Low Dietsch (, , or ) refers to a handful of transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects spoken in a number of towns and villages (e.g., Gemmenich, Hombourg, Montzen, Welkenraedt) in the southeastern Belgian canton of Eupen. This area, located in the Belgian (Walloon) "tri-state area" from Voeren (Fourons), to Plombières (Bleiberg), to Eupen, is called the Low Dietsch zone . Classified by German dialectologists as Ripuarian Franconian and by Dutch-language dialectologists as Southeast Limburgish, Low Dietsch is more precisely a transitional dialect between both. Low Dietsch is one of several Meuse-Rhenish varieties that make the north-western part of the dialect continuum known as the Rhenish fan. As the southernmost dialect of Limburgish, the Low-Dietsch speech area corresponds to the core of the old Duchy of Limburg.