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23-639: Harsefeld (in High German , in Low Saxon : Harsfeld ; literally horse field ) is a municipality situated south-west of Hamburg (Germany). Harsefeld has a population of c. 12,500 and belongs to the district of Stade , Lower Saxony. Harsefeld is also the seat of the Samtgemeinde ("collective municipality") Harsefeld . In 1104 a Benedictine Archabbey [ de ] was founded in Harsefeld, then within
46-512: A period of Francisation under the auspices of the French government. Similarly, in the Lower Rhine region, local literary Low Franonian varieties were employed in official use until the 17th century, but were subsequently replaced by standard German in most parts, except for Upper Guelders and Cleves (both since 1701 part of Prussia ), where standard Dutch prevailed as literary language. Following
69-414: A synonym. Low Franconian is sometimes, and especially was historically, grouped together with Low Saxon , referred to as Low German . However, this grouping is not based on common linguistic innovations, but rather on the absence of the High German consonant shift . In fact, in nineteenth century literature this grouping could also include English , another West Germanic language that did not undergo
92-512: Is also found in all other High German dialects, and the characteristic pitch accent , which is exclusively shared with Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian . Until the Early Modern Period , all speakers of varieties of Low Franconian used Middle Dutch or Early Modern Dutch as their literary language and Dachsprache . There was a marked change in the 19th century, when the historically Dutch-speaking region of French Flanders underwent
115-649: Is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany , Austria , Liechtenstein , Switzerland , Luxembourg , and eastern Belgium , as well as in neighbouring portions of France ( Alsace and northern Lorraine ), Italy ( South Tyrol ), the Czech Republic ( Bohemia ), and Poland ( Upper Silesia ). They are also spoken in diasporas in Romania , Russia , Canada ,
138-649: Is either defined by the onset of the Second Germanic consonant shift in Eastern Frankish, the assimilation of an unattested coastal dialect showing North Sea Germanic features by West Frankish in the late 9th century, or a combination of both. Old Low Franconian is, on its turn, divided into two subgroups: Old West Low Franconian (spoken in Flanders, Brabant and Holland) and Old East Low Franconian (spoken in Limburg and
161-474: Is now a standard language ). High German varieties are distinguished from other West Germanic varieties in that they took part in the High German consonant shift ( c. AD 500 ) to various degrees. To see this, compare the following: In the southernmost High Alemannic dialects, there is a further shift: Sack (like English/Low German "sack/Sack") is pronounced [z̥ak͡x] ( [k] to [k͡x] ). Old High German evolved from about 500 AD. Around 1200
184-574: The Central Uplands ( Mittelgebirge ) and Alpine areas of central and southern Germany; it also includes Luxembourg, Austria, Liechtenstein, and most of Switzerland. This is opposed to Low German , which is spoken in the lowlands and along the flat sea coasts of the North German Plain . High German can be subdivided into Upper German ( Oberdeutsch ) and Central or Middle German ( Mitteldeutsch , this includes Luxembourgish , which itself
207-617: The Duchy of Saxony . After the carve-up of the duchy in 1180, Harsefeld belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen , a new territory of imperial immediacy of the Holy Roman Empire . In the mid-16th century, when most inhabitants of the prince-archbishopric adopted Lutheranism, the archabbey remained a stronghold of Catholicism. During the Leaguist occupation under Tilly (1628–1630),
230-466: The Dutch language and its historical forms , Low Franconian is occasionally used interchangeably with Dutch , though the latter term can have a broader as well as narrower meaning depending on the specific context. English publications alternatively use Netherlandic as a synonym of Low Franconian at its earlier historical stages, thereby signifying the category's close relation to Dutch, without using it as
253-660: The Dutch language . Most dialects and languages included within this category are spoken in the Netherlands , northern Belgium ( Flanders ), in the Nord department of France, in western Germany ( Lower Rhine ), as well as in Suriname , South Africa and Namibia . Low Franconian is a purely linguistic category and not used as a term of self-designation among any of the speakers of the Germanic dialects traditionally grouped within it. Within
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#1733085469098276-713: The Early modern period , the Early New High German varieties, especially the East Central German of the Luther Bible , formed an important basis for the development of Standard German. Divisions between subfamilies within Germanic are rarely precisely defined, because most form continuous clines, with adjacent dialects being mutually intelligible and more separated ones not. In particular, there has never been an original " Proto-High German ". For this and other reasons,
