Talk:High German languages

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In Low German, you mention it's called "Plautdeutch". What's the equivalent term for High German?

Hochdeutsch, i believe

I'd like to comment a bit (I'm a native German and live in Germany):

The association between "High German" and "Hochdeutsch" appears to be highly misleading because (almost) everyone here uses the term "Hochdeutsch" to refer to the standard written language which is compulsory for all schools and authorities, and most widely accepted in all media. I've seen a map here on Wikipedia that subsumes several vastly different dialects under the umbrella of "Hochdeutsch" which no-one,m except perhaps linguists and local jingoists, would call "Hochdeutsch". What you write "Plautdeutch" - I've never seen that term. Perhaps you mean "Plattdeutsch" or "Plattdütsch" (as they say there, in the northern parts of the country)?

I'd like you to place a big flashing warning sign on the main page that makes it clear to the casual reader that the definition of "High German" used there is highly incompatible with what every native German speaker experiences every day (when in Germany, of course), and that this definition only represents some linguistic classification that means next-to-nothing in everyday's life.

Thank you for listening!

193.221.127.48 10:15, 30 November 2006 (UTC) Toni Müller Thu Nov 30 11:14:07 CET 2006

That is true for almost anyone in Germany who is not a linguist. However, where I am, in a language department in a German university, the situation is rather different. Here Hochdeutsch means all German dialects south of the Benrath line; linguists are not usually too concerned with standard versions of languages anyway, except in sociolinguistics. You will find the warning you want at High German languages. However, in English there is no confusion, because High German is Hochdeutsch in the technical sense, and Hochdeutsch in the popular sense is "standard German". --Doric Loon 11:20, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

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2002.04.09:
In some High German dialects - the High Alemannic dialects spoken in parts of Germany and Switzerland, there is even initial [x] and [kx], which makes the second sound shifting complete.

I'm not sure this is accurate. Note that English /p/ and /t/ correspond to High German initial & medial affricates and to final fricatives, but /k/ follows an unexpected pattern of /k/ initially and /x/ medially, rather than the expected /kx/:

Sound correspondences ( ~ ) between English and High German.

initial & medial ~ affricate final ~ fricative		initial ~ stop medial & final ~ fricative
pound ~ Pfund apple ~ Apfel Help ~ Hilfe	two ~ zwei *mitten ~ Mütze (?is this valid) hot ~ Heiss	cow ~ Kuh  !/k/ ~ /k/ make ~ machen !/k/ ~ /x/ book ~ Buch  !/k/ ~ /x/

Linguistically, I suspect that rather than the sound shift being from [x] to [kx], it was from [kx] to [x]. That is, the sequence was stop-affricate-fricative: [k]~[kx]~[x], which would follow the linguistic rule of thumb of sound tending to undergo lenition rather than fortition. This would mean that High German [x] is a later development than Swiss German [kx], which would require revision of the above text. But then why does initial /k/ stay put? Or am I using faulty examples? Anybody know for sure? pgdudda

This table is rather good visually, and could be adapted and put into the article. But no, mitten is not related to Mütze. --Doric Loon 22:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

You will find answers to this and many of the other questions asked her in the German Wiki under http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochdeutsche_Lautverschiebung. --Doric Loon 22:49, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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Why is "Fränkisch" described as extinct? afaik, there are dialects in Northern Bavaria and in Hesse that are called "Fränkisch". --zeno 08:25 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

I described it as extinct because Ethnologue says that it is. But their information is surprisingly brief; maybe it's wrong. -- Toby 01:09 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

I have to correct myself, the "Fränkisch" I was referring to is called "Franconian" in English. Frankish was the language of the Franks, but I think it became "extinct" a long time before the 1827 century (this date is stated by Ethnologue). This is the best overview of German dialects (including Lower German) I have seen so far: http://www.genealogienetz.de/misc/dialect-e.html -- zeno

I'm not sure that I buy something that classifies Frisian under Low German but doesn't so classify Dutch. (At least the text corrects this.) -- Toby 20:51 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

You have to be carfeul not to mix something up!

