Talk:Low German

At the moment, Plattdeutsch redirects to Low German languages. But isn't Plattdeutsch the same as Plattdüütsch? Gryffindor 00:24, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is the same. I changed the redirect so it points to this page. --::Slomox:: >< 02:16, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

And I removed the merge notice Saintamh 02:44, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Isn't this language just called "Low German" in English? Should this page be moved to Low German or Low German language? dbenbenn | talk 16:36, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, "Low German" was the traditional name for Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages, which also includes the Dutch language and Dutch Low Saxon. But you'll get a lot of dirty looks from Dutch people if you still use such a term to apply to either one. This language needs to be renamed properly to Low Saxon, as it along with Low Franconian are (or at least were) considered "Low German". Actually, if I recall, the referring to Low Saxon alone (to the exclusion of Low Franconian) as "Low German" was an ideosyncratic edit owing to that most of these languages are spoken in Germany, but however, such languages are more accurately Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages in Germany (as opposed to the Netherlands or anywhere else). So, while "Low German" is still synonymous with "Low Saxon-Low Franconian", this distinction is politically incorrect, potentially very insulting, and no longer considered appropriate. However, this distinction was also historic, as Dutch, Flemings, Germans, Prussians, Austrians, Alsatians and Swiss Germans alike used to be called "Dutch" in English (hence terms like Pennsylvania Dutch which was never associated with the Netherlands). Note that, personally, I did not give these distinctions much thought before recently, and it was actually me who had created the new subcategories, using the names as they have already existed on Wikipedia. But later, in a vfd, I studied the issue and voted to agree with the renaming of pre-vfd "High Germanic" to "High German", pre-vfd "Low Germanic" to "Low Saxon-Low Franconian" (though personally I would have settled for politically-incorrect "Low German" for consistency's sake), and pre-vfd "Low German" to "Low Saxon". These names are in line with the reputable classification terminology used by Ethnologue. - Gilgamesh 03:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Requested move of "Plattdüütsch" to "Low German"

This is normally called Low German in English. The only reason why that article wasn't called Low German in the first place was because at that time, this name was being used for the language group that is now called Low Germanic languages. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 20:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Voting

• Support. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 20:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support. 'German' instead of 'Deutsch', 'Low German' instead of 'Plattdüütsch'. dbenbenn | talk 23:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support. Although I can't wait for somebody to say "low" is perjorative. LuiKhuntek 23:48, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support Low German is simply the standard name of the language in English, Plattdüütsch is an indigenous name and not an English one.--Nikostar 02:46, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support - use English and do not use diacritics. --Henrygb 01:19, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
• Support - diacritics may be necessary (as in Provençal), but üü is not found in English. I prefer Plattdeutsch (which I've seen in English), but Low German is better then what we have now.--Prosfilaes 18:17, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Discussion

"Low German" vs. "Low German language" and "Low Saxon (language)"

I prefer Low German to Low German language because the guideline Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) recommends: If the language's name is unique, there is no need for any suffix. The name Low German is unique (at least as unique as for instance Australian English), as you can see from the pages that link to Low German. Additionally, this has the invaluable advantage of being NPOV with regard to the controversial question whether Plattdüütsch/Low German is an independent language or not.

I prefer Low German to Low Saxon because Low German seems to be more common and because Low Saxon is sometimes only applied to the variety Northern Low Saxon. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 20:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

How the concept first called "Low German" happened to be called "Plattdüütsch"

In order to understand why this article has the name Plattdüütsch and not Low German, as it would be normally called in English, we need to have a look at the evolution of how the different branches of what is currently called Low Germanic languages have been represented on Wikipedia:

From 2001-09 until 2002-12:

• Low German
  • (varieties in Germany and other countries)
• (Dutch, Afrikaans and varieties of them)

This means that in the beginning, the concept currently named Plattdüütsch already had the name Low German!

