High German languagesThe High German languages (hochdeutsche Mundarten, i.e. High German dialects), or simply High German (Hochdeutsch) – not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called "High German" – comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and Uerdingen isoglosses in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, and eastern Belgium, as well as in neighbouring portions of France (Alsace and northern Lorraine), Italy (South Tyrol), the Czech Republic (Bohemia), and Poland (Upper Silesia).
LuxembourgLuxembourg (ˈlʌksəmbɜːrɡ ; Lëtzebuerg ˈlətsəbuəɕ; Luxembourg lyksɑ̃buʁ; Luxemburg ˈlʊksm̩bʊʁk), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a small landlocked country in Western Europe. It borders Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France to the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembourg, is one of the four institutional seats of the European Union (together with Brussels, Frankfurt, and Strasbourg) and the seat of several EU institutions, notably the Court of Justice of the European Union, the highest judicial authority.
West Germanic languagesThe West Germanic languages constitute the largest of the three branches of the Germanic family of languages (the others being the North Germanic and the extinct East Germanic languages). The West Germanic branch is classically subdivided into three branches: Ingvaeonic, which includes English and Frisian, Istvaeonic, which encompasses Dutch and its close relatives, and Irminonic, which includes German and its close relatives and variants. English is by far the most-spoken West Germanic language, with more than 1 billion speakers worldwide.
Dialect continuumA dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varieties may not be. This is a typical occurrence with widely spread languages and language families around the world, when these languages did not spread recently.
Proto-Indo-European languageProto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language, and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age.
Franconian (linguistics)Franconian or Frankish is a collective term traditionally used by linguists to refer to many West Germanic languages, some of which are spoken in what formed the historical core area of Francia during the Early Middle Ages. Linguistically, there are no typological features that are typical for all the various dialects conventionally grouped as Franconian. As such, it forms a residual category within the larger historical West Germanic dialect continuum rather than a homogeneous group of closely related dialects.
Moselle (department)Moselle (mɔzɛl) is the most populous department in Lorraine, in the northeast of France, and is named after the river Moselle, a tributary of the Rhine, which flows through the western part of the department. It had a population of 1,046,543 in 2019. Inhabitants of the department are known as Mosellans. On 4 March 1790 Moselle became one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution.
Communes of LuxembourgLuxembourg's 102 communes (Gemengen ɡəˈmæŋən; French: communes; Gemeinden) conform to LAU Level 2 and are the country's lowest administrative divisions. Communes rank below cantons in Luxembourg's hierarchy of administrative subdivisions. Communes are often re-arranged, being merged or divided as demanded by demographic change over time. Unlike the cantons, which have remained unchanged since their creation, the identity of the communes has not become ingrained within the geographical sensations of the average Luxembourger.
Frankish languageFrankish (reconstructed endonym: *Frenkisk), also known as Old Franconian or Old Frankish, was the West Germanic language spoken by the Franks from the 5th to 9th century. After the Salian Franks settled in Roman Gaul, its speakers in Picardy and Île-de-France were outnumbered by the local populace who spoke Proto-Romance dialects. However, many modern French words and place names, including the eventual country's name of "France", have a Frankish (i.e. Germanic) origin.
V2 word orderIn syntax, verb-second (V2) word order is a sentence structure in which the finite verb of a sentence or a clause is placed in the clause's second position, so that the verb is preceded by a single word or group of words (a single constituent). Examples of V2 in English include (brackets indicating a single constituent): "Neither do I", "[Never in my life] have I seen such things" If English used V2 in all situations, then it would feature such sentences like: "[In school] learned I about animals", "[When she comes home from work] takes she a nap" V2 word order is common in the Germanic languages and is also found in Northeast Caucasian Ingush, Uto-Aztecan O'odham, and fragmentarily in Romance Sursilvan (a Rhaeto-Romansh variety) and Finno-Ugric Estonian.
