Will Kürlich Kerl
Banned
Challenge: Make Low German/Low Saxon considered as a distinct language from regular German, as opposed to only a dialect of German in OTL.
Challenge: Make Low German/Low Saxon considered as a distinct language from regular German, as opposed to only a dialect of German in OTL.
It is, sort of. It's called Dutch.
Isn't there like 2-3 branches to Low German subfamilly?
The one of Dutch and relatives, Low Saxon and... Low Frankonian?
Isn't there like 2-3 branches to Low German subfamilly?
The one of Dutch and relatives, Low Saxon and... Low Frankonian?
Actually, Dutch and Co. are part of the West Low Franconian dialect set. Then there's the Low Saxon (with an East/West division) family, including the more distant Old Low Prussian dialect, which stands apart from the Low Countries dialects (although the Anglo-Frisian dialects were birthed in that portion of *Germany, they diverged from what would become Old Saxon fairly early on due to their isolation).
Actually, Dutch and Co. are part of the West Low Franconian dialect set. Then there's the Low Saxon (with an East/West division) family, including the more distant Old Low Prussian dialect, which stands apart from the Low Countries dialects (although the Anglo-Frisian dialects were birthed in that portion of *Germany, they diverged from what would become Old Saxon fairly early on due to their isolation).
Continental West Germanic can roughly be divided in three groups, Low Frankish, Low Saxon and High German.
However now a part of High German, Central and Upper Franconian do share some roots with Low Frankish (Franconian), especially in the areas where Low and Central Frankish meets the border is fluid. In fact the whole area with Low Frankish, Low Saxon and High German is one dialect continuum.
High Alemannic(specifically Swiss-German and western Austrian-German) can pretty easily be categorized as a separate language or a pretty divergent and mutually incomprehensible dialect. That's the problem with linguistic separation, a lot of it is based on perception rather than reality. Within continental European languages there's pretty much always a clear continuum of dialects that make it difficult to argue for very clear divisions. North Germanic languages, southern Slavic and Western Romance languages could also be argued (until the standardization and politicization of the last few centuries) as being part of a very large dialect continuum themselves held apart more by political insistence than organic differentiation.Your point about cross-dialect blurring is taken, although I've also heard that some High Alemannic dialects can almost be categorized as a separate Continental group and a possible descendant of Langobardic (additional consonant shifts being present there which are not in most Hochdeutsch variants). Part of sharing the same continent for so long makes cross-dialect influences as you describe pretty easy to see happen.
This would be helpful, too.You would have to keep the Hanseatic League which had Low German as its' lingua franca important and powerful in the 16th and 17th centuries and also have an early and high quality Low German bible translation. Keeping the Low Countries within the HRE would also be helpful.
Isn't Low German already considered a language, rather than a dialact by quite many? Most speakers certainly think so. So a relatively small POD is probably enough.