Limburgish language
Encyclopedia
Limburgish, also called Limburgian or Limburgic (Limburgish: Lèmbörgs [ˈlɛm.bœʁʝs] Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

: Limburgs ˈlɪm.bʏrxs, German
German language
German 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....

: Limburgisch ˈlɪm.buɐ.gɪʃ , French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

: Limbourgeois ˈlɛ̃.buʁ.ʒwa) is a group of East Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

 regions, near the common Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 / Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 / German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 border. The area in which it is spoken roughly fits within a wide circle from Venlo
Venlo
Venlo is a municipality and a city in the southeastern Netherlands, next to the German border. It is situated in the province of Limburg.In 2001, the municipalities of Belfeld and Tegelen were merged into the municipality of Venlo. Tegelen was originally part of the Duchy of Jülich centuries ago,...

 to Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 to Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

 to Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

 to Hasselt
Hasselt
Hasselt is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital of the Flemish province of Limburg...

 and back to Tienen. In some parts of this area it is generally used as the colloquial language in daily speech.

In general speech the Limburgish language is often described as a dialect
Dialect
The term dialect is used in two distinct ways, even by linguists. One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a characteristic of a particular group of the language's speakers. The term is applied most often to regional speech patterns, but a dialect may also be defined by other factors,...

 of either German
German language
German 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....

 or Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

, both of which share many characteristics with it. Within the modern communities of the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg intermediate idiolects are also very common, which combine standard Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...

 with the accent
Accent (linguistics)
In linguistics, an accent is a manner of pronunciation peculiar to a particular individual, location, or nation.An accent may identify the locality in which its speakers reside , the socio-economic status of its speakers, their ethnicity, their caste or social class, their first language In...

 and some grammatical and pronunciation tendencies derived from Limburgish. This 'Limburgish Dutch' is confusingly also often referred to simply as "Limburgish" (Limburgs in Dutch).

Etymology

The name Limburgish (and variants of it) derives only indirectly from the now Belgian town of Limbourg
Limbourg
Limbourg is a medieval town located in the province of Liège, Wallonia, Belgium.On 1 January 2008 Limbourg had a total population of 5,680. The total area is 24.63 km² which gives a population density of 231 inhabitants per km²...

 (Laeboer in Limburgish, IPA: /ˈlæːbuʁ/), which was the capital of the Duchy of Limburg
Duchy of Limburg
The Duchy of Limburg, situated in the Low Countries between the river Meuse and the city of Aachen, was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. Its territory is now divided between the Belgian provinces of Liège and Limburg , the Dutch province of Limburg , and a small part of North Rhine-Westphalia in...

 during the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...

. More directly it is derived from the more modern name of the Province of Limburg (1815-1839) in the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Kingdom of the Netherlands
The Kingdom of the Netherlands is a sovereign state and constitutional monarchy with territory in Western Europe and in the Caribbean. The four parts of the Kingdom—Aruba, Curaçao, the Netherlands, and Sint Maarten—are referred to as "countries", and participate on a basis of equality...

, which has been split today into a Belgian Limburg
Limburg (Belgium)
Limburg is the easternmost province of modern Flanders, which is one of the three main political and cultural sub-divisions of modern Belgium. It is located west of the river Meuse . It borders on the Dutch provinces of North Brabant and Limburg and the Belgian provinces of Liège, Flemish Brabant...

 and a Dutch Limburg
Limburg (Netherlands)
Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...

. In the area around the old Duchy of Limburg the main language today is French, but there is also a particular Limburgish (or Limburgish like, depending on definitions) language which is sometimes referred to as "Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....

".

People from Limburg usually call their language Plat, the same as Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...

s do. This plat refers simply to the fact that the language is spoken in the low plains country, as opposed to High in High German, derived from dialects spoken in the more mountainous southerly regions. The word can also be associated with platteland (Dutch: 'countryside'). The general Dutch term for the language of ordinary people in former ages was Dietsch, or Duutsch, as it still exists in the term Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....

 (Plattdütsch). This term is originally derived from old Germanic "thiudisch", meaning, "of the people" (this word has also been preserved in the Italian word for German, which is "Tedesco").

