Low German

Low German Nedersaksisch Plattdüütsch
Spoken in:	Germany, Netherlands, Denamrk (Norddütschland)
Conworld:	Real world
Total speakers:	unknown
Genealogical classification:	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic      German Low German
Basic word order:	SVO, OVS/V2
Morphological type:	inflecting
Morphosyntactic alignment:	nominative-accusative
Writing system:
Created by:
unknown	1800-Present C.E.

History and Stages

• Stages of Low German
  • Old Saxon
  • Middle Low Saxon
  • Low Saxon aka Low German

Difference between High and Low German

High German differs from other West German languages such as Low German, English, and Dutch in that High German when through the High German Consonant Shift. The High German Consonant Shift (or HGCS) is the sound shift where;

1. Non-geminated voicless stops became fricatives,
2. Geminated, nasal-adjacent and liquid-adjacent voiceless stops became affricates,
3. Voiced stops became voiceless stops, and finally
4. All interdental fricatives (/ð/ and /θ/) became the dental stop and/or Alveolar stop /d̻/ and /d/.
   

The last stage was shared by Low German and Dutch as well as High German.

Orthography

Because there is no standard dialect of Low German, there is no standard orthography. It can often differ by region.

Grammar

Gender and Number

There are three genders in Low German: Neuter, Masculine, and Feminine. There are two numbers as well: Singular and Plural.

Articles

The Masculine and Feminine genders take the definite article de. The Neuter form takes the article dat. The plural for all this is de. This makes it very close to its cousin of Dutch which has a similar pattern (save het instead of dat.)

The Indefinite article is the same for all, it is een, en, and 'n.

Compare these with the German Articles]:

Cases	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Plural (all Genders)
Nominative	de	de	dat	de
Genitive	den (-s)(sien)†	de (ehr)	dat (sien)	de (ehr)
Dative	den	de	dat	de
Accusative	den	de	dat	de

† sien or ehr appear after the noun in Genitive.

Nouns

There are 4 cases, although the dative and accusative are often collapsed together in Low German. This is reflected in the articles as well. The most common form of the plural is found in the ending -s but there are others, similar to those found in Dutch or High German.
Here are examples for all three genders:
Masculine:

Cases	Macker 'Guy'	Mackers'Guys'	Appel 'Apple'	Appeln 'Apples'
Nominative	De Macker	De Mackers	De Appel	De Appeln
Genitive	Den Macker(s) (sien)	De Mackers (ehr)	Den Appels (sien)	De Appeln (ehr)
Dative	Den Macker	De Mackers	Den Appel	De Appeln
Accusative	Den Macker	De Mackers	Den Appel	De Appeln

Feminine:

Cases	Hand 'Hand'	Hände 'Hands'	Fru 'Woman'	Fruuslü 'Women'
Nominative	De Hann	De Hannen	De Fru	De Fruuslü
Genitive	De Hann (ehr)	De Hannen (ehr)	De Fru (ehr)	De Fruuslü (ehr)
Dative	De Hann	De Hannen	De Fru	De Fruuslü
Accusative	De Hann	De Hannen	De Fru	De Fruuslü

Neuter:

Cases	Schiff 'Ship'	Schiffe 'Ships'	Wief'Wife'	Wiefer'Wives'
Nominative	Dat Schipp	De Schipps	Dat Wief	De Wiever
Genitive	Dat Schipp (sien)	De Schipps (ehr)	Dat Wief (sien)	De Wiever (ehr)
Dative	Dat Schipp	De Schipps	Dat Wief	De Wiever
Accusative	Dat Schipp	De Schipps	Dat Wief	De Wiever

Sources and Further Readings

This article is one of quite a few pages about Natlangs. Indo-european natlangs: Balto-Slavic Natlangs: Czech * Russian Celtic Natlangs: Revived Middle Cornish * Pictish Germanic Natlangs: North Germanic Natlangs: Norwegian West Germanic Natlangs: Anglo-Saxon * Dutch * English (Old English * Middle English * Modern English * Scots) * German (High German * Low German) Indo-Iranian Natlangs: Pahlavi Italic Natlangs: French * Italian * Latin * Spanish Debated: Cimmerian Uralic Natlangs: Finnish * Khanty * Mansi * Mordvinic * Proto-Uralic Altaic (controversial): Japanese Sino-Tibetan Natlangs: Uto-Aztecan Natlangs: Nahuatl - Isolate Natlangs: Basque * * Hypothetical/debated Natlangs and Natlang families: Danubian * Europic (obsolete)