Rhenish fan

The subdivision of West Central German into a series of dialects, according to the differing extent of the High German consonant shift, is particularly pronounced. It is known as the Rhenish fan (German: Rheinischer Fächer, Dutch: Rijnlandse waaier) because on the map of dialect boundaries, the lines form a fan shape. Here, no fewer than eight isoglosses, named after places on the Rhine River, run roughly west to east. They partially merge into a simpler system of boundaries in East Central German. The table below lists the isoglosses (bold, in light fields) and the main resulting dialects (italics, in dark fields), arranged from north to south.