Die Grundlagen des Meißnischen Deutsch (1936)

The Linguistic Consequences of Boundaries, Borderlands, and Frontiers

“…In the north, settlers from the Netherlands and the Lower Rhine (in Germany) spread across the North German Plain as far as East Prussia. Speakers of south German dialects moved through the Danube corridor into Austria, while speakers of Middle German dialects moved east as far as Silesia, mixing with some elements of both north and south (Frings 1936). As in the case of Iberia, speakers of different varieties merged in the new frontier settlements to create new dialects.…”

“…Dialectologist Theodore Frings (1936) has compared the Ostsiedlung with the reconquista. In the latter case dialects of the north spread southward like three fingers moving parallel to one another at the same tempo.…”

“…The results of such linguistic accommodations have in many cases had long-lasting effects. For example, Frings observes that language mixing and leveling of the medieval Ostsiedlung, in its central sector, laid the foundation for what would become the German standard language (Frings 1936). Also, Spanish as we know it today developed not in an even linear process, but rather "discontinuously," resulting in the emergence of new dialects "from a series of dialect-contact situations" on the advancing settlement and military frontiers of the reconquest (Penny 2000, 318).…”