Lorraine Franconian (Lorraine Franconian: ''Plàtt'' or ''lottrìnger Plàtt''; french: francique lorrain or ''platt lorrain''; german: Lothringisch) is an ambiguous designation for

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of Linguistics, linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety (linguisti ...

s of

West Central German West Central German (german: Westmitteldeutsch) belongs to the Central, High German dialect family of German. Its dialects are Franconian and comprise the parts of the Rhinelandic continuum located south of the Benrath line isogloss, including ...

(german: Westmitteldeutsch), a group of

High German The High German dialects (german: hochdeutsche Mundarten), or simply High German (); not to be confused with Standard High German which is commonly also called ''High German'', comprise the varieties of German spoken south of the Benrath and ...

dialects spoken in the

Moselle The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...

department of the former north-eastern French region of

Lorraine Lorraine , also , , ; Lorrain: ''Louréne''; Lorraine Franconian: ''Lottringe''; german: Lothringen ; lb, Loutrengen; nl, Lotharingen is a cultural and historical region in Northeastern France, now located in the administrative region of Gr ...

(See Linguistic boundary of Moselle).

Description

The term ''Lorraine Franconian'' has multiple denotations. Some scholars use it to refer to the entire group of West Central German dialects spoken in the French Lorraine region. Others use it more narrowly to refer to the

Moselle Franconian __NOTOC__ Moselle Franconian (german: Moselfränkisch, lb, Muselfränkesch) is a West Central German language, part of the Central Franconian dialects, Central Franconian languages area, that includes Luxembourgish. It is spoken in the southe ...

dialect spoken in the valley of the river

Nied The Nied (; ) is a river in Lorraine, France, and Saarland, Germany. It is a left tributary of the Saar. It is formed where two streams converge: the ''Nied allemande'' ("German Nied") and the ''Nied française'' ("French Nied"), which join in ...

(in Pays de Nied whose largest town is

Boulay-Moselle Boulay-Moselle (; german: Bolchen, Moselle Franconian: ''Bolchin'') is a commune in the Moselle department in Grand Est in northeastern France. The locality of Halling-lès-Boulay (German: ''Hallingen'') was incorporated in the commune in 1972. U ...

), to distinguish it from the other two Franconian dialects spoken in Lorraine,

Luxembourgish Luxembourgish ( ; also ''Luxemburgish'', ''Luxembourgian'', ''Letzebu(e)rgesch''; Luxembourgish: ) is a West Germanic language that is spoken mainly in Luxembourg. About 400,000 people speak Luxembourgish worldwide. As a standard form of th ...

to the west and

Rhine Franconian __NOTOC__ Rhenish Franconian or Rhine Franconian (german: Rheinfränkisch ) is a dialect chain of West Central German. It comprises the varieties of German spoken across the western regions of the states of Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, north ...

to the east. The German term refers to Rhine Franconian spoken in Lorraine. In 1806 there were 218,662 speakers of Lorraine Franconian in

and 41,795 speakers in Meurthe. In part from the ambiguity of the term, estimates of the number of speakers of Lorraine Franconian in France vary widely, ranging from 30,000 to 400,000 (which would make it the third most-spoken regional language in France, after

Occitan Occitan may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania territory in parts of France, Italy, Monaco and Spain. * Something of, from, or related to the Occitania administrative region of France. * Occitan language Occitan (; o ...

and Alsatian). The most reliable data comes from the ''Enquête famille'' carried out by INSEE (360,000 in the 1962 census) as part of the 1999

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

, but they give a somewhat indirect picture of the current situation (see

Languages in France Of the languages of France, French is the sole official language according to the second article of the French Constitution. French, a Gallo-Romance language, is spoken by nearly the entire population of France. In addition to French, several ...

for a discussion of this survey). Approximately 78,000 people were reported to speak Lorraine Franconian, but fewer than 50,000 passed basic knowledge of the language on to their children. Another statistic illustrating the same point is that of all adult men who used Franconian regularly when they were 5, less than 30% use (or used) the language regularly with their own children.Héran

Bilingual signs

image:Roussy-le-Bourg.jpg image:Grouss H.jpg

References

Sources

Auburtin, Éric. 2002. "Langues régionales et relations transfrontalières dans l’espace Saar-Lor-Lux". ''Hérodote'' 105, pp. 102–122.

Héran, François, et al. 2002. "La dynamique des langues en France au fil du XX^e siècle". ''Population et sociétés'' 376. Paris: Institut National d'Études Démographiques
INED
. *Hughes, Stephanie. 2005. Bilingualism in North-East France with specific reference to Rhenish Franconian spoken by Moselle Cross-border (or frontier) workers. In Preisler, Bent, et al., eds. ''The Consequences of Mobility: Linguistic and Sociocultural Contact Zones''. Roskilde, Denmark: Roskilde Universitetscenter: Institut for Sprog og Kultur. . *Kieffer, Jean-Louis. 2006. ''Le Platt Lorrain de poche''. Assimil.

External links

Redde-n-ìhr Plàtt ?
— Historical, literary, and linguistic information (in French)
Gau un Griis
— Association for the defense and promotion of Lorraine Franconian
Plattweb
{{Authority control Lorraine-German people, Lorraine-German people Central German languages Lorraine German dialects Languages of France