Northern Low Saxon - Characteristics

Characteristics

The most obvious common character in grammar is the forming of the perfect participle. It is formed without a prefix, as in English, Danish, Swedish, Norse and Frisian, but unlike standard German, Dutch and some dialects of Westphalian and Eastphalian Low Saxon:

• gahn (to go): Ik bün gahn (I have gone/I went)
• seilen (to sail): He hett seilt (He (has) sailed)
• kopen (to buy): Wi harrn köfft (We had bought)
• kamen (to come): Ji sünd kamen (You (all) have come/You came)
• eten (to eat): Se hebbt eten (They have eaten/They ate)

The diminutive (-je) (Dutch and Eastern Frisian -tje, Eastphalian -ke, High German -chen, Alemannic -le, li) is hardly used. Some examples are Buscherumpje, a fisherman's shirt, or lüttje, a diminutive of lütt, little. Instead the adjective lütt is used, e.g. dat lütte Huus, de lütte Deern, de lütte Jung.

There are a lot of special characteristics in the vocabulary, too, but they are shared partly with other languages and dialects, e.g.:

• Personal pronouns: ik (like Dutch), du (like German), he (like English), se, dat, wi, ji (similar to English), se .
• Interrogatives (English/High German): wo, woans (how/wie), wo laat (how late/wie spät), wokeen (who/wer), woneem (where/wo), wokeen sien / wen sien (whose/wessen)
• Adverbs (English/High German): laat (late/spät), gau (fast/schnell), suutje (slowly, carefully/langsam, vorsichtig, from Dutch zoetjes ‘nice and easy’, adverbial diminutive of zoet ‘sweet’), vigeliensch (difficult, tricky/schwierig)
• Prepositions (English/High German): bi (by, at/bei), achter (behind/hinter), vör (before, in front of/vor), blangen (beside, next to, alongside/neben), twüschen (betwixt, between/zwischen), mang, mank (among/unter)