Low Dietsch dialects

Low Dietsch (Dutch: Platdiets, Limburgish: Platduutsj, French: francique rhéno-mosan or platdutch) refers to a handful of transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects spoken in a number of towns and villages (e.g., Gemmenich, Hombourg, Montzen, Welkenraedt) in the southeastern Belgian canton of Eupen.

Schematic map of the Low Dietsch language area (Platdietse streek) in Belgium.

This area, located in the Belgian (Walloon) "tri-state area" from Voeren (Fourons), to Plombières (Bleiberg), to Eupen, is called the Low Dietsch zone (Dutch: Platdietse streek). Classified by German dialectologists as Ripuarian Franconian and by Dutch-language dialectologists as Southeast Limburgish, Low Dietsch is more precisely a transitional dialect between both. Low Dietsch is one of several Meuse-Rhenish varieties that make the north-western part of the dialect continuum known as the Rhenish fan. As the southernmost dialect of Limburgish, the Low-Dietsch speech area corresponds to the core of the old Duchy of Limburg.

In French, the term francique carolingien "Carolingian Franconian" is also used, because it is thought to be the language of the Carolingian dynasty and court, although that would be an anachronism. Low Dietsch is thought to have been spoken from Tongeren to Cologne, which would presumably make it the likeliest candidate for Charlemagne's native language. However, this expression is controversial since there is no way to prove that hypothesis. Nor is it possible that the current dialectal map was the same 1,500 years ago. Of those early documents that have survived, one, the Strasbourg Oaths (AD 842), is in Rhine Franconian, and the other, the Wachtendonck Psalms (10th century), is in a form of southern Limburgish (with a few Ripuarian Franconian traits).

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