Westphalian language

Westphalian or Westfalish is one of the major dialect groups of Low German. Its most salient feature is its diphthongization. For example, speakers say iäten instead of etten or äten for "to eat".
The Westphalian dialect region includes the north-eastern part of North Rhine-Westphalia, i.e. the former Prussian province of Westphalia, without Siegerland and Wittgenstein, but including the southern part of former government district Weser-Ems.
Traditionally, all Dutch Low Saxon dialects are considered Westphalian, with the notable exception of Gronings, which is grouped with the Northern Low Saxon and Friso-Saxon dialects. The rising diphthongisation is still noticeable in the dialects of Rijssen, Enter and Vriezenveen. In a band from southeast Twente to northwest Twente the diphtongisation still happens before the consonants v, g and z. Vriezenveen furthermore preserved the diphtongisations in words like to eat, to hope and kitchen. In other areas of Dutch Low Saxon the breaking was monophthongized and then highered and lengthened, resulting in different development stadia away from the breaking depending on the area.

Varieties

Among the Westphalian language there are different subgroups of dialects:
Westphalian dialects in Westphalia

East Westphalian in East Westphalia
South Westphalian
Münsterländisch
Westmünsterländisch

Westphalian dialects in the Netherlands:

Achterhoeks
Veluws
Sallands
Urkers
Drèents
Twents

Westphalian dialects in Lower Saxony and Groningen

Grafschafter Platt
Emsländer Platt
Westerwolds

Westphalian has many lexical similarities and other proximities to Eastphalian, extending to the East and slightly to the North of the area where Westphalian is spoken.

Phonology

The Westphalian vowel breaking is a sound change found in many Westphalian dialects. In this process, short vowels in open, stressed syllables are turned into diphthongs, for example:

iäten / eaten – „ eat“
wieten – „ know“
vuegel – „bird“
vüegel – „birds“
kuaken / koaken – „ cook“
hüawe / höäwe – „courtyards“

Originally, these syllables in Old Saxon had short vowels. In other Low German dialects, these vowels were simply lengthened.
At the end of the Old Saxon period, final syllables became weakened, so the main stress shifted entirely to the stem syllable. It then became difficult to maintain at the same time the shortness, openness, and strong stress of the vowel. Westphalian solved this by adding another short sound after the original short vowel. This kept the sound system close to the old one.
Even today, Westphalian preserves almost all of the original short vowels in open syllables..
In the past, this feature occurred over a larger area, including places like Lippe and the Westmünsterland, where it is no longer found today. Even in dialects without this breaking, the distinctions between the old short vowels are still mostly preserved.

Grammar

Declension
'''Adjectives'''

Personal pronouns

Possessive Pronouns
Reflexive pronouns
While Old Saxon has lost the Germanic third-person reflexive pronoun such as Old English and Old Frisian and instead resorts to the relevant personal pronoun, modern Low German borrows reflexive pronouns from German. In Sauerland, it is conjugated as in Proto-Germanic and Icelandic, while in other Westphalian dialects like Münsterländisch or East Westphalian it is not. In addition, a distinction in South Westphalian is made between the individual genders as well as individual and multiple people. In some dialects, there is still no distinction between reflexive and third-person pronouns in the onjective case.
Demonstrative Pronouns
Verbs
Conjugation patterns of East Westphalian
Conjugation patterns of Vjens
Subjuncive
However, compared to most other dialects, the Westphalian dialect has preserved an extremely complex conjugation of strong verbs with subjunctive.

Infinitive	Simple Past	Westphalian subjunctive 2
suin	Ik was	ik wöre
bluiven	he blaiw	he bliewe
kriupen	he kraup	he krüäpe
soöken	he sochte	he söchte
wieten	he wus	he wüsse

Infinitive 2
In the very south of the East Westphalian language area, the original gerund of the West Germanic languages has been formally preserved.

Infinitive form	Gerund form
maken	to makene
kuoken	to kuokene
schniggen	to schniggene

Nouns

East Westphalian and South Westphalian dialects have also preserved the so-called dative-e, adding a final -e to masculine and neuter nouns in the dative case, while Münsterländisch does not preserve it.

English	Proto-West Germanic	East Westphalian	Münster Westphalian	Westfrisian	Dutch	German
the desk	diskē	den diske	den disk	-	-	dem Tisch
the day	dagē	den dage	den dag	de dei	de dag	dem Tag
the market	markatē	den markede	den market	de merk	de markt	dem Markt
the swine	swīnē	den swiene	dat swien	it swyn	het zwijn	dem Schwein
the water	watarē	den watere	dat water	it wetter	het water	dem Wasser

Status

German Westphalian is currently spoken mostly by elderly people. The majority of the inhabitants of Westphalia proper speak standard German. This accent, however, does not stand out as much as for example Bavarian, because Westphalia is closer to the Hanover region, whose speech variety is generally considered to be standard modern German.
The Low Saxon dialects in the bordering Twente and Achterhoek regions in the east of the Netherlands are traditionally classified as Westphalian dialects, albeit with some notable traits from Standard Dutch. A 2005 study showed 62% of the population of Twente spoke the language at home or together with Dutch, and efforts are made to insert the language into the local school curriculum.
One of the reasons for the diminishing use of Westphalian in Germany is the rigorous enforcement of German-only policies in traditionally Low German-speaking areas during the 18th century. Westphalian, and Low German in general, unlike many of the High German dialects, were too distant from standard German to be considered dialects and were therefore not tolerated and efforts were made to ban them. In an extreme case, Hannover and its hinterland were forced to adopt rather unnaturally a form of German based on the written standard.
Westphalian was spoken in Kruppwerke up to the 19th century.
Nevertheless, the Westphalian regiolect of Standard High German includes some words that originate from the dying Westphalian dialects, which are otherwise unintelligible for other German speakers from outside Westphalia. Examples include Pölter "pyjamas/pajamas", Plörre "dirty liquid", and Mötke "mud, dirt".

Authors

Westphalian authors include:
Münsterländisch:

Augustin Wibbelt

East Westphalian:

Richard Knoche

South Westphalian:

Wilhelm Bleicher
Wilhelm Bröcker
Theodor Ellbracht
Friedrich Wilhelm Grimme
Walter Höher
Carl Hülter
Fritz Kuhne
Fritz Linde
Horst Ludwigsen
Franz Nolte