• There is a Low Franconian Dialect of Low German, which developed further to Dutch and is related to Low Saxon.
• Secondly there is a region called "Franken" in Northern Bavaria. It has absolutely nothing to do with Dutch dialects.
• The empire of Charlemagne (Karl der Grosse) stretched across Germany and France so many dialects and regions in these two countries, the Netherlands or Belgium have names refering to his empire (Franconian Empire), which itself was named after a tribe which spoke a now extinct language: Franconian.

Ethnologue is probably not speaking of a Bavarian dialect, or they'd classify it as Upper German. But they don't classify it at all, so who knows? Probably they're not sure! -- Toby 20:51 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

Of course they don't - Ethnologue is generally unreliable. For historical linguistics there is nothing truly reliable on the internet yet - but if you go to a library, it's all there. Kirk's History of the New High German Language is the place to look for a quick answer. --Doric Loon 22:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

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The /k/ to /kx/ shift can also be watched in some Bavarian dialects spoken in Austria and northern Italy. However, I do not know about any literature about that. --zeno 08:32 Jan 7, 2003 (UTC)

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P. Stoltzfus: Is Pennsylvania Dutch really a kind of Pfälzisch, or are you making that assumption since the Pennsylvania Dutch originally came from the Palatinate? I wouldn't want to assume that the dialects predominant in that area have stayed the same over the past few centuries. -- Toby 20:40 Feb 12, 2003 (UTC)

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There is a dialect called Plattdeutsch which is spoken in the north western part of Schleswig Holstein (that is near the Danish border) I dunno where it fits in here but if somebody coud make that out it would be worth mentioning here. Hexren me@hexren.net

Plattdeutsch is a colloquial term for dialects in northern Germany. Because of the colloquial property and because of its Low German property Plattdeutsch does not fit to one of the meanings of High German

More information about Plattdeutsch: Low Saxon language 82.82.129.206

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There's a Hessisch dialect which drops final 'n' (Kleine Langen -> Klaa Lange, Main -> Maa). Where does it fit in this chart? -phma 11:52, 16 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Hessisch is a form of High German. Keep in mind that many Low German dialects have changed to sound like High German and vice versa: Swiss German sounds almost like Dutch, but Swiss German is High Germanic and Dutch is related to Low Germanic. Jor 22:32, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Swiss German sounds like Dutch??? (Sorry, just trying to imagine Heidi with clogs!) --Doric Loon 22:40, 16 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Move to "High Germanic languages" (done)

I don't doubt that this was done with good intentions, but to repeat the point I've already made at Talk:Low_Germanic_languages: "High Germanic languages" is simply not a term used by anglophone historical linguists. If you doubt it, see how many of the standard works on the History of German you can find that use the term.

And it shouldn't be the place of Wikipedia to promote a terminological innovation (however well motivated) which ignores the accepted conventions in the subject - to use idiosyncratic terminology that no one in the subject would recignize is not NPOV. It really has to be "German" not "Germanic".

Not to mention the fact that no one talks or writes about High German languages, but about High German dialects (which doesn't change the fact that some such as Yiddish are individually called languages). --Pfold 19:37, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

No one talks or writes about High German languages? The Vennemann hypothesis (formulated in good English as well as in good German) offers good evidence showing that the North Sea Germanic languages are closer related to the North Germanic languages than they are to the High Germanic ones. You and I, we are not here to decide on what constitutes "good" evidence, we are here to report on the research results of others. Our own research, we publish it in peer reviewed journals and let others report on it. Eklir (talk) 17:09, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

High Germanic doesn't exist

Where is the sense in creating a neologism that isn't used in linguistics? People come here and they want information then they encounter this term "high germanic" (low germanic, respectively) this is just wrong information :S

Sources

Please mention at least a few references for the article. Squash Racket (talk) 14:19, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Category:West Germanic languages vs. Category:High German languages

Category:High German languages is itself a category within Category:West Germanic languages. — Robert Greer (talk) 14:58, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"High" is "South". Only.

