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Continental West Germanic dialect continuum

The continental West Germanic dialect continuum emcompasses all West Germanic varieties that are spoken on mainland Europe, with the exception of the Frisian languages.

These West Germanic dialects are traditionally discussed as dialects of Dutch and German depending on the literary language of the area where they are spoken, but they actually form an unbroken dialect continuum: while neighboring varieties are usually mutually intelligible, mutual intelligibility decreases with growing distance.

In spite of its nature as a dialect continuum, the distribution of characteristic innovations allows for a division into distinct dialect groups. On the highest level, three groups can be distinguished: Low Franconian, Low Saxon/Low German and High German. These three groups cut across the boundaries set by modern literary languages: while the great majority of High German dialects are spoken in the region where Standard German serves as literary language, both Low Saxon and Low Franconian are distributed over the German and Dutch literary domains.

Classification

See also: Dutch dialects and German dialects

The Benrath and Speyer lines delineating the High German dialect area with Central German (light blue) and Upper German (green). The yellow area was not affected by the High German consonant shift and comprises Low German, Low Franconian, and Frisian varieties.

The Einheitsplural line (red), dividing Low Saxon (orange) from Low Franconian (yellow).

The continental West Germanic dialects can be broadly divided into three groups, based on linguistic changes that already occurred in the early Middle Ages:

• Low Franconian
• Low Saxon
• High German

High German is set off from the other two groups by the High German consonant shift that affected the tenues *t, *p and *k, with *t shifting to /ts/ or /s/ in all dialects, while the shift of *p and *k is positionally constrained in the northern part of High German area and increasingly affects all positions when moving to the south. The scope of the shift of geminate *pp to /pf/ is used in German dialectology to divide the Upper German subgroup from the Central German subgroup. Further, High German displays a split of the rising diphthongs *au and *ai underwent a split in High German: they were retained as diphthongs in most environments, but became mid long monophthongs before certain consonants.

Low Saxon (usually called Niederdeutsch 'Low German' or Plattdeutsch in Germany) is primarily characterized by the occurrence of the "unitary plural" (German: Einheitsplural, Dutch: eenheidspluralis): while Proto-Germanic had distinct verb endings for all three persons in the plural, Low Saxon dialects have a uniform ending for all three persons.

Next to the absence of the High German consonant shift and the (historical) absence of the unitary plural, Low Franconian is defined by the cross-section of two innovations, one of which is shared with Low Saxon, while the other also occurs in High German. Low Franconian and Low Saxon share the (near-)unconditioned monophthongization of *ai and *au to /eː/ and /oː/), although a transitional area in the southeast (=South Low Franconian) takes part the High German split. A feature shared by High German and Low Franconian is the shift of the Proto-West Germanic mid long vowels *ē₂ and *ō to falling diphthongs /ie/ and /uo/ (often simplified to /iː/ and /uː/, as in standard Dutch and German). Low Saxon varieties mostly retain the mid monophthongs (although secondary diphthongization occurs in some areas).

These dialect groups are not to be understood in a rigid manner, since each in turn displays a high degree of internal diversification, while dialects spoken in the vicinty, but on opposite sides of the main dividing lines between the major groups are often mutually intelligible. For instance, one can follow a continuous north-to-south sequence of mutually intelligible dialects from Zeelandic (Low Franconian), Brabantian (Low Franconian), Limburgish (Low Franconian), Ripuarian (Central German), Moselle Franconian (Central German), South Franconian (Upper German) to Swabian (Upper German); speakers of each dialect can understand the dialect of their respective immediate neighbors, but will experience difficulties to comprehend more distant dialects. As a result, the choice of larger dialect divisions with sharp borders often becomes arbitrary; only the differences between varieties spoken at the most extremes (e.g. Zeelandic and Tyrolian) intuitively suggest that these varieties must belong to different diasystems (i.e. dialect groups or languages).

Relation to Anglo-Frisian

See also: Anglo-Frisian and North Sea Germanic

The Anglo-Frisian languages form a separate branch within the West Germanic languages. The terms "Ingvaeonic" or "North Sea Germanic" are used to emphasize the connections between innovations found in Anglo-Frisian and the continental Germanic Low German varieties. However, Low German shares a number of features with Low Franconian that are not shared by Anglo-Frisian. Additionally, both Low Franconian and Low Saxon have a mixture of Ingvaeonic features ("Ingvaeonisms") and non-Ingvaeonic features; while a majority of scholars count Low German as part of North Sea Germanic, others dispute its membership. At least at least some of this mixture comes from early and pervasive influence from High German dialects, probably beginning around 700 CE. Within Low Franconian, Ingvaeonisms can be further divided into older Ingvaeonisms, which are found through Low Franconian, and younger Ingvaeonisms, which are only found in the coastal areas.

"Ingvaeonisms"

Loss of nasal consonants before spirants

Further information: Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law

In North Sea Germanic, a nasal followed by a fricative is lost after a short vowel, resulting in compensatory lengthening of that vowel. This feature is found consistently in the Old Saxon stage of Low German and sometimes in Low Franconian.

Middle Low German dialects restore many nasal consonants lost through the spirant law, giving forms such as ander rather than Old Saxon othar ("other"). In some words, the presence or absence of the nasal fluctuates by dialect, with western dialects using us ("us") while eastern dialects use uns. Some of these changes may be due to leveling of forms with and without the nasal, while others point to High German influence. High German influence on Low Saxon vocabulary is already visible in the Old Saxon period, as Old Saxon attests words such as kind and urkundeo that do not follow the nasal spirant law.

Low Franconian shows show cases of the nasal spirant law through its whole dialect area, such as vijf ("five" cf. High German fünf), whereas others are restricted to coastal dialects, such as mui(den), used for river mouths in place names and cognate with standard Dutch mond "mouth".

r-metathesis

Metathesis of vowel sequences and r has traditionally been considered to be a North Sea Germanic trait, being found commonly in Frisian, slightly less commonly in English. It is a common feature of Northern continental West Germanic dialects, and is found in standard Dutch, but almost entirely absent in standard High German. Both Middle Dutch and Middle Low German are securely attested as metathesizing sequences of -rV- (where V = any short vowel) to -Vr- before t, d, s, n in a closed syllable. This creates a contrast with High German words: Dutch borst vs. High German Brust, and in place names, between -born and -bronn/-brunn. However, it now appears that metathesis in both languages represents an independent development, with Low German perhaps connected to Frisian, but Dutch developing metathesis first in an unconnected geographic area. Arjen Versloot and Elżbieta Adamczyk argue that metathesis is a common enough linguistic process that it is not a useful diagnostic for Old Saxon's membership in North Sea Germanic.

Metathesis of r clusters is attested in Old Saxon from the 9th century onward, when a Westphalian manuscript attests hers "horse" (cf. High German Ross); however, it is possible that this form is a loanword from Frisian. Other infrequent cases of metathesis have been argued to exist from then onward, especially in forms of names ending in -berht; metathesized forms of the word for "horse" are found in three of the four attested Old Saxon dialects (the fourth does not attest the word), with Westphalian showing a mix of metathesized and non-metathesized forms. From Westphalia, metathesis also spread into the High German Ripuarian and Middle Franconian dialects, and eventually reaching Upper German Lower Alemannic dialects on the Upper Rhine. Metathesis initially follows the same rules as in Westphalian, but it became more infrequent and phonetically restricted as the change moved southward. The metathesized form that has spread the farthest to the south is bersten ("burst"), which has replaced earlier bresten in standard German. In modern High German dialects, metathesized forms are restricted to Central German; earlier metathesized forms have been reversed in favor of unmetathesized ones in many places.

For Dutch, metathesis of the same type as Low German is first attested between 1050 and 1150 in Flanders. The number of words affected decreases as one travels East from Flanders; Flemish also has metathesis in some open syllables, such as verde vs. standard Dutch vrede ("peace"). Additionally, the sequence -vR- metathesized if followed by -xt, giving forms such as vrucht rather than High German Furcht ("fright"). This change is found in most Franconian dialects besides Limburgian by the early Middle Dutch period.

Palatalization of velars

The Ingvaeonic languages have a tendency to palatalize the velar consonants /k/ and /ɡ/ before the front vowels /i/ and /e/. Scholars disagree whether this feature occurred in a common proto-language stage or developed later, with Old Saxon evidence perhaps suggesting the former.

