`  ==Personal Observations==  As a native low german speaker (westphalia) under the age of fifty, living in England, I would like to add some comments to this discussion.  I still speak my mother tongue anytime I call my family or if I visit hy hometown on the dutch border. Within my family I speak low german with my parents, almost all my older relatives, and three of my younger siblings. But I speak high german with my two youngest siblings and most of the younger members of the local community. I only know of a handful of my peergroup that have opted for speaking low german with their children. So whilst I think the number of native low german speakers is still in the higher six digit numbers if not millions, it is sadly dwindling fast.  A few years ago I met the parents of a danish friend in London and whilst they spoke no english or german and I spoke no danish, we quickly established that we each spoke a version of low german and were thus able to communicate. Also, whilst in South Africa, I was able to understand some of the Africaans based on my low german. Infact, when our host uttered an exclamation, his pronounciation was absolutely identical to that of my mother.  One contributor spoke of local variations not existing anymore. I disagree. My mother and fathers families are from a town only a few miles down the road from my hometown. I vividly remember being asked 'where do you come from' when I started work. As if I was from another planet. Only because in my familie we say 'kerke' not 'karke' (spelling of my low german is total guess work... I never used it in any written form though people often make up low german poems for wedding invites etc..) These variations are still in place and people do recognise if someone is from a town further afield. I used to vary my own low german accent depending on whom I spoke to.  As you will have noticed, I have called it low german throughout. That is because it is the only phrase that has made any sense to my english audience when I have tried to explain that high german is not my mother tongue. I believe that this whole discussion is based on a (to some extent understandable) aversion of many dutch people to be thrown into one pot with anything german. Personally, I think that this is rather sad. As someone else said... we are very much one people. I feel that I have far more in common with the low german speakers on either side of the border than with the high german speakers of my regional capital for example. The people that home in on any devision are mostly the same that cause problems in any society. Mainly of a certain age and gender. Why? Why not celebrate the heritage we have in common?  Any dutch person speaking low german should feel no more german than a german person should feel indien due to speaking an indo-european language. If someone you know names their child with a name that has bad connotations for you... it really does not take that long before the name in your mind is connected to the child, not the person you knew previously under that name.  I am curious... are any of the other participants in this talk actually native low german/dutch speakers themselves? It did not seem to me from what people have posted. As such it confirms what I think holds true for many things. Those that are converted to something are far more zealous than those that grew up with it. Food for thought there.....    :I am a Dutchman, and Dutch speaker, and in the Low Countries, your dialect is called ``Low Saxon``. Dutch linguistics uses ``Low German`` only as a linguistic marker and the precise meaning of ``german`` in ``low German`` is explained as wel, and has not got the same meaning as ``german`` in general. You remark that you think you have more in common with the Dutch than speakers of High German is somewhat unrealistic to me. You might see a lot of similarities with the Dutch living near your border, but the idea that the Dutch as a whole are culturally closer is somewhat strange. I think that if you look closer you'll see that you have a lot more in common with someone from Austria than one from the Netherlands. Not just culturally, but in some cases linguistically as well.   ::She's speaking of Low Saxons in the Netherlands, not of all Dutch, I guess. And I'm sure, it is true, that the Dutch Low Saxon dialects are nearer to her Westfalian Low Saxon than the dialect of Düsseldorf.     ::A North German may be linguistically closer to an Austrian than to someone from the Netherlands, but that is only because most North Germans do not speak Low German any more. Those who do a