What are “Lowlands languages and cultures”?
“Lowlands languages”are those Germanic languages that developed in
the “Lowlands” the low-lying areas adjacent to the North Sea and the
Baltic Sea.
These are primarily Dutch, Zeelandic (Zeeuws, West Flemish), Frisian, Limburgish and Low Saxon (Low German). Also included are those
languages that descended from autochtonous Lowlands languages and are used
elsewhere; for example, Afrikaans, Lowlands-based emigrant languages, pidgins
and creoles, and also English and Scots. “Lowlands cultures” are those
cultures that utilize Lowlands languages or are clearly derived from such
cultures.
Click here to join the list!
Important information
We very much encourage you to join us. However, before you send us your application
for free membership, please do take the time to find out more about Lowlands-L, its aims, intents and limitations.
To start with, please click here.
Anniversary
In celebration of our 10th anniversary (2005) and further anniversaries
we
brought
to
you
a Low Saxon folktale translated into a good number of Lowlands language varieties,
both in written and in spoken form. Hopefully, this will illustrate
the sorts of similarities and differences we regularly discuss in our forum.
Also—in
celebration
of human language globally—we are bringing you translations into other languages,
as party guests, so to speak. If you are a language lover, this is an event
you don’t want to miss. We welcome further translations.
Click here for the special anniversary project website.
Resources presented by Lowlands-L
Throughout its
history, the Lowlands List
has collected a lot of useful and interesting information for language learners
and enthusiasts around the world.
For instance, the “Lowlands Talk” project provides
short presentations about the languages of the Lowlands area, we offer you
a Swadesh list of hundreds of words, and a detailed map of the Lowlands region.
Also, we present to you a list of offline material (books, dictionaries,
and a long list of internet links. And last but not least, all previous postings
to the Lowlands List can be read in the archive.
Special presentations:
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