page_title: Limburgish
section_title: Expanded
hierarchical_section_title: Limburgish / Subdivisions of Limburgish / Expanded
caption_attribution_description: English: Main dialects, regional languages and minority languages in the BeNeLux
context_page_description: Limburgish, also called Limburgan, Limburgian, or Limburgic, is a group of East Low Franconian varieties spoken in the Belgian and Dutch provinces both named Limburg and some neighbouring areas of Germany. In some parts of this area it is generally used as the colloquial language in daily speech.
  It shares many characteristics with both German and Dutch and is often considered as a variant of one of these languages; its speakers refer to themselves as either ethnic Dutchmen, Flemings or Germans rather than Limburgers, which is a regional identification. Within the modern communities of the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, intermediate idiolects are also very common, which combine standard Dutch with the accent and some grammatical and pronunciation tendencies derived from Limburgish. This "Limburgish Dutch" is confusingly also often referred to simply as "Limburgish", although in Belgium such intermediate idiolects tend to be called tussentaal, no matter the exact dialect/language with which standard Dutch is combined.
context_section_description: Südniederfränkisch is a concept used in Germany to describe the Limburgish language ("South Low Franconian") of Germany. It is a group spoken in a part of the Bergisches Land Region near Düsseldorf east of the Rhine and in the lower Rhine area between the rivers Rhine and Maas, the latter (called Rheinmaasländisch or Südostniederfränkisch "Southeast Low Franconian") shortly behind the Dutch–German border in the vicinity of Heinsberg and Nettetal. These languages are predominantly seen as belonging to the Limburgish language group.
  They were also referred to as the East Limburgish group. It encompasses the varieties of Limburgish spoken in Germany. They are also seen as part of the Meuse-Rhenish language group. Population using one of the languages in the group either name their local variety Bergish (in the Bergisches Land Region only), or Platt, or after their village, town, or city placeer Platt. People from outside the Rhineland often make less distinctions and use the term Rhinelandic for large set of varieties of languages.
  The Limburgish group belongs to the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum. As usual inside dialect continua, neighboring languages have a maximum of similarities, and speakers being used to the rather small individual lingual differences in their immediate neighborhood perceive them as close, and familiar, while more distant ones become gradually harder to understand with distance. That ends, in the Dutch–German continuum at least, most often with incomprehensible dialects. Isoglosses are so dense in this area that practically every village or town has its own distinct dialect of Limburgish. Large cities such as Mönchengladbach, Krefeld, and Düsseldorf have several local dialect varieties. The named cities have in common, that they are large enough to in part extend outside the area of the dialect group. Thus each has one or more quarters outside, having vernacular languages belonging to adjacent groups, such as Cleverlands or Ripuarian.
  A few sample South Low Franconian dialects are: Dremmener Platt of Dremmen near Heinsberg, Breyellsch Platt of Breyell in Nettetal, Jlabbacher Platt of central Mönchengladbach, Jriefrother Platt of Grefrath, Viersener Platt of Viersen, Föschelner Platt of Fischeln in Krefeld, Krieewelsch of central Krefeld, Ödingsch of Uerdingen in Krefeld, Düsseldorver Platt of northern and central Düsseldorf, Rotinger Platt of Ratingen, Wülfrother Platt of Wülfrath, Metmannsch Platt of Mettmann, Solinger Platt of Solingen, Remscheder Platt of Remscheid, and many more.
  The group combines Low Franconian properties with some Ripuarian properties, such as tonal accents, the pronoun "I" translates as ech or iech, the word "but" most often as awwer, all like Ripuarian. Contrasting, "time" is translated as tied, "to have" mostly as hebbe, "today" as vandag, all typical for Low Franconian.
  An area close to Westphalia called Bergisches Land is considered to be the area where Bergisch is spoken. This area is limited roughly by a line Düsseldorf–Mettmann–Solingen–Remscheid. For a more encompassing view, see the article on Low Rhenish.
  Noord-Limburgs (also called ik-Limburgs) is the Dutch term for a group of dialects spoken north of the Uerdingen line, i.e. from just south of Venlo upward to the North in the Dutch province of Limburg. These dialects share many features with both the Zuid-Gelders and Brabantian dialects and are closer to Standard Dutch than the more southern language varieties (see e.g. Hoppenbrouwers 2001). The term Noord-Limburgs is used by Jo Daan for the entire province north of the Uerdingen line, whereas other linguists use it only for the part that has tonality, the language north of this region then being considered Kleverlandish.
  The north border of the Limburgish tonality zone lies a little north of Arcen and Horst aan de Maas and just above the meej/mich isogloss, also known as the "mich-kwartier". This makes this Limburgish isogloss the northernmost of all. Venlo lies between the meej/mich isogloss and the Uerdingen line, so the Venlo dialect is the only o
caption: Languages of the Benelux
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