IV.

Low German

Low German, Plattdeutsch or Low Saxon, is spoken in the north, in a narrow fringe along the border between the Netherlands and Germany, and in the northern lowlands as far east and north-east as the River Elbe, including the cities of Münster, Kassel, Bremen, Hanover, Hamburg, and Magdeburg. While it is called Low German (Plattdeutsch) by the Germans, the Dutch refer to the language as Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch) as they see themselves as having a Saxon, not German, heritage. There are many different varieties of Low Saxon in the Netherlands and across north Germany. There is no single modern literary standard, although the literary tradition extends back centuries, so writers tend to use their local variety. As a result of the colonization of the Baltic regions by the Teutonic Knights, Low Saxon spread throughout the lands east of the Elbe to Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, and Pomerania, as well as parts of Prussia. Low Saxon supplied the Scandinavian languages with numerous loanwords, but the language lost currency with the decline of the Hanseatic League. While most German Low Saxon speakers are bilingual in Standard German, most Standard German speakers have difficulty understanding Low Saxon. Standard German is the only official language of instruction used in education. Many linguists believe Low Saxon to have influenced the development of Afrikaans at some point.