Ripuarian Language

Ripuarian Language

Ripuarian (also Ripuarian Franconian or Ripuarisch Platt; natively Ripoarėsch) is a German dialect group, part of the West Central German language group. Together with the Moselle Franconian and Luxembourgish language, Ripuarian belongs to the larger Central Franconian dialect family and also to the Rhinelandic linguistic continuum with the Low Franconian languages.

It is spoken in the Rhineland south of the Benrath line, from northwest of Düsseldorf and Cologne to Aachen in the west, and Waldbröl in the east. The language area also comprises the north of the German-speaking Community of Belgium as well as the southern edge of the Limburg province of the Netherlands, especially Kerkrade (Kirchroa). The name derives from the Ripuarian Franks (Rheinfranken), who settled in the area from the 4th century onwards.

The most famous member is Kölsch, the local dialect of Cologne. Dialects belonging to the Ripuarian group almost always call themselves Platt like Öcher Platt (of Aachen) or Eischwiele Platt (of Eschweiler), Bocheser Platt (of Bocholtz) or Bönnsch Platt (of Bonn). Most of the more than one hundred Ripuarian dialects are bound to one specific village or municipality. Usually there are small distinctive differences between neighboring dialects (which are however easily noticeable to locals), and increasingly bigger ones between the more distant ones. These are described by a set of isoglosses called the Rhenish fan in linguistics. The way people talk, even if they are not using Ripuarian, often allows them to be traced precisely to a village or city quarter where they learned to speak.