East Bergish is a group of dialects of the Bergisches Land Region in western Germany. It combines features of the Westphalian group, the

South Guelderish South Guelderish ( nl, Zuid-Gelders , german: Südgeldersch, ''Kleverländisch'') refers to the easternmost group of Dutch dialects spoken along the lower Rhine (Dutch Nederrijn and German Niederrhein). In its narrower sense, the term refers str ...

or Cleverlands group, and (predominantly) the Limburgish group, of which some of it is part of. South Guelderish covers much of the

Lower Rhine The Lower Rhine (german: Niederrhein; kilometres 660 to 1,033 of the river Rhine) flows from Bonn, Germany, to the North Sea at Hook of Holland, Netherlands (including the Nederrijn or "Nether Rhine" within the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta); al ...

area in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and extends into the Central

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. It is a

Low Franconian Low Franconian, Low Frankish, NetherlandicSarah Grey Thomason, Terrence Kaufman: ''Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics'', University of California Press, 1991, p. 321. (Calling it "Low Frankish (or Netherlandish)".)Scott Shay ...

group, whereas Westphalian belongs to the Low German group. It is also seen as part of the larger

Meuse-Rhenish Meuse-Rhenish (German: ''Rheinmaasländisch'', Dutch: ''Maas-Rijnlands'', and French: ''francique rhéno-mosan'') is the modern term for literature written in the Middle Ages in the greater Meuse-Rhine area, in a literary language that is eff ...

language group. East Bergish is called ' in German. Some East Bergish dialects are '' Bergish dialects. They are seen as ''

Rhinelandic Rhinelandic is a term occasionally used for linguistic varieties of a region on both sides of the Middle and Lower Rhine river in Central West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It has at least two distinct meanings which often ca ...

'' by outsiders.

Literature

Georg Wenker Georg Wenker (January 25, 1852 – July 17, 1911) was a German linguist who began documenting German dialect geography during the late nineteenth century. He is considered a pioneer in this field and contributed several groundbreaking publica ...

: ''Das rheinische Platt''. 1877. ** ''Das rheinische Platt'', (Sammlung deutsche Dialektgeographie Heft 8), Marburg, 1915. * Georg Cornelissen, Peter Honnen, Fritz Langensiepen (editor): ''Das rheinische Platt''. Eine Bestandsaufnahme. Handbuch der rheinischen Mundarten Teil 1: Texte. Rheinland-Verlag, Köln. 1989. * Julius Leithäuser: ''Wörterbuch der Barmer Mundarten nebst dem Abriß der Sprachlehre''. uppertal-Elberfeld, 1929. * Julius Leithäuser: ''Nachträge zum Barmer Wörterbuch''. Wuppertal-Elberfeld, 1936. Languages of Germany Low Franconian languages German dialects North Rhine-Westphalia {{Germanic-lang-stub