From 2002-12 to 2004-02 (after a series of edits by User:Toby Bartels):

• Low German language
  • Low Franconian language
    • (Dutch, Afrikaans and varieties of them)
  • Low Saxon language
    • (varieties in Germany and other countries)

After these edits, the name Low German language was no longer used for the concept currently called Plattdüütsch, but for the entire branch of West Germanic languages. The concept formerly named Low German (currently Plattdüütsch) was renamed Low Saxon language.

From 2004-02 to 2005-07 (after a series of edits by User:Alexander.stohr):

• Low German language
  • Low Franconian language
    • (Dutch, Afrikaans and varieties of them)
  • Plattdüütsch
    • Low Saxon language
      • (varieties in Germany and other countries)
    • East Low German
      • (varieties in Germany and other countries)

That is to say, when the article Plattdüütsch was created in order to describe the same concept that previously had the name Low Saxon (and still before that, Low German), the name Low German was not available any more since it had been made the name of the entire group of languages.

Currently, the structure of that tree is still the same, but several article names have been changed (after a series of edits by myself):

• Low Germanic languages
  • Low Franconian languages
    • (Dutch, Afrikaans and varieties of them)
  • Plattdüütsch
    • West Low German
      • (varieties in Germany and other countries)
    • East Low German
      • (varieties in Germany and other countries)

That is to say, the name Low German is available again, because it is no longer used as the name for the entire group of languages. ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 20:38, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Result

Moved. WhiteNight ^{T | @ | C} 06:16, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Please verify verb conjugations of hebben and slapen

I am not a native speaker of Low German, and only de-2 of Standard German but I was able to read the Low German page in its native language and found the information about verb conjugations but it was unclear about the plurals (as in, if hebbt or hebben are both acceptable for all plurals, or if hebbt is a specific person and hebben another). If the latter is the case then the information in the Verbs category should be changed to reflect this. --Godtvisken 18:49, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm no Low German speaker either, but native German speaker, and from what I understand, Low German has one plural ending for all persons, but the ending depends on the region: East Low German has -en and West Low German -et (or vice versa). ― j. 'mach' wust | ✑ 21:34, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Added information received from a native.

Verb table

Should the verb table be removed in favor of a more general description of verb inflection? --Godtvisken 19:52, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Number of speakers

What does native to about 1,000 mean? This number is incorrect, when not the number of 'Low German only' speakers is meant. There are far more native speakers, even if they are not 'Low German only' because most of them speak German too. --::Slomox:: >< 22:45, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

Correct, it is far more. Don't know the exact number but from what I know many speakers especially in the rural areas of Schleswig-Holstein still speak it natively, while a significant decline has happened in recent decades. Expecially in the Cities it has been fallen out of use.

"Tied" cognate

It isn't entirely accurate to say that "Tied/Zeit" has no cognate in English; "tide" is cognate, as is "time" (distantly), though the former doesn't have the same meaning, and the latter doesn't reflect the sound change as well. In short, I'm not sure how or even if the chart should be modified. Bws2002 11:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed, I did not realize this before. I changed it to say "tide (literally: time)", although maybe a better wording that "literally: time" could be used to note that the meaning has changed but they are still cognates. Removed "Timmerman" until someon can find a cognate for it, if there is one. --Godtvisken 00:21, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The cognate for Timmermann or timmern is to timber. --::Slomox:: >< 22:08, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Last Sentence in Intro

The last sentence in the introduction makes no sense and sounds unprofessional. Why ought dialects of Low German and Frisian in Denmark to be considered extinct? Should we not consider these dialects in other regions to be extinct? Can anyone with some authority on the subject say if the dialect (or language, it is unclear from the intro how we should classify Low German) as a whole is moribund or extinct? This article needs help.

