Eastphalian, or Eastfalian (, Eastphalian and Low Saxon: ''ostfälsch Platt''), is a
Low German
Low German is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language variety, language spoken mainly in Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. The dialect of Plautdietsch is also spoken in the Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide. "Low" ...
language spoken in southeastern parts of
Lower Saxony
Lower Saxony is a States of Germany, German state (') in Northern Germany, northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ' of the Germany, Federal Re ...
and western parts of
Saxony-Anhalt
Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of
and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...
in
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
.
Geographical extent
The language area between the
Weser
The Weser () is a river of Lower Saxony in north-west Germany. It begins at Hannoversch Münden through the confluence of the Werra and Fulda. It passes through the Hanseatic city of Bremen. Its mouth is further north against the ports o ...
and
Elbe
The Elbe ( ; ; or ''Elv''; Upper Sorbian, Upper and , ) is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Giant Mountains of the northern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia (western half of the Czech Republic), then Ge ...
rivers stretches from the
Lüneburg Heath
Lüneburg Heath (, ) is a large area of heath (habitat), heath, geest, and woodland in the northeastern part of the state of Lower Saxony in northern Germany. It forms part of the hinterland for the cities of Hamburg, Hanover and Bremen and is ...
in the north to the
Harz
The Harz (), also called the Harz Mountains, is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' der ...
mountain range and
Weser Uplands
The Weser Uplands (German: ''Weserbergland'', ) is a hill region in Germany, between Hannoversch Münden and Porta Westfalica, along the river Weser. The area reaches into three states, Lower Saxony, Hesse, and North Rhine-Westphalia. Important ...
in the south. It comprises the
Hanover Region
Hanover Region () is a districts of Germany, district in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is bounded by (from the north and clockwise) the districts of Heidekreis, Celle (district), Celle, Gifhorn (district), Gifhorn, Peine (district), Peine, Hildeshe ...
,
Brunswick and
Calenberg Land as well as the
Magdeburg Börde, including the cities of
Hanover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
,
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
,
Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; or ; ) is a city in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim (district), Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of t ...
,
Göttingen
Göttingen (, ; ; ) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. According to the 2022 German census, t ...
and
Magdeburg
Magdeburg (; ) is the Capital city, capital of the Germany, German States of Germany, state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is on the Elbe river.
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archbishopric of Mag ...
. It roughly corresponds with the historic region of
Eastphalia
Eastphalia ( �stˈfaːlən Eastphalian: ''Oostfalen'') is a historical region in northern Germany, encompassing the eastern '' Gaue'' (shires) of the historic stem duchy of Saxony, roughly confined by the River Leine in the west and the Elbe a ...
.
Classification
Eastphalian as a separate dialect was determined by 19th century
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, tracing it back to
Old Saxon
Old Saxon (), also known as Old Low German (), was a Germanic language and the earliest recorded form of Low German (spoken nowadays in Northern Germany, the northeastern Netherlands, southern Denmark, the Americas and parts of Eastern Eur ...
variants spoken in eastern parts of the medieval
stem duchy
A stem duchy (, from '':wikt:Stamm, Stamm'', meaning "tribe", in reference to the Franks, Saxons, Baiuvarii, Bavarians and Alemanni, Swabians) was a constituent duchy of the Kingdom of Germany at the time of the extinction of the Carolingian dyna ...
of
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
. Towards the Elbe region in the southeast, the language area is increasingly influenced by the
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development (sound change) that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic languages, West Germanic dialect continuum. The ...
.
Features
The most prominent characteristic in Eastphalian is the object pronouns ''mek'' and ''dek'' in contrast to ''mi'' and ''di'' in Northern Lower Saxon, respectively for High German
''mir'' and ''mich'' resp.
''dir'' and ''dich''), as well as ''öhne'', ''ösch''/''össek'' and ''jöck'' (Northern Low German ''em, u
, jo
u'' High German ''ihm/ihn, uns, euch''). Although Eastphalian agrees with many Low German dialects (with exceptions, e.g., in southern Westphalian) in that the dative has coincided with the accusative in the forms mentioned, its peculiarity is shown by the fact that the accusative has prevailed over the dative in all of these forms (in Northern Low Saxon it is the other way around). In Eastphalian, an accusative of the first person plural has been preserved with the form ''üsch'' and southern Eastphalian ''össek'' (cf. Old High German ''unsih,'' Old English ''ūsic''
esides ''ūs'' also
High Alemannic
High Alemannic is a branch of Alemannic German spoken in the westernmost Austrian state of Vorarlberg and in Switzerland and Liechtenstein. Intelligibility of these dialects to non-Alemannic speakers tends to be limited.
Language area
The High ...
''üs'',
südbairisch ''ins'' in Upper German).
