The Eifel dialects (german: Eifeler Mundarten) are those

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...

s spoken in the

Eifel mountains The Eifel (; lb, Äifel, ) is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. They divide into two language regions: the dialects spoken in the southern Eifel (''Eifelisch'') are part of the

Moselle Franconian dialect group __NOTOC__ Moselle Franconian (german: Moselfränkisch, lb, Muselfränkesch) is a West Central German language, part of the Central Franconian languages area, that includes Luxembourgish. It is spoken in the southern Rhineland and along the ...

and closely resemble

Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of t ...

. In the northern Eifel, by contrast, the dialects (''Eifelplatt'') belong to the Ripuarian dialect group and are more like ''

Öcher Platt Southeast Limburgish (Dutch: ''Zuidoost-Limburgs'', Ripuarian: ''Süüdoß-Limburjesch''), also referred to as Southern Meuse-Rhenish, is a subdivision of what recently has been named Meuse-Rhenish. Both terms denote a rather compact grouping of ...

'' or '' Kölsch''. In between there is a

dialect continuum A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...

of typical transitions, whereby more or less every village speaks a little differently from its neighbours.

Linguistic geography

The development of territorial structures in the

Eifel The Eifel (; lb, Äifel, ) is a low mountain range in western Germany and eastern Belgium. It occupies parts of southwestern North Rhine-Westphalia, northwestern Rhineland-Palatinate and the southern area of the German-speaking Community of ...

since the

Roman era In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 B ...

is reflected in the development of the Eifel dialects. From a linguistic point of view, the Eifel can be divided into the Moselle Franconian and the Ripuarian dialect regions. The "Eifel language barrier", which separates the two dialects along a broad strip of territory, extends from the northern part of the

Bitburg-Prüm The Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm ( lb, Äifelkrees Béibreg-Prüm) is a district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) Luxembourg, Belgium and the districts of Euskirchen, Vulkaneifel, Bernkastel-Wittlich an ...

, via Kronenburg,

Blankenheim Blankenheim may refer to: Places * Blankenheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, a municipality in western Germany *Blankenheim, Saxony-Anhalt, a municipality in eastern Germany *Blankenheim Castle, a schloss above the village of Blankenheim in the Eifel mo ...

Nettersheim Nettersheim is a municipality in the district of Euskirchen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the Eifel hills, approx. 20 km south-west of Euskirchen. The rivers Erft and Urft have their source in the municip ...

Altenahr Altenahr () is a municipality in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is the administrative centre for the eponymous collective municipality, to which it belongs. Altenahr is a state-recognised tourist resort and is ra ...

and

Ahrweiler Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler () is a spa town in the German Bundesland of Rhineland-Palatinate that serves as the capital of the Ahrweiler district. The A61 motorway connects the town with cities like Cologne and Mainz. Formed by the merging of the ...

along the

Vinxtbach The Vinxtbach is a stream of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is around long, rises south-southwest of Schalkenbach-Obervinxt and east of the ''Adert'' and discharges into the River Rhine near Rheineck Castle between Bad Breisig and Brohl-Lütz ...

to its confluence with the

Rhine The Rhine ; french: Rhin ; nl, Rijn ; wa, Rén ; li, Rien; rm, label=Sursilvan, Rein, rm, label=Sutsilvan and Surmiran, Ragn, rm, label=Rumantsch Grischun, Vallader and Puter, Rain; it, Reno ; gsw, Rhi(n), including in Alsatian dialect, Al ...

Bad Breisig Bad Breisig () is a town in the district of Ahrweiler, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated on the Rhine, approx. 15 km south-east of Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler. Bad Breisig is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective m ...

. The old Roman border between

Germania superior Germania Superior ("Upper Germania") was an imperial province of the Roman Empire. It comprised an area of today's western Switzerland, the French Jura and Alsace regions, and southwestern Germany. Important cities were Besançon ('' Vesontio ...

and

Germania inferior Germania Inferior ("Lower Germania") was a Roman province from AD 85 until the province was renamed Germania Secunda in the fourth century, on the west bank of the Rhine bordering the North Sea. The capital of the province was Colonia Agrippine ...

ran here too. In the

feudal period Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structur ...

, the border between the Electorate of Trier and

Electorate of Cologne The Electorate of Cologne (german: Kurfürstentum Köln), sometimes referred to as Electoral Cologne (german: Kurköln, links=no), was an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire that existed from the 10th to the early 19th centur ...

also followed this line and, today, the border between

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhab ...

and

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

runs within this strip of land, which in linguistics is also referred to as the Vinxtbach Line or Dorp-Dorf Line.http://www.rheinische-landeskunde.lvr.de/sprache/namen/ortsnamen/ on 3 September 2012 The Eifel dialect is also spoken in the neighbouring

German-speaking Community of Belgium The German-speaking Community (german: links=no, Deutschsprachige Gemeinschaft, or DG; french: links=no, Communauté germanophone; nl, links=no, Duitstalige Gemeenschap), since 2017 also known as East Belgium (german: links=no, Ostbelgien), is ...

. Especially in the southern part of this region, which is also called the

Belgian Eifel The Belgian Eifel (german: belgische Eifel, Luxembourgish: ''Belscher Äifel'') in the German-speaking part of Belgium generally refers to the southern part of the German-speaking community which forms the Canton of Sankt Vith (German: ''Kanton Sa ...

, the dialect has been able to preserve its importance in everyday life. Historically, these territories belonged mainly to the Duchy of Luxembourg (until 1815), while smaller elements belonged to the Electorate of Trier.

Literature

* Fritz Koenn: " - Eifeler Wörter und Ausdrücke gesammelt und kurzweilig erklärt von Fritz Koenn". Helios, Aachen, 1995, . * Hans-Dieter Arntz: ''Jüdisches im Dialekt und Platt der Voreifel und Eifel – Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit durch Erinnerung an sprachliche Relikte''. In: Kreis Euskirchen (publ.): ''Jahrbuch des Kreises Euskirchen 2010'', pp. 8–17.

References

External links

{{Commonscat, Eifel Dialects
www.eifelfux.de - Website with many examples of the Eifel dialect

Central German languages Tonal languages Eifel