In Old and Middle Saxon, palatalized forms of /k/ and /ɡ/ (=[ɣ] in most positions) are common, with palatalized /k/ indicated in the orthography by <ki> (e.g. kiennen, cf. High German kennen) or in some cases by <z> (e.g. zind, cf. High German Kind), while palatalized /g/ was indicated by <i(j)> or sometimes <gi> (e.g. ielden, cf. High German gelten). The palatalization of /k/ probably occurred over a wide area and to differing amounts in different dialects; in modern Low German, it has in most but not all cases been reversed to /k/. Outside of many place names, one modern survival is the word sever ("beetle"), still used in many Low German dialects and equivalent to High German Käfer. Earlier /ɡ/, on the other hand, often alternates with /j/ or is a palatal fricative in modern Low German German dialects, often including in the environment of back vowels.

Dutch and German may also show some evidence for far less widespread palatalization of /ɡ/, with older texts showing variation between <g> and <i/j>. However, palatalization is dismissed as a cause by most authorities.

Fronting of *a

The fronting of *a is found consistently in Old English and Old Frisian (e.g. Old English dæg vs. Old High German tac "day"), but took place only partially in Low Saxon and Low Franconian, producing doublets of words with a/e in Old Saxon. In Middle Low German, most of these doublets were eliminated in favor of the a version: of the Old Saxon variants glas and gles only glas is found in Middle Low German.

Sound changes

Next to the High Germanic consonant shift and the charateristic changes involving Proto-Germamic diphthongs and long mid vowels, several sound changes have affected to various degrees the varieties of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum across the borders between Low Franconian, Low Saxon and High German.

Vowels

Umlaut

See also: Germanic umlaut

i-Umlaut refers to a process of vowel raising and/or fronting of vowels when i/j occurred later in the word. Umlaut processes can be divided into three categories: "primary umlaut", that is, the raising of short /a/ to /e/ when followed later in the word by /i/ or /j/; "secondary umlaut", the raising of /a:/ to /æ:/ before /i-j/; and then "general umlaut", the fronting of /u(:)/ and /o(:)/ to /y(:)/ and /ø(:)/. While all West Germanic dialects are affected by "primary umlaut", not all are affected by "secondary" or "general umlaut". Scholars debate the exact manner in which i-umlaut occurred; in the earliest attested forms of High German, Old Low Franconian, and Old Saxon, only "primary umlaut" is marked in writing, although in Old High German and Old Saxon, other vowels must have experienced umlaut. Among the modern dialects, the two areas lacking some umlaut, namely Low Franconian and Upper German, are on opposite sides of the West Germanic dialect continuum.

In Low Franconian, "secondary" and "general" umlaut are confined to eastern dialects. As one travels eastward from the coast, one encounters progressively more umlaut effects, with first /a:/ and then /o:/ also being affected. Coastal Western Flemish varieties lack "secondary umlaut" of /a:/, a feature shared with the dialects of North and South Holland. Other southern varieties of Flemish Dutch do have "secondary umlaut." Additionally, Low Franconian varieties block primary umlaut in cases where /x/ and a consonant intervene between the /a/ and /i-j/: thus standard Dutch machtig vs. standard German mächtig. "General umlaut" of West Germanic /*o:/ and /*au/ are only found in eastern dialects, with the exception of the area around Utrecht. Most Low Franconian dialects, as well as Standard Dutch, completely lack the umlaut of long vowels (/a:/, /o:/, /u:/). The more limited application of umlaut in Dutch results in contrasts between standard Dutch and standard German such as kaas vs. Käse, horen vs. hören, and groeten vs. grüßen. Low Franconian varieties that have general umlaut can be further divided into dialects which only have umlaut as a historical sound shift in the lexcion, and those which have umlaut as a part of inflectional morophology (e.g. plural formation, verb conjugation). This morphological umlaut is restricted to South Low Franconian (e.g. Limburgish /vuːt/ 'foot' vs. /vyːt/ 'feet') and to the easternmost part of the Brabantian and Kleverlandish dialect areas. Dutch Low Saxon varieties display the same division: while all have general umlaut in individual words, morphological umlaut is restricted to the eastern dialects.

The southern High German dialects Bavarian and Alemannic show more umlaut than Low Franconian, but also have a number of forms where "general umlaut" is lacking. In these dialects, umlaut of /u/ is most often missing when formerly geminated /kk/ or /xx/ intervene between it and /i-j/: southern Upper German muck, ʃduk, khuxɘ, lu:ge vs. standard German Mücke, Stück, Küche, Lüge. In the Appenzeller dialect, umlaut of /u/ also fails before geminate /mm/, while Alemannic also sometimes blocks umlaut of /u/ before intervening /pf/, /kx/, and /ts/. Modern standard German has adopted some forms featuring umlaut-blocking, including suchen (cf. Low German sööken) and um (from Old High German umbi, cf. Low German öm).

Monophthongization of *au and *ai

The Proto-Germanic diphthongs *ai and *au fully or partially undergo monophthongization to ē and ō in Continental West Germanic, in contrast to Anglo-Frisian, where reflexes as ā and ēa dominate.

In Old Saxon, *au is always reflected as ō. In Middle Low Saxon, this o-sound is generally spelled in the same way as the reflex of original *ō. Yet, it must have been phonetically different since it has reflexes distinct from the latter in many modern Low Saxon dialects; for this reason it is notated as ō² in scholarly works (e.g. eastern Westphalian brō²t > /braut/ 'bread' vs. kō¹ken > /kɛokən/ 'cake', with ō¹ < *au).

Most dialects of Old Low Franconian show a parallel development to Old Saxon, with *au becoming /ō/ except when *au was followed by *w, in which case /ou/ was produced (e.g. houwen "to hew"); this change probably dates to the beginning of the 8th century. Old High German, on the other hand, retains a diphthong in most cases, shifting *au to /ou/ except when *au occurred before /x/ or a dental consonant, in which case it also become /ō/.

Proto-Germanic *ai split into *ē and *ei in Old Saxon, Old Low Franconian and Old High German, however under different conditions. In Old Saxon and most of Old Low Franconian, the monophthong *ē is the regular outcome unless the following syllable contained /i/ or /j/, in which case the diphthong *ei occurred. Middle and Modern Dutch still reflect the original distribution of these sounds. In Middle Low Saxon, both were often spelled alike, but are distinguished from each other (and from two other sources of ⟨ē⟩) in academic notation as ē² (corresponding to Low Franconian *ē) and ē³ ((corresponding to Low Franconian *ei). The former is mostly reflected as /eː/ in modern dialects, while the latter usually has become /ai/, e.g. hē²t > /heːt/ 'hot' and rē³n > /rain/ 'pure' in Münsterland Westphalian.

In High German, *ai generally appears as ei and only shifted to ē before in r, w, h and in absolute final postion. This type of split extends to the north beyond the Benrath line into the southeastern part of the Low Franconian area and is one of the features that defines the South Low Franconian dialect group.

The diphthongal realization of ei and ou is retained in many High German dialects, often with further modifications such as ei > /ɔi/ (Swabian) or /ɔa/ (Central Bavarian). Secondary monophthongization is also widespread; its outcome is usually distinct from the original monophthongs. E.g., Central Hessian has ei, au > /aː/, while Ripuarian dialects have /eː/ and /oː/. In both dialect groups (and also in East Franconian and Upper Saxon dialects), the original monophthongs ē and ō were raised to /iː/ and /uː/.

Development of Proto-West Germanic *ē² and *ō

Early West Germanic had two long mid vowels, *ē² and *ō. While *ō was a straightforward continuation of the Proto-Germanic vowel, *ē² had developed from various sources the details of which are disputed. Original Proto-Germanic *ē had shifted to *æ in Northwest Germanic and was further lowered to *ā in Continental West Germanic (except for isolated Ingvaeonisms in Low Saxon and Low Franconian).

In Old Low Franconian and Old High German, *ē² and *ō became falling diphthongs /ie/ and /uo/. These are generally retained as falling diphthongs in Alemannic and Bavarian dialects, while they became high monophthongs /iː/ and /uː/ in East Franconian, most Low Franconian and many Central German dialects (including standard Dutch and standard German). In Moselle Fraconian, Ripuarian Fraconian and South Low Franconian, the most common reflexes are /eː/ and /oː/. In North Bavarian, Central Hessian and some Moselle Franconian dialects, the rising diphthongs /ei/ and /ou/ appear.

