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Low Bergish, or Western Bergish, is a group of local languages of the Bergisches Land Region east of the Rhine in West Germany. It is part of the Limburgish language group, which extends far beyond the rivers Rhine and Maas into the Netherlands and Belgium. They are also part of the East Limburgish group, that is, the varieties of Limbugish spoken in Germany. They combine Low Franconian properties with some Ripuarian properties and are seen as the transitory dialects between them in the dialect continuum of Dutch and German.
Contents
Low Bergish neighbors in the east to East Bergish, a variety of Cleverlands between the Limburgish language and Westphalian. In the south of Low Bergish is the Benrath line, border to the Ripuarian variety Upper Bergish or East Ripuarian.
Low Bergish is also seen as parts of Meuse-Rhenish, which names a somewhat larger number of dialects. than the three groups having names with Bergish.
As opposed to linguists, laymen usually call their local Low Bergisch variety simply Bergish or "Platt" (de:Platt); they do not distinguish between the dialect groups, when talking about local languages. People from outside the Rhineland often make even less distinctions and use the term Rhinelandic for the vernacular of an even larger region than Meuse-Rhenish.
History
The Low Bergish dialects were called only "Bergish" by early dialect geographers of Germany of the 19th century.