Editing Low German (section)

==Geographical extent==
===Inside Europe===
====Germany====
[[File:Oortsschild von Olenbrook, Landkreis Cuxhoben 4.jpg|thumb|upright|left|City limit sign in Lower Saxony showing that Low German is closer to English for {{lang |de |Altenbruch}} (meaning {{gloss |old bog/swamp}}), an incorporated village of [[Cuxhaven]]. The name in Low German is {{lang |nds |Olenbrook}}.]]

It has been estimated that Low German has approximately two to five million speakers (depending on the definition of 'native speaker') in Germany, primarily in Northern Germany.<ref name="Gechattet wird auf Plattdeusch">{{cite web|url=http://www.noz.de/deutschland-welt/kultur/artikel/10731/gechattet-wird-auch-auf-plattdeutsch |title=Gechattet wird auf Plattdeusch |date=21 August 2013 |publisher=Noz.de |access-date=2014-03-14}}</ref>

Variants of Low German are spoken in most parts of [[Northern Germany]], for instance in the states of [[Lower Saxony]], [[North Rhine-Westphalia]], [[Hamburg]], [[Bremen]], [[Schleswig-Holstein]], [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]], [[Saxony-Anhalt]], and [[Brandenburg]]. Small portions of northern [[Hesse]] and northern [[Thuringia]] are traditionally Low Saxon-speaking too.
Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of [[Poland]] (e.g., Pomerania and [[Silesia]]), as well as in [[East Prussia]] and the Baltic provinces (modern [[Estonia]] and [[Latvia]]). The [[Baltic Germans]] spoke a distinct Low German dialect, which has influenced the vocabulary and phonetics of both Estonian and Latvian. The historical [[sprachraum]] of Low German also included contemporary northern Poland, East Prussia (the modern [[Kaliningrad Oblast]] of Russia), a part of western [[Lithuania]], and the German communities in Estonia and Latvia, most notably their Hanseatic cities. German speakers in this area fled the Red Army or were forcibly expelled after the border changes at the end of World War II.

The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city-state of [[Berlin]], but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city, the language has vanished (the Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of [[High German languages|High German]], though it has some Low German features).

Today, there are still speakers outside Germany to be found in the coastal areas of present-day [[Poland]] (minority of [[ethnic German]] [[East Pomeranian dialect|East Pomeranian]] speakers who were not expelled from [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Pomerania]], as well as the regions around [[Braniewo]]).{{Citation needed|date=January 2008}} In the Southern [[Jutland]] region of Denmark there may still be some Low German speakers in some [[German as a minority language|German minority]] communities, but the Low German dialects of [[Denmark]] can be considered [[Moribund language|moribund]] at this time.{{Citation needed|date=May 2008}}
[[File:Ls-dialects.jpg|thumb|center|650px|Low German-speaking area before the [[Flight and expulsion of Germans (1944–1950)|expulsion of almost all Low German- and German-speakers]] from east of the [[Oder–Neisse line]] in 1945. Low German-speaking provinces of Germany east of the [[Oder]], before 1945, were [[Province of Pomerania (1815–1945)|Pomerania]] with its capital ''Stettin'' (now [[Szczecin]], Poland), where east of the Oder [[East Pomeranian]] dialects were spoken, and [[East Prussia]] with its capital ''[[Königsberg]]'' (now [[Kaliningrad]], Russia), where [[Low Prussian]] dialects were spoken. ''Danzig'' (now [[Gdańsk]], Poland) was also a Low German-speaking city before 1945, and its former dialect [[Danzig German]] is also classified as [[Low Prussian]].]]

{| class="wikitable sortable"
|+Self-reported Low German speakers
|-
! rowspan=2|[[States of Germany|State]] !! colspan=2|'Well' or 'very well'<ref name="ins-bremen.de">Based on figures cited in [http://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf Status und Gebrauch des Niederdeutschen 2016] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180313031748/http://www.ins-bremen.de/fileadmin/ins-bremen/user_upload/umfrage2016/broschuere-umfrage.pdf |date=13 March 2018 }}, page 15.</ref>!! colspan=2|'Very well' only<ref name="ins-bremen.de"/>
|-
! % of pop.||Numbers||% of pop.||Numbers
|-
| [[Schleswig-Holstein]] || 24.5% || 694,085|| 16.5% || 467,445
|-
| [[North Rhine-Westphalia]]|| 11.8% || 2,103,940|| 5.2% || 927,160
|-
| [[Lower Saxony]] || 15.4% || 1,218,756 || 4.7% || 371,958
|-
| [[Hamburg]] || 9.5% || 169,860 || 3.2% || 57,216
|-
| [[Bremen (state)|Bremen]] || 17.6% || 116,336 || 9.9% || 65,439
|-
| [[Brandenburg]] || 2.8% || 70,000|| 2.6% || 65,000
|-
| [[Mecklenburg-Vorpommern]] || 20.7% || 339,273 || 5.9% || 96,701
|-
| [[Saxony-Anhalt]] || 11.8% || 275,058 || 2.2% || 51,282
|-
! Entire Low German dialect area!!15.7%!!4,987,308!!6.2%!!2,197,205
|}