In Low Saxon, the long mid vowels mostly appear unchanged in the early literary record of Old Saxon (although they are occasionally spelled ie and uo). In Middle Low German, they are also generally written as mid monophthongs wihouth being distinguished from mid monophthongs from other sources. In academic descriptions of Middle Low German, the reflexes of *ē² and *ō are conventionally transcribed as ē⁴ and ō¹, based on the historical source and and the various realizations of these mid monophthongs in modern Low Saxon dialects. They appear as /eː/ and /oː/ in northern Low Saxon dialects, but became diphthongs in large parts of Westphalian and Eastphalian, e.g. kō¹ken > /kaukən/ 'cake', flē⁴gen > /flaigən/ 'fly (v.)' in southern Westphalian. In Low Saxon varieties spoken on both sides close to the Dutch–German border, the monophthongs are raised to near-high /ɪː/ and /ʊː/, while they have become high vowels /iː/ and /uː/ in most Dutch Low Saxon dialects spoken further west.

Developed of West Germanic *eu

The Proto-West Germanic diphthong *eu develops in different ways in the different dialects. Most dialects of High German, Low Franconian, and Low Saxon follow the "Franconian rule," according to which *eu lowered to /io/ before a low vowel in the next syllable except before /w/, and became /iu/ elsewhere: *beuda > OHG biotan. In Bavarian and Alemannic, however *eu was only lowered to /io/ if not before a labial or velar consonant except h, otherwise it became /iu/, regardless of the following vowel: *beuda > biutan.

In all dialects, /io/ merged with reflexes of Proto-West Germanic *ē². Most upper German dialects have retained earlier /iu/ as a separate diphthong until the present. Other dialects have instead merged it with /yː/ or /uː/ in the High Middle Ages. In southern Low Franconian dialects, the reflexes of earlier /io/ and /iu/ have both merged to /ie/, something also found in more northern Low Franconian dialects before /r/.

Diphthonization of high vowels

The long high vowels *ī and *ū (and also umlauted *ǖ /yː/) independently became diphthongs in two large disjunct areas of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum (and also in the West Germanic Anglic varieties on the British Isles): in the southeastern part having radiated out from the Bavarian to much of the High German area; and in large parts the Low Franconian area in the northwest, with the Brabantian dialect as a historical starting point. Both standard Dutch and standard German are based on varieties that have undergone the diphthonization of high vowels, as in Dutch ijs /ɛis/ and German Eis /ais/ from Middle Dutch/Middle High German īs 'ice'.

Among High German dialects, diphthongization is first documented in Bavarian dialects in Carinthia and Tyrol starting from the 12th century. By the 15th century, it had reached its current extent. The diphthongization area covers all of Bavarian, East Franconian, most of Rhine Franconian, Moselle Franconian and East Central German, and the Swabian branch of the Alemannic dialect group. The high vowels remained unchanged in almost all Alemannic varieties spoken to the west and south of Swabian (with small isolated pockets of diphthongizing dialects in the High Alemannic and Highest Alemannic areas), in adjacent Rhine Franconian and Moselle Franconian dialects spoken in Lorraine, in the Moselle Franconian dialects of the Siegerland, in Ripuarian, and in a contiguous area formed by Hessian and Thuringian dialects spoken on both sides of the divide between West and East Central German.

In the Low Franconian area, the diphthongization started in the early Modern Dutch period (i.e. the 1500s) in the Brabantian and East Flemish areas, and from there spread to the north to Holland and Utrecht. The old long high vowels were retained in the southwest in West Flemish and Zeelandic, and in Kleverlandish and most of South Low Franconian in the east (except for much of West Limburgish).

In Low Saxon, long high vowels remained for the most part unchanged. Diphthonization only occurred (independent of the Low Franconian and High German vowel shifts) in a limited area comprising eastern Westphalian dialects and neighboring dialects of the Eastphalian group, e.g. hūs > /hius/ 'house', īs > /uis/ 'ice'.

The common West Germanic drift towards diphthonization of high vowels can be explained by assuming that *ī and *ū where phonetically [ij] and [uw] in the entire West Germanic area and thus inherently prone to diphthongization. This is corroborated by the fact that in Ripuarian and in the non-dipthongizing varieties of South Low Franconian, high long vowels behave like rising diphthongs (and also like combinations of short vowels with syllable-closing sonorants /l, r, m, n/) in respect to their tone accent properties.

Unstressed vowel reduction

All the continental West Germanic languages have greatly simplified the vowel and syllable structure of Proto-West Germanic. The tendency of Germanic languages to reduce vowels in unstressed syllables in Germanic languages has commonly been attributed to Germanic's strong word-initial or root syllable stress. This has resulted in most unstressed vowels becoming schwa [ə] over time.

The earliest recorded stages of West Germanic languages all contain a variety of full vowels in unstressed syllables. Old High German even retains long vowels in unstressed syllables, which are not found in the other early-attested West Germanic languages. The change from the old to the middle stage of High and Low German and Dutch was marked by the widespread replacement of vowels in unstressed syllables with schwa, resulting in simplifications of the morphology as endings become indistinct. However, some endings with secondary stress maintained full vowels, such as -bar, -dom, and -unge. Additionally, unstressed medial syllables could be lost entirely through syncope: OHG hêriro > MHG hêrre (modern German Herr).

The process began in unstressed prefixes before progressing to medial and then to final syllables. Old Low Franconian in the 9th and 10th centuries appears to have experienced far greater reduction than contemporary Old High German or Old Saxon. Among High German dialects, Central German and East Franconian show evidence of reduction earliest, in the 9th century, with evidence for reduction in Old Saxon immediately following. Bavarian and Alemannic only show reduction later. Alemannic appears to have been particularly conservative, reducing only unstressed short vowels to schwa while retaining distinct unstressed long vowels well into the Middle High German period. The farthest southern Highest Alemannic, such as Walser German, have retained distinct vowels in unstressed syllables to the present, such as nominative plural die Taga, genitive plural der Tago. The decreased isolation of these isolated mountain valleys in the 20th century has meant that the distinction between final vowels has become less clear here as well.

Syncope and apocope

The loss of final unstressed vowels (usually schwa [ə]) forms a significant isogloss within West Germanic dialects. The so-called "Early New High German apocope" was a general loss of final /-e/ in all instances, which appeared first in Bavarian in the 13th century and came to encompass most Alemannic and West Central German, but not East Central German, which retained many instances of final schwa. A similar change is independently attested in Hollandic Low Franconian, also in the 13th century; however, schwa was retained on some categories of words. Apocope is not attested in Low German until the 16th century, when it appears in the north, around Mecklenburg. Among the modern dialects, final schwa is retained in a continuous belt that comprises Low Saxon and High German dialects on both sides of the Benrath line and extends into the Dutch Low Saxon area, additionally in a relic area within Low Franconian in the southwest (West Flemish, Zeelandic, parts of East Flemish). It was lost to the north and south of this belt: in the northern part of Low Saxon, in much of West Central German and almost all of Upper German.

Beginning in Middle High German, most High German dialects and standard German have syncopated many unstressed vowels in final syllables, depending on the surrounding consonants: houbet > Haupt "head". Early New High German shows inconsistent application of this deletion, at least for verbs. Middle Dutch shows a more advanced stage of syncope in unstressed final syllables than contemporary Middle High German, but tends to retain schwa in initial syllables. Middle Low German underwent a less rigorous syncope process, meaning that modern southern Low German dialects often preserve the first schwa in endings such as -ede, lost in High German and most Dutch dialects. The deletion of schwa in unstressed prefixes such as ge- and be- depends on the dialect, with progressively more syncopation as one moves south. Low German, Low and Middle Franconian, Low and Upper Hessian, and East Central German generally do not syncopate prefixes at all, whereas Swabian, Upper Alsatian, Bavarian, and Swiss Alemannic generally syncopate schwa in all instances. East Franconian and Bavarian show the least prefix syncopation in the north, with it progressively increasingly to cover more consonant combinations as one moves south. Dialects in between syncopate to lesser amounts. However, some syncopated forms are found in almost all dialects and appear to be older, namely the syncopation of schwa before /r/ and /l/ in some lexemes, found in for instance German bleiben (< belîben) and glauben (< gelouben, cf. Dutch geloven).

