Central German in the context of German dialect

German dialects are the various traditional local varieties of the German language. Though varied by region, those of the southern half of Germany beneath the Benrath line are dominated by the geographical spread of the High German consonant shift, and the dialect continuum that connects High German to the neighboring varieties of Low Franconian (Dutch) and Low German.

The varieties of German are conventionally grouped into Upper German, Central German and Low German; Upper and Central German form the High German subgroup. Standard German is a standardized form of High German, developed in the early modern period based on a combination of Central German and Upper German varieties.

East Franconian (German: Ostfränkisch [ˈɔstfʁɛŋkɪʃ] ), usually referred to as Franconian in German (Fränkisch [ˈfʁɛŋkɪʃ] ), is a dialect spoken in Franconia, the northern part of the federal state of Bavaria and other areas in Germany around Nuremberg, Bamberg, Coburg, Würzburg, Hof, Bayreuth, Meiningen, Bad Mergentheim, and Crailsheim. The major subgroups are Unterostfränkisch (spoken in Lower Franconia and southern Thuringia), Oberostfränkisch (spoken in Upper and Middle Franconia) and Südostfränkisch (spoken in some parts of Middle Franconia and Hohenlohe). Until the wholesale expulsion of Germans from Bohemia, the dialect was also spoken around Saaz (today: Žatec).

In the transitional area between Rhine Franconian in the northwest and the Austro-Bavarian dialects in the southeast, East Franconian has elements of Central German and Upper German. The same goes only for South Franconian German in adjacent Baden-Württemberg. East Franconian is one of the German dialects with the highest number of speakers.

Silesian, occasionally called Upper Silesian, is an ethnolect of the Lechitic group spoken in Upper Silesia. While having secured some international recognition as a language, there is a debate on whether Silesian is either a dialect of Polish or a distinct language, and if Silesians are either a regional ethnic group within the Polish nation or a distinct ethnic minority that historically emerged, but later diverged from, the Polish people. Some Silesians identify as a regional ethnic group within the Polish nation, while others view themselves as a distinct ethnic minority. Its vocabulary was significantly influenced by Central German due to the existence of numerous Silesian German speakers in the area prior to World War II and after. The first mentions of Silesian as a distinct lect date back to the 16th century, and the first literature with Silesian characteristics to the 17th century.

Linguistic distinctiveness of Silesian has long been a topic of discussion among Poland's linguists, especially after all of Upper Silesia was included within the Polish borders following World War II. Some regard it as one of the four major dialects of Polish, while others classify it as a separate regional language, distinct from Polish. The dispute over the status of Silesian is considered to be of purely political character. According to the official data from the 2021 Polish census, 467 145 people use Silesian on daily basis. Internationally, Silesian has been fully recognized as a language since 2007, when it was accorded the ISO 639-3 registration code szl.

Colognian or Kölsch (pronounced [kœ̂lɧ], narrower [kœ̂ɫːʃ]; full name Kölsch Platt) is a small set of very closely related dialects, or variants, of the Ripuarian group of dialects of the Central German group. These dialects are spoken in the area covered by the Archdiocese and former Electorate of Cologne reaching from Neuss in the north to just south of Bonn, west to Düren and east to Olpe in northwest Germany.

South Franconian (German: Südfränkisch) or South Rhine Franconian (German: Südrheinfränkisch) is an Upper German dialect which is spoken in the northernmost part of Baden-Württemberg in Germany, around Karlsruhe, Mosbach and Heilbronn. Like closely related East Franconian, it is a transitional dialect, which unites elements of Central German and Upper German.

The language area is located in the transient zone between Rhine Franconian dialects (Hessian and Palatinate German) in the north and Alemannic German (Low Alemannic and Swabian German) in the south. South Franconian is one of the High German dialects with the lowest number of speakers. South Franconian is not considered a separate dialect by some observers. The scope of South Franconian is disputed.

An isogloss, also called a heterogloss, is the geographic boundary of a certain linguistic feature, such as the pronunciation of a vowel, the meaning of a word, or the use of some morphological or syntactic feature. Isoglosses are a subject of study in dialectology, in which they demarcate the differences between regional dialects of a language; in areal linguistics, in which they represent the extent of borrowing of features between languages in contact with one another; and in the wave model of historical linguistics, in which they indicate the similarities and differences between members of a language family.

Major dialects are typically demarcated by bundles of isoglosses, such as the Benrath line that distinguishes High German from the other West Germanic languages and the La Spezia–Rimini Line that divides the Northern Italian languages and Romance languages west of Italy from Central Italian dialects and Romance languages east of Italy. However, an individual isogloss may or may not have any coterminus with a language border. For example, the front-rounding of /y/ cuts across France and Germany, while the /y/ is absent from Italian and Spanish words that are cognates with the /y/-containing French words.

