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German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language.Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continuum that connects German to the neighboring varieties of Low Franconian and Frisian.
Southern Germany (German: Süddeutschland, [ˈzyːtˌdɔʏtʃlant] ⓘ) is a region of Germany that includes the areas in which Upper German dialects are spoken, which includes the stem duchies of Bavaria and Swabia in present-day Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, and the southern portion of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate that were part of the Duchy ...
The High German languages (German: hochdeutsche Mundarten, i.e. High German dialects), or simply High German (Hochdeutsch [ˈhoːxˌdɔɪ̯t͡ʃ] ⓘ) – 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 ...
In Central Germany (the Middle German area) there is a tendency towards dialect loss. [12] In Southern Germany (the Upper German area) dialects are still in use. [12] Dialects are declining in all regions except for Bavaria. [12] In 2008, 45% of Bavarians claimed to use only Bavarian in everyday communication. [14]
Furthermore, the High Franconian dialects, spoken up to the Speyer line isogloss in the north, are often also included in the Upper German dialect group. Whether they should be included as part of Upper German or instead classified as Central German is an open question, as they have traits of both Upper and Central German and are frequently ...
Bavarian is commonly considered to be a dialect of German, [6] [7] [8] but some sources classify it as a separate language: the International Organization for Standardization has assigned a unique ISO 639-3 language code (bar), [9] and the UNESCO lists Bavarian in the Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger since 2009; however, the classification of Bavarian as an individual language has been ...
After these High German dialects, standard German is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types ...
A feature of his grouping is the intermediate position of two other groups, Elbe Germanic and North Sea Germanic (Anglo-Frisian and Old Saxon), with the latter viewed "floating" being initially part of North Germanic (in the 2nd century BC), but moving closer to the more southerly dialects in the subsequent five centuries. [5]