Unrounding and secondary rounding

The majority of High German dialects have experienced the unrounding of the front rounded vowels /y/ (written <ü>) and /ø/ (written <ö>) to their unrounded counterparts /i/ and /e/ respectively. The change probably began in the 13th century in Bavarian at the latest and then spread throughout the early modern period. Today, it includes all High German dialects except for Ripuarian, East Franconian, and High Alemannic. Unrounded pronunciations of umlauted vowels were also formerly encountered as part of the High German standard until the 19th century, but are today considered nonstandard.

Most Low German and Low Franconian dialects did not experience unrounding. It is found in Low German dialects from around Bremen and was previously present in some East Low German varieties spoken in what is now Poland and Russia's Kaliningrad Oblast. In Low Franconian, systematic unrounding is mainly found in the southern part of the Brabantian area around Leuven and in some Central and West Limburgian varieties of South Low Franconian.

There was also an opposite process, "secondary rounding," in which the front unrounded vowels /i/ and /e/ were rounded /y/ and /ø/ respectively. Secondary rounding is a fairly irregular process, usually occurring around /w/, /ʃ/, and especially before /r/ and /l/. It occurred very frequently in Low German dialects. In the High German dialect area, it seems to have begun in the 13th century in the High Alemannic area, then spread to Swabian and East Franconian. Today it is also especially common in Central German dialects such as Thuringian.

Spontaneous fronting

Spontaneous fronting of the rounded back vowels/diphthongs /o(ː), u(ː), ou, au, ua, uə/ occurred in Low Fraconian dialects and some High German dialects. Unlike i-umlaut, this fronting is not conditioned by the phonological environment. Spontaneous fronting can result in partially fronted rounded central vowels (e.g. /ʉ/, /ɤ/ etc.), or in fully fronted rounded vowels (/y/, /ø/ etc.).

Most Low Franconian dialects except for some in the Southeast have spontaneous fronting of ū to /y:/ (and thus merged it with original /y:/ that arose from the early West Germanic dipthong /iu/), as shown by the change of earlier hūs to huis (/hyːs/ in Middle Dutch, diphthongized to /hœys/ in Modern Dutch). This palatalization also spread (often paired with shortening to /y/) to some Low Saxon dialects in the Netherlands. Spontaneous palatalization of /u:/ did not occur in South Low Franconian (except in the westernmost part) and in the northeastern part of the Brabantian dialect area. Sponaneous fronting of Middle Dutch ō (from Proto-Germanic *au) has a much more limited scope and only occurs in East Flanders and the southwesternmost part of Brabant (including Brussels), where it is realized as /yə/ (e.g. /byəm/ < bōm 'tree').

In some Low Fraconian and High German and dialects, spontaneous fronting is linked to the unrounding of historical front rounded vowels. In these dialects, the resulting vowels re-occupy the place of the historical rounded front vowels that have undergone unrounding, which can be analysed as a chain shift, e.g. /uː/ > /yː/ > /iː/. Spontaneous fronting rarely affects all rounded back vowels/diphthongs to the same degree. As a rule, /uː/, /ou/ and /uə/ are more prone to spontaneous fronting than /oː/ and short back vowels.

Open syllable lengthening and closed syllable shortening

Open syllable lengthening refers to the change of short vowels to long vowels in stressed open syllables. It is first attested in Low Franconian around 1200, and is theorized to have spread from there. It is also possible that it began in different times in different regions, as there is some early evidence from Bavarian. Open syllable lengthening did not affect many middle and southern Alemannic dialects, and there are isolated pockets in southern Bavarian, including the Cimbrian language island, which never acquired the feature.

In early Middle Dutch, open syllable lengthening lengthened /e a o/ in open syllables but lowered /i u/ to /e o/. In standard Dutch, these vowels have merged with /e: o:/, but Eastern Dutch dialects continue to distinguish between them. Alterations in vowel length between different forms of the same word are mostly leveled out, with verbs and adjectives taking the short form, while nouns might take either. Several nouns have maintained the alteration between a short vowel in the singular and a long one in the plural: wĕg, plural we:gen, schĭp, plural sche:pen. With the exception of Westphalian, where diphthongization had previously taken place in open syllables, Low German follows the same pattern as Low Franconian, with Eastphalian keeping old and new long vowels distinct.

In most German dialects stressed short vowels in open syllables were lengthened in a more regular way than Dutch or Low German, without affecting the quality of the vowel: năme > Na:me, sĭgen > siegen (<ie> = [i:]); . Unlike in Dutch or Low German, in cases where a noun paradigm would thereby have different vowel lengths, typically the long vowel was chosen: thus We:g "way" with a long vowel because of the plural We:ge, but the adverb is wěg (away) with a short vowel. Several Bavarian dialects lack the feature of leveling the paradigm, instead retaining short vowels in words like Weg, as do some High Alemannic dialects.

A similar process, closed syllable shortening, in which long vowels in closed syllables were shortened, occurred in Central German dialects in the 12th century. Bavarian shows only a few examples and Alemannic mostly lacks the shortening. Additionally, it was not as consistent as open syllable lengthening, affecting especially vowels before /xt/ (e.g. gebra:ht > gebrǎcht), /rC/ (C=any consonant), before geminate or formerly consonants (MHG geno:z) {<geno:zz} > Genǒsse), and also in unstressed endings with long vowels like MHG -li:ch (modern standard German -lĭch).

Consonants

High German consonant shift

Main article: High German consonant shift

The major divide between High German dialects and the remaining part of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum is defined by the High German consonant shift. In all High German dialects, *t shifted to /ts/ or /s/, while *p and *k became /f/ and /x/ when following a vowel. The northern border of the area where this sound shift occurs is known as the "Benrath line". Reflexes of *p and *k in other positions vary, with the most thorough application of the shift to /pf ~ f/ and /kx ~ x/ occurring in the southern part of the High German dialect area. The scope of the shift of geminate *pp to /pf/ is used in German dialectology to divide the Upper German subgroup from the Central German subgroup; the border between Upper and Central German is called "Speyer line".

A related change was the shift of voiced stops to voiceless stops. This is most widespread with *d to /t/, found in all Upper and Central German dialects, with only Rhine Franconian restricting it to geminates and word finally. A related shift, of *b to /p/ is today restricted to southern Bavarian and some Alemannic dialects in initial position, but was formerly found throughout Bavarian and somewhat in Alemannic in all positions in the word. The shift of *g to *k was reversed by the Middle High German period.

Development of Proto-Germanic /β ð ɣ/

In early West Germanic, the Proto-Germanic voiced obstruents /β ð ɣ/ had the following realizations:

• /ð/ shifted to a voiced stop /d/ in all positions.
• /β/ became /b/ in intitial position, in the cluster /-mb-/ and when geminated /-bb-/. Elsewhere, it remained /β/.
• The realization of /ɣ/ is less clear, since the grapheme ⟨g⟩ was used for voiced stops and fricatives alike. A stop realization can safely assumed only following a nasal and under gemination (/-ng-/, /-gg-/), while it most likely remained a fricative in all other positions.

The different dialects show further developments, which generally divide Low German and Low Franconian from High German. In Old Saxon, /β/ appears to have become a stop in the same pattern as described above, however, /ɣ/ appears to have remained a voiced fricative except when following a nasal, based on the evidence of modern dialects. Low Franconian also shifts /β/ as described above, but the status of /ɣ/ in Old Low Franconian is disputed: it was either a voiced fricative in most positions as in Old Saxon, or it had become a stop in initial position and when geminated, only later to spirantized to /ɣ/ again. Both Low Saxon and Low German also display final devoicing of the voiced fricatives at the end of words: Old Saxon gaf (from Proto-West Germanic *ɣaβ) and burch (cf. High German Burg).

In Old High German, all dialects except Middle Franconian instead are argued to have shifted /β ɣ/ shifted to the stops /b g/ in all positions; Middle Franconian instead shows the same pattern as Old Saxon. In Middle High German, these stops might be lost entirely medially, giving variant forms like seit/saget, meide/mägede, and hân/haben. Many of these contracted forms continue to be used in modern dialects. Later spirantization of /b d g/ occurred word internally: /b/ > /w/ occurred in all dialects that experienced inner-German lenition (see below) except for Swabian and some Upper Rhenish varieties, but also throughout Bavarian; /g/ > /ɣ/ occurs in the same area except that only Northern Bavarian and some Central Bavarian is effected; /d/ > /ð/ only occurs in Rhine Franconian. Younger speakers have replaced /ð/ with /r/, e.g. bruːðɐr > bruːrɐr.