====The Netherlands====
Dialects of Low German are spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands ([[Dutch Low Saxon]]) by approximately 1.6 million speakers.<ref name="blo05"  /> These dialects are written with an unstandardized orthography based on Standard Dutch orthography. The position of the language is, according to UNESCO, vulnerable.<ref name=":2">{{cite web|title=UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in danger|url=http://www.unesco.org/languages-atlas/index.php?hl=en&page=atlasmap&lid=383|website=www.unesco.org|language=en}}</ref> Between 1995 and 2011 the numbers of parent speakers dropped from 34% in 1995 to 15% in 2011. Numbers of child speakers dropped from 8% to 2% in the same period.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=http://www.its-nijmegen.nl/pdf/NTR12%20dialect1995-2011.pdf|title=Ontwikkelingen in het gebruik van Fries, streektalen en dialecten in de periode 1995–2011|last=Driessen|first=Geert|date=2012|website=Radboud University Nijmegen|access-date=2017-04-29}}</ref> According to a 2005 study 53% speak Low Saxon or Low Saxon and Dutch at home and 71% could speak it in the researched area.<ref name="blo05"  /> The total number of speakers is estimated at 1.7 million speakers.<ref name=TOLoE>The Other Languages of Europe: Demographic, Sociolinguistic, and Educational Perspectives by Guus Extra, Durk Gorter; Multilingual Matters, 2001 – 454; page 10.</ref> There are speakers in the Dutch north and eastern provinces of [[Groningen (province)|Groningen]], [[Drenthe]], [[Stellingwarfs|Stellingwerf]] (part of [[Friesland]]), [[Overijssel]], [[Gelderland]], [[Utrecht]] and [[Flevoland]], in several dialect groups per province.

===Outside Europe and the Mennonites===
{{Main|Plautdietsch|East Low German}}

There are also immigrant communities where Low German is spoken in the Western hemisphere, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Belize, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. In some of these countries, the language is part of the [[Mennonite]] religion and culture.<ref>{{cite web |title=Platdietsch |access-date=2008-02-29 |date=2008-01-27 |url=http://www.plautdietsch.ca/}}</ref> There are Mennonite communities in [[Ontario]], [[Saskatchewan]], [[Alberta]], [[British Columbia]], [[Manitoba]], [[Kansas]] and [[Minnesota]] which use Low German in their religious services and communities. These Mennonites are descended from primarily Dutch settlers that had initially settled in the [[Vistula delta]] region of [[Prussia]] in the 16th and 17th centuries before moving to newly acquired Russian territories in Ukraine in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and then to the [[Americas]] in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The types of Low German spoken in these communities and in the [[Midwest]] region of the United States have diverged since emigration. The survival of the language is tenuous in many places, and has died out in many places where assimilation has occurred. Members and friends of the Historical Society of North German Settlements in western New York ([[Bergholz, New York]]), a community of Lutherans who trace their immigration from Pomerania in the 1840s, hold quarterly "Plattdeutsch lunch" events, where remaining speakers of the language gather to share and preserve the dialect. Mennonite colonies in Paraguay, Belize, and [[Chihuahua (state)|Chihuahua]], Mexico, have made Low German a "co-official language" of the community.{{citation needed|date=November 2014}}
[[File:ColegioWitmarsumPR.JPG|thumb|A public school in [[Witmarsum Colony]] ([[Paraná (state)|Paraná]], [[South Region, Brazil|Southern Brazil]]) teaches in the [[Portuguese language]] and in ''Plautdietsch''.<ref name="colw">{{Cite web |title=O trilinguismo no Colégio Fritz Kliewer de Witmarsum. (Paraná) [The trilingualism the College of Fritz Kliewer Witmarsum (Paraná)] |publisher=Elvine Siemens Dück |language=pt |url=http://www.celsul.org.br/Encontros/08/trilinguismo_col_fritz_kliewer.pdf |access-date=23 September 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130606214109/http://www.celsul.org.br/Encontros/08/trilinguismo_col_fritz_kliewer.pdf |archive-date=6 June 2013 |df=dmy-all }}</ref>]]
[[East Pomeranian dialect|East Pomeranian]] is also spoken in parts of [[South Region, Brazil|southern]] and [[Southeast Region, Brazil|southeastern]] Brazil, in the latter especially in the state of {{lang|pt|[[Espírito Santo]]}}, being official in five municipalities, and spoken among its [[European immigration to Brazil|ethnically European]] migrants elsewhere, primarily in the states of [[Rio de Janeiro (state)|Rio de Janeiro]] and {{lang|pt|[[Rondônia]]}}. East Pomeranian-speaking regions of Southern Brazil are often assimilated into the general [[German Brazilian]] population and culture, for example celebrating the {{lang|de|[[Oktoberfest]]}}, and there can even be a language shift from it to {{lang|de|[[Riograndenser Hunsrückisch]]}} in some areas. In {{lang|pt|Espírito Santo}}, nevertheless, Pomeranian Brazilians are more often proud of their language, and particular religious traditions and culture,<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.rog.com.br/claudiovereza2/mostraconteudos.asp?cod_conteudo=735|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121221183002/http://www.rog.com.br/claudiovereza2/mostraconteudos.asp?cod_conteudo=735|url-status=dead|title=Claudio Vereza, Espírito Santo's state assemblyman by the Workers' Party &#124; The Pomeranian people in Espírito Santo|archivedate=21 December 2012}}</ref> and not uncommonly inheriting the nationalism of their ancestors, being more likely to accept marriages of its members with Brazilians of origins other than a Germanic Central European one than to assimilate with Brazilians of [[Swiss Brazilian|Swiss]], [[Austrian Brazilian|Austrian]], [[Czech Brazilian|Czech]], and non-East Pomeranian-speaking German and Prussian heritage{{clarify|date=June 2017}} – that were much more numerous immigrants to both Brazilian regions (and whose language almost faded out in the latter, due to assimilation and internal migration){{clarify|date=June 2017}}, by themselves less numerous than the [[Italian Brazilian|Italian]] ones (with only Venetian communities in areas of highly Venetian presence conserving [[Talian dialect|Talian]], and other Italian languages and dialects fading out elsewhere).{{clarify|date=June 2017}}

{| class="wikitable collapsible collapsed" width="70%"
|-
!Speakers of low German outside Europe
|-
|{{German L1 speakers outside Europe}}
|}