page_title: Franconian languages
section_title: Old Franconian
hierarchical_section_title: Franconian languages / Historical views of the linguistic concept and meaning of "Franconian" / Old Franconian
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Karte Herzogtum Franken um 800English: Duchy of the Franks around 800
context_page_description: Franconian includes a number of West Germanic languages and dialects possibly derived from the languages and dialects originally spoken by the Franks from their ethnogenesis in the 3rd century AD. A famous likely speaker was Emperor Charlemagne. Linguists have different views about whether these languages and dialects have descended from a single Franconian proto-language, also known as Istvaeonic.
  The Franconian languages and dialects consist of three main groups. The first is the Low Franconian branch, which consists of Dutch and Afrikaans as well as of several Low Franconian dialects spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium, where they are considered as dialects of Dutch and Limburgish, and in Germany, where they are considered as dialects of German.
  The second group are the Central- and Rhine Franconian dialects. These Central German dialects are considered as dialects of German in Germany and Belgium, as Luxembourgish in Luxembourg, as Lorraine Franconian in France, and as Kerkraads in the Netherlands. Pennsylvania German has an almost purely Rhine Franconian dialect basis.
context_section_description: The name "Franconian", an English adjective made into a noun, comes from the official Latin name of an area (and later stem duchy) in the Middle Ages known as Franconia (German: Franken). If being in the territory of the original Franci is a criterion of being Frankish, it was not originally Frankish, but Alemannic, as the large Roman base at Mainz, near the confluence of the Main and the Rhine, kept the Franci and the Suebi, core tribe of the Alemanni, apart. When the Romans withdrew, the fort became a major base of the Ripuarian Franks, who promptly moved up the Main, founded Frankfurt ("the ford of the Franks"), established a government over the Suebi between the Rhine and the Danube, and proceeded to assimilate them to all things Frankish, including the dialects. The Ripuarian Franks at that time were not acting as such, but were simply part of the Frankish empire under the Carolingian dynasty.
  Franconian is the only English single word describing the region called Franken by the Germans. The population considered as native is also called Franken, who speak a language called Fränkisch, which are dialects included in German. In the Middle Ages, before German prevailed officially over Latin, the Latinizations, Franconia and Francones, were used in official documents. Since Latin was the scholarly lingua franca, the Latin forms spread to Britain as well as to other nations. English speakers had no reason to convert to Franken; moreover, "Frankish" was already being used for French and Dutch. Franconian was kept.
  The English did not have much to say about Franconian until the 18th century, except that it was "High Dutch," and "German." In 1767 Thomas Salmon published:
  The language of the Germans is High Dutch, of which there are many dialects, so different, that the people of one province scarce understand those of another.
  "Province", as it was applied to Germany, meant one of the ten Reichskreise of the Holy Roman Empire. Slingsby Bethel had published a description of them in a political treatise of 1681, referring to each of them as a "province," and describing, among them, "The Franconian Circle." Slingsby's language development goes no further than "High Germany," where "High Dutch" was spoken and "the lower parts of Germany," speaking, presumably, Low Dutch. Salmon's implicit identification of dialects with Reichskreise speech is the very misconception found objectionable by Green and Siegmund:
  Here we are also touching upon the problem of languages, for many scholars ... proceed from the assumption that they were ethnic languages/dialects (Stammessprachen) ... the very opposite goes for the Franks ....
  In the mid-19th century, a time when the Germans were attempting to define a standard German, the term alt-Fränkisch made its appearance, which was an adjective meaning "old-fashioned." It came into English immediately as "Old Franconian." English writings mentioned Old Franconian towns, songs and people, among other things. To the linguists, the term was a windfall, as it enabled them to distinguish a Stammsprach. For example, in 1863 Gustave Solling's Diutiska identified the Pledge of Charles the Bald, which is in Old High German, as Old Franconian. He further explains that the latter is an Upper German dialect.
  By the end of the century the linguists understood that between "Low Dutch" and "High Dutch" was a partially altered continuum, which they called Middle, or Central, German. It had been grouped with Upper, or High, German. This "Middle" was between low and high, as opposed to the Chronological Middle High German, between old and new. In 1890 Ernest Adams defined Old Franconian as an Old High German dialect spoken on the middle and upper Rhine; i.e., it went beyond the limits of Franconia to comprise also the dialect continuum of the Rhineland. His earlier editions, such as the 1858, did not feature any Old Franconian.
caption: German stem duchy of Franconia, about 1000
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