Editing Dialect continuum (section)

==== Continental West Germanic continuum ====

Historically, the [[Dutch dialects|Dutch]], [[Frisian languages|Frisian]], [[Low German|Low Saxon]] and  [[German dialects|High German dialects]] formed a canonical dialect continuum, which has been gradually falling apart since the [[Late Middle Ages]] due to the pressures of modern education, standard languages, migration and weakening knowledge of the dialects.<ref name="Niebaum">{{cite book | chapter = Het Oostnederlandse taallandschap tot het begin van de 19de eeuw
| given = Herman | surname = Niebaum | pages = 52–64
| title = Handboek Nedersaksische taal- en letterkunde
| editor-given = Jurgen | editor-surname = Van der Kooij
| publisher = Van Gorcum | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-90-232-4329-8
}} p. 54.</ref>

The transition from German dialects to Dutch variants followed two basic routes: 
* From [[Central German]] to Southeastern Dutch ([[Limburgish]]) in the so-called [[Rhenish fan]], an area corresponding largely to the modern [[Lower Rhine region|Niederrhein]] in which gradual but geographically compact changes took place.{{sfnp|Chambers|Trudgill|1998|p=92}}
* From Low Saxon{{efn|In this context, "A group of related dialects of [[Low German]], spoken in northern Germany and parts of the Netherlands, formerly also in Denmark." (Definition from [[wikt:Low Saxon|Wiktionary]])}} to Northwestern Dutch ([[Hollandic]]): This sub-continuum also included [[West Frisian language|West Frisian]] dialects up until the 17th century, but faced external pressure from [[Standard Dutch]] and, after the collapse of the [[Hanseatic League]], from [[Standard German]] which greatly influenced the vocabularies of these border dialects.<ref name="Niebaum"/>

Though the internal dialect continua of both Dutch and German remain largely intact, the continuum which historically connected the Dutch, Frisian and German languages has largely disintegrated. Fragmentary areas of the Dutch-German border in which language change is more gradual than in other sections or a higher degree of [[mutual intelligibility]] is present still exist, such as the [[Aachen]]-[[Kerkrade]] area, but the historical chain in which dialects were only divided by minor isoglosses and negligible differences in vocabulary has seen a rapid and ever-increasing decline since the 1850s.<ref name="Niebaum"/>

[[Standard Dutch]] was based on the dialects of the principal [[Brabantian dialect|Brabantic]] and [[Hollandic dialect|Hollandic]] cities. The written form of [[Standard German]] originated in the [[East Central German]] used at the [[Chancery (medieval office)|chancery]] of the [[kingdom of Saxony]], while the spoken form emerged later, based on North German pronunciations of the written standard.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Carol |last1=Henriksen |first2=Johan |last2=van der Auwera |pages=1–18 |title=The Germanic Languages |editor1-first=Ekkehard |editor1-last=König |editor2-first=Johan |editor2-last=van der Auwera |publisher=Routledge |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-415-05768-4 }} p. 11.</ref> Being based on widely separated dialects, the Dutch and German standards do not show a high degree of [[mutual intelligibility]] when spoken and only partially so when written. One study concluded that, when concerning written language, Dutch speakers could translate 50.2% of the provided German words correctly, while the German subjects were able to translate 41.9% of the Dutch equivalents correctly. In terms of orthography, 22% of the vocabulary of Dutch and German is identical or near-identical.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Cross-border intelligibility – on the intelligibility of Low German among speakers of Danish and Dutch |pages=273–295 |chapter-url=http://www.let.rug.nl/gooskens/pdf/publ_ZDL_2009b.pdf |last1=Gooskens |first1=Charlotte |last2=Kürschner |first2=Sebastian |editor1-last=Lenz |editor1-first=Alexandra N. |editor2-last=Gooskens |editor2-first=Charlotte |editor3-last=Reker |editor3-first=Siemon |title=Low Saxon dialects across borders – Niedersächsische Dialekte über Grenzen hinweg |location=Stuttgart |publisher=Steiner |year=2009 |isbn=978-3-515-09372-9 }}</ref><ref>Gooskens & Heeringa (2004)</ref>