Eifel rule


The Eifel rule is a phonological phenomenon consisting in the deletion of morpheme-final in certain contexts, originally documented in the dialects of the Eifel region in the far west of Germany during the late 19th century. This is a sandhi phenomenon and may or may not be reflected in spelling, depending on the language concerned.
More generally called n-deletion or n-apocope, it appears to varying extents in all dialects of the Western group of High German, including West Central German, High Franconian and Alemannic; and excludes all dialects of the Eastern group, such as Austro-Bavarian and the colonial dialects east of the Elbe-Saale line. N-apocope is a linguistic change originating in speech during the Middle High German period.

West Central German

Luxembourgish

The Eifel rule is pervasive in Luxembourgish as -n is a common ending for verbs, plural nouns, inflected adjectives and function words. Since Luxembourgish spelling strives for phonetic accuracy, n-deletion is also reflected in the standard orthography. The rule can be described as follows:
  • In the suffix -n or -nn, as well as in function words, morpheme-final /n/ is deleted before a consonant both word-finally and word-internally, except before homorganic noncontinuants, i.e. /n t d ts tʃ dʒ/, and /h/. For example:
  • * Word-finally: den + Ball → de Ball, wann + mer ginn → wa mer ginn
  • *Word-internally: Dammen + Schong → Dammeschong, un + fänken → ufänken
  • It is not deleted in the following contexts:
  • *Before a vowel:
  • *:den Apel, den Yves, wann ech ginn
  • *:Ouerenentzündung
  • *Before homorganic noncontinuants, i.e. /n t d ts tʃ dʒ/, and /h/:
  • *:/n/: den Noper, vun New York
  • *:/t/: den Tuerm
  • *:/d/: den Dag, hien drénkt, fënnefandrësseg
  • *:/ts/ : den Zuch, en Cent, den Cäsar, den Tsunami, Gromperenzalot
  • *:/tʃ/ : an Tschechien, den Chip, den Churchill, den Cello
  • *:/dʒ/ : den Dschungel, en Job, den Jazz, vun Jamaika, den George Washington
  • *:/h/: den Hond, wann hie schléift
  • *Before a pause, or in spelling before a punctuation mark:
  • *:Ech hunn vill geschafft.
  • Deletion is optional before the following function words beginning with s: the prounouns si/se/s, sech, säin, seng and the adverb sou.
Note that the prefixes on- and in- are not affected by the Eifel rule, e.g. on'vergiesslech, inkompetent . At the same time, certain content words do undergo n-deletion, e.g. Wäi, Stee, geschwë.
When final -n is dropped from a plural noun whose singular form ends in -e, a diaeresis must be used to distinguish the plural, e.g.: Chance, Chancen, Chancë.

Colognian

In Colognian, the Eifel rule is of lesser impact than further south. This is due in part to slight morphological differences between the Moselle Franconian languages of the upper Eifel regions, and the Ripuarian languages of the North- and Vordereifel region and the Cologne Lowland, to which Colognian belongs.
There are several ways to write Colognian, and the Eifel rule may be reflected in writing when it follows phonetic reality, but more often is not, since the majority of people do not write very phonetically.
In comparison to standard German, Colognian is often described as having historically omitted the trailing n. This is oversimplified, and not always true. The Colognian version of liaison sometimes inserts an n. Colognian multisyllabic base words or lexemes regularly drop "-n" when some related languages, such as Standard German and Low German do not. Liaison is often optional, and there is hardly any liaison on stressed words within a sentence. For example, with the words bovve and en, one may build the phrase: bovve en der Schaaf which depending on stress and voice flow inside a complete sentence is spoken as either or.
The general rule is that monosyllabic words most often keep their trailing n, while otherwise -en endings are transformed to -e in Colognian unless the following word starts with a glottal stop, a dental consonant, a vowel, or an h, and neither of the two words is being stressed inside the sentence. There are exceptions, the most notable being that speakers do not use liaison even if they could when speaking very slowly or solemnly, e.g. preaching or praying.

High Franconian

High Franconian is a transitional dialect group between the Rhine Franconian dialects of West Central German to the North and the Swabian dialects of Alemannic to the South. The High Franconian group divides into South Franconian and East Franconian. N-apocope can be documented in the following sentence from Standard German:
  • Die Kinder halte-n die Äpfel fest. "The children hold on to the apples."
The comparison with the above mentioned dialects demonstrates:
  • Rhine Franconian: Die Kinner halte die Äppel fescht.
  • South Franconian: Die Kinner halte die Äpfel fescht.
  • East Franconian: Die Kinner halte die Äpfel fest.
  • Swabian: Die Kinner haltet die Äpfel fescht.

    Alemannic

The Eifel rule applies in all variants of Alemannic in the same fashion as described for Luxembourgish and is subject to the same exceptions. The earliest report on the phenomenon in Alemannic goes back to 1881.
  • Certain Swiss German dialects also exhibit the Eifel rule. A comparison, in Zurich German, would be:
  • *"Wötsch en Äpfe?" remains as "Wötsch en Äpfe?", but
  • *"Wötsch en Gipfel?" changes to "Wötsch e Gipfel?".

    Low Franconian

Certain southern and southeastern dialects of Low Franconian have a similar phenomenon. It is notable in Limburgish and some areas of Brabantian, and is called the "bdht-vowel-rule". Final -n is also deleted in these dialects, except when followed by b, d, h, t or a vowel, in case of a masculine noun. This is similar to the Eifel rule.