Extent

Limburgish has partially overlapping definition areas, depending on the criteria used:
1 All dialects spoken within the political boundary of the two Limburg provinces.
2 Limburgish according to Jo Daan, the associative "arrow" method of Meertens Institute.
3 South Lower Franconian, isogloss definition between Uerdingen
Uerdingen line
The Uerdingen Line is the isogloss within West Germanic languages that separates dialects which preserve the -k sound at the end of a word from dialects in which the word final -k has changed to word final -ch...

 and Benrather lines by Wenker, Schrijnen and Goossens (University of Leuven).
4 Western limit of Limburgish pitch accent (Largest lexical distance from Standard Dutch, Hoppenbrouwers)
5 Southeast Limburgish (Wintgens and Frins), this includes a part of Ripuarian in Germany. (See also Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....

.)

History and classification

Except for Southeast Limburgish, Modern Limburgish descends from some of the dialects that formed the offspring of Old Low Franconian in the Early Middle Ages
Early Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...

, its history being at least as long as that of other Low Franconian dialects of which some eventually yielded Standard Dutch. Being a variety of Franconian descent, Limburgish can today be considered as a regional language overarched by two succeeding Dachsprachen, which are Dutch in Belgium and the Netherlands and German in Germany.

Under the influence of the Merovingian
Merovingian dynasty
The Merovingians were a Salian Frankish dynasty that came to rule the Franks in a region largely corresponding to ancient Gaul from the middle of the 5th century. Their politics involved frequent civil warfare among branches of the family...

 and especially the Carolingian dynasty, Old East Low Franconian underwent much influence of the neighbouring High German dialects. This resulted among other things in the partial participation of the Old East Low Franconian dialects in the High German consonant shift
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...

 in the 10th and especially the 11th century, which makes the Limburgish-speaking area also part of the so-called Rhenish fan. It is especially this trait which distinguishes Limburgish from Old West Low Franconian.

In the past, all Limburgish dialects were therefore sometimes seen as West Central German
West Central German
West Central German belongs to the Central, High German dialect family in the German language. Its dialects are thoroughly Franconian including the following sub-families:* Central Franconian...

, part of High German. This difference is caused by a difference in definition: the latter stance defines a High German variety as one that has taken part in any of the first three phases of the High German consonant shift. It is nevertheless most common in linguistics to consider Limburgish as Low Franconian.

From the 13th century on, however, the Duchy of Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...

 extended its power. As a consequence, at first the western (i.e. spoken until Genk
Genk
Genk is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg near Hasselt. The municipality only comprises the city of Genk itself...

) and then also the eastern variants of Limburgish underwent great influence of Brabantian. When Standard Dutch was formed out of elements of different Low Franconian dialects in the 16th century, the Limburgish dialects spoken in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 had little or no influence on this process. As a result, Limburgish – although being essentially a variety of Low Franconian – still has a considerable distance from Standard Dutch with regards to phonology, morphology and lexicon today. Moreover, being of East Low Franconian origin, it also has many distinctive features in comparison with the West Low Franconian varieties such as Hollandic
Hollandic
Hollandic or Hollandish is, together with Brabantian, the most frequently used dialect of the Dutch language. Other important Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the same area are Zeelandic, East Flemish, West Flemish and Limburgish....

, Brabantian
Brabantian
Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic , is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant which corresponded mainly to the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, as well as the institutional Region of...

 and South Guelderish
South Guelderish
South Guelderish refers to a group of dialects of the Dutch language which are spoken along the Nederrijn in the Netherlands and around the city of Cleves in Germany...

.

Limburgish and Meuse-Rhenish

In German sources, the dialects linguistically counting as Limburgish spoken to the east of the river Rhine are called Bergish (named after the former Duchy of Berg). West of the river Rhine (the former Duchy of Jülich
Duchy of Jülich
The Duchy of Jülich comprised a state within the Holy Roman Empire from the 11th to the 18th centuries. The duchy lay left of the Rhine river between the Electorate of Cologne in the east and the Duchy of Limburg in the west. It had territories on both sides of the river Rur, around its capital...

) they are called "Low Rhenish", which is considered a transitional zone between Low-Franconian and Ripuarian. Thus, formerly German linguists tended to call these dialects Low German
Low German
Low German or Low Saxon is an Ingvaeonic West Germanic language spoken mainly in northern Germany and the eastern part of the Netherlands...

.

