Central Franconian

Alternative forms

• klään (eastern Moselle Franconian, except Westerwald)
• klein (Kölsch; Westerwald)

Adjective

kleen ‎(masculine kleene, feminine kleen, comparative kleener, superlative et kleenste)

1. (Ripuarian, western Moselle Franconian) little; small

   Mer hann ene kleene Jaade hengerm Huus.

   We have a small garden behind our house.

Usage notes

• Even in dialects that do not have a general n-deletion rule, kleen does commonly lose the final -n in the neuter nominative and accusative before consonants other than h—by analogy with the structure words een ‎(“one”) and keen ‎(“no”). Thus, for example, in Ripuarian: e klee bessje – “a little bit”.

Low German

Etymology

From Middle Low German kleine, from Old Saxon klēni, from Proto-Germanic *klainiz. Cognate to German and Dutch klein, English clean.

Adjective

kleen ‎(comparative klener, superlative kleenst)

1. small

Declension

The following declension only represents one of many possible dialectal grammars.

Synonyms

• lütt