Rhenish Franconian (in German: Rheinfränkisch) is a dialect family of West Central German. It comprises the German dialects spoken in the Moselle département of the Lorraine region of northeast France across the Western regions of the Saarland, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Hesse state in Germany. To the north, it is bounded by the Sankt Goar line (“das/dat line”) which separates it from Moselle Franconian; to the south, it is bounded by the Main line which is also referred to as the Speyer line which separates it from the Upper German dialects. A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ... West Central German (Westmitteldeutsch) is a High German dialect family in the German language. ... Moselle is a département in the northeast of France named after the Moselle River. ... The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties. ... Lorraine coat of arms Lorraine (French: Lorraine; German: Lothringen) is a historical area in present-day northeast France. ... Saarland is one of the 16 states of Germany. ... The Rhenish Palatinate (Rheinpfalz, sometimes Lower Palatinate or Niederpfalz) occupies rather more than a quarter of the German Bundesland (federal state) of Rhineland-Palatinate (Rheinland-Pfalz) and contains the towns of Ludwigshafen, Kaiserslautern, Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Pirmasens, Landau and Speyer. ... Hesse (German: Hessen) is one of Germanys sixteen federal states (Bundesländer) and has an area of 21,110 km² and just over six million inhabitants. ... In German linguistics, the Sankt Goar Line is an isogloss separating the dialects to the north, which have a /t/ is the words dat that and wat what, from the dialects to the south (including standard German), which have an /s/: das, was. ... Moselle Franconian is a dialect of the High German language, which is spoken in the German states of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as France and Romania. ... In German linguistics, the Speyer line is an isogloss separating the dialects to the north, which have a geminated stop in words like Appel apple, from the dialects to the south (including standard German), which have an affricate: Apfel. ... Subdivisions Alemannic language Austro-Bavarian language Upper German is a family of High German languages spoken primarily in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Northern Italy. ...

External link

• Bilingualism in North-East France with specific reference to Rhenish Franconian spoken by Moselle Cross-border (or frontier) workers - Stephanie Hughes University of Antwerp (PDF)