Limburgish is spoken in a considerable part of the German Lower Rhine area, in what linguistically (though not in any sense politically) could be called German Limburg. This area extends from the border regions of Cleves, Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

, Viersen
Viersen
Viersen is the capital of the district of Viersen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Viersen is situated approximately 8 km north-west of Mönchengladbach, 15 km south-west of Krefeld and 20 km east of Venlo ....

 and Heinsberg
Heinsberg
Heinsberg is the capital of the district Heinsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated near the border with the Netherlands, on the river Wurm, approx...

, stretching out to the Rhine river. Modern linguists, both in the Netherlands and in Germany, now often combine these distinct varieties with the Cleves dialects (Kleverländisch). This super-ordinating group of Low Franconian varieties (between the rivers Meuse and Rhine) is called Meuse-Rhenish (Dutch: Maas-Rijnlands, Welschen 2002), or in German: Rheinmaasländisch.

Both Limburgish and Low Rhenish belong to this greater Meuse
Meuse
Meuse is a department in northeast France, named after the River Meuse.-History:Meuse is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

-Rhine area, building a large group of southeastern Low Franconian
Franconian
Franconian may refer to:*anything related to Franconia , a historic region in Germany, now part of Bavaria, Thuringia and Baden-Württemberg*Franconian languages*Franconian , a stage in North American stratigraphy...

 dialects, including areas in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German Northern Rhineland
Rhineland
Historically, the Rhinelands refers to a loosely-defined region embracing the land on either bank of the River Rhine in central Europe....

. The northwestern part of this triangle came under the influence of the Dutch standard language, especially since the founding of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands
United Kingdom of the Netherlands is the unofficial name used to refer to Kingdom of the Netherlands during the period after it was first created from part of the First French Empire and before the new kingdom of Belgium split out in 1830...

 in 1815. At the same time, the southeastern portion became part of the Kingdom of Prussia
Kingdom of Prussia
The Kingdom of Prussia was a German kingdom from 1701 to 1918. Until the defeat of Germany in World War I, it comprised almost two-thirds of the area of the German Empire...

, and 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 (Welschen 2002).

The Meuse-Rhenish dialects can be divided into Northern and Southern varieties. Hence, Limburgish is Southwestern Meuse-Rhenish as spoken in Belgium, the Netherlands and the German Lower Rhine. The Northeastern Meuse-Rhenish dialects as spoken in the Netherlands and in Germany (a little eastward along the Rhine) are unambiguously Low Franconian and can be considered as Dutch. As discussed above, Limburgish straddles the borderline between 'Low Franconian' and 'Middle Franconian' varieties. These Southwestern Meuse-Rhenish dialects are more-or-less mutually intelligible with the Ripuarian dialects, but have been influenced less by the High German consonant shift
High German consonant shift
In historical linguistics, the High German consonant shift or second Germanic consonant shift is a phonological development that took place in the southern parts of the West Germanic dialect continuum in several phases, probably beginning between the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, and was almost...

 (R. Hahn 2001).

Form

Limburgish is far from being homogeneous. In other words, it has numerous varieties
Variety (linguistics)
In sociolinguistics a variety, also called a lect, is a specific form of a language or language cluster. This may include languages, dialects, accents, registers, styles or other sociolinguistic variation, as well as the standard variety itself...

 instead of one single standard form
Standard language
A standard language is a language variety used by a group of people in their public discourse. Alternatively, varieties become standard by undergoing a process of standardization, during which it is organized for description in grammars and dictionaries and encoded in such reference works...

. Between 1995 and 1999, a uniform standard form called AGL (Algemein Gesjreve Limburgs, "Generally written Limburgish") was developed and proposed, but found too little support. Today the so-called "Veldeke-spelling" which was first applied in the 1940s is most of the time used to write in a specific Limburgish dialect.

Contemporary usage

Limburgish is spoken by approximately 1,600,000 people in the Low Countries
Low Countries
The Low Countries are the historical lands around the low-lying delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers, including the modern countries of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of northern France and western Germany....

 and by many hundreds of thousands in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. It is especially in the Dutch province of Limburg that Limburgish is used not only in everyday speech, but also often in more formal situations and on the local and regional radio. However, it has no real written tradition, except for its early beginnings. Hendrik van Veldeke wrote in a Middle Limburgish dialect. Especially in the Netherlands, the cultural meaning of the language is also important. Many song texts are written in a Limburgish dialect, for example during Carnival
Carnival
Carnaval is a festive season which occurs immediately before Lent; the main events are usually during February. Carnaval typically involves a public celebration or parade combining some elements of a circus, mask and public street party...

