Central German or Middle German ( German : mitteldeutsche Dialekte, mitteldeutsche Mundarten, Mitteldeutsch ) is a group of High German languages spoken from the Rhineland in the west to the former eastern territories of Germany .
4-540: Central German divides into two subgroups, West Central German and East Central German . Central German is distinguished by having experienced the High German consonant shift to a lesser degree than Upper German . It is spoken in the linguistic transition region separated from Northern Germany ( Low German / Low Franconian ) by the Benrath line isogloss and separated from Southern Germany ( Upper German ) by
8-530: The Central , High German dialect family of German . It includes the following sub-families: 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 ). West Central German
12-647: The Speyer line . Central German is spoken in large and influential German cities such as Berlin , the former West German capital Bonn , Cologne , Düsseldorf , the main German financial center Frankfurt , Leipzig , and Dresden . The area corresponds to the geological region of the hilly Central Uplands that stretches from the North German plain to the South German Scarplands , covering
16-460: The states of Saarland , Rhineland-Palatinate , Hesse , Thuringia and Saxony . The East Central dialects are the closest to Standard German (chiefly as a written language) among other German dialects. Modern Standard German thus evolved from the vocabulary and spelling of this region, with some pronunciation features from East Franconian German . West Central German West Central German ( German : Westmitteldeutsch ) belongs to
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