Are Low Germans dutch or german?

[Anglojew]

Linguists classify Dutch and German as distinct languages for a variety of reasons but there is supposedly a continuum via the so-called Rhenish fan

Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group, West Low Franconian, paired with its sister language Limburgish, or East Low Franconian, both of which stand out by mixing characteristics of Low German and High German.[14] Dutch is at one end of a dialect continuum known as the Rhenish fan where German gradually turns into Dutch. There was also at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low German. In some small areas, there are still dialect continua, but they are gradually becoming extinct.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_l...Classification

[Loki]

Low Germans are not Dutch. They are Germans. But in a sense, Dutch are also a type of German.

[Loki]

Dutch is derived from the Frankish German dialect. It's a Lower Franconian language:



The red is Middle Franconian.

[Geminus]

Linguists classify Dutch and German as distinct languages for a variety of reasons but there is supposedly a continuum via the so-called Rhenish fan

Low Germans are not Dutch. They are Germans. But in a sense, Dutch are also a type of German.

I think these statements are somewhat right.
Historically the Netherlands were part of the Holy Roman Empire but today they are an independent state. North-Germans who originally speak Low German are part of Germany, though.
I think the quote "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy" is quite fitting here.
So the question if people who speak Low German are German or Dutch is more a political than a linguistic question. Their languages both have the same origin, but today they live in different states that have formed historically.

(In regard to the videos: I didn't understand much of what they said, I also come from South-Germany)

[Visitor_22]

Low Germans are not Dutch. They are Germans. But in a sense, Dutch are also a type of German.

Well. They sound nothing like typical "krautic" german, rather they sound dutch.

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here comments!

dunno why it's called Low German when it's much more similar to Dutch than Standard German

This looks a lot like Frisian, it has a lot in common with Frisian, some sentences are typical Frisian 

I feel like Low German sounds more like Dutch, rather than standard German.

low german is not the same as dutch. there are only a few mostly older people in northern germany whow speakes low german nativly. i was born in 1980 in mecklenburg (county in the north east germany) and grew up with low german. nice to heare you speaking these wonderfull languiage

Sounds very similar to Dutch language!!!I think this is the reason,some linguists classify Dutch as a part of Low German dialect.

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comments...

this looks so much like Dutch, wish the people still spoke Platduits in German.

I'm dutch and i can understand everything they are saying ;P!

@PLATTYSKAI: It isn't the German language. It is Low Saxon a.k.a. Low German, an official regional language of the Eastern Netherlands and Northern Germany. Its ancestor is not Old German but Old Saxon.

[Chichic]

For Germans, Dutch is like 70% English and 30% German.

[Beit El]

Linguists classify Dutch and German as distinct languages for a variety of reasons but there is supposedly a continuum via the so-called Rhenish fan





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_l...Classification

The entire northern border area has a Dutch-Low German/Saxon continuum as well. This is a song sung by a north-eastern Dutchman singing East-Frisian (Which, despite the name, is not a Frisian language or dialect but rather a Saxon one). It's related to the dialect of my paternal family who come from a village a few kilometers from the German border:

Low Germans are not Dutch. They are Germans. But in a sense, Dutch are also a type of German.

Dutch and German are social constructs. Dutch are not a type of German, we are a type of Germanic, just like the (northern) Germans are. Saying Dutch are a type of German is ridiculous since the Dutch nation existed long before the German nation.

[Hevo]

Dutch is derived from the Frankish German dialect. It's a Lower Franconian language:



The red is Middle Franconian.

I would like to add:

Dutch emerged as a structurally distinct branch of West Germanic as the result of language contact between speakers of North Sea Germanic and speakers of the South Germanic “Franconian,” or Frankish. The crucial early period of this contact occurred in the 7th and 8th centuries and resulted from the expansion of Frankish (Merovingian and early Carolingian) power into the western coastal areas that were populated by North Sea Germanic groups. The most important structural characteristic of Dutch is its strikingly anomalous development of i-umlaut; whereas in all other West and North Germanic languages, i-umlaut affected all nonfront vowels, in standard Dutch only ă shows umlaut fronting. In the dialects this limited development of umlaut is found only in the coastal areas (Flanders, Zeeland, Holland); eastern dialects show umlaut developments like those of the neighbouring German dialects and standard German.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/.../74778/History

[Beit El]

As a side note, even Dutch people who don't speak (regular) German can understand (regular) German. With Platt/Low German this intelligibility increases drastically and a very strong mutual intelligibility is added, a Dutch person can have an entire conversation with a Platt-speaker without any problems.

[Visitor_22]

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