. Jack Poels
Jack Poels
Jack Poels is the singer, guitarist and harmonica player of the Dutch band Rowwen Hèze for which he has composed almost all the texts and music. His music is some kind of mixture of folk, Tejano and accordion music....

 writes most of his texts for Rowwen Hèze
Rowwen Hèze
Rowwen Hèze is a band from the small village of America in the south of the Netherlands. They are one of the biggest bands singing in a northern dialect of Limburgish. The band was founded in 1985.-Music:...

 in Sevenums, a dialect of Northern Limburgish (see also below).

To what degree Limburgish actually is spoken in Germany today remains a matter of debate. Depending on the city in these parts of Germany, 50% to 90% of the population speak a local or regional form of Meuse-Rhenish, which is either Limburgish or Bergish, according to A. Schunck 2001. However, this percentage seems to be a clear overestimation, as far as the German situation is concerned. The same holds true for his estimation of the Belgian situation.Moreover, research into some specific variants seems to indicate a gradual process of development towards the national standardised Dutch, especially amongst younger generations. In Belgium, the Limburgish dialects are more endangered than in the Netherlands.

Linguistic versus societal status

Limburgish has been recognised as a regional language
Regional language
A regional language is a language spoken in an area of a nation state, whether it be a small area, a federal state or province, or some wider area....

 (Dutch: streektaal) in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 since March 1997. As such, it receives moderate protection under chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...

.

It has been argued, however, that this recognition was highly politically motivated and done more on sociolinguistic
Sociolinguistics
Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society...

 than purely linguistic grounds. In 1999, the Dutch Language Union
Dutch Language Union
The Dutch Language Union is an international institution for discussing issues regarding the Dutch language. It was founded on 9 September 1980 by the Netherlands and Belgium...

 which had not been asked for advice opposed the recognition.

On the other hand, Limburgish has not been recognised by the German and Belgian governments as an official language so far.

Language/most important dialects

  • Limburgish
    • Northern Limburgish
    • East Limburgish
      • Sittard dialect
        Sittard dialect
        The Sittard dialect is a Limburgish dialect spoken mainly in the Dutch city of Sittard. It is also spoken in Herkenbosch and in a small part of Germany , but quickly disappearing there...

         (Zittesj)
      • Stein dialect ("Steins")
    • Central Limburgish
      • Weert dialect (Wieërts)
      • Maastrichtian dialect
        Maastrichtian dialect
        Maastrichtian or Maastrichtian Limburgish is the city dialect and variant of Limburgish spoken in the Dutch city of Maastricht alongside the Dutch language . In terms of speakers it is the most widespread variant of Limburgish, and is a tonal one...

         (Mestreechs)
    • Southeast Limburgish (overlaps more or less with Ripuarian)
      • Aachen dialect
        Aachen dialect
        Aachen dialect is the name of the dialect of Ripuarian Franconian spoken in the German Rhineland city of Aachen...

      • Kerkrade dialect (Kirchröadsj)
      • Heerlen dialect
    • West Limburgish
      • Hasselt dialect (Hessels)
      • Veldeke dialect


The dialect of Venlo
Venlo
Venlo is a municipality and a city in the southeastern Netherlands, next to the German border. It is situated in the province of Limburg.In 2001, the municipalities of Belfeld and Tegelen were merged into the municipality of Venlo. Tegelen was originally part of the Duchy of Jülich centuries ago,...

 is generally considered a transition dialect between East Limburgish and Kleverlandish.

Expanded

Südniederfränkisch is a concept used in Germany to describe the Limburgish language ("South Low Franconian") of Germany.
It is a group spoken in a part of the Bergisches Land Region
Bergisches Land
The Bergisches Land is a low mountain range region within the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over 20 artificial lakes...

 near Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 east of the Rhine and in the lower Rhine area between the rivers Rhine and Maas, the latter (called Rheinmaasländisch or Südostniederfränkisch "Southeast Low Franconian") shortly behind the Dutch–German border in the vicinity of Heinsberg
Heinsberg
Heinsberg is the capital of the district Heinsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated near the border with the Netherlands, on the river Wurm, approx...

 and Nettetal
Nettetal
Nettetal is a municipality in the district of Viersen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Nettetal is not a town itself, but a federation of villages that have developed around the river Nette, and the worked-out gravel pits that now form five lakes. It is situated on the border with the...

