marked as such, contrary to other dialects. Before/r/,e anda are frequently interchanged for each other. Unstressedo (as in the suffix-schop) frequently changes intou (-schup). The modal verb for 'shall/should' features/ʃ/, not/s/ (i.e.schal). The past participle's prefix was commonly spokene- but mostly writtenge- under prescriptive influence. The local formek ('I' (pron. 1.sg.)) competed with "standard"ik; in a similar way the oblique formmik ('me') with "standard"mî. Unusually, there is also a dative pronoun (1.sg.mê). Lexically, close connections with Nordalbingian. Unusual pluralmenne ('men').
(South) Brandenburgish (HG:(Süd-)Brandenburgisch) andEast Anhaltish (HG:Ostanhaltisch): Roughly between the middle Elbe and the middle Oder, and along the middle Havel, bordering oldSorbian territory to the Southeast. Main cities:Berlin,Frankfurt/Oder,Zerbst. A colonial dialect strongly influenced by settlers speaking Low Franconian. Also strongly influenced by High German early on.
Some features: Old longê andô were diphthongised into[iə] and[uə], writteni andu. Old Germanic coda/n/ is restored, contrary toIngvaeonic sound changes, e.g.gans 'goose'. Present plural of verbs features the suffix-en. Lack of negative determinernên ('no' (attr.)), instead:keyn, similar to High German. The past participle retains the prefixge-. Lack ofgaderen ('to gather') andtőgen ('to show'); instead of them, forms close to High German, i.e.samenen andteigen. In East Anhaltish, distinction of dative and accusative pronouns (e.g.mi vsmik, cf.HGmir andmich).
This sectionneeds expansion with: overview of writings in MLG, e.g. Bible translations and other religious/spiritual literature, legal texts (e.g.Sachsenspiegel, Hanseatic documents), chronicles/histories, popular tales/chapbooks (e.g.Reynke de Vos,Dat Narrenschyp).This digitised book might be a good basis. You can help byadding to it.(March 2019)
Low German Incunable prints[14] in Low German as catalogued in theGesamtkatalog der Wiegendrucke, including the Low GermanShip of Fools,[15]Danse Macabre,[16] and the novelParis und Vienne[17]
^"m"(PDF).The Linguasphere Register. p. 219. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 27 August 2014. Retrieved1 March 2013.
^Cordes, Gerhard; Möhn, Dieter (1983).Handbuch zur niederdeutschen Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (in German). Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag. p. 119.ISBN3-503-01645-7.OCLC9961089.
^Lexikologie. Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur und Struktur von Wörtern und Wortschätzen [Lexicology. An international handbook on the nature and structure of words and vocabularies] (in German). Vol. 2. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 2005. p. 1180.OCLC1025116289.
^Weddige, Hilkert (2015).Mittelhochdeutsch: eine Einführung [Middle High German: An introduction] (in German) (9th ed.). München: C.H. Beck Verlag. p. 7.ISBN9783406684388.OCLC933385847.
^Mähl, Stefan (2012). Elmevik, Lennart;Jahr, Ernst Håkon (eds.)."Low German texts from late medieval Sweden".Contact Between Low German and Scandinavian in the Late Middle Ages: 25 Years of Research. Acta Academiae Regiae Gustavi Adolphi.121. Uppsala: Kungl. Gustav Adolfs Akademien för svensk folkkultur:113–122.ISBN9789185352975.
^Bischoff, Karl (1967).Sprache und Geschichte an der mittleren Elbe und unteren Saale. Mitteldeutsche Forschungen (in German). Vol. 52. Köln: Böhlau. pp. 236–237.LCCN68124531.OCLC5835474.OL18179705M.Wenn Aken, Dessau, Köthen, Wittenberg, Walkenried, Eisleben, Merseburg, Halle mit ihren Umgebungen heute mitteldeutsche Mundarten haben, so ist das erst das Ergebnis einer großen sprachlichen Umlagerung, sie haben mit ihrer niederdeutschen Vergangenheit gebrochen. Aber ganz können sie sie nicht verleugnen, einige Reste sind auch im Bereich der Lautverschiebung unangetastet geblieben. [Translation: ThatAken,Dessau,Köthen,Wittenberg,Walkenried,Eisleben,Merseburg,Halle and their vicinities today haveCentral German dialects, that is the result of a great linguistic shift; they have broken with their Low German past. But they cannot completely deny it; some remnants have also persisted in the issue ofconsonant shift.]
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1875).A – E. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 1. Bremen: Johann Christian Kühtmann.OL6525269M.WikidataQ131357128.
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1876).G – L. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 2. Bremen: Johann Christian Kühtmann.WikidataQ131356920.
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1877).M – R. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 3. Bremen: Johann Christian Kühtmann.WikidataQ131357165.
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1878).S – T. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 4. Bremen: Johann Christian Kühtmann.WikidataQ131357492.
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1880).U – Z. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 5. Bremen: Johann Christian Kühtmann.WikidataQ131357529.
Karl Schiller; August Lübben (1881).Nachtrag. Mittelniederdeutsches Wörterbuch (in German). Vol. 6. Bremen: Hinricus Fischer.WikidataQ131357531.
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Definitions from Wiktionary
