For most of history, there were two main subgroups of Franks: the Salians and Ripuarians. Both were from the Rhine Valley, but lived in different longitudes. The Salians spoke Old Dutch, meaning Modern Dutch is it's direct descendant. They're believed to have originated in the Salland region of the Netherlands. The Ripuarians spoke West-Central German and lived in the western part of central Germany (Rhineland, Saarland, Hesse) as well as Luxembourg and Alsace.

The Salians and Ripuarians were both called Franks and their languages were both called Frankish (despite Ripuarian being a High German language and Salian not), but which language was the original Frankish language? Did the proto-Frankish language originate in the Netherlands and then spread to WC Germany with Salian conquests, or was it the other way around? The term Frank became a sociopolitical term later on and stopped being a tribal term, but back when it was originally a tribal term, which Germanic tribe(s) did it refer to?