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Concept
Meuse-Rhenish
Summary
In linguistics, Meuse-Rhenish (Rheinmaasländisch (Rhml.) is a term with several meanings, used both in literary criticism and dialectology.
As a dialectological term, it was introduced by the German linguist Arend Mihm in 1992 to denote a group of Low Franconian dialects spoken in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, which stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse (in Belgium and the Netherlands) and Rhine (in Germany). It is subdivided into North Meuse-Rhenish and South Meuse-Rhenish dialects (nordrheinmaasländische (kleverländische) und südrheinmaasländische Mundarten). It includes varieties of South Guelderish (Dutch: Zuid-Gelders) and Limburgish in the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, and their German counterparts in German Northern Rhineland, including Kleverländisch and East Bergish (Ostbergisch).
In literary studies, Meuse-Rhenish (Rheinmaasländisch, Rijn-Maaslands or rarely Maas-Rijnlands), francique rhéno-mosan) is as well the modern term for literature written in the Middle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is nowadays usually called Middle Dutch.
Low Rhenish (Niederrheinisch, Nederrijns) is the collective name in German for the regional Low Franconian language varieties spoken alongside the so-called Lower Rhine in the west of Germany.
Low Franconian is a language or dialect group that has developed in the lower parts of the Frankish Empire, northwest of the Benrath line. From this group both the Dutch and later the Afrikaans standard languages have arisen. The differences between Low Rhenish and Low Saxon are smaller than between Low Rhenish and High German. Yet, Low Rhenish does not belong to Low German, but to Low Franconian. Therefore, it could properly be called German Dutch. Indeed, Deutschniederländisch was the official term under the Prussian Reign of the 19th century.
Today, Low Franconian dialects are spoken mainly in regions to the west of the rivers Rhine and IJssel in the Netherlands, in the Dutch speaking part of Belgium, but also in Germany in the Lower Rhine area.
Official source
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