Requested move: Low German to Low Saxon

See Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 15:26, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Formerly "Low Germanic languages" has been moved to "Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages"; this page should be named accordingly. Please move it. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 22:58, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This is nonsense! I'm sorry I only discovered this discussion after the move had been made. Low Saxon is English for Niedersächsisch, which relates to one German Bundesland. As a translation of Niederdeutsch/Plattdeutsch it is simply wrong. We do usually call the Early medieval language Old Saxon, but we do not use Middle Saxon (let alone Middle Low Saxon) for the language of the high Middle Ages, and the modern language (dialect) is called Low German. Look at any standard English-language book on the history of German if you want confirmation. The consistency argument doesn't hold water: just because the language family is renamed (also controversial, but just about defensible) is no reason why the individual languages within it need to be given names which they never had before. Or are we going to move Dutch to Low Franconian, just to satisfy the desires of a few people who want the language tree to look neat? This move needs to be reversed. --Doric Loon 18:30, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

OK, I have reverted this move. It was made without due consultation - the discussion related entirely to the Low Germanic Languages article, not to this one. We need a consensus here before a move is legitimate. --Doric Loon 19:24, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

I know that the Ethnologue is not reliable at all, but it says Low Saxon, and I have no other English sources right at hand.[1] ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 00:51, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it's better to continue this discussion at Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves, since that's where it has been lead in the first place. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 11:02, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

ISO 639-2 labels it Low German; Low Saxon, with Low German first.--Prosfilaes 00:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, no, I think the discussion should be here. What we do with "Low Germanic languages" is an entirely different question from what we do with "Low German". As for Ethnologue, it lists dozens of German dialects as though they were languages, which doesn't inspire confidence. Low Saxon may well mean Niedersachsen in their thinking. The point is, for there to be a "low" anything there has to be a "high" one too. Low German in contrast to High German makes good sense. But there is no High Saxon language. As a state, Niedersächsisch makes sense in contradistinction to Sachsen-Anhalt etc, but "Low Saxon language" means nothing at all. --Doric Loon 11:46, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but according to my move requests, the moves are directly linked to each other, see Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves: If Low Germanic languages is renamed to Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages, then it is at least to me quite obvious that this group should consist of Low Saxon and Low Franconian.

I'm not going to repeat the whole recent argumentation on Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves, but only this: Nedersaksisch ('Low Saxon') is the official Dutch name for 'Low Saxon/Low German', so your argument that any Low variety implies a corresponding High variety and vice versa is pretty pointless. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Of course that is not obvious. The group has been called a variety of things, but you cannot on that basis just rename Dutch as "Low Franconian". There is a fundamentally flawed approach here. A number of you have been trying to construct neat trees for Germanic languages, which is something linguists no longer really believe in because in practice it never really works neatly. You are playing with terminology to try to make it look neater than it is. But this is not legitimate. We MUST use the terminology which is actually standard in the textbooks, not terminology which we think is better. So the only argument which will support you is if you can show a consensus in recent published literature. And despite being challenged on the other page, you have not attempted to do this. --Doric Loon 19:21, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

So far, I've been the only one to cite anything at all. Nobody ever intended to rename Dutch. I'm well aware of the flaws of "genealogic" "trees". ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 21:04, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I guess I have to repeat here what I've said on Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves: The English language offers two equivalent names, Low German and Low Saxon (I guess it is no coincidence that these correspond to the respective autodesignations in Germany and the Netherlands). Which one should we choose? The Wikipedia:Naming conventions say nothing about such a case. I don't think the decision should be based on mere frequency (like you say), but rather on the questions like: what would native speakers do? or: what avoids confusion? (no, despite its name, Low German is really not just a simple variety of the German language like Scottish English is a variety of the English language). ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 21:33, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does have something to say about the case: "Names of Wikipedia articles should be optimized for readers over editors; and for a general audience over specialists." That is the most common name usually; what the native speakers do has little use for a general audience.--Prosfilaes 00:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

There are contrary examples where a lesser known name has been chosen out of consideration for the native speakers: Lapps redirects to Sami people, Hottentot redirects to Khoikhoi, Gypsy language redirects to Romani language. Then, the naming conventions also talk about a reasonable minimum of ambiguity, and the recent contribution by User:Liam D (see below) is just another perfect example of the ambiguity of the term Low German. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 18:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Move request

I have moved the page in line with the other articles, which all have been moved, and consistency can be a good argument. -- Kim van der Linde ^{at venus} 03:34, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

As I see it, there's still an open discussion here. Let's not try to unilaterally preëmpt that discussion.--Prosfilaes 09:00, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Liam's comment