As a technical term, the "high" in High German is a geographic reference to Southern German. In the same way, the "low" in Low German refers to the geographic North. The reason behind that is the positions of the language areas on maps which, at the time when the terms were coined, hat the South at their high ends, and the North at their low ends. Anything else is coincidental. Specifically, the references to high lands and low lands happens to be popular belief and is both factually and historically wrong. (Btw., it had been strongly supported by NAZI pseudoscience, afaik)

Sorry, but this is not correct. The maps of Germany that I have seen from the relevant period (14th-18th century) all have north at the top. The reason our article has a footnote referencing the Oxford English Dictionary's definition of "high" is because that dictionary clearly says that the phrase "High German" is using the word "high" in the literal sense of "up high". Similarly if you explore the etymologies of "Low German", "the Low countries" or "the Netherlands", you will not find that it has anything to do with "low" meaning "north". In Scotland, the Highlands are futher north than the Lowlands. Final thought: in German, the Low German language is formally called "Niederdeutsch" (Low German), but it also has another name, "Plattdeutsch" (Flat German). This is not because the north part of maps are flatter than the south part. It is because of the land itself. --Doric Loon (talk) 15:17, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

language family template

The language family template is necessary in order to make the subdivision visible (field child). In the language template they are not available. -- ZH8000 (talk) 02:21, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

West Germanic dialect continuum

Here and in an number of related articles there is mention of a "(continental) West Germanic dialect continuum" and the presence in it of some or other WGmc dialect or language. As far as I can see, not one of these claims in WP is sourced. In a quick of check of a number of English-language books on the history of German (OK, I haven't had time to start checking the German-language stuff yet), I haven't been able to find an index entry for the term anywhere. The only reference one I can find is in Chambers and Trudgill's Dialectology book (Map 1-1) but the accompanying text mentions only German, Dutch and Flemish. Also, their claim is not sourced.

Now, of course, I'm not questioning the High German dialect continuum, nor that there is a German-Dutch continuum (Frankish dialects on both sides of the border). But is it clear that there is a Dutch/LG continuum, and is there really a LG/Frisian continuum? I don't mean, do the speakers in neighbouring communities understand each other's varieties, or have neighbouring varieties borrowed a few words from each other or the standard language, but are there genuine transitional varieties between LG and Dutch, LG and Frisian?

It is worth noting that even the fairly detailed Kontinentalwestgermanisches Dialektkontinuum article does not deal with these issues, and its secondary lit. seems only to deal with Dutch/High German.

If the claim is true, it must be possible to find better and more comprehensive sources in peer-reviewed publications than this. Please can we find them! --Pfold (talk) 16:28, 17 March 2017 (UTC)

Isn't "normal" German also a High German language?

Maybe I am missing a nuance or something, but if not, then our article opening needs a fix.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 21:17, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Colloquial varieties of "German" throughout Germany are mostly if not always varieties of High German. The sociolinguistic situation is comparable to the one prevailing in neighboring France. Dialectology sees France as Gallo-Romance in the North and Occitano-Romance in the South though colloquially, say in the bistros, it's a variety of Gallo-Romance that's prévailing. Locals and tourists not trained in linguistics refer to such varieties simply as French and German. The decline of Low German and Occitano-Romance might be attributable to some sort of small-scale linguistic imperialism where all sorts of social forces can have a sway favoring the emergence of lingua francas lexically based on language varieties of prestige. Eklir (talk) 20:31, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Ethnicities

@Pfold: I've taken a look at your recent edit, and I'm confused. What makes you think Ashkenazi Jews, Austrians, Germans, Hutterites, Liechtensteiners, Luxembourgers, Pennsylvania Dutch, Silesians, and Vilamovians aren't ethnic groups? ~Nai of Arctic Circle System (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2022 (UTC)

Apart from Ashkenazi Jews, about which there is no argument, what makes you think they are? You're not seriously going to argue that Bavarians and Austrians are ethnically distinct? Confusing modern nation state boundaries with ancient ethnic (or even tribal) boundaries is exactly that: confusion. --Pfold (talk) 15:25, 7 August 2023 (UTC)

Template:Ethnic groups in Germany and articles like Luxembourgers ("Luxembourgers [...] are an ethnic group [...]") call them ethnic groups (or similar, e.g. the article Swabians uses the term people: "Swabians [...] are a Germanic speaking people [...]"). --05:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.221.62.136 (talk)

