It forms part of the Low Prussian dialect that was spoken in the region before the mass-expulsion of the speakers following the end of World War II.
As part of the Hanseatic League, the town acquired a Platt dialect that also derived elements from the Dutch, Prussian, and from local Kashubian and Polish language as well.
[1] With the spread of High German through education, Danzig Platt was spoken only by a small fraction of the city's population.
[2] Typical of Danzig Missingsch is apocope of a final 'e' as in Katz (cat) or Straß (street), and the unrounding of the front rounded vowels ü and ö so that Tier (door) is pronounced instead of Standard High German (SHG) Tür, and Sehne (sons) instead of Söhne.
- Danzig German typically deviates in employing grammatical feminine gender for certain words that are masculine in SHG, such as die Weiz (der Weizen - "the wheat") and die Taback instead of der Taback ("the tobacco"), and neuter gender for other words that are masculine in SHG, such as das Monat, das Leib.