Low German or Low Saxon (Plattdüütsch, Nedderdüütsch; Standard German: Plattdeutsch or Niederdeutsch; Dutch: Nedersaksisch in the wider sense. See Nomenclature below.) is an IngvaeonicWest Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is descended from Old Saxon in its earliest form.

The historical Sprachraum of Low German also included contemporary northern Poland, the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, and a part of southern Lithuania. German speakers in this area were expelled after the post-World War II boundary changes. The former German communities in the Baltic states also spoke Low German. Moreover, Middle Low German was the lingua franca of the Hanseatic League, and it had a significant influence on the Scandinavian languages.

Dialects of Low German are widely spoken in the northeastern area of the Netherlands (Dutch Low Saxon) and are written there with an orthography based on Dutch orthography.

Variants of Low German were widely (and are still to a far lesser extent) spoken in most parts of Northern Germany, for instance in the states of Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg. Small portions of northern Hesse and northern Thuringia are traditionally Low Saxon speaking too. Historically, Low German was also spoken in formerly German parts of Poland as well as in East Prussia and the Baltic States of Estonia and Latvia. The language was also formerly spoken in the outer areas of what is now the city state of Berlin but in the course of urbanisation and national centralisation in that city the language vanished. (The Berlin dialect itself is a northern outpost of High German and typologically a Missingsch variety, although rarely recognized as the latter).

German (Deutsch [ˈdɔʏtʃ] ( listen)) is a West Germanic language related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union.

Most German vocabulary is derived from the Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family. Significant minorities of words are derived from Latin and Greek, with a smaller amount from French and English.

German is written using the Latin alphabet. In addition to the 26 standard letters, German has three vowels with umlauts (Ä/ä, Ö/ö, and Ü/ü) and the letter ß.

The history of the language begins with the High German consonant shift during the migration period, separating Old High German dialects from Old Saxon. The earliest testimonies of Old High German are from scattered Elder Futhark inscriptions, especially in Alemannic, from the 6th century AD; the earliest glosses (Abrogans) date to the 8th; and the oldest coherent texts (the Hildebrandslied, the Muspilli and the Merseburg Incantations) to the 9th century. Old Saxon at this time belongs to the North Sea Germanic cultural sphere, and Low Saxon was to fall under German rather than Anglo-Frisian influence during the Holy Roman Empire.

High Valley is a Canadian Christian country music group from Blumenort, near the town of La Crete. The band is composed of brothers Brad, Bryan and Curtis Rempel. All three graduated from La Crete Public School.

High Valley's album Broken Borders was named Album of the Year at the 2007 GMA Canada Covenant Awards, while the song "Back to You" was awarded Country Song of the Year. High Valley's second album, High Valley, was released in Canada and the United States on September 14, 2010. In 2011 the band won five CGMA awards, including Artist of the Year and Group of the Year.

Mark Joseph Campbell (December 6, 1975) is a former American Football tight end who played for ten seasons in the National Football League for the Cleveland Browns from 1999–2002, the Buffalo Bills from 2003–2005, and the New Orleans Saints from 2006–2008. He was signed by the Browns as an undrafted free agent in 1999. He played college football at Michigan.