German dialects
Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continuum that connects German to the neighboring varieties of Low Franconian (Dutch) and Frisian.
As a result, the second half of the 20th century saw a shift in academic customs, with many linguists instead describing dialect clusters based on the geographical area in which they are spoken (i.e. Meuse-Rhenish or Westphalian) and their degree of participation with the Second Germanic consonant shift, or, such as in the case of the influential linguists Friedrich Maurer and Theodor Frings, creating a new framework of dialect classification altogether.
In the Black Forest region alone, there was a newspaper request for people to report what word they used for the term "Dragonfly."
[8] It was the predominant language in Northern Germany, and several translations of the Bible were printed in Low German.
It aimed to be understandable to an ample audience and was based mainly on High German varieties.
Early New High German gained more prestige than Low Saxon[9] and became the language of science and literature.
Other factors included the Hanseatic League losing its importance around the same time (as new trade routes to Asia and the Americas were established) and the most powerful German states then being located in Middle and Southern Germany.
On the other hand, Northern Germany is considered to be the region that speaks the purest Standard German, and in everyday life, little influence of dialect is heard.
Hessian), Lorraine Franconian, Thuringian, Silesian, High Prussian, Lusatian dialects and Upper Saxon.
They are spoken in the southeastern Netherlands, eastern Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of northeastern France and in Germany approximately between the River Main and the southern edge of the Lowlands.
The Moselle Franconian varieties spoken in Luxembourg have been officially standardized and institutionalized and so are usually considered a separate language, known as Luxembourgish.
Halcnovian, Wymysorys, Sathmarisch and Transylvanian Saxon are High German dialects of Poland and Romania.
The High German varieties spoken by Ashkenazi Jews (mostly in Tsarist Russia, then the former Soviet Union and Poland) have several unique features and are usually considered as a separate language.
In Brazil, the largest concentrations of German speakers, German Brazilians, are in Rio Grande do Sul, where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch, and Brazilian Pomeranian were developed, especially in the areas of Santa Catarina, Paraná, Rondônia, and Espírito Santo, as well as in Petrópolis (Rio de Janeiro).
It is spoken by descendants of Germans from the Black Forest region of southern Baden, who emigrated to Venezuela in 1843.
All things and individuals with ties to Germany were thus subjected to public harassment, distrust, or even death, such as in the lynching of Robert Prager, a German seeking to become naturalized[18] in St. Louis.