Final fortition

Final fortition or final devoicing refers to the pronounciation of voiced obstruents such as [b, d, g, z, v] as [p, t, k, s, f]. This is a general feature of continental West Germanic languages, and is more general than that found in other Germanic languages, including Old English, where only fricatives are affected. Final devoicing is already attested in Old Low Franconian. There is some evidence for it in Old High German as early as the 8th century, but its presence is only certain in Middle High German, reflected in spellings such as tac for earlier tag. It is likewise attested as the general rule in Middle Low German.

Final fortition was lost as a rule in the Early Modern German period due to the syncope of final schwa reintroducing final voiced consonants. However, the rule that final obstruents are devoiced but was reacquired subsequently. A similar development occurred in Low and Central Franconian dialects that apocopated final schwa; most dialects subsequently reacquired the rule of final devoicing, though some also retain voiced final stops. While final fortition is a part of standard German in Germany, it is not part of the Austrian standard, and Low and High German dialects differ in how they handle final contrast. Some dialects have historically retained a contrast, such as Meissen Saxon, others, such as Hessian, instead voice final voiceless stops (see also inner-German lenition).

Voicing of initial and medieval voiceless fricatives

The Proto-Germanic fricatives /s f þ x/ have historically voiced word internally in all continental Germanic languages, as well as initially in both Low Franconian and High German dialects; /þ/ eventually became a stop d in all positions (see below) and initial and medial /x/ became /h/.

In Low Franconian, initial and medial voicing appears to have occurred by the 9th, 10th, or 11th century: a change of /f/ to /v/ is clearly attested by spelling, and a parallel change of /s/ to /z/ can be posited. Middle Dutch continues to show voicing of initial /f/ to /v/, and reflects the voiceless of /s/ to /z/ in spelling (while retaining /s/ in initial consonant clusters such as slapen). It has also been adopted into modern standard Dutch, but in Northern and Western Low Franconian dialects, the initial fricatives are voiceless. While initial voicing is not generally posited for Old Saxon or Middle Low German, both, as well as modern Low German dialects, have medial voicing.

Old High German shows a shift of initial and medieval /f/ to /v/ in the 9th century (fater > vater); evidence of a parallel shift of /s/ to /z/ can be posited from early loanwords in Slavic languages. In the late Middle High German period, /v/ merges with /f/ in many dialects, thereby becoming devoiced, although the spelling with <v> continues to be used in standard High German in initial position (Vater, pronounced [faːtɐ]). /s/ continues to be voiced as [z] in initial and medial position, but has undergone a number of other changes over the Middle High German period. Conservative Upper German dialects today continue to have distinct lenis consonants /v̥ z̥/ where formerly voiced /z/ and /v/ were present.

Proto-Germanic *þ (/θ/) > /d/

In all varieties of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum, the Proto-Germamic voiceless dental fricative *þ (/θ/) shifted to /d/ (not counting subsequent sound changes such as final devoicing, rhotacism or complete loss in intervocalic position) during the Old High German, Middle Dutch and Middle Low German periods. After going through an intermediate stage as a voiced dental fricative /ð/, the shift to plosive /d/ started as early as the 6th century in Bavarian. From there, it radiated to neighboring Alemannic (8th century) and East Franconian (9th century), subsequently to Central German (10th–11th century), Low Franconian (12th century) and Low Saxon (12th–14 century).

The other West Germanic varieties on the continent, viz. the Frisian languages, were not affected by this change, but eventually lost the dental fricative by different pathways. In West Frisian, it generally became /t/ in initial position and /d/ in other positions by the 15th century. For North Frisian and the Wangerooge dialect of East Frisian, a fricative articluation is still reported in the 19th century, but eventually gave way to a plosive realization in the 20th century in all dialects (except for Amrum North Frisian, which has *þ > /s, z/ in many instances). While not directly related to the sound change in the continental West Germanic dialect continuum, loss of /θ/ in Frisian languages was most probably triggered by contact with West Germanic prestige varieties (Dutch, Low Saxon and standard German) and long periods of bilingualism.

Developments of sibilants and sibilant clusters

West Germanic originally contained a consonant cluster *sk in all positions of the word; continental West Germanic varieties have shifted this cluster in all or some of these positions. In High German dialects, *sk shifted to /ʃ/ in High German dialects, probably via an intermediate stage of /sx/; this is usually dated to the 11th century. The situation is more complicated in other West Germanic dialects, which treated *sk differently depending on its position in the word. In most Low Franconian dialects, *sk shifted to /sx/ in initial position but simplified to /s/ in medial and final position; most scholars believe this change occurred in the Middle Dutch period (1150-1500). Western Flemish dialects did not simplify medial /sk/ to /s/: the cluster appears there variously as /sk/, /sʔ/, /ʃx/, and /ʃ/, while some northern Low Franconian dialects maintained initial /sk/. Low German dialects vary in how they shifted /*sk/. East Low German and Eastphalian show /ʃ/ in all positions like High German, whereas Westphalian and North Low German show a variety of outcomes, shown on the table below. The Low German changes probably postdate the shift in High German.

Outcomes of West Germanic /*sk/ in the continental West Germanic languages, divided by dialect and position in word, accordinding to Hall 2021

Dialect group	Initial *sk	Medial *sk	Final *sk
High German	/ʃ/	/ʃ/	/ʃ/
Southeastern Low Franconian	/ʃ/	/ʃ/	/ʃ/
East Low German	/ʃ/	/ʃ/	/ʃ/
Eastphalian Low German	/ʃ/	/ʃ/	/ʃ/
North Low German and Westphalian	/ʃ/	/sk/	/sk/
	/ʃ/	/s/	/s/
	/ʃx/	/sk/	/sk/
	/ʃx/	/ʃk/	/ʃx/
	/ʃx/	/ʃk/	/s/
	/sx/, /sç/	/sk/	/sk/
Western Flemish	/sx/	/sk/, /sʔ/, /ʃx/, /ʃ/	/s/
Most Low Franconian	/sx/	/s/	/s/

With the emergence of this new /ʃ/-sound, the old sibilant phoneme /s/ (which probably had a retracted [ʃ]-like articulation in Old and Middle High German, as still witnessed by modern Dutch) merged with /ʃ/ in word-initial position before a consonant (e.g. slange > Schlange /ʃlaŋə/ 'snake', stein > Stein /ʃtai̯n/ 'stone') in all High German dialects, and also in some Low Saxon and South Low Franconian dialects. The shift of /rs/ to /rʃ/ is common in most High German dialects, but only sporadically found its way into standard High German (e.g. ars > Arsch 'arse'). In Alemannic and adjacent Upper Franconian, Rhine Franocnian and Moselle Franconian dialects, /sp/ and /st/ became /ʃp/ and /ʃt/ also in non-initial position (e.g. fest > fescht 'tight'). In the southmost part of Alemannic and Bavarian Upper German, /s/ could even become /ʃ/ when not appearing before a consonant (e.g. sî > /ʃiː/ 'she' in the Wallis dialect of Visp).

Development of West Germanic *xs

The West Germanic consonant cluster *xs does not remain in any continental West Germanic language. It develops in two ways: simplification to /s/ or the change of the velar fricative /x/ to a velar stop /k/ (giving /ks/). Generally speaking, all Low German and Low Franconian dialects have simplified *xs to /s/ (e.g. Low German ses, Dutch zes = six). This simplification occurred as early as the 9th century in Low Franconian, from there spreading eastward before the Middle Low German period. Various Central and Upper German dialects, including several that do not directly border each other, show the same simplification, with forms such as wassen for wahsen attested in Middle Franconian, Hessian, and sometimes in Alemannic already in the Middle High German period.

In those High German dialects that don't simplify *xs to /s/, /*xs/ instead becomes /ks/ (e.g. seks = six). This change appears to have begun in Bavarian in late Middle High German. However, modern standard German continues to write <chs> although the pronunciation has changed (sechs, pronounced [zɛks], = "six").