Much like in most Dutch Low Saxon variants, the e-apocope, i.e. the omission of the ''-e'' at the end of the word, as took place in North Lower Saxon, was entirely absent in Eastphalian. Thus, the ablaut ''-e'' in words like ''Sprake'' (language, speech) and ''Wiele'' (while) remains and is not dropped. Furthermore, the ''-e'' is also preserved in nouns in the nominative case, where High German no longer has them either, such as in Harte (heart), Frue (woman), Herre (man), Bäre (bear). The same is true for many adjectives, such as dicke (fat, thick) and wisse (clear, fast; cf. German ''gewiss'') and substantivizing endings such as -unge and -nisse, as well as for the older form -ig(e) / , which developed from Middle Low German ''-inge''. The ''-e'' ending has also survived for nouns in the dative case. Thus, for example, ''uppen Felle'' (on the field).
Another feature of Eastphalian is the residual preservation of the prefix ''ge-'' as ''e-'' in the participle II (past participle) of verbs; since this prefix has also been lost in the very Northern regions of Eastphalia, e. g., for example, in Celle its ''wään'' ("been") is opposed to southern ''ewää(se)n'' , or ''ewest'' . However, this prefix is dropped if the previous word already ends in a schwa like ''-e'' or ''-er''.
Again, this is very similar to most Dutch Low Saxon varieties classified as Westfalian.
Another striking difference between Eastphalian and all other Low German dialects is the absence (or undoing) of sound expansion in open syllable before ''-el, -en, -er'' in the following syllable, e. g. Eastphalian ''Löppel'' , ''betten'' , ''Pepper'' ("spoon, bit, pepper") versus Northern Low Saxon ''Läpel'' , ''bäten'' , ''Päper'' .
Eastphalian also takes its own position in equalizing Old Saxon phonetic positions, especially in reducing vowels distinguished in open syllables, by simplifying more than Westphalian (which has no reduction in its southern dialects), but not going as far as the core area of Northern Lower Saxon (where only three of the original eight vowel phonemes remain). Despite the diversity of the sounds in detail, most of the Eastphalian dialects thus have a common sound system. (In this case, besides the Heide-Eastphalian the Göttingisch-Grubenhagen-Eastphalian - which in this case is in the same position as the East-Westphalian - is left out).
Another thing to mention is that prepositions in most of Eastphalian do not contain an umlaut. These include ''for'' , ''unner'' and ''over'' , as opposed to Northern Lower Saxon ''för'', ''ünner'' and ''över''.
Subdivisions
* Elbe Eastphalian (around
Oschersleben
Oschersleben () is a town in the Börde district, in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. The population in 1905 was 13,271, in 2020 about 19,000.
History
On November 23, 994 Oschersleben was first mentioned in a document by the Emperor Otto III. In 1235 ...
and
Haldensleben
Haldensleben (; Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Halslä'') is a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. It is the administrative seat of the Börde (district), Börde district.
Geography
It is situated on the Ohre river, near the confluence with its ...
in the Magdeburg Börde between
Helmstedt
Helmstedt (; Eastphalian: ''Helmstidde'') is a town on the eastern edge of the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the capital of the District of Helmstedt. The historic university and Hanseatic city conserves an important monumental heritage o ...
and Magdeburg)
* Göttingisch-Grubenhagensch (around Göttingen,
Northeim
Northeim (; ) is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, seat of the Northeim (district), district of Northeim, with a population of 30,118 as of 31 December 2023. It lies on the German Half-Timbered House Road.
History
Northeim is first mentioned in ...
and
Osterode am Harz
Osterode am Harz (, ), often simply called Osterode (Eastphalian dialect, Eastphalian: ''Ostroe''), is a town in south-eastern Lower Saxony in central Germany on the south-western edge of the Harz mountains. It was the seat of government of the ...
* Heide Eastphalian (around
Celle
Celle () is a town and capital of the district of Celle (district), Celle in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany. The town is situated on the banks of the river Aller (Germany), Aller, a tributary of the Weser, and has a population of about ...
, with Northern Low Saxon elements)
* Central Eastphalian is the Eastphalian subdialect spoken in a large area surrounding Braunschweig and Hanover.
** Hildesheimsch (from around
Hildesheim
Hildesheim (; or ; ) is a city in Lower Saxony, in north-central Germany with 101,693 inhabitants. It is in the district of Hildesheim (district), Hildesheim, about southeast of Hanover on the banks of the Innerste River, a small tributary of t ...
and
Peine
Peine (; Eastphalian: ''Paane'') is a town in Lower Saxony, Germany, capital of the district Peine. It is situated on the river Fuhse and the Mittellandkanal, approximately west of Braunschweig, northeast of Hildesheim, and east of Hanover ...
up to
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
)
** Hannoversch (in the city of
Hannover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
)
** Calenbergsch (west of
Hannover
Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...
)
** Einbecksch (around
Einbeck
Einbeck (; Eastphalian: ''Aimbeck'') is a town in the district Northeim, in southern Lower Saxony, Germany, on the German Timber-Frame Road.
History
Prehistory
The area of the current city of Einbeck is inhabited since prehistoric times. Vario ...
)
** Bronswieksch (in the city of
Braunschweig
Braunschweig () or Brunswick ( ; from Low German , local dialect: ) is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Lower Saxony, Germany, north of the Harz Mountains at the farthest navigable point of the river Oker, which connects it to the ...
)
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastphalian Language
Low German
German dialects
Languages of Germany
Saxony-Anhalt
Culture of Lower Saxony
Culture in Braunschweig