I am probably missing something but the edit involved does not seem to be about ethnicities, but simply about the "regions" in which High German languages are spoken? Are you both looking at another edit?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 07:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

If this is the type of edit intended, then the above discussion makes more sense. Pfold I am wondering whether your preferred version is not pushing Wikipedia to say that Austrians are a type of German?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 11:49, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Firstly, I would doubt that the inheritors of the multi-ethnic Habsburg empire can be ascribed any single ethnicity, and surely the same goes for tri-lingual Switzerland (Italian-speaking Swiss are ethnically German, seriously!?). Secondly, the political boundary is irrelevant - Austro-Bavarian is a single dialect area, and the German-speaking Austrians share their ethnic origins with the Bavarians in the Elbe Gmc tribes which settled the area in the early middle ages. As Bavarians says, "There is no ethno-linguistic distinction between Bavarians and Austrians." And surely there can be no one who believes that the East Frisians and the Swabians are ethnically close and equally belong to a supposed German ethnic group, while the Swabians and the German-speaking Swiss (both use Alemannic varieties) are ethnically distinct. The idea that ethnicity exactly follows the boundaries of modern, in some cases very recently created nation states is surely self-evident nonsense. --Pfold (talk) 20:23, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

If an infobox refers to Austrians it will be understood that it is referring to citizens of the modern country of that name, and not the historical empire you mention? I think you are avoiding my simple question a bit? Austrians do not see themselves as Germans do they? :) I think on WP we need to avoid making statements about ethnic identity that are based on the simple equation of language and ethnicity. --Andrew Lancaster (talk) 20:46, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Well, I would argue that it's much sounder than basing it on present-day national boundaries - don't forget that before 1870 German meant a cultural and linguistic identity not one based on national borders. As I said, surely it is utterly absurd to argue that there is Swiss ethnicity. To me the whole ethnicity question is entirely pointless for this article - not a single future reader is helped by the proposed revision --22:11, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

People in Germany and Austria traditionally don't really self-identify in an ethnic sense or along dialect lines, but by nation and region. Old political entities play a more significant than linguistic boundaries (Baden-Württemberg is a prime example for this). –Austronesier (talk) 21:01, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

So do we always need to fill in a box about ethnicities in cases like this? Can we just remove this?--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 05:05, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

That would be my view, certainly. --Pfold (talk) 07:42, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Title "High German languages"

Hello, I was just wondering about the title of this article. "Hochdeutsche Sprachen" is very unusual and also not used in professional scholarship. It is about developments in High German dialects, not about the standardisation of modern languages (such as Luxembourgish). The current title is rather confusing and does not correspond to the use in linguistics. Therefore, I am in favour of changing the title back to "High German dialects". Ziko (talk) 12:08, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

A much straightforward solution is to move it to "High German", without the natural disambiguator "languages", because it's unnecessary since there is no disambiguity with "High German" (unless you are talking about a German indivdual under the influence–not quite an encyclopedic topic). See, Low German, Upper German, Low Franconian etc. Also, it helps to maintain NPOV. While a few High German varieties have undergone Ausbau to become distinct literary varieties, High German as a whole forms a dialect continuum without clearcut language borders. –Austronesier (talk) 19:07, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

"High German dialects" would give people a misleading impression. I'm with Austronesier on this - I've never seen the point of "languages" in the title. "High German" is the term used in the literature, so I don't see there's really a case for anything different here.--Pfold (talk) 22:44, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the word "languages" was put in by someone who wanted to highlight that Yiddish is not German, and even Luxemburgisch makes claims to "separate language" status, whatever that fraught idea might mean. I don't see the phrase used much outside Wikipedia though, so I agree there has to be a better solution. Maybe call it "High German", focus mainly on the southern dialects of German, which is what the phrase mostly refers to, and have a section explaining how Yiddish fits in? Doric Loon (talk) 12:23, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Central German vs Middle German

I changed 'Middle German' to 'Central German'. 'Middle' refers to chronology (in contrast to 'Old' and 'New'), 'Central' to Geography (in contrast to 'Upper' and 'Low'). Eklir (talk) 16:04, 1 March 2023 (UTC)