. These languages are predominantly seen as belonging to the Limburgish language group. They were also referred to as the East Limburgish group. It encompasses the varieties of Limburgish spoken in Germany. They are also seen as part of the Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish or Rheinmaasländisch is a modern term that geographically refers to the literature written in mediæval times in the greater Meuse-Rhine area. This area stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse and Rhine...

 language group. Population using one of the languages in the group either name their local variety Bergish
Bergish dialects
Bergish is a term used for the collection of local languages of the Bergisches Land Region East of the Rhine in West Germany. It is more a popular term, rather than one of linguistic relevance. The reason is that, the regions local dialects belong to several quite distinct groups inside the...

(in the Low Bergish
Low Bergish
Low Bergish, or Western Bergish, is a group of local languages of the Bergisches Land Region east of the Rhine in West Germany. It is part of the Limburgish language group, which extends far beyond the rivers Rhine and Maas into the Netherlands and Belgium. They are also part of the East Limburgish...

 speaking Bergisches Land Region only), or Platt
Platt
Platt may refer to:Places* Platt, Florida, an unincorporated community in DeSoto County, Florida, United States* Platt, Austria* Platt, Kent, EnglandPeople* Platt * Platt Baronets, two baronetcies of the United KingdomOther uses...

, or after their village, town, or city placeer Platt. People from outside the Rhineland often make less distinctions and use the term Rhinelandic
Rhinelandic
Rhinelandic is a term occasionally used for linguistic varieties of a region on both sides of the Middle and Lower Rhine river in Central West Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg. It has at least two distinct meanings which often can only be determined from the fine grain context in...

 for large set of varieties of languages.
The Limburgish group belongs to the Continental West Germanic dialect continuum
Dialect continuum
A dialect continuum, or dialect area, was defined by Leonard Bloomfield as a range of dialects spoken across some geographical area that differ only slightly between neighboring areas, but as one travels in any direction, these differences accumulate such that speakers from opposite ends of the...

. As usual inside dialect continua, neighboring languages have a maximum of similarities, and speakers being used to the rather small individual lingual differences in their immediate neighborhood perceive them as close, and familiar, while more distant ones become gradually harder to understand with distance. That ends, in the Dutch–German continuum at least, most often with incomprehensible dialects. Isoglosses are so dense in this area, that practically every village or town has its own distinct dialect of Limburgish. Large cities such as Mönchengladbach
Mönchengladbach
Mönchengladbach , formerly known as Münchengladbach, is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located west of the Rhine half way between Düsseldorf and the Dutch border....

, Krefeld
Krefeld
Krefeld , also known as Crefeld until 1929, is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its centre lying just a few kilometres to the west of the River Rhine; the borough of Uerdingen is situated directly on the Rhine...

, and Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 have several local dialect varieties. The named cities have in common, that they are large enough to in part extend outside the area of the dialect group. Thus each has one or more quarters outside, having vernacular languages belonging to adjacent groups, such as Cleverlands or Ripuarian. A few sample South Low Franconian dialects are: Dremmener Platt of Dremmen near Heinsberg
Heinsberg
Heinsberg is the capital of the district Heinsberg in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is situated near the border with the Netherlands, on the river Wurm, approx...

, Breyellsch Platt of Breyell in Nettetal
Nettetal
Nettetal is a municipality in the district of Viersen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Nettetal is not a town itself, but a federation of villages that have developed around the river Nette, and the worked-out gravel pits that now form five lakes. It is situated on the border with the...

, Jlabbacher Platt of central Mönchengladbach, Jriefrother Platt of Grefrath
Grefrath
Grefrath is a municipality in the district of Viersen, in the western part of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany....

, Viersener Platt of Viersen
Viersen
Viersen is the capital of the district of Viersen, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:Viersen is situated approximately 8 km north-west of Mönchengladbach, 15 km south-west of Krefeld and 20 km east of Venlo ....