The Uerdingen Line (German: Ürdinger Linie, Uerdinger Linie, Dutch: Uerdinger linie; named after Uerdingen by Georg Wenker) is the isogloss within West Germanic languages that separates dialects which preserve the -k sound in the first person singular pronoun word "ik" (north of the line) from dialects where the word-final -k has changed to word final -ch in the word "ich" (IPA [ç]) (south of the line). This sound shift is the one that progressed the furthest north among the consonant shifts which characterize High German and Middle German dialects. The line passes through Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.

North of the line Low German and Dutch are spoken. South of the line Central German is spoken. In the area between the Uerdingen line and the Benrath line to its south, which includes parts of Belgium and the Netherlands, the Germanic dialect Limburgish is spoken. In eastern Germany, the regional languages have been largely replaced by standard German since the 20th century.

East Central German or East Middle German (German: Ostmitteldeutsch) is the eastern Central German language and is part of High German. Present-day Standard German, as a High German variant, has actually developed from a compromise of East Central (especially Upper Saxon, which was promoted by Johann Christoph Gottsched) and East Franconian German. East Central German dialects are mainly spoken in Central Germany and parts of Brandenburg, and they were formerly also spoken in Silesia and Bohemia.

Splendor Solis (English: "The Splendour of the Sun") is a version of the illuminated alchemical text attributed to Salomon Trismosin. This version dates from around 1582.

The earliest version, written in Central German, is dated 1532–1535 and is part of the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin collection at the State Museums in Berlin. It is illuminated on vellum, with decorative borders like a book of hours, meticulously painted and highlighted with gold. The later copies in London, Kassel, Paris and Nuremberg are equally fine. Twenty versions exist worldwide.

The Lusatian dialects (Standard German: Lausitzisch) are East Central German (High German) dialects spoken in southern Brandenburg and eastern Saxony. The name "Lusatian" derives from the term Lusatia, meaning the dialects of Lusatia. They are most closely related to Silesian German.

Berlin and Brandenburg originally lay in the Low German language area. Through immigration to Berlin from (then) Central German-speaking regions like Silesia and Saxony, the city's Low German dialect has been strongly influenced by Central German, so that it evolved from a Low German into a Central German (High German) variant, which then spread from Berlin to the surrounding areas of Brandenburg.

West Central German (German: Westmitteldeutsch) belongs to the Central, High German dialect family of German. It includes the following sub-families:

• Central Franconian (Mittelfränkisch)
  • Ripuarian (Ripuarisch), spoken in North Rhine-Westphalia (including Kölsch) and German-speaking Belgium and a small edge of the south of the Dutch province of Limbourg.
  • Moselle Franconian (Moselfränkisch; French: francique luxembourgeois) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland and France
    • Luxembourgish (Luxemburgisch; Luxembourgish: Lëtzebuergesch; francique luxembourgeois or luxembourgeois) in Luxembourg, Belgium and France
    • Hunsrik (Riograndenser Hunsrückisch), spoken in Brazil and derived from the Hunsrückisch dialect of Moselle Franconian
• Rhine Franconian (Rheinfränkisch; francique rhénan)
  • Palatinate Franconian (Pfälzisch; francique palatin), spoken in Rhineland-Palatinate
    • Lorraine Franconian (Lothringisch; francique lorrain) in the French region of Lorraine
    • Bukovina German (Bukowinadeutsch) in Bukovina (extinct)
    • Pennsylvania German (Pennsylvaniadeutsch) in historical communities in North America, especially Pennsylvania
  • Hessian (Hessisch) in Hesse and the Rhenish Hesse region of Rhineland-Palatinate
    • North Hessian (Nordhessisch)
    • Central Hessian (Mittelhessisch)
    • East Hessian (Osthessisch)
    • South Hessian (Südhessisch)

On the southern and southeastern edges, West Central German varieties border on an area often considered a transitional area between Central German and Upper German, comprising the dialect groups South Franconian German and East Franconian German (popularly called Franconian because dialects of this sub-family are spoken all over Franconia).

In German dialectology, the Speyer line or Main line (Main River) is an isogloss separating the Central German dialects to the north, which have a stop in words like Appel "apple", from the Upper German dialects to the south, which have an affricate, Apfel.

The Speyer line begins in Alsace near Strasbourg, and runs northeast to Thüringen, crossing the Rhine at Speyer. After passing close to Erfurt, it turns southeast and continues into the formerly German-speaking parts of Bohemia. The line is exemplified by place names containing an uncombined /p/ phoneme, which are located north of the line and include Paderborn, Potsdam, and Wuppertal. Those with an affricate /pf/, including Pfaffenhofen and Pforzheim, lie mostly to the south.