Benrath line

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In German linguistics, the Benrath line (German: Benrather Linie) is the maken-machen isogloss. It is traditionally used to distinguish the Northern Low Saxon-Low Franconian varieties from the High German varieties in the south. The Line runs from Benrath (part of Düsseldorf) to East Germany in the area of Berlin and Magdeburg.

High German subdivides into Upper German (green) and Central German (blue), and is distinguished from Low Saxon (yellow). The main isoglosses, the Benrath and Speyer lines are marked in black.

In the course of the High German consonant shift (3rd to 9th centuries AD), in the first three phases of which the Low Saxon dialects did not participate, the Southern varieties of the West Germanic dialect continuum were affected. The impact of the High German consonant shift increases gradually to the South. In the northernmost High German varieties, only singly words are affected.

The Benrath line does not mark the northernmost effect of the High German consonant shift, since the Uerdingen line, the ik-ich isogloss, expands even further north.

Since the beginning of the 1990s the eastern end of the Benrath line has moved northwards, so the predominant dialect in Saxony-Anhalt has become an East Central German Thuringian-Upper Saxon dialect, heavily influenced by Standard German. Until the Second World War, in the North, by far the majority of areas spoke East Low Saxon dialects.

External links

• [Varieties of German]
• [Maps of the Benrath line]

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