, Föschelner Platt of Fischeln in Krefeld, Krieewelsch of central Krefeld, Ödingsch of Uerdingen in Krefeld, Düsseldorver Platt of northern and central Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

, Rotinger Platt of Ratingen
Ratingen
Ratingen is a town in the district of Mettmann, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the northwestern part of Berg - about 12 km northeast of Düsseldorf...

, Wülfrother Platt of Wülfrath
Wülfrath
Wülfrath is a town in the district of Mettmann , in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.-Geography:The town is situated on the mountain spurs of the Bergische Land, between the Rhine, Ruhr and Wupper rivers. It is located in the central part of the Berg region, approx...

, Metmannsch Platt of Mettmann
Mettmann
Mettmann is a Rhenish town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Mettmann, Germany's most densely populated rural district...

, Solinger Platt of Solingen
Solingen
Solingen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and with a 2009 population of 161,366 is the second largest city in the Bergisches Land...

, Remscheder Platt of Remscheid
Remscheid
Remscheid is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on south side of the Ruhr area....

, and many more.
The groups combines Low Franconian properties with some Ripuarian properties, such as tonal accents, the pronoun "I" translates as or , the word "but" most often as , all like Ripuarian. Contrasting, "time" ist translated as , "to have" mostly as , "today" as , all typical for Low Franconian.
An area close to Westphalia
Westphalia
Westphalia is a region in Germany, centred on the cities of Arnsberg, Bielefeld, Dortmund, Minden and Münster.Westphalia is roughly the region between the rivers Rhine and Weser, located north and south of the Ruhr River. No exact definition of borders can be given, because the name "Westphalia"...

 called Bergisches Land
Bergisches Land
The Bergisches Land is a low mountain range region within the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains over 20 artificial lakes...

is considered to be the area where Bergisch is spoken. This area is limited roughly by a line Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

-Mettmann
Mettmann
Mettmann is a Rhenish town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the administrative centre of the district of Mettmann, Germany's most densely populated rural district...

-Solingen
Solingen
Solingen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and with a 2009 population of 161,366 is the second largest city in the Bergisches Land...

-Remscheid
Remscheid
Remscheid is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on south side of the Ruhr area....

. For a more encompassing view, see the article on Low Rhenish.

Noord-Limburgs (also called ik-Limburgs) is the Dutch term for a group of dialects spoken north of the Uerdingen line
Uerdingen line
The Uerdingen Line is the isogloss within West Germanic languages that separates dialects which preserve the -k sound at the end of a word from dialects in which the word final -k has changed to word final -ch...

, i.e. from just south of Venlo upward to the North in the Dutch province of Limburg
Limburg (Netherlands)
Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...

. These dialects share many features with both the Zuid-Gelders and Brabantian
Brabantian
Brabantian or Brabantish, also Brabantic , is a dialect group of the Dutch language. It is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant which corresponded mainly to the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, as well as the institutional Region of...

 dialects and are closer to Standard Dutch than the more southern language varieties (see e.g. Hoppenbrouwers 2001). The term Noord-Limburgs is used by Jo Daan for the entire province north of the Uerdingen line, whereas other linguists use it only for the part that has tonality, the language north of this region then being considered Kleverlandish.

The north border of the Limburgish tonality zone lies a little north of Arcen
Arcen
Arcen is a village in the Dutch province of Limburg. In 2010, it became part of the municipality of Venlo. Previously, it had been part of the municipality of Arcen en Velden and the seat of 'het gemeentehuis' . Gemeente Arcen en VeldenIn 2001, Arcen had 1884 inhabitants...

 and Horst aan de Maas
Horst aan de Maas
Horst aan de Maas is a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands, in the province of Limburg. In 2010 the municipalities Sevenum and part of Meerlo-Wanssum joined the municipality.- Population centres :...

 and just above the meej/mich isogloss, also known as the "mich-kwartier". This makes this Limburgish isogloss the northernmost of all. Venlo lies between the meej/mich isogloss and the Uerdingen line, so the Venlo dialect is the only one with both forms ik and mich/dich. All dialects in the Dutch province of Limburg spoken north of the tonality border are South Guelderish in linguistic respect.