/ft/ > /xt/

Various dialects of Low Franconian, Low German, and West Central German dialects share a shift of /f/ to /x/ when preceding /t/ and following a short vowel. Generally, these dialects are found on the Western edge of the West Germanic continuum.

The earliest evidence for the shift comes from Middle Franconian from the 9th century, this suggests a spread from Central Germany; from there the change spread north and east, growing weaker as it goes. It is attested in Low Saxon in the 10th and Low Franconian in the 12th centuries. Among the Low Franconian dialects, North Hollandic was excluded from the change, and relicts of /ft/ can be found in Northern Brabantine as late as the fifteenth century. Within Low German, the shift is most prevalent in Westphalian. While some shifted words are found throughout the Low German area, such as lucht (High German Luft "air"), most dialects of Low German retain /ft/ in most words.

Inner-German lenition

Inner-German lenition refers to the weakening of fortis stops and fricatives to their equivalent lenis stops and fricatives (/p, t, k, s, f/ > /b, d, g, z, v/), often with the loss of aspiration. It is first attested around around 1300 near Vienna in the Bavarian dialect group before spreading to other dialects. It is referred to as "inner-German" because it is not found in dialects in the north of Central German, nor in southern Upper German dialects. All Central German dialects except for Northern Thuringian, Middle Franconian, and Silesian are affected. Affected Upper German dialects include Swabian, East Franconian, and Central and Northern Bavarian. The Bavarian realization of the lenition differs from that found in the other dialects. Between the Upper German dialects with lenition and those without is a thin belt of dialects that only weaken consonants in initial position.

In the non-Bavarian dialects, the change applies to all instances of /p t k/ in all positions, causing them to lose aspiration and merge with /b d g/. In East Franconian, for instance, pass and Bass, Tier and dir, and Karten and Garten are all pronounced with the lenis stops. The shift also affects affricates such as /st, sp, ts/ and /pf/, which become /ʃd, ʃb, ds/ and /bf/. Final /sp/ and /mp/ may not be weakened.

In the Bavarian dialects in initial position, the same change happens and also includes affricates /pf ts kx/ gnobf (standard Knopf). However, /k/ retains its aspiration and is thus distinct for /g/: Lower Austrian gʰuːɐ (standard German Kuh). Word-internally and finally, Central and Northern Bavarian do not weaken /p, t, k, s, f/ before fricatives and stops, thus retaining combinations such as /st, sp, pf, ks, ft, cht, ts/ and /mp/. Additionally, these dialects shorten vowels before geminates, which remain fortis, while lengthening vowels whenever /p, t, k/ were not geminated while also weakening them. All sounds, including /st, pf, cht, ts/, are voiced finally except for /ks/ and /mp/. The result is that lenis consonants always appear after short vowels and fortis consonants always appear after long vowels. Due to apocope, morphological variations can be shown via a change in consonant and vowel length: tiːʒ̊ (table) vs. tiʃː (tables).

Final nasal consonants

Final nasal consonants are often deleted in West Germanic dialects, most commonly in unstressed syllables but also occasionally in stressed ones.

Final -n is preserved in all monosyllabic words featuring a long vowel or diphthong in Low German, Rhine Franconian, and Upper Saxon, and most of Thuringian. Northern and Central Franconian dialects show variability in whether they delete final unstressed /n/ after schwa, giving variously [-ə] and [-ən]. Moselle Franconian follows the so-called "Eifel rule" (Eifler Regel) in the inflection of masculine articles and adjectives. Further south except in Bavarian, however, n is deleted in progressively more instances. In more southerly Central German dialects, forms such as mein "my" may become mei (Hessian). All Alemannic dialects also delete final unstressed /n/. In far southern Alemannic, all final /n/'s are deleted, including on monosyllabic words. This gives words such as Maa (Mann) "man" and schö (schön) "beautiful".

In standard Dutch and many Dutch dialects, including Hollandic, Brabantine, and Limburgs, a similar process occurs, but only /n/ after a schwa is deleted; western Flemish and Low Fraconian dialects spoken close to the Frisian and Low Saxon speech areas retain the final -n of the suffix and instead tend to delete the schwa and create a syllabic nasal. Zeelandish deletes some nasals and retains others. The Low Franconian Limburgs and Central German Ripuarian dialects share a feature of deleting final /n/ after lax vowels in monosyllabic words.

Franconian tone accent

In the western part of the continental West Germanic dialect continuum, three dialect groups, viz. South Low Franconian, Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian, have developed contrastive tone accent on stressed long vowels, diphthongs and short vowels followed by a sonorant (i.e. /r, l, m, n, ŋ/). Two types of tone are distinguished which are conventionally called Stoßton/stoottoon ('thrusting tone') or simply tone accent 1 (TA 1) and Schleifton/sleeptoon ('slurring tone') or tone accent 2 (TA 2). While indivdual dialects may differ in detail, TA 1 is for the most part realized (in declarative sentences) as a strong pitch drop (= falling tone) within the syllable, while TA 2 is usually realized as a level high tone or a high falling tone with only a slight pitch drop.

While the phonetic driving force that caused the development of tone accent and its geographicial origin are still a matter of debate, the historical phonological conditions of it are well understood. The tone accent of a syllable in modern dialects depends on the original quantity and quality of the stressed vowel in Middle High German and Middle Limburgian (= Middle East Low Franconian):

• Most Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian follow the so-called "Rule A". Under Rule A, originally long mid and low vowels (i.e. /eː, ɛː, oː, ɔː, aː/) and falling diphthongs (/ie, uo/) always produced TA 1 (e.g. skaːf > Ripuarian ʃɔː¹f 'sheep'). High long vowels (/iː, uː/), rising diphthongs (/ei, ou/) and originally short vowels that underwent open-syllable lengthening mostly received TA 2 (e.g. muːs > muː²s 'mouse'; maxən > maː²xə 'make'); however, in the special case when these vowels/diphthongs were followed by an unstressed syllable that started in a voiced consonant, they developed TA 1 (e.g. bliːbən > bliː¹və 'stay').
• South Low Franconian mostly follow "Rule A2", which is largely identical to Rule A but additionally requires that the unstressed vowel following a voiced consonant undergoes apocope in order to trigger TA 1 for high long vowels, rising diphthongs, and lengthened short vowels. For instance, the Sittard dialect has banə > baː¹n 'road' where unstressed /ə/ underwent apocope. The difference between Rule A and Rule A2 is only visible when unstressed /ə/ following a voiced consonant did not undergo apocope: TA 1 with high vowels and rising diphthongs is then triggered only in Rule A dialects, but not in Rule A2 dialects. For instance, skriːbən becomes ʃriː¹və in Kölsch (Ripuarian, Rule A), but ʃriː²və in the Central Limburgian dialect of Maasbracht (South Low Franconian, Rule A2).
• Finally, "Rule B" is observed in the southeastern part of the Moselle Franconian dialect area. Rule B largely operates as a mirror image of Rule A, with high long vowels and rising diphthongs receiving TA 1, while long non-high vowels and falling diphthongs have TA 2.

Northern Low German has developed a phonologically similar feature, known as Knick ("bend").

Grammar

Pronouns

Modern standard Dutch shows no distinction between accusative and dative pronouns for any person, and sometimes no longer distinguishes between subject and object forms. Some dialects retain a distinction, or did so until recently, for the third person pronouns. Others have simplified the system further, using for instance ons ("us") as a subject pronoun.

1st and 2nd person singular pronouns

Proto-Germanic featured a pronominal system for the first and second person singular ("I", "you") featuring four distinct forms, a nominative, an accusative, a dative, and a genitive/possessive. All three dialect areas have maintained the nominative form for "I", variously ich (High German) or ik (Dutch, Low German). The forms of the 2nd person singular vary more widely as most Dutch dialects have replaced the earlier pronoun du, still used in High and Low German, with the plural form, je; the original du is found today only on the western edge of the Low Franconian dialect area.

