New High German

Linguists say the regional dialect emerged during the New High German Diphthongization in the Middle Ages, when south-westerners spun off their own approach to vowels.

In accordance with the three divisions in the history of the High German language, there is an Old High German, a Middle High German and a New High German or Modern High German literary epoch.

In Old High German we find the form anetrekho = a drake; in provincial New High German there is enterich and �ntrecht, from whence come the English and Low German form, drake.

Its Old High German form is �o, io; in Middle High German, ie; in New High German, je; in Old Saxon, io; in Anglo-Saxon, �; in Norse, �.

This accounts for the participial form forlorn, or lost, in New High German verloren.