299-502: The Swabian and East Franconian varieties of Middle High German became dominant as a court and poetry language ( Minnesang ) under the rule of the House of Hohenstaufen . The term "High German" as spoken in central and southern Germany ( Upper Saxony , Franconia , Swabia , Bavaria ) and Austria was first documented in the 15th century. Gradually driving back Low German variants since
322-632: The United States , Brazil , Argentina , Mexico , Chile , and Namibia . High German is marked by the High German consonant shift , separating it from Low German (Low Saxon) and Low Franconian (including Dutch ) within the continental West Germanic dialect continuum . As a technical term, the "high" in High German is a geographical reference to the group of dialects that forms "High German" (i.e. "Highland" German), out of which developed Standard German , Yiddish and Luxembourgish . It refers to
345-895: The Duchy, before France annexed it in 1810. In 1813 the Duchy was restored to the Electorate of Hanover , which – after its upgrade to the Kingdom of Hanover in 1814 – incorporated the Duchy in a real union and the Ducal territory, including Harsefeld, became part of the Stade Region , established in 1823. [REDACTED] Media related to Harsefeld at Wikimedia Commons High German The High German languages ( German : hochdeutsche Mundarten , i.e. High German dialects ), or simply High German ( Hochdeutsch [ˈhoːxˌdɔɪ̯t͡ʃ] ) – not to be confused with Standard High German which
368-687: The Rhineland). Old West Low Franconian "is the ancestor ultimately of Dutch". Low Franconian includes: South Low Franconian occupies a special position among the Low Franconian subgroups, since it shares several linguistic features with Ripuarian dialects spoken to the southeast, such as the conditioned split of the West Germanic diphthongs *ai and *au (e.g. in Roermonds *ai splits to /eː/ and /ɛi/, *au to /oː/ and /ɔu/), which apart from Ripuarian
391-517: The archabbey became a starting point for the attempts of re-Catholicisation. In 1648 the prince-archbishopric was transformed into the Duchy of Bremen , which was first ruled in personal union by the Swedish crown. The new rulers dissolved the archabbey and most of its structures fell in ruins after 1648. From 1715 on, the House of Hanover ruled the duchy. In 1807 the ephemeric Kingdom of Westphalia annexed
414-455: The consonant shift. The term Frankish or Franconian as a modern linguistic category was coined by the German linguist Wilhelm Braune (1850–1926). He divided Franconian which contained both Germanic dialects which had and had not experienced the Second Germanic consonant shift into Low, Middle and High Franconian , with the use of Low signifying that this category did not participate in
437-485: The dialects generally being accepted to be the most direct descendants of Old Frankish. As such, Old Dutch and Middle Dutch , together with loanwords in Old French , are the principal languages used to reconstruct Old Frankish using the comparative method . Within historical linguistics, Old Low Franconian is synonymous with Old Dutch. Depending on the author, the temporal boundary between Old Dutch and Old Frankish
460-420: The field of historical philology , the terminology for the historical phases of Low Franconian is not analogous to the traditional Old High German / Middle High German and Old Low German / Middle Low German dichotomies, with the terms Old Dutch and Middle Dutch commonly being preferred to Old Low Franconian and Middle Low Franconian in most contexts. Due to the category's strong interconnection with
483-455: The idea of representing the relationships between West Germanic language forms in a tree diagram at all is controversial among linguists. What follows should be used with care in the light of this caveat. Low Franconian languages In historical and comparative linguistics , Low Franconian is a linguistic category used to classify a number of historical and contemporary West Germanic varieties closely related to, and including,
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#1733085469098506-546: The incoporation of Upper Guelders and Cleves into the Prussian Rhine Province , there was extensive Germanisation , and Dutch was replaced by German for official use, and its use discouraged in favor of German in the public sphere, leading to a rapid decline in the use of standard Dutch. Vernacular Low Franconian varieties continue to be spoken in the Lower Rhine region to this day, but many speakers have switched to local colloquial forms of German ( Umgangssprache ) since
529-606: The sound shift. Despite the name, the diachronical connection to Old Frankish , the unattested language spoken by the Franks , is unclear for most of the varieties grouped under the broad "Franconian" category, mainly due to the heavy influence of Elbe Germanic / High German features in the Middle and High Franconian varieties following the Migration Period . The dialects of the Low Franconian grouping form an exception to this, with
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