Low German and Frisian are two separate West Germanic languages. Low German (Plattdeutsch) grew out of Old Saxon and is spoken by millions across northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. Frisian grew out of Old Frisian and has about 400,000 speakers, mostly in the Dutch province of Friesland. They are neighbours and relatives, not one language.
So why do people mix them up? Because they live side by side on the same North Sea coast, they share old roots, and in one region the names overlap so badly that even Germans get it wrong. Below you get the clear version: what each language is, where you hear it, how the words compare, and why someone in East Frisia who says Moin is almost certainly speaking Low German, not Frisian.
What is Low German (Plattdeutsch)?
Low German is a West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the northeastern Netherlands. In Germany people usually call it Plattdeutsch or just Platt, from platt, meaning plain or simple. In the Netherlands the varieties are mostly called Low Saxon, and you know them under local names like Gronings, Drents and Twents.
The word Low has nothing to do with status. It refers to the low-lying land of the north, as opposed to the higher ground in the south where High German grew up. Standard German, the German you learn in school, is based on High German dialects. Low German is a separate line of development, which is why a Hamburg grandmother speaking Platt can sound closer to Dutch than to the German on the evening news.
The language has a long written history. Its oldest form, Old Saxon, appears in texts from the 8th century. Its middle stage, Middle Low German, shows up in writing from about 1225 to 1234 with the law book Sachsenspiegel. Between roughly 1300 and 1600 it served as the trade language of the Hanseatic League, the merchant network that ran shipping from Bruges to Novgorod. If you want to see where all these branches sit, our Germanic language family tree lays them out.
Where is Low German spoken, and by how many people?
You hear Low German across a wide band of northern Germany: Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, northern North Rhine-Westphalia, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. In the Netherlands it covers Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel and parts of Gelderland. A variety called Plautdietsch also travelled with Mennonite communities to the Americas.
Speaker numbers are fuzzy because it depends on how you count. Estimates run from about 2 to 5 million speakers in Germany and around 2 million in the Netherlands. A 2016 survey by the Institut für niederdeutsche Sprache and the Institut für Deutsche Sprache, with 1,632 phone interviews across eight northern states, found that more than 91 percent of people understand at least some Platt. Understanding a little and speaking it daily are two very different things, though, and active use keeps dropping among younger people.
Since 1999 Germany has protected Low German under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. That recognition matters: it treats Platt as a language in its own right rather than as broken German. The northern states commit to support it in schools, media and culture.
Book tip
The Germanic Languages by Wayne Harbert
A Cambridge survey that compares the grammar of the whole Germanic family, from Low German and Frisian to Icelandic, with real data instead of generalities. Heavy going, but the best single reference if you want to see how these languages actually differ.
Is Low German the same as Frisian?
No. Low German descends from Old Saxon, and Frisian descends from Old Frisian. They are close relatives inside the same corner of the Germanic family. Linguists group English, Frisian and Low German together as North Sea Germanic, because their ancestors shared a set of sound changes along the North Sea coast. But Old Saxon only took part in some of those changes, and Low German lost more of those shared features over the centuries. Frisian kept far more of them.
Frisian itself is not one uniform language. It has three branches. West Frisian is by far the largest and is an official language in the Dutch province of Friesland. North Frisian has about 10,000 speakers on the islands and coast of Schleswig-Holstein, split into ten dialects. Saterland Frisian (Seeltersk) survives in a handful of villages in Lower Saxony with about 2,000 speakers. Those three branches differ so much that a speaker from Sylt and a speaker from Leeuwarden do not simply understand each other.
Here is the part that surprises people: in Germany, the Frisian languages are small islands inside a sea of Low German. North Frisian dialects on the mainland took many words from Low German, and Saterland Frisian has lived next to Low German for centuries. So the two languages influence each other constantly, which is exactly why outsiders blur them together.
How do Low German and Frisian words compare?
