Lorraine Franconian ( native name : Plàtt or lottrìnger Plàtt ; French : francique lorrain or platt lorrain ; German : Lothringisch ) is an ambiguous designation for dialects of West Central German ( German : Westmitteldeutsch ), a group of High German dialects spoken in the Moselle department of the former northeastern French region of Lorraine (See Linguistic boundary of Moselle ).
7-663: The term Lorraine Franconian has multiple denotations. Some scholars use it to refer to the entire group of West Central German dialects spoken in the French Lorraine region. Others use it more narrowly to refer to the Moselle Franconian dialect spoken in the valley of the river Nied (in Pays de Nied, whose largest town is Boulay-Moselle ), to distinguish it from the other two Franconian dialects spoken in Lorraine, Luxembourgish to
14-606: Is derived from this dialect as a result of the emigration of numerous " Transylvanian Saxons " between 1100 and 1300, primarily from areas in which the Moselle Franconian dialect was then spoken. Another variety of Moselle Franconian, the Hunsrik , is spoken in some rural areas of southern Brazil , brought by 19th century immigrants from the Hunsrück region in modern Germany. The transition between "dialect" and "separate language"
21-419: Is fluid. The Linguasphere Register lists five dialects of Moselle Franconian (code 52-ACB-dc) with codes -dca to -dce: Also considered part of the Moselle Franconian language are the variants of Lorraine Franconian , Luxembourgish and Transylvanian Saxon dialect . Some Moselle Franconian dialects have developed into standardized varieties which can be considered separate languages, especially due to
28-711: Is spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the course of the Moselle , in the Siegerland of North Rhine-Westphalia , throughout western Rhineland-Palatinate and Saarland , Luxembourg , the south of the German-speaking Community of Belgium and in the neighboring French département of Moselle (in Arrondissement of Boulay-Moselle ). The Transylvanian Saxon dialect spoken in the Transylvania region of Romania
35-548: The language on to their children. Another statistic illustrating the same point is that of all adult men who used Franconian regularly when they were 5, less than 30% use (or used) the language regularly with their own children. Moselle Franconian Moselle Franconian ( German : Moselfränkisch ; Luxembourgish : Muselfränkesch ) is a West Central German language, part of the Central Franconian languages area , that includes Luxembourgish . Moselle Franconian
42-556: The third most-spoken regional language in France, after Occitan and Alsatian ). The most reliable data comes from the Enquête famille carried out by INSEE (360,000 in the 1962 census) as part of the 1999 census, but it gives a somewhat indirect picture of the current situation (see Languages in France for discussion of this survey). About 78,000 people were reported to speak Lorraine Franconian, but fewer than 50,000 passed basic knowledge of
49-459: The west and Rhine Franconian to the east. The German term Lothringisch refers to Rhine Franconian spoken in Lorraine. In 1806 there were 218,662 speakers of Lorraine Franconian in Moselle and 41,795 speakers in Meurthe . In part due to the ambiguity of the term, estimates of the number of Lorraine Franconian speakers in France vary widely, ranging from 30,000 to 400,000 (which would make it
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