Re:How Africans Are Changing French – One Joke, Rap and Book...
by acjohnson55 on Monday December 18, 2023 @05:42AM
(#38681016)
According to Wikipedia, Franconian is split between Low Franconian dialects, including Dutch, and the others, which underwent the same consonant shift as the High German languages. But I agree that the boundaries of languages are not purely linguistic.
Now try telling Dutch people that they don’t actually have their own language and are all speaking Low Country German and see what happens…
Most distinctions between dialects and languages are socio-political and not linguistic.
There is a similar continuum between North/Low German and Frisian. Yet you cross a border and just like Dutch/Franconian it’s no longer a dialect but a different language.