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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?
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