Limburgish
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| Limburgish Limburgs |
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|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Netherlands (Limburg), Belgium (Limburg and some villages in Wallonia), a small part of Germany | |
| Region: | Limburg | |
| Total speakers: | 1,600,000 (est.) | |
| Language family: | Indo-European Germanic West Germanic Meuse-Rhenish Limburgish |
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| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | the Netherlands (as a regional language); no official status in Belgium | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | li | |
| ISO 639-2: | lim | |
| ISO 639-3: | lim | |
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| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic (Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois) is a group of Franconian varieties, spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border. The area in which it is spoken roughly fits within a wide circle from Venlo to Düsseldorf to Aachen to Maastricht to Hasselt and back to Venlo. Limburgish is recognised as a regional language (Dutch: streektaal) in the Netherlands and as such it receives moderate protection under chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.
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[edit] Meuse-Rhenish
In Germany, it is common to consider the Limburgish varieties as belonging to the Low Franconian languages; in the Netherlands and Belgium however all these are tradionally seen as West Central German, part of High German. This difference is caused by a difference in definition: the linguists of the Low Countries define a High German variety as one that has taken part in any of the first three phases of the High German consonant shift. In German sources, the dialects linguistically counting as Limburgish spoken east from the river Rhine are often called "Bergisch". West of the river Rhine they are called "Low Rhenish", "Limburgish" or "Ripuarian". Limburgish is not recognised by the German government as an official language. Both Limburgish and Low Rhenish belong to the greater Meuse-Rhine area, a large group of southeastern Low Franconian dialects, including areas in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German Northern Rhineland. The northwestern part of this triangle became under the influence of the Dutch standard language, especially since the founding of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1815. The southeastern part became a part of the Kingdom of Prussia at the same time, and from then it was subject to High German language domination. At the dialectal level however, mutual understanding is still possible far beyond both sides of the national borders. This superordinating group is called Meuse-Rhenish (Dutch: Maas-Rijnlands, German: Rheinmaasländisch), as suggested by the Amsterdam linguist Ad Welschen. It can be divided into Northern and Southern varieties. Hence, Limburgish is Southern Meuse-Rhenish as spoken in the Netherlands and Belgium.
[edit] Dutch and Belgian Limburgish
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Limburgish is spoken by approximately 1,600,000 people in the Low Countries and by many hundreds of thousands in Germany, depending on definition. The varieties of Limburgish spoken within Flemish (Belgian) territory are more influenced by French than those spoken on Dutch and German soil. The language has similarities with both German and Dutch and Hendrik van Veldeke, a medieval writer from the region, is referred to as both one of the earlier writers in German and one the earliest writers in Dutch.
Unlike most European languages, Limburgish is a tonal language having two tones. Other European languages known to be marginally tonal are Lithuanian, Slovenian, Swedish, Norwegian and the Yugoslav languages, Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian.
Limburgish also shows signs of a possible Celtic substrate which is indicated by a larger number of words that have Celtic origins in Limburgish than in other West Germanic dialects. The area originally was inhabited by Celtic tribes.
[edit] Subdivisions of the Limburgish language
Noord-Limburgs (ik-Limburgs) from Venlo upward to the North in the Netherlands is the form of Limburgish, which has features of the Zuid-Gelders dialect.
Centraal-Limburgs is a concept used in Germany, which includes the area around Maastricht, Sittard, Roermond, the eastern half of Belgian Limburg, and the Belgian Voeren area, and stretches further Northeast. Belgian linguists use a more refined classification. They use the term Oost-Limburgs for the form of Limburgish spoken in an area from Belgian Voeren south of Maastricht in the Netherlands to the German border. For them, West-Limburgs is the variety of Limburgish spoken around Hasselt, Veldeke and Tongeren in Belgium. It includes areas in Dutch Limburg and Dutch Brabant. The border of West-Limburgs and Oost-Limburgs starts a little south of the area between the villages of 's-Gravenvoeren and Sint-Martens-Voeren in the Belgian municipality of Voeren.
Südostniederfränkisch is a concept used in Germany to describe the linguistic situation in a large area in Germany around Heinsberg, Viersen, Mönchengladbach and Krefeld. An area close to Westphalia is considered as being the area where Bergisch is spoken. This area is limited roughly by a line Düsseldorf-Mettmann-Solingen-Remscheid. For a more encompassing view, see the article on Low Rhenish.
Southeast Limburgish (Zuidoost-Limburgs) is spoken around Kerkrade, Bocholtz and Vaals in the Netherlands, Aachen in Germany and Raeren and Eynatten in Belgium, in Germany considered as Ripuarian, not always as Limburgish. According to a contemporary vision, all varieties in a wider half circle some 15 to 20 KM around Aachen, including 2/3 of Dutch South Limburg and also the so-called Low Dietsch area between Voeren and Eupen in Belgium can be taken as a group of its own, which recently has been named Limburgish of the Three Countries Area (Dutch: Drielandenlimburgs, German: Dreiländerplatt), referring to the place where the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet. Its concept was introduced by Ad Welschen, mainly based on research by Jean Frins (2005, 2006). This variety still possesses interesting syntactic idiosyncrasies, probably dating from the period in which the old Duchy of Limburg existed.