In West Germanic, North Sea Germanic tends to lose the distinction between accusative and dative forms of the 1st and 2nd person singular pronouns ("me", "you"). Most Low German dialects level in favor of the dative (mi and di), but some, such as Eastphalian, instead favor the original accusative (e.g. mek, deck). The loss of distinct accusative/dative pronouns for the first and second person singular had already occurred in Old Saxon, although accusative forms are occasionally attested, and they resurface as general forms in some dialects of Middle Low German. Middle Dutch likewise attests a loss of the distinction in favor of the dative, giving mi (modern mij and di, although some High German influenced originally accusative forms (mik/mich) are found in the southeast and in dialects bordering Germany. Most High German dialects maintain a distinction, having mich dich (acc.) and mir dir (dat.).

For "you", modern standard Dutch uses subject jij, object form jou, with an unstressed form je that can be used for either form. In the south, the pronoun begins with /g-/ rather than /j-/ (gij). While these are originally plural forms, related to German ihr and Low German jy (see below), in modern Dutch, they are only used in the singular except for je.

1st and 2nd person plural pronouns

In the plural, many High German and some Dutch dialects have altered the original subject form for "we" to begin with m.

Proto-West Germanic probably made no distinction between accusative and dative for the 1st and 2nd person plural ("us", "you"), and almost all modern High and Low German dialects have a single pronoun for both. In Old High German, however, separate accusative and dative forms were innovated: unsih, iuwih (accusative) vs. uns, iu (dative). Low Saxon also vary rarely attests a form unsik, while a form jüch (as opposed to dative jü) is attested early in North Middle Low German. In High German, the two forms were eventually leveled in favor of only uns for the 1st person and only euch for the second person. Low German dialects vary as to which form they chose; Eastphalian uses the former accusative forms for both (üsch and jück), while other dialects may use the dative (us or uns for "us", ju for "you"). The small Westphalian dialect of Drolshagen-Plettenberg-Schmallenberg is unique among High and Low German dialects in having distinct dative and accusative pronouns for the 2nd person plural (auk [acc], au [dat]).

Both most Upper German Bavarian dialects and the Low German spoken around Dortmund have replaced the 2nd person plural pronoun with what was originally a dual form: nominative Bav. eß, Dort. (g)it, accusative/dative Bav. enk, Dort. ink. In modern Bavarian, these pronouns have mostly been ousted in favor of the more standard German ir/aich, except in rural areas.

3rd person pronouns

With the exception of the High German dialects, all continental West Germanic dialects share the innovation of using a 3rd person masculine nominative/subject pronoun ("he") beginning with h- (Dutch hij, Low German he vs. High German er). h- forms are also found in the Central German Rhineland dialects; there is also a transition zone with a mixed form her.

Reflexive pronoun

Low German and Low Franconian had originally lost their third person reflexive pronouns (that is, there was no special word for himself as opposed to him), a feature shared with the North Sea Germanic languages English and Frisian. More recently, the High German reflexive pronoun sich has been imported into both Low German and standard Dutch. Southwestern, Northwestern, and most Eastern Low Franconian dialects continue to use the same pronoun for both "him" and "himself;" eastern dialects near the German border also use the forms zik, zich, or zich.

Verbs

Verbs ending in dental consonants

In Middle High German, verbs ending in a dental stop (/d/ or /t/) often syncopated the schwa in the verb ending -et, which was used in the past participle of weak verbs as well as the 3rd person singular and 2nd person plural in the present: er ræt, but also er rætet. In Alemannic, the schwa was syncopated in after short syllables as well: Alemannic bat for badet. The same occurred with the weak preterite ending -ete: bette ( < betete), warte ( < wartete).

Modern German requires the insertion of schwa in these endings except in the case of strong verbs with a vowel change (e.g. er wird, er rät. Virtually all modern High and Low German dialects, however, syncopate the vowel, leading to forms such as er fint (er findet and er ret (er redet), geredt (geredet). On the other hand, some southern German dialects use unsyncopated forms where the standard has adopted a syncopated form er ratet (er rät).

Plural endings

Proto-West Germanic featured distinct endings for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person plural. Among modern dialects, three distinct endings are only retained in the southern part of Highest Alemannic in Valais and in some Central Bavarian dialects (Niederbayern, parts of Austria), e.g. Walser German wir mache, ir machet, schi machunt. All other dialects have simplified the system in some way.

Old Saxon, in common with other North Sea Germanic languages but unlike Old High German or Old Low Franconian, possessed a single ending for the plural (Einheitsplural), -ad. The subjunctive plural used -en. In the Middle Low German period, dialects began to use a single form for the subjunctive and indicative. The former subjunctive ending -en came to be used as the general form especially in the east and, including in the literary language of the Hanseatic League. A third form, the suffix -ent, is found in Westphalian texts from the 13th and 14th century. Most dialects in the western part of the modern Low Saxon area continue to use -(e)t, while dialects in the eastern part have adopted the subjunctive ending -(e)n; based on this feature, the latter are classified as Eastern Low German in traditional German dialectology. The ending -(e)n is also employed in the northernmost dialects in Schleswig; in the northwest on both sides of the Dutch–German border in the Stellingwerven, Groningen, and East Friesland; in the Waldeck region around Korbach bordering on northern Hessian; and in a narrow stretch of Westphalian dialects in the southwest close to the boundary with the Ripuarian dialect area. The suffix -ent survives in a small pocket of southern Westphalian dialects around Olpe and Drolshagen.

Most Low Franconian and High German dialects have conflated the first and third person plural endings (-en), but retain a distinct ending for the second person plural (-t). The simplification of -ent to -en can be dated to before 1350 in Central German and spread from there into Bavarian and East Franconian by the 15th century, while it predates the Middle Dutch period (1250) in Low Franconian. In many Low Franconian varieties (including standard Dutch), the historical second person plural form has acquired a singular function (e.g. standard Dutch jij maakt 'you (sg.) make'), and a new plural has formed, taking the ending -en. This change has produced a secondary unitary plural that is historically unrelated to the Low Saxon unitary plural.

Independent from Low Saxon, Einheitsplural also developed in High German dialects of the Southwest, affecting much of Alemannic and some adjacent Rhine Franconian dialects. In Rhine Franconian dialects west of the Rhine and in Low Alemannic, the general plural suffix is /-ə/ (from earlier -ən with n-apocope), while in Swabian and in the eastern part of the High Alemannic area the suffix /-ət/ (or /-əd/) is used, e.g. Low Alemannic mache vs. Swabian machet '(we/you/they) make'. Highest Alemanic and western High Alemannic dialects still retain two or three distict plural verb endings.

ge- prefix

By around the year 1000, the Proto-Germanic prefix *ga- had become grammaticalized with the past participle of verbs in continental West Germanic, around the same period that saw the development of the periphrastic perfect tense. As such, it is found in modern standard German and Dutch. Originally, the prefix seems to have had perfective meaning; its application to participles in the high medieval period was inconsistent. In the oldest stages of the continental West Germanic languages, the prefix was still perfective, and thus was not added to verbs that were themselves perfective or telic in meaning. Additionally, the prefix could be added to finite verbs to indicate pluperfect or future meaning, creating oppositions such as sah ("saw") vs. gisah ("came to see").

In the Middle High German and Middle Dutch period, there remained a class of verbs that were felt to be inherently perfective and thus lacked the ge- prefix for their participles, such as gehen/gaan, werden/worden, komen, and vinden. Several Low Franconian, Central, and Upper German dialects have retained this distinction, not adding ge- to certain verbs. Standard German still does not add ge- to werden in the passive. In certain Upper German dialects of Bavarian, Alemmanic, and East Franconian, the vowel of the prefix is syncopated in front of certain consonants such as sibilants, giving g-. Moreover, many Upper German dialects delete ge- completely on verbs with stems beginning with a stop: *gbråxt > bråxt (standard German gebracht).

Many Low German and Low Franconian dialects have phonetically reduced ge- or lost it entirely. Northern Dutch dialects lack the ge-prefix, while some more southerly ones reduced it to e-; far southern dialects and standard Dutch both retain ge- and it has been reintroduced further north at least partially through the influence of standard Dutch. West Low German dialects show a similar development. The ge-prefix is lost in most of Westphalia and North Low German, but is retained in Eastphalian as e-. Among East Low German dialects, Brandenburgian and Middle Pomeranian, northern dialects lack the prefix, central ones have e-, and southern ones have je-. The largely extinct Low Prussian likewise had je-.

