The Prehistory of Plautdietsch

• The geographical distribution of several of these languages eventually came to refer to the languages themselves:

• • “Highlands” varieties of Germanic spoken near the Alps: “High German”
  • “Lowlands” varieties of Germanic spoken near the North and Baltic seas: “Low German”

• Little to do with “high” formality or “low” status originally - just a geographical way of distinguishing between historically-distinct languages