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.