Words from Low German
3 words in Curio passed through Low German on their way into English.
About Low German
North Sea Germanic group of the West Germanic languages · spoken today
Where
Northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands → Russian Mennonite diaspora worldwide (Plautdietsch)
When
Dates unknown
Speakers
No reliable count
Wikidata gives 5,000,000 speakers but no date for that figure. Wikipedia estimates 2 to 5 million speakers in Germany and 2.15 million in the Netherlands.
Family path
- Low German
- Dutch
- English
Where it came from
Low German evolved from Old Saxon (Old Low German), which is most closely related to Old Frisian and Old English. It was spoken in the area of Old Saxony, in northwestern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands, and later spread to northeastern Germany as speakers migrated east into areas that were originally Slavic-speaking. Unlike Standard High German, it did not undergo the High German consonant shift.
Source: Wikipedia
Family
Low German grew out of Old Saxon.
The words, A to Z
- glib
A word for smooth, easy talk that may itself trace back to something slick underfoot.
- muffin
This everyday breakfast bread traces back to a tiny German cake nobody quite agrees on the shape of.
- mug
A humble drinking vessel whose name has been sloshing around northern Europe for five centuries with no clear source.