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Low Saxon in The Netherlands
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Dutch Low Saxon (Dutch Low Saxon:
Nedersaksisch) is a group of Low Saxon (i.e., Low German) dialects
spoken in the northeastern Netherlands (in comparison, the remainder
of the Netherlands speak a collection of Low Franconian dialects). The class "Dutch
Low Saxon" is not unanimous. From a diachronic point of view, the Dutch Low
Saxon dialects are merely the Low Saxon dialects which are native
to areas in the Netherlands (as opposed to areas in northern
Germany or Denmark). From a strictly synchronic point of view, however, some
linguists classify Dutch Low Saxon as a variety of Dutch.[1] Some
Dutch Low Saxon dialects show features of Westphalian, a West Low German
dialect spoken in Germany.
Dialects
Key: K - Kollumerlands GN - Grunnegs and North-Drèents S -
Stellingwarfs MD - Middle-Drèents SD - South-Drèents T - Tweants TG
- Tweants-Groafschops GO - Gelders-Oaveriessels (Achterhooks) and
Urkers V - Veluws
Dutch Low Saxon comprises the following forms (any of which are
considered separate languages in ISO 639-3):
Most varieties belong to the West Low Saxon group. Grunnegs is
so different from the rest of the Dutch Low Saxon varieties that it
may be treated separately. Tweants and Achterhooks belong to the Westphalian group of
dialects. The remainder, Drèents, Stellingwarfs, Sallaans, Urkers
and Veluws, could be classified in their own subdivision, since
they form the westermost group of Low Saxon dialects, considerably
affected by Dutch. Urkers and West-Veluws are even so heavily
Hollandified that some people classify these dialects as Low Franconian rather than Low Saxon.
Dutch
influence
A lot of these dialects have been affected by the Hollandic expansion of the
seventeenth century. All of them are lexically dependent on Dutch rather than
German for
neologisms. When written down, they use a Dutch-based
orthography.
- a unified plural in -en rather than -t
- This is found in West-Veluws and Urkers and clearly ensued from
Dutch influence, since a unified plural in -t for verbs is
common in Low Saxon. These dialects have wiej warken
instead of wiej warkt for "we work". This feature is,
surprisingly, also found in Stellingwarfs and Grunnegs, but here
this trait is believed to have Frisian rather than Hollandic origins
(the Stellingwerven have been Frisian for centuries and Groningen
was a Frisian speaking area in the Middle Ages). Modern Frisian has
-e here, -en may be a kind of intermediate form
between -t and -e. This unified plural takes the
form -et rather than -t in the Achterhooks
dialect of Winterswijk.
- several long vowel shifts
- Veluws, Sallaans, Stellingwarfs and Drèents have experienced
mutation as the Hollandic dialect rose in prestige during the
seventeenth century. The ee [e:] mutated into ie
[i:], the oo [o:] into oe [u:] and the
oe [u:] into uu [y:]. Tweants and Eastern
Achterhooks, by contrast retained their old vowels. Compare these
Tweants and Sallaans couples: deer - dier ("animal");
good - goed ("good"); hoes - huus ("house").
Surprisingly, in many dialects the oe sound was preserved
in some words while it mutated towards uu in others. As a
result, in Sallaans "huis" (house) translates as huus but
"muis" (mouse) as moes (as in Tweants).
- loss of the word du "thou"
- Dutch has lost the word doe "thou" for long and
replaced it by jij, originally a personal pronoun for the
pluralic second person. In many Low Saxon dialects in the
Netherlands, the very same happened. The doe - ie/ieje/ij isogloss
runs surprisingly close to the Dutch border, except in Groningen, where it enters the
Dutch territory with a vengeance (in the entire province this word
is known). In Twente, it is
present in the easternmost villages of Denekamp and Oldenzaal, in de Achterhoek (Gelderland), dou is present in Winterswijk and Groenlo .
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