The dialects spoken in the most southeastern part of the Dutch province of North Brabant
North Brabant
North Brabant , sometimes called Brabant, is a province of the Netherlands, located in the south of the country, bordered by Belgium in the south, the Meuse River in the north, Limburg in the east and Zeeland in the west.- History :...

 (i.e. in and around Budel
Budel
Budel is a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It is located in the municipality of Cranendonck, 25 km outside Eindhoven. Kempen Airport is located near Budel.Budel used to be a separate municipality...

 and Maarheeze
Maarheeze
Maarheeze is a village in the Dutch province of North Brabant. It is located in the municipality of Cranendonck, about 15 km southeast of Eindhoven....

) also have many Limburgish characteristics. An important difference between these dialects and the adjacent ones in the Dutch province of Limburg is, however, that the second-person pronoun gij is here used instead of doe, as in "purely" Brabantian dialects.

Centraal-Limburgs includes the area around Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

, Sittard
Sittard-Geleen
Sittard-Geleen is a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands. It was formed in 2001 from the former municipalities Sittard, Geleen and Born....

, Roermond
Roermond
Roermond is a city, a municipality, and a diocese in the southeastern part of the Netherlands.The city of Roermond is a historically important town, on the lower Roer at the east bank of the Meuse river. It received city rights in 1231...

, the eastern half of Belgian Limburg, and the Belgian Voeren area, and stretches further Northeast. Belgian linguists use a more refined classification. Dutch linguists use the term Oost-Limburgs for the form of Limburgish spoken in an area from Belgian Voeren south of Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

 in the Netherlands to the German border. For them, West-Limburgs is the variety of Limburgish spoken in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 in the area east of the Uerdingen line, for example in and around Hasselt
Hasselt
Hasselt is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital of the Flemish province of Limburg...

 and Tongeren. It includes areas in Dutch Limburg (like Ool
OOL
OOL may refer to:* Olivia O'Leary, Irish journalist, writer and current affairs presenter* Optimum Online, an Internet service provider in the United States* Gold Coast Airport in Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia* Object-oriented language...

, Maria Hoop and Montfort
Montfort
- People :* Amaury de Montfort, Canon of York * Amaury I de Montfort * Amaury IV de Montfort * Bertrade de Montfort , Queen of France* Guy de Montfort, Count of Nola...

) 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.

Southeast Limburgish (Zuidoost-Limburgs) is spoken in and around Kerkrade
Kerkrade
Kerkrade is a town and a municipality in the southeastern Netherlands.It is the western half of the divided region and de facto city, taken together with the eastern half, the German town of Herzogenrath...

, Simpelveld
Simpelveld
Simpelveld is a municipality and a town in the southeastern Netherlands.Simpelveld has a heritage railway station and is the homebase of the South Limburg Railway Compagny ZLSM . On one weekend in October there is a Day out with Thomas from the children's television series Thomas and...

, Bocholtz and Vaals
Vaals
Vaals is a town in the extreme southeastern part of the Dutch province of Limburg, which in its turn finds itself in the southeastern part of the Netherlands....

 in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...


, Aachen
Aachen
Aachen has historically been a spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Aachen was a favoured residence of Charlemagne, and the place of coronation of the Kings of Germany. Geographically, Aachen is the westernmost town of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, ...

 in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 and Raeren
Raeren
Raeren is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège. It was part of Germany until the First World War, after which it became part of Belgium. It is one of several towns in Eastern Belgium which still predominantly speak German....

 and Eynatten
Eynatten
Eynatten is a village in the Belgian municipality of Raeren into the German-speaking Community of Belgium. Eynatten is on the border to Germany, 6 km south from Aachen. Around half of the population are foreigners, most of them Germans....

 in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

. Especially in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 these dialects are usually considered as variants of Ripuarian, not of Limburgish. According to a more contemporary vision, however, 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
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....

 area between Voeren and Eupen
Eupen
Eupen is a municipality in the Belgian province of Liège, from the German border , from the Dutch border and from the "High Fens" nature reserve...

 in Belgium, can be taken as a group of its own, which recently has been named Limburgish of the Three Countries Area
Vaalserberg
The Vaalserberg is a hill 322.7 metres in height and the highest point in the European part of the Netherlands. The Vaalserberg is located in the province of Limburg, at the south-easternmost edge of the country in the municipality of Vaals, near the eponymous town, some three kilometres west of...

