Central Franconian languages

Central Franconian
Middle Franconian (Mittelfränkisch)
Geographic
distribution		North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland, Lorraine, Luxembourg, Liège, Limburg, Transylvania
Linguistic classificationIndo-European
Language codes
Glottologmidd1319
Central Franconian among the Franconian languages.
  Ripuarian
  Moselle Franconian
  Luxembourgish

Central or Middle Franconian (German: mittelfränkische Dialekte, mittelfränkische Mundarten, mittelfränkische Mundart, Mittelfränkisch) refers to the following continuum of West Central German dialects:

Luxembourgish is often included within Moselle Franconian, but sometimes regarded as a separate group. The German-speaking Community of Belgium comprises both Ripuarian and Moselle Franconian dialects. The Central Franconian dialects are part of a continuum stretching from the Low Franconian language area in the northwest to the Rhine Franconian dialects in the southeast. Along with Limburgish, Central Franconian has a simple tone system called pitch accent.

The Central Franconian language area is not to be confused with the Bavarian administrative district of Middle Franconia, where East Franconian dialects are spoken.

Phonology

Tonal distinctions

The Central Franconian dialects are of particular interest to linguists because of the tonal distinctions made between different words, for example (Ripuarian) zɛɪ (tonal accent 1) "sieve" vs. zɛɪ (tonal accent 2) "she". See Pitch-accent language.

Word-final /n/ deletion

Word-final /n/ deletion (WFnD) is a widespread phonological phenomenon attested, in addition to various dialects of Dutch and German, in a number of other languages, including Cypriot Greek and English. Within the typology of phonological rules, WFnD occurs in Central Franconian (CF) in several distinct forms. In Moselle Franconian, the southern subgroup of Central Franconian, WFnD operates as an allophonic process: the final nasal is realized obligatorily before a word beginning with a vowel or with /d, t, ts, n, h/, and is by obligation deleted in all other environments (e.g., [ʃʀɑɪvən diːɐ] schreiwen dir 'writing to you' versus [ʃʀɑɪvə baːl] 'writing soon'). In the dialects of Ripuarian and in the dialects of the Ripuarian–East Limburgish transition zone, which constitute the northern subgroup of Central Franconian, WFnD is here instead either lexicalized or variable. As a process which is lexicalized, it reflects diachronic developments found in most post-schwa environments, in a number of monosyllabic environments, and in some environments following a long vowel (e.g., /maːkə/, standard Dutch /maːkə(n)/ 'to make'; /aː/ vs. st. Dutch /aːn/ 'on'; /eː/ vs. st. Dutch /eːn/ 'one'). As a variable process, WFnD applies inconsistently in a set of monosyllabic function words following a short vowel (e.g., /vɑ(n)/, st. Dutch /vɑn/ 'of'; /ɪ(n)/, st. Dutch /ɪn/ 'in, into').

References

  1. ↑ Russ, Charles (2013). The Dialects of Modern German: A Linguistic Survey. Routledge. p. 136. ISBN 978-1-136-08668-7. Retrieved 17 Feb 2018.
  2. ↑ de Vaan, M. "Towards an Explanation of the Franconian Tone Accents", (Leiden University Repository), p. 2.
  3. ↑ Muller, J. S. (2002). On the theoretical implications of Cypriot Greek initial geminates. In: Journal of Greek Linguistics, 3(1), 115–137. doi:10.1075/jgl.3.06mul
  4. ↑ Minkova, D. & M. Lefkowitz (2019). The history of /-n/ loss in English: Phonotactic change with lexical and grammatical specificity. In: Folia Linguistica 53(s40-s1), 203–230. doi:10.1515/flih-2019-0010.
  5. ↑ Gilles, Peter, and Frans Hinskens. "Reconstructing the spread of word-final/n/deletion in Central Franconian dialects. Internal and geographical dynamics." Journal of Germanic Linguistics (2026): 1-41. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.