Complementizer agreement

A feature known as "complementizer agreement" is common to most continental West Germanic dialects, as well as Frisian, but is absent from standard German and Dutch. In this feature, endings are added to complementizers such as conjunctions, but also to question words and relative pronouns, so that they agree with the subject of the clause. It is found throughout a wide-range of varieties and shows a great deal of homogeneity where it is found.

Most dialects with the feature belong to one of two areal groups:

• Most Frisian, Eastern Dutch dialects, and German dialects typically show agreement with the 2nd person singular, e.g. Westphalian vanste "if/when you", with the -ste agreeing with the 2nd person singular subject. This is the form of complementizer agreement with the greatest areal distribution. Dialects featuring this system include Middle Franconian, Rhine Franconian, as well as some variants of Alemannic and southern Bavarian.
• Most Western Dutch dialects instead show agreement for number, e.g. ase we hore (Katwijk Dutch) "when we hear", with -e marking the plural subject.

Some West Flemish dialects show agreement for all persons, although this is in some case via a zero-suffix. Other dialects, mainly clustered in adjoining regions of the East Central and northern Upper German groups, such as Upper Saxon, Thuringian, East Franconian, and North Bavarian, show agreement for all persons in the plural as well as the second person singular, e.g. North Bavarian dasn mer "that we", with the -n showing first person plural agreement.

This feature is first attested in 13th century Dutch, but it is not attested in German at all until far more recently. Some dialects lack the feature, such as the Dutch of Utrecht, North and South Brabant, Gelderland, and Antwerp; the German areal distribution requires more research.

Nouns

Case system

The earliest continental West Germanic languages attest four cases robustly: nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive. A fifth case, the instrumental, was retained on only some nouns stems and pronominal forms. Standard German retains a four-case system. However, the number of contexts in which the genitive case is used in the standard language has steadily decreased. Most dialects have eliminated the genitive case and simplified the gender system in other ways, although a few have maintained a three case system of nominative, accusative, dative. Standard Dutch and its dialects have lost case distinctions except for a few relic expressions. In all dialects, case marking is now primarily found on determiners and modifiers rather than on the noun.

Low German dialects have simplified the case system to nominative vs. a single oblique case by merging the dative and genitive, an innovation visible already before 1500. Western High German dialects have either retained a three case system or else merged the nominative and accusative while keeping a distinct dative case. Western dialects maintaining all three cases tend to be more centrally located, while those merging are found more on the periphery. Eastern dialects instead either have a nominative-oblique distinction, as in Low German, or else have merged all three cases.

Dutch dialects had lost an independent dative case by the mid 19th century and the genitive by the end of that century The nominative and the accusative were also merged. In northern dialects, the nominative case became the default form, resulting in a merger of the masculine and feminine genders. In southern dialects, the accusative case became the default instead.

Pluralization

Standard German has maintained a very complex plural system, with several different potential forms, including -e, -en, -er, an endingless plural, -s, and the possibility of umlaut + -e, no ending, and -er. Standard Dutch, in contrast, has simplified to the endings -en and -s. Different dialects handle pluralization differently.

Plurals without any change from the singular are required in standard German for most nouns ending in -en, -er, and -el in the singular. Most High German dialects have instead applied new pluralization strategies to these nouns, although dialects with syncope of final -e and final -en may have larger classes of zero-change plural. Plurals without any change are virtually nonexistent in Low German.

Standard German and Central and Upper dialects as well as Low German dialects without apocope frequently pluralize masculine nouns by adding final -e (pronounced as schwa [ə]). Varieties with apocope have either moved these words to the zero-change plural category or else innovated new pluralization strategies for words that formerly took -e plural.

Central and Upper German dialects which experienced apocope have instead innovated new plural distinctions by expanding the system of Umlaut: Tag (s.) Täg (standard Tage). Others may use variations in vowel length and consonant quality. Umlauted plurals are found in several Dutch dialects as well, sometimes with other endings.

The ending -er is mostly associated with neuters. This ending had a very restricted occurrence in the oldest attested German languages. In High German, its use has steadily grown to encompass more nouns over time, especially in the early modern period. Western Central and Upper German dialects and Bavarian have often extended its use onto nouns that do not take -er plural in other dialects; East Central German uses the ending less frequently than other dialects. Low German only rarely uses -er . Standard Dutch no longer features a pure -er plural, but still has 16 items to which a double plural -eren is added. Dutch Dialects?

In German, -en is the normal pluralization strategy for feminine nouns and "weak nouns". Many Central and High German dialects apocopate final -n, so that for those dialects that do not apcopate final -e, a difference between singular and plural is lost in these classes. Sometimes, these dialects innovate a change in vowel quality to retain a singular - plural distinction. Besides feminine and weak nouns, Low German has moved nouns that formerly used -e in the plural to the -en pluralization. Most Dutch plurals were leveled to -en.

The modern -s plural found in Low German is sometimes considered a shared North Sea Germanic feature. In English it is the almost exclusive ending, whereas it is not native to High German. For Germanic a-stems, Old English has -ās as the sole pluralization strategy, whereas Old Saxon allows both -ās and -a. Middle Low German continues this development, with modern Low German using -s with nouns ending in -er, -el, -en, as well as sometimes pleonastically with the plural ending -en (giving a double ending -ens). Old Low Franconian attests plural masculine nominative and accusative plural -ās in the word nestās ("nests"); while the rise of this plural may be due to outside influence on Dutch from Old Saxon and English, it could also be a native, inherited feature. It is most common and productive in Flemish, and is also common in Northeastern Low Franconian, where it is commonly used for monosyllabic nouns and nouns ending in -er.

In Old and Middle High German, no plural forms in -s are attested, but -s plurals have become common in High German since the Early New High German period through mostly the influence of Low German and French: the earliest attestations are on loanwords from these languages. In modern colloquial and dialectal German, especially in East Central German, -s is frequently used for words that do not have a distinct plural, such as die Kumpels "the buddies" (rather than prescribed die Kumpel).

Diminutive formation

The most common form of the diminutive suffix is divided between the north and the south of the West Germanic dialect continuum, between suffixes derived from an earlier -lîn (southern) or an earlier -kîn (northern). This contrast dates back to the common Germanic period.

Upper German dialects, along with southern East Central German, generally show a suffix contain an -l (e.g. standard German -lein, Swabian -le, Bavarian -(e)l). Northern dialects instead form their diminutive with a velar or palatal consonant. The standard Dutch diminutive -tje has come from a palatalization of an earlier -kijn, whereas the standard German -chen derives from central German dialects in which -ken underwent the High German consonant shift. Many Low German dialects have -ke(n), but Low German dialects around Hamburg have lost their diminutive suffix, whereas some dialects have developed new suffixes.

Historical records indicate that Central German originally used an -l based suffix and adopted a -k based suffix from further north after the Old High German period. In modern standard German, it is no longer possible to determine whether a speaker/writer is from the north or south based on diminutive use, as certain rules now determine which diminutive is used with which words. Moreover, over the course of the Early New High German period, there is a marked shift for writers in all areas to use the -chen suffix as the default in most situations in the standard language.

Literary languages

At the earliest stage of attestation in the Early Middle Ages, continental West Germanic dialects are documented in manifold regional scribal varieties, mostly linked to monasteries. Based on their broad lingustic properties, they can be assigned to three major groups (Old High German, Old Saxon and Old Dutch) that correspond to the three contemporary dialect groups.. The coexistence of locally competing regional literary traditions continued into the Late Middle Ages, but for each of the three groups, supra-regional standardized varieties started to emerge. In the Dutch and High German areas, these were mostly linked to the production of literary works, while in the Low Saxon area, the Middle Low German standard language that florished from the 14th to the 16th century was tied to the influence of the Hanseatic League. With the decline of the Hanseatic League and the emergence of the High German-based modern standard German language, the latter has become the literary language not only for the High German dialects, but also for much of the Low Saxon dialect area. For Low Franconian, the transition from Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch went along with a regional shift from Branbantian-based standard Middle Dutch to Hollandic-based standard Modern Dutch.

Until the 20th century, standard Dutch and standard German were the only standardized literary languages in the continental West Germanic continuum. In the late 20th century, Luxembourgish emerged as a literary standard based on the local Moselle Franconian variety of Luxembourg. In the Netherlands, Limburgish (i.e. the Low Franconian dialects of Dutch Limburg that mostly belong to the South Low Franconian group) gained offcial recognition as a regional language.

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