Low German (East Frisian Dialect) (review)

‘Low German or platdütsch (also platdütsk) is a West Germanic language spoken mainly in the northern areas of Germany: in the states of Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein, Bremen, Hamburg, and Mecklenburg-Western Pommerania along the coasts of the North and Baltic seas, as well as in Upper Rhine Westphalia and Brandenburg’ (1), and some of its dialects are spoken in the district of Groningen (across the border in the Netherlands). As the subtitle indicates, the Low German variety presented here is East Frisian Low German (EFLG), in particular the dialect spoken in the village of Campen (Krummhörn area, some 15 kilometers west of Emden), though most properties catalogued extend to Low German in general. In this brief grammar, Matras and Reershemius introduce the phonology, morphology, and syntax of EFLG and offer additional sociohistorical information about Low German as well as a discourse sample.

The introduction (1–7) lays out the historical emergence of EFLG, briefly puts its characteristic features into context in terms of lexicon and structure, and describes the current sociolinguistic situation (including a note on research on EFLG and the background for the present study).

Ch. 1, ‘Phonology’ (8–17), describes the modern EFLG sounds and also provides the reader with a useful historical perspective. Strikingly, most EFLG simple vowels form a direct continuation of Old Saxon vowel phonemes, so M&R wisely include a discussion of Old Saxon phonological patterns and their development into M(odern)LG (and EFLG in particular). The EFLG vowel system has eleven quality oppositions. There are nine primary vowels (/i e ä a ə ü ö u å/), of which three are short only (/e ə ö/), where /ə/ exclusively appears in unstressed and /e/ in stressed position. All in all there are nine short and seven long vowels. In addition, the inventory of diphthongs (seventeen) and triphthongs (two) in EFLG is ‘strikingly large’ as M&R note (9). They catalogue six diphthongs and the two triphthongs containing movement toward a front closed position, four toward the back closed position, five beginning in closed and open-mid position ending in the center, and two others.

The next two chapters deal with ‘Nominal morphology’ (18–34) and ‘Verbal morphology’ (35–52). To mention two highlights, EFLG, like other Low German dialects (but unlike Standard German, which has masculine, feminine, and neuter), makes available two gender markings—common and neuter—and does not mark case (except for nominative vs. oblique on pronouns). Also, the present participle is restricted to loans from Standard German. Ch. 4 sketches the ‘Syntax’ (53–61) of EFLG, though it is so brief, it is hardly of much use, unfortunately (restricted as it is to very basic clause types, i.e. declarative, interrogative, imperative, interjecting, coordinating, and subordinating clauses).

Ch. 5, a ‘Discourse sample’ (62–67), contains a conversation between two Campen women in their 60s. A list of references (68–69) completes the book. All in all, this is a nice introduction to EFLG, somewhat limited in scope, but useful in what it does (especially Chs. 1–3).