Upper Saxon German - Subgroups

Subgroups

The degree of accent varies from place to place, from a relatively mild accent in the larger cities such as Dresden or Chemnitz to a stronger form in rural areas, depending on the grade of the High German consonant shift:

• Meissen dialect, which remained in the former margraviate after the development of the New High German standard variety, spoken from Meissen District and Central Saxony up the Elbe River to Saxon Switzerland including the Dresden metrolect.
• Osterland dialect with stronger Low German features, spoken in Northern Saxony in and around the city of Leipzig, from Torgau and Eilenburg down to Borna, and in the adjacent territory of Saxony-Anhalt up to the Saale River at Weißenfels in the west
• Erzgebirgisch, a distinct dialect, is spoken in the villages of the Central Ore Mountains. Until the post-war expulsions it also included the "Northwestern Bohemian" language in the adjacent Sudetenland territories to the south, today part of the Czech Republic. It is also found in Lower Saxony in the Upper Harz, to where miners from the Ore Mountains moved in the 16th century (see Mining in the Upper Harz).