Question About Rhineland dialects/Dutch

So, something that confuses me-Wikipedia seems to think there's some sort of "Franconian" dialect continuum that goes from the Netherlands all the way to somewhere near Saxony. However, other sources I've looked at group the green and blue parts of that map with High German, which (IIRC) is a totally different language from Low German and Dutch.

So, since we have some Germans on this board, I thought I'd ask-is wikipedia correct here? Is there any sort of particular relationship between Dutch and the local dialects of Cologne and Frankfurt? In a TL were the Rhineland and Netherlands were united under one polity (say, a Burgundy that's really successful at expanding to its east), how likely would it be for all the local dialects of that area to unite into one language?
 
I'm not an expert, but the dutch wiki shows that the "Franconian" dialect continuum consists of 2 parts: Low Franconian in the Netherlands and West Central German (consisting of Central Franconian and Rhine Franconian) in Germany.
300px-Frankischetalen.png
 
IIRC, the low German/HighGerman disticinction is based upon a consonant shift that occured in high german but not low german. Anyways the point is that shift occurred within existing multiple dialect continua at the time of the shift. so for example, the franconian dialect continuum os divided into low franconian and high feanconian and the saxon dialrct continuum is divided into low saxon and high saxon.

I'm not sure how the aame shift occurred in parallel accross the franconian (on one side) and saxon (on the other) languages although I'm sure folks who have actually studied Germanic linguistics have a better answer.
 
It's not a close genetic relationship, if that's what you're asking (and justinNL's map's way off, if you ask me). They share some areal features, and a few similar developments, but before they grew together a bit they had quite different, developments, with both dialect groups picking up different features that would massively alter them years before the term 'Frankish' was invented. And we're talking 1AD here. So, they're similar in some marked ways (and if you dig a bit deeper you'll find the bordering French dialects share some features, too), but their differences go pretty deep.

IIRC, the low German/HighGerman disticinction is based upon a consonant shift that occured in high german but not low german. Anyways the point is that shift occurred within existing multiple dialect continua at the time of the shift. so for example, the franconian dialect continuum os divided into low franconian and high feanconian and the saxon dialrct continuum is divided into low saxon and high saxon.

I'm not sure how the aame shift occurred in parallel accross the franconian (on one side) and saxon (on the other) languages although I'm sure folks who have actually studied Germanic linguistics have a better answer.
Saxon and Low German actually are synonyms. What's so confusing is that German linguists have this annoying tendency to completely equate High/Low with the High German Consonant shift, which is dividing a group by it's most outlying member. The High German consonant shift doesn't make High German High German; there are parts where it's happened more so than others. There are High German dialects where not all parts of the Shift happened (West Central is one), and even Dutch has incorporated a few HGCS features.

Looking at the world through a High German Consonant Shift lens means pretending the differences between Dutch, Frisian, Saxon and technically English (!) are smaller than the ones between those and High German. Even if you ignore English, that's still more than a little bizarre when you look at it from literally any other perspective.
 
Depends on the time frame. Nowadays those German regions speak High German dialects, except for klevish. But in the late Middle Ages, that continuum was certainly there, although not as far South as Frankfurt and no longer as far East as saxony.

What it would take to consolidate that? Calvinist victory on the rhine??
 
Somewhat tangential but related to the OP in light of the post by @Theodoric then; which "Franconian" dialect set is closest to the original Frankish language, the High or Low one? And let's not be pedantic over what I mean by Frankish, in this case I'm talking about the Salian branch.
 
Somewhat tangential but related to the OP in light of the post by @Theodoric then; which "Franconian" dialect set is closest to the original Frankish language, the High or Low one? And let's not be pedantic over what I mean by Frankish, in this case I'm talking about the Salian branch.
Looking at this map:
Germanic_dialects_ca._AD_1.png

And this one:
320px-Les_Francs_entre_400_et_440.svg.png

I would suggest Low Franconian.
 
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