Put everyday words side by side and you see both the family resemblance and the split. House is hûs in West Frisian, Huus in Low German and Haus in standard German. Water is wetter in Frisian, Water in Low German and Wasser in German. Butter is bûter in Frisian and Botter in Low German. Bread is brea in Frisian and Brood in Low German.
Notice what Low German and Frisian share against standard German: neither went through the High German consonant shift. That shift turned t into ss or z, p into f or pf, and so on, which is why German says Wasser and Apfel while Low German keeps Water and Appel. On this point Low German, Dutch, Frisian and English all stand together. Our piece on Dutch vs German shows the same split from the Dutch side.
Now look at where Frisian goes its own way. Church is tsjerke in West Frisian but Kark in Low German and kerk in Dutch. Day is dei in Frisian but Dag in Low German. Sheep is skiep in Frisian and Schaap in Low German. Frisian softened many old k and g sounds before certain vowels, just like English did with church and day. Low German kept the hard sounds. That single pattern is one of the quickest ways to tell the two apart on a page.
Why does East Frisia speak Low German instead of Frisian?
This is the source of most of the confusion. East Frisia (Ostfriesland) is a region in the northwest of Lower Saxony, and its name suggests people speak Frisian there. They mostly do not. The everyday language of East Frisia today is East Frisian Low Saxon, a dialect of Low German that locals often just call Ostfriesisch or Platt.
The region did speak Frisian once. Over the late Middle Ages and early modern period, Low German replaced it, and only one pocket survived: Saterland, a few villages surrounded by bogs, where settlers from East Frisia arrived around 1100. That is why the real East Frisian language today is Saterland Frisian, spoken by about 2,000 people, while the East Frisian you hear in Emden or Aurich is Low German.
The old Frisian layer did not vanish without a trace. East Frisian Low Saxon carries a Frisian substrate, meaning vocabulary, sounds and grammar left behind by the earlier language. It also uses lots of Dutch-style diminutives, like Kluntje for the lump of rock sugar in East Frisian tea, and names like Antje from Anna. And the famous greeting Moin, used at any hour of the day, is Low German.
Is Low German a language or a dialect of German?
Linguists and speakers both argue about this, and the answer depends on what you mean by dialect. Historically, Low German is not a dialect of standard German at all. It is a sister that developed separately from Old Saxon, while standard German comes from High German. It even served as the leading written language of northern Europe during the Hanseatic period, long before modern German spelling existed.
Politically, the European Charter treats it as a regional language, and many speakers see it as a language in its own right. On the other hand, after the 1600s High German took over writing, schools and church in the north, and Low German slid into the role of a spoken home language under a standard German roof. That social position is what makes people call it a dialect. You see the same debate playing out with Luxembourgish, which went the other way and became a national language.
Frisian has a clearer status. In the Netherlands West Frisian is an official language of Friesland, with its own spelling, dictionaries and school curriculum. In Germany North Frisian and Saterland Frisian are protected minority languages. Nobody serious calls Frisian a dialect of Dutch or of German.
Is Plattdeutsch the same as Low German?
Yes. Plattdeutsch, or simply Platt, is the everyday German name for Low German. In the Netherlands the same language family is usually called Low Saxon (Nedersaksisch).
What does Moin mean?
Moin is the standard greeting in East Frisia and much of northern Germany. It works as hello at any time of day, morning or evening. It comes from Low German, not from Frisian.
Is Frisian a dialect of Dutch or German?
No. Frisian is a separate West Germanic language with three branches. West Frisian is an official language in the Dutch province of Friesland, and North Frisian and Saterland Frisian are protected minority languages in Germany.
What does this have to do with Frisian?
If this article made you curious about the Frisian side of the coast, West Frisian is the easiest place to start. It has the most speakers, a standard spelling and plenty of learning material. Many words look familiar once you know the patterns above: tsjerke, tsiis (cheese), brea and wetter all follow rules you can learn.
You can look up any of these words in our free Frisian dictionary, and if you want to go further, the free course below teaches you West Frisian step by step, from your first greeting to full sentences.
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