Within any language or language group, there may be significant changes in speech, vocabulary, and pronunciation. The term used to describe these changes is called a dialect. Some words or phrases that exist in one dialect may exist or be absent from different German dialects. A Few German Dialects exist today because of various German dialects merging together through German history.
German Dialects Map
German Dialects List
- Low German – Named after the flat lands in the region. Low German is spoken from the Dutch border to the former German lands of Eastern Pommerania, and Eastern Prussia. Low German includes many sub dialects.
- Frisian German – Dialect found along the border of Denmark and the North Sea Coast.
- Middle German – Spoken in the region in the middle of German from Luxembourg to Poland and Silesia. Middle German includes many sub dialects.
- Frankish German – The Frankish Dialects lie east of the Rhine River in near the very center of Germany.
- Alemannic German – This dialect follows the Rhine River north from Switzerlan to Basel and Freibug. This dialect includes many sub dialects like Alsatian, Swabian, Low and High Alemannic.
- Bavarian-Austrian German – Included most of southern Germany. This region hosts many different sub dialects that fall under this category. Theses include (South, Middle, and North Bavarian as well as Tyrolian and Salzburgian)
Different German dialects of the German language are spoken in many different nations and regions around the world, most commonly throughout Europe. However, the differences in regional dialects may not make one German speaker nearly incomprehensible to another. In most cases, the different German dialects don’t have a specific written form of the language, but there’s usually a certain amount of literature that accompanies each German dialects.
Interested in further study into German or confused on where to start? I recommend reading our German Beginners Guide
I have a question about German dialects. I lived near Frankfurt for three years when I was much younger, and also understand that standard German as taught in the U.S. tends to be from the northern areas.
While I was on a bus tour of Kyoto, there was a German Family in my group. I could pick up some of the words and comments, but their speech sounded slurred compared to what I was used to. Not crisp at all. What region were they most likely from?
Hello Isab
It’s Hard to tell tbh. It could be one of many different German dialects.
Read more about German Dialects at:
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/german/different-types-of-german/
We are from Zurich. why didnt you ask us?
No mention of the 6 Alemannic varieties of Swiss German, nor the dialects in Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Alpine Italy, Slovakia, the USA, GB and more. Yiddish is old high German written in Hebrew square characters but with many loan words and accents depending on where it is spoken, including Russia, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, GB, USA, NW Hungary, Canada, Australia etc.
Low German, or Platt, or Lower Saxon is spoken in northern and eastern Netherlands. So putting all NL in Frankish is not correct