HIGH DUTCH AND LOW DUTCH.
(Vol. viii., pp. 478. 601.)
If "N. & Q." were the publication in which questions were cursorily settled, the answer of James Spence Harry (p. 478.) might suffice with regard to the Query of S. C. P. (p. 413.); but your correspondent E. C. H., who seems also
to know something about the matter, wishes for German evidence.
Should your correspondents James S. Harry and E. C. H. be acquainted (and I doubt not but they are) with the song, in which a German inquires "What is his native land?" and having called over some of the principalities, as Prussia, Suabia, Bavaria, Pomerania, Westphalia, Switzerland, Tyrol, he cries disdainfully, "No! no! no! my fatherland must be greater:" at last, despairing, he asks to name him that land, and is answered, "Wherever the German tongue is heard:"—should James S. Harry and E. C. H. recollect these words, they will conceive that such a people must have several tribes, and each tribe their peculiar dialect, founded on prescribed rules, and to which individually equal justice is due.
The dialects of the Deutsche Sprache, the German language, are the Ober Deutsche and Nieder Deutsche, Upper German and Low German: from the former dialect has, in course of time, proceeded the Hoch Deutsche Sprache, the High German language, now used exclusively as the book language by the more educated classes throughout Germany.
The principal dialects of the Ober Deutsche are the following:
1. The Allemanic, spoken in Switzerland and the Upper Rhine.
2. The Suabian, spoken in the countries between the Black Forest and the River Lech.
3. The Bavarian, spoken in the South of Bavaria and Austria.
4. The Franconian, spoken in the North of Bavaria, Hessen, and the Middle Rhine.
5. The Upper Saxon or Misnian, spoken in the plains of Saxony and Thüringia.
These dialects differ from each other, and particularly from the High German language, with regard to their elements.
The Ober Deutsche dialects differ from each other by the introduction of peculiar vowels.
The Nieder Deutsche is distinguished from the Ober Deutsche by the shifting of consonants: ex. gr.:
| OBER DEUTSCHE DIALECTS. | NIEDER DEUTSCHE DIALECTS. | |||||||
| High German. | Allem. | Suab. | Bavar. | Franc. | Upper Saxony. | Lower Saxony. | Holländisch. | English. |
| wein. | wi. | wai. | wai. | wein. | wein. | win. | wein. | wine. |
| stein. | stein. | stoi. | stoa. | staan. | steen. | steen. | steen. | stone. |
| weit. | wit. | wait. | wait. | weit. | weit. | wet. | weid. | wide. |
| breit. | breit. | broit. | broat. | braat. | breet. | breet. | breed. | broad. |
| haus. | hus. | haus. | haus. | haus. | haus. | hus. | huis. | house. |
| kaufen. | kaufen. | koufen | kafen. | kafen. | koofen. | koopen. | koopen. | to buy. |
| feuer. | für. | fuir. | foir. | fair. | foier. | für. | für. | fire. |
| kirche. | chilche | kieche | kirche. | kerche | kerche. | kerke. | kerk. | church. |
| herz. | herz. | heaz. | herz. | harz. | harz. | hart. | hart. | heart. |
| gross. | grosz. | grausz | grusz. | grausz | grusz. | groot. | groot. | great. |
| buch. | buech. | busch. | buech. | bouch. | buch. | book. | boek. | book. |
I have introduced here, as a dialect of the Nieder Deutsche, the Dutch = Holländisch, the language spoken by the people of the Nederlanden = Niederlande = Netherlands.
The Nieder Deutsche dialect is also spoken in Westphalia, and along the river Weser, &c.
All these dialects have also their own words, or at least their peculiar meanings of words, as well as particular modes of expression, and these are to be considered as provincialisms.
Professor Goedes de Grüter.