I'm moving the following comment by user:Liam D here because it belongs with this discussion and is not well placed at the top of this page. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 17:54, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

• • no it would be wrong to redirect Low German to Low Saxon. Low German is still used in German linguistics (Niederdeutsch) and French linguistics (bas-allemand) to designate all the Western Germanic languages shown on that map :

• • Low German includes Low Saxon and Low Franconian languages (Dutch, Flemish, etc).
  • I agree that the term German is, with that meaning, not politically correct, but it is still used in modern linguistics, and it's not up to Wikipedia users to interfere in that. Anyway, Plattdeutsch or Plattdüütsch contain the word deutsch that means German, and even the word Germanic contains the word German. The term German is to Germanic languages what Romance is to latin languages... Even the Swiss refer to their language as Düütsch, which means German... And English use the same root to designate the language of the Netherlands: Dutch.
  • A solution would be to name the page Low German languages rather than Low German, and then make clear that this group is actually split into Lower Saxon languages and Low Frankish languages (or Low Franconian languages, Franconian being an Anglo-English way to designate what the Germans call fränkish and the French call francique).
  • The best way to call that group would be Low Westgermanic languages but this does not exist.

Liam D 22:32, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

The Low German you're referring to has been moved to Low German languages a long time ago, see above. This article is not about what you've referred to as Low German, but only about what you've referred to as Low Saxon, that is to say, not about all West Germanic languages that are neither High German languages nor Anglo-Frisian languages, but only about the Easter part of them. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 18:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Most English speakers who have any idea about German affairs know the phrase Low German and know exactly what they mean by it, and there is no ambiguity, because it means only one thing. It does not include Dutch, it means only the northern dialects of Germany. Possible ambiguity only arised because of a possible confusion with Low Germanic (itself a fringe usage), but it is not hard to keep those apart. Low Saxon in this sense is hardly known to anyone in the English speaking world. Low German is the normal, standard phrase, and the one that readers will recognised. --Doric Loon 18:55, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

You keep claiming that, so I'm sure you won't have any trouble proving it. I've shown that the name Low Saxon is really used in English in this sense and I've explained why I'd prefer it over Low German.

However we decide, the decision must not only affect this article but all of the articles mentioned in my original move request in Talk:Low Germanic languages#Requested moves, including of course the corresponding categories (and therefore I'm still disappointed that the discussion has split). If we keep this article at its current name Low German, I wouldn't like the article name Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages at all, since then the very same concept would be called Low German in the name of this article and Low Saxon in the name of the article Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages. ― j. 'mach' wust | ⚖ 19:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Well what you do with the group is up to you, but we can't name a language after a group, it has to be the other way round. Because the languages are "real" in a way that the group isn't; it is an academics' construct. I personally would call the group "the Low-German/Dutch continuum", but the existence or meaningfulness of the group is a matter of opinion, so the term can be twisted to whatever your theory happens to be.

But the language is a well-established entity and we know what we call it. You ask for sources. Well, most of my books on German affairs are in German of course, but just reaching out to what is on the shelf next to me, I can confirm that "Low German" is the term used in the classic works which we all studied with: Arthur Kirk, Introduction to the historical study of New High German, Wright, Middle High German Primer, M.O.Walshe, Middle High German reader, J.G. Robertson, history of German literature; or if you want something bang up to date, the new 10-volume Camden House History of German literature (one volume still in press) or the Gentry Companion to Middle High German Lit (2002); they all talk about Low German. A quick glance down the abbreviations at the front of the Oxford English Dictionary shows that it uses LG = Low German in its etymologies. You will notice I have deliberately not gone to linguistics text books but rather to more general works, because my point is to show that this is what most English-speaking non-specialists say. But just in case my book collection is untypical, I went to the British Library on-line catalogue and did a quick search. Putting in "Low German" gave me 273 hits. "Low Saxon" produced just 7. And I am not convinced any of those 7 are really evidence of what you want them to be. --Doric Loon 05:35, 6 July 2006 (UTC)