If only tonality is to be taken as to define this variety, it stretches several dozen KM into Germany. In Germany, it is consensus to class it as belonging to High German varieties. But this is a little over-simplified. In order to include this variety properly a more encompassing concept is needed. Meuse-Rhenish will do.
[edit] Phonology
The phonology below is based on the variety of West-Limburgs spoken in Hasselt.
[edit] Consonants
| Bilabial | Labiodental | Alveolar | Postalveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ŋ | |||||||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | k | |||||||||
| Approximant | β̞ | j | ||||||||||||
| Affricate | dʒ | |||||||||||||
| Fricative | f | v | s | z | ʃ | x | ɣ | h | ||||||
| Trill | r | |||||||||||||
| Lateral approximant | l | |||||||||||||
[edit] Vowels
[edit] Monophthongs
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i iː y yː | u uː | |
| Near-close | ɪ | ||
| Close-mid | eː ø øː | oː | |
| Mid | ə | ɔ | |
| Open-mid | ɛ ɛː œ œː œ̃ː | ɔː ɔ̃ː | |
| Near-open | æ æ̃ː | ||
| Open | aː | ɑ ɑː ɑ̃ː |
/ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables. /oː/ occurs only in loanwords from Standard Dutch or from English. The nasalised vowels /œ̃ː æ̃ː ɑ̃ː ɔ̃ː/ only in loanwords from French.
/øː œː uː/ are realised as [øə œə uə] before alveolar consonants.
[edit] Diphthongs
The diphthongs /iə øɪ eɪ uɪ ɔɪ aɪ ou/ occur, as well as combinations of /uː ɔː ɑː/ + /j/. /aɪ/ only occurs in French loanwords and interjections.
/ou/ is realized as [oə] before alveolar consonants, and /eɪ/ is realized as [eə] or [ejə] before
[edit] Tone
Limburgish distinguishes two tones on stressed syllables, traditionally known as stoottoon ("push tone") and sleeptoon ("dragging tone"). Different words can be distinguished by tone alone, as well as different forms of a single word. For example, [daːx] with sleeptoon is "day", while [daːx] with stoottoon is "days".
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This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
[edit] Umlaut
Limburgish uses for some nouns Umlaut to form the plural. This use of Umlaut is also known in English : man - men ; goose - geese. In most dialects of Limburgish, you will find Umlaut for some nouns. The more you go to the east, towards Germany, the more you will find plural nouns based on Umlaut.
- broor - breer (brother - brothers)
- sjoon - sjeen (shoe - shoes)
[edit] See also
| This article is a part of the Dutch dialects series. |
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- Meuse-Rhenish
- Low Rhenish
- Southern Meuse-Rhenish
- Zuidoost Limburgs on the Dutch Wikipedia
[edit] Source
- Ad Welschen 2000-2005: Course Dutch Society and Culture, International School for Humanities and Social Studies ISHSS, Universiteit van Amsterdam (permission granted)
[edit] References
- Cornelissen, Georg (2003). Kleine niederrheinische Sprachgeschichte (1300-1900) : eine regionale Sprachgeschichte für das deutsch-niederländische Grenzgebiet zwischen Arnheim und Krefeld : met een Nederlandstalige inleiding. Geldern / Venray: Stichting Historie Peel-Maas-Niersgebied. (German)
- Frins, Jean (2005): Syntaktische Besonderheiten im Aachener Dreilãndereck. Eine Übersicht begleitet von einer Analyse aus politisch-gesellschaftlicher Sicht. Groningen: RUG Repro [Undergraduate Thesis, Groningen University] (German)
- Frins, Jean (2006): Karolingisch-Fränkisch. Die plattdůtsche Volkssprache im Aachener Dreiländereck. Groningen: RUG Repro [Master's Thesis, Groningen University] (German)
- Grootaers, L.; Grauls, J. (1930). Klankleer van het Hasselt dialect. Leuven: de Vlaamsche Drukkerij. (Dutch)
- Gussenhoven, C.; Aarts, F. (1999). "The dialect of Maastricht". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 29: 155–166. (English)
- Gussenhoven, C.; van der Vliet, P. (1999). "The phonology of tone and intonation in the Dutch dialect of Venlo". Journal of Linguistics 35: 99–135. (English)
- Peters, Jörg (2006). "The dialect of Hasselt". Journal of the International Phonetic Association 36 (1): 117–124. (English)
- Staelens, X. (1989). Dieksjneèèr van 't (H)essels. Nederlands-Hasselts Woordenboek. Hasselt: de Langeman. (Dutch)
[edit] External links
- On Limburgian Tones (in Dutch)
- map of dialects spoken in Dutch Limburg
- Advice of recognition of the Limburgish as regional language (in Dutch)
- Limburgian Dictionary from Webster's Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition
- The visit of the ladies of Charity by Alphonse Olterdissen translated from the dialect of Maastricht into English for Crossroads, a web magazine for expatriates in Maastricht, the Netherlands
