East Frisian Low Saxon
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East Frisian Low Saxon, as a member of the Low Saxon language family is a dialect spoken in the Eastern Friesland peninsula of northwestern Lower Saxony. It is used quite frequent in every day talk there. About half of the East Frisian population in the coastal region uses Platdüütsk. A lot of people although not being active speakers of Low Saxon are able to understand it to some extent. But both active speaking and passive understanding are in a state of decrease.
Although an eastern dialect of the Frisian is spoken by about 2000 People in the three villages of Ramsloh, Strücklingen and Scharrel in the Saterland region outside Eastern Friesland, East Frisian Low Saxon is unrelated to Frisian.
There are several dialects in Eastern Friesland Low Saxon:
- Standard East Frisian Low Saxon north of Leer, east of the river Ems and
- Brookmer Platt in the Brookmerland and Aurich (Auerk) area and
- Rheiderländer Platt west of the river Ems around the city of Weener
East Frisian Low Saxon differs from the Northern Low Saxon language by many details which are often Frisian heritage. East Frisia and Groningen (NL) used to be inhabitated by Frisians, so the current Low Saxon dialects build on Frisian substrate, which has led to a large amount of own vocabulary, grammatical and phonological structures which differ from other Low Saxon variants.
We find a frequent use of diminutives like in the Dutch language, f.ex. Footjes = litte feet, Kluntje = piece of sugar. In many cases diminutives of names especially female ones have become names of their own. For example: Antje (from Anna), Trientje (from Trina = Katharina) etc.
Based on the special history of Eastern Friesland there are influences and loans from French and the Dutch language which in parts of East Frisia for a long time was the language of the church.
The dialects spoken in East Frisia are closely related to those spoken in the Dutch provincy of Groningen (Grunnegs, Grünnigs) and in Northern Drenthe (Noordenvelds). The biggest difference seem to be that of loanwords (from Dutch or German, resp.) and the vowel shift in Gronings: [Ei] -> [Ai, Oi], [Ai] -> [ai], [ou] -> [Au] etc.
Examples (East Frisian Low Saxon / Gronings / Northern Low Saxon / English)
- [hø:@] = [hø:@] = [e@] = her
- [mo:i] = [mo:i] = [Sœ.in] = beautiful, nice, fine
- [vas] = [vas] = [vE.i@] = was
- [gebø:r|n] = [G@bø:r|n] = [passe.rn] = to happen
- [prO.t|n, pro:t|n] = [pro.t|n] = [snak|n] = to talk
The standard greeting formula is Moin (moi in Gronings), used 24 hours a day. It is nowadays used in whole northern Germany, but more and more spreading to the east, west and south.
Links
- http://www.oostfreeske-taal.de Ostfreeske Taal
- http://www.diesel-online.de Diesel - dat oostfreeske Bladdje, the trilingual East Frisian newspaper
- http://www.holger-weigelt.de/projekte/platt/plattrahmen.htmlde:Ostfriesisch