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Westphalian language
Low German dialects spoken in Germany From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Westphalian or Westfalish (Standard High German: Westfälisch, Standard Dutch: Westfaals) is one of the major dialect groups of Low German.[2] Its most salient feature is its diphthongization (rising diphthongs). For example, speakers say iäten ([ɪɛtn̩]) instead of etten or äten for "to eat". (There is also a difference in the use of consonants within the Westphalian dialects: North of the Wiehengebirge, people tend to use unvoiced consonants, whereas south of the Wiehengebirge they tend to use the voiced equivalents, e.g. Foite > Foide.)
The Westphalian dialect region includes the north-eastern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, i.e. the former Prussian province of Westphalia, without Siegerland and Wittgenstein, but including the southern part of former government district Weser-Ems (e.g. the region around Osnabrück and the landscape of Emsland in modern Lower Saxony).
Traditionally, all Dutch Low Saxon dialects are considered Westphalian, with the notable exception of Gronings, which is grouped with the Northern Low Saxon and Friso-Saxon dialects.[citation needed] The rising diphthongisation is still noticeable in the dialects of Rijssen, Enter and Vriezenveen. In a band from southeast Twente to northwest Twente the diphtongisation still happens before the consonants v, g and z. Vriezenveen furthermore preserved the diphtongisations in words like to eat, to hope and kitchen. In other areas of Dutch Low Saxon the breaking was monophthongized and then highered and lengthened, resulting in different development stadia away from the breaking depending on the area.
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Varieties
Among the Westphalian language there are different subgroups of dialects:[3]
Westphalian dialects in Westphalia
- East Westphalian (Ostwestfälisch) in East Westphalia (possibly including the dialect of Osnabrück)
- South Westphalian (Südwestfälisch)
- Münsterländisch
- Westmünsterländisch
Westphalian dialects in the Netherlands:
Westphalian dialects in Lower Saxony and Groningen
- Grafschafter Platt
- Emsländer Platt
- Westerwolds
Westphalian has many lexical similarities and other proximities to Eastphalian, extending to the East and slightly to the North of the area where Westphalian is spoken.
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Phonology
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The Westphalian vowel breaking is a sound change found in many Westphalian dialects. In this process, short vowels in open, stressed syllables are turned into diphthongs, for example:[4]
- iäten / eaten – „(to) eat“
- wieten – „(to) know“
- vuegel – „bird“
- vüegel – „birds“
- kuaken / koaken – „(to) cook“
- hüawe / höäwe – „courtyards“
Originally, these syllables in Old Saxon had short vowels. In other Low German dialects, these vowels were simply lengthened (e.g. Westphalian briäken – North Low Saxon breken).
At the end of the Old Saxon period, final syllables became weakened, so the main stress shifted entirely to the stem syllable. It then became difficult to maintain at the same time the shortness, openness, and strong stress of the vowel. Westphalian solved this by adding another short sound after the original short vowel. This kept the sound system close to the old one.
Even today, Westphalian preserves almost all (7 out of 8) of the original short vowels in open syllables..
In the past, this feature occurred over a larger area, including places like Lippe and the Westmünsterland, where it is no longer found today. Even in dialects without this breaking, the distinctions between the old short vowels are still mostly preserved.
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Grammar
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Declension
Adjectives
Personal pronouns
Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns
While Old Saxon has lost the Germanic third-person reflexive pronoun such as Old English and Old Frisian and instead resorts to the relevant personal pronoun, modern Low German borrows reflexive pronouns from German. In Sauerland, it is conjugated as in Proto-Germanic and Icelandic, while in other Westphalian dialects like Münsterländisch or East Westphalian it is not. In addition, a distinction in South Westphalian is made between the individual genders as well as individual and multiple people. In some dialects, there is still no distinction between reflexive and third-person pronouns in the onjective case. [9][10][11][12][13]
Demonstrative Pronouns
Verbs
Conjugation patterns of East Westphalian [16]
Conjugation patterns of Vjens [17]
Subjuncive
However, compared to most other dialects, the Westphalian dialect has preserved an extremely complex conjugation of strong verbs with subjunctive.[18][19]
Infinitive 2
In the very south of the East Westphalian language area, the original gerund of the West Germanic languages has been formally preserved.[20]
Nouns
East Westphalian and South Westphalian dialects have also preserved the so-called dative-e, adding a final -e to masculine and neuter nouns in the dative case, while Münsterländisch does not preserve it.[21]
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Status
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German Westphalian is currently spoken mostly by elderly people. The majority of the inhabitants of Westphalia proper speak (regionally coloured) standard German. This accent, however, does not stand out as much as for example Bavarian, because Westphalia is closer to the Hanover region, whose speech variety is generally considered to be standard modern German.
The Low Saxon dialects in the bordering Twente and Achterhoek regions in the east of the Netherlands are traditionally classified as Westphalian dialects, albeit with some notable traits from Standard Dutch. A 2005 study showed 62% of the population of Twente spoke the language at home or together with Dutch, and efforts are made to insert the language into the local school curriculum.
One of the reasons for the diminishing use of Westphalian in Germany is the rigorous enforcement of German-only policies in traditionally Low German-speaking areas during the 18th century. Westphalian, and Low German in general, unlike many of the High German dialects, were too distant from standard German to be considered dialects and were therefore not tolerated and efforts were made to ban them. In an extreme case, Hannover and its hinterland were forced to adopt rather unnaturally a form of German based on the written standard.
Westphalian was spoken in Kruppwerke up to the 19th century.
Nevertheless, the Westphalian regiolect of Standard High German includes some words that originate from the dying Westphalian dialects, which are otherwise unintelligible for other German speakers from outside Westphalia. Examples include Pölter [ˈpœltɐ] "pyjamas/pajamas", Plörre [ˈplœʁə] "dirty liquid", and Mötke [ˈmœtkə] "mud, dirt".
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Authors
Westphalian authors include:
Münsterländisch:
- Augustin Wibbelt
East Westphalian:
- Richard Knoche
South Westphalian:
- Wilhelm Bleicher
- Wilhelm Bröcker
- Theodor Ellbracht
- Friedrich Wilhelm Grimme
- Walter Höher
- Carl Hülter
- Fritz Kuhne
- Fritz Linde
- Horst Ludwigsen
- Franz Nolte
References
Further reading
External links
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