How similar are Low German and Dutch?

[antnvchv]

[Saim]

More similar than Dutch and German, but less similar than Dutch and Afrikaans.

[Iversen]

Roughly midway between Dutch and High German, but in one respect different from both and closer to the Nordic languages: there is no ge- on the past participles, so you would say "Ek höff in all mien Leven blots een lüttje Beten Platt schnackt", with "schnackt" (spoken) instead of "gesproken" or "gesprochen". And the amount of morphology is at the level of Dutch (and the Nordic languages) rather than that of High German.

[Doitsujin]

Here's a short excerpt from Fritz Reuter's book "Woans ick tau ‘ne Fru kamm" [=How I met/found my wife] and a contemporary Dutch translation:

Un so was ‘t denn nu ok; de Krankheit was tau Enn’, aewer min Noth gung nu irst an. Ick was so mör un so ledweik, dat ick mi nich rögen kunn, un wenn ick de Ogen mal upslog, denn stunn Fru Bütow’n vör mi un hadd den rothglasürten Pott in de ein Hand un den Lepel in de anner, un faudert un proppt mi mit ‘ne Krankensupp, dei was so stif as Baukbinner-Klister un smeckt ok so, un säd denn: "Eten S’! Eten S’ doch! – Wenn Sei nich eten, warden Sei nich wedder beter." Un bi all dese Qual makt dat oll gaudmäudige Gestell tau ehren Klisterpott noch so ‘n mitleidig Gesicht, dat ick aewerhapsen müßt, ick müggt willen oder nich.

Source: Woans ick tau ‘ne Fru kamm (Project Gutenberg)

In waarheid, de ziekte was geweken, maar nu kwam de ellende eerst aan. Ik was zoo ontzettend zwak, dat ik mij niet verroeren kon, en als ik de oogen eens opsloeg, dan stond vrouw Bütow voor mij en had den rooden verglaasden pot in de ééne hand en een lepel in de andere, en voerde en propte mij vol met een ziekensoep, die zoo stijf was als boekbindersstijfsel en ook zóó smaakte, en ze zeide dan: “Eet toch, eet toch maar!—Als ge niet eet, wordt ge niet beter.” En bij al deze kwelling zette dat oude goedhartige meubel bij haren stijfselpot nog zulk een meêwarig gezicht, dat ik wel moest toehappen, of ik wilde of niet.—

Source: Twee vroolijke geschiedenissen (Project Gutenberg)

(Please note that the spelling of both texts, in particular the Dutch one, is somewhat outdated.)

[Iversen]

Fritz Reuter was born in Stavenhagen somewhere in Mecklenburg in 1810 and lived in Neubrandenburg later on, and these things explain why the excerpt above looks slightly different from what you would find for instance in the Low German Wikipedia, which aims at using the ortography of Johannes Saß (Sass) from 1935, but I once bought a High German -> Low German dictionary in Berlin, and it is written in some other orthography than the one proposed by Saß- I have not yet checked whether it then is the one used by Reuter. The point is that Low German is a heterogenous language with several dialects (including the 'Plautdietsch' of the Mennonites) and no official ortography and probably limited use in schools (I don't know much about that aspect). However once you have got the 'sound' of any kind of Low German in your head it is easy to read stuff written in different spellings.

Apart from that, we haven't yet discussed the relationship with Frisian much. According to the language historians they are fairly distant, but if you look at Low German and the different Frisian dialects (for instance by using the versions of Wikipedia in different kinds of Frisian) then it is obvious that they belong to the same region and have influenced each other. Now, alas, the variant used in 'Fryslân' (Friesland) in the far North of the Netherlands is the only one with any real chance of surviving. And I haven't studied it yet so that's about all I have to say about the subject right now.