Duisburg dialect

Duisburg dialect is the extinct Low Franconian dialect that was spoken in the German city of Duisburg.
During the 20th century, a Ruhr/Lower Rhine regiolect, with traces of the old dialect in grammar, syntax and vocabulary gradually became dominant in the Duisburg region. The Duisburg dialect became extinct in spoken form, between the 1950s and 1970s.

Features and classification

The dialect was located close to the northern side of the Uerdingen line, a linguistic isogloss within the continental West Germanic languages in Europe, separating dialects that preserve the -k sound in the first person singular pronoun word "ik" from dialects in which the word final -k has changed to a final -ch in the word "ich" . In the west, that sound shift is the one that progressed the farthest north among the consonant shifts that characterize High German and Low German dialects. The line passes through Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. Based on this feature, the Duisburg dialect is often classified as part of the Kleverlandish dialect group.
The Duisburg dialect shared with South Low Franconian the High German split of Proto-West Germanic closing diphthongs *ai – *au – *au, and did not take part in *ai-umlaut that split PWGmc *ai into /eː/ and /ai/ triggered by the vowel in the following unstressed syllable and which occurred in Low German and most Low Franconian dialects. It further had Rhenish pitch accent. Based on these features, Peter Wiesinger placed Duisburg in the "Ripuarian-Low Franconian transitional area", rather than assigning it to Kleverlandish. The vocalism of Duisburg is further characterized by the merger of the Old Low Franconian falling diphthongs *ie - *üö - *uo with the high long vowels *iː - *üː - *uː, which is a typical feature for dialects of the area where Kleverlandish and South Low Fronconian meet.

Examples

Duisburg dialect:
Dutch:
English:
German:

Duisburg dialect	Dutch	English	German
all	al	already	bereits
as	als	when	als
äte	eten	eat	essen
Daach	dag	day	Tag
dat	dat	that	das
drinke	drinken	drink	trinken
ek	ik	I	ich
en betzke	een beetje	a bit	ein bisschen
et	het	it	es
fiefonvertig	vijfenveertig	forty-five	fünfundvierzig
glöhwe	geloven	believe	glauben
hä	hij	he	er
loss	los	free	frei
make	maken	make	machen
nehme	nemen	take	nehmen
nit	niet	not	nicht
noch lang nit	nog lang niet	not yet so far	noch lange nicht
on	en	and	und
ohld	oud	old	alt
segge	zeggen	say	sagen
tien	tien	ten	zehn
trecke	trekken	pull	ziehen
tüschen	tussen	between	zwischen
twee	twee	two	zwei
vandaach	vandaag	today	heute
vörsechtig	voorzichtig	cautious	vorsichtig
weete	weten	know	wissen
wat	wat	what	was

Literature

Georg Böllert: Ut Old Düsberg’s Tid, Georg Böllert, Duisburg, 1934
Heinrich Neuse: Studien zur niederheinischen Dialektgeographie in den Kreisen Rees, Dinslaken, Hamborn, Mülheim, Duisburg, in: DDG 8, Marburg, Friedrich