Low Franconian is any of several West Germanic languages spoken in the Netherlands, northern Belgium, and South Africa, descended from medieval Old Franconian (sometimes, less accurately, referred to as Old Dutch).

Low-Franconian varieties are also spoken in the German area along the Rhine between Cologne and the border between Germany and the Netherlands. During the 19th and 20th centuries these dialects have partly and gradually been replaced by today's Standard German.

Sometimes, Low Franconian is grouped together with Low Saxon in the Low Saxon-Low Franconian languages. However, since this grouping is not based on common linguistic innovations, but rather on the absence of the High German consonant shift and Anglo-Frisian features, there are linguistic reference books that do not group them together.Glück, H. (ed.): Metzler Lexikon Sprache, pages 472, 473. Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2000 (entries Niederdeutsch and Niederfränkisch)

In Germany it is common to consider the Limburgian dialects as Low Franconian; in the Netherlands and Belgium however they are seen as Central or High German. This difference is caused by a difference in definition: the linguists of the Low Countries define a Low Franconian dialect as one that has only taken part in the fourth phase of the High German consonant shift.

The modern Low Franconian languages are:

• Standard Dutch
• Afrikaans

• Brabantian
• East Flemish
• Hollandic
• Limburgish
• West Flemish
• Zuid-Gelders

Notes