(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
Duchy of Limburg
The Duchy of Limburg, situated in the Low Countries between the river Meuse and the city of Aachen, was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. Its territory is now divided between the Belgian provinces of Liège and Limburg , the Dutch province of Limburg , and a small part of North Rhine-Westphalia in...

 existed. Jan Goossens defines the northwest boundary of South East Limburgish at the lijk-lich isoglosse. The area between this line and the Benrath line
Benrath line
In German linguistics, the Benrath line is the maken-machen isogloss: dialects north of the line have the original in maken , while those to the south have...

 is called Ripuarian-Limburgish. The area between the Benrath line and the aat-alt isoglosse is then called Aachens or Limburgish-Ripuarian.

If only tonality is to be taken as to define this variety, it stretches well across the river Rhine into Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 (see Fournier et al). In Germany, it is consensus to class it as belonging to High German
High German languages
The High German languages or the High German dialects are any of the varieties of standard German, Luxembourgish and Yiddish, as well as the local German dialects spoken in central and southern Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and in neighboring portions of Belgium and the...

 varieties. In order to include this variety properly a more encompassing concept is needed. The combination of Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish
Meuse-Rhenish or Rheinmaasländisch is a modern term that geographically refers to the literature written in mediæval times in the greater Meuse-Rhine area. This area stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse and Rhine...

 and Ripuarian, including their overlapping transitional zones of Southeast Limburgish and Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch
Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....

, will do.

Sound inventory

The sound inventory below is based on the variety of West-Limburgs spoken in Montfort.

Consonants

Bilabial
Bilabial consonant
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...

Labiodental
Labiodental consonant
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.-Labiodental consonant in IPA:The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:...

Alveolar
Alveolar consonant
Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...

Postalveolar
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...

Palatal
Palatal consonant
Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...

Velar
Velar consonant
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....

Glottal
Glottal consonant
Glottal consonants, also called laryngeal consonants, are consonants articulated with the glottis. Many phoneticians consider them, or at least the so-called fricative, to be transitional states of the glottis without a point of articulation as other consonants have; in fact, some do not consider...

Nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...

m n ɲ ŋ
Stop
Stop consonant
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or an oral stop, is a stop consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be done with the tongue , lips , and &...

p b t d ɖ c k ɡ ʔ
Approximant
Approximant consonant
Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough or with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no...

w ð j
Affricate
Affricate consonant
Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...

Fricative
Fricative consonant
Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...

f v s z ʃ ʒ ç ʝ x ɣ h ɦ
Trill
Trill consonant
In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....

r
Lateral approximant
Lateral consonant
A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....

ɫ, l ʎ


/ɡ/ may not show up in the Hasselt dialect, but is well known in other Limburgish dialects, e.g. zègke (Dutch: zeggen) "to say".

Other Limburgish dialects also have the following sounds: /x/ (daag); /ɣ/ (ach, interjection); /ç/ (chemisch); /c/ (landj); /ɲ/ (tenj, teeth).

Instead of /w/ /β̞/ is used in Belgian Limburgish.

Overall, Limburgish dialects tend to have more consonants than Dutch. They also tend to have more vowels. According to Peter Ladefoged
Peter Ladefoged
Peter Nielsen Ladefoged was an English-American linguist and phonetician who traveled the world to document the distinct sounds of endangered languages and pioneered ways to collect and study data . He was active at the universities of Edinburgh, Scotland and Ibadan, Nigeria 1953–61...

, the vowel inventary of the dialect of Weert is perhaps the richest in the world. It has 28 vowels (12 long vowels, 10 short vowels and 6 diphthongs).

In most of the Limburgish dialects spoken to the southeast of Panningen – e.g. those of Roermond, Sittard and Heerlen – a postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonant
Postalveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the back of the alveolar ridge, further back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but not as far back as the hard palate...

 appears at the beginning of words in the consonant clusters sp, st, sl, sm, sn and zw. The same sound is realized as an alveolar fricative
Voiceless alveolar fricative
The voiceless alveolar sibilant is a common consonant sound in spoken languages. It is the sound in English words such as sea and pass, and is represented in the International Phonetic Alphabet as . It has a characteristic high-pitched, highly perceptible hissing sound...

 elsewhere (e.g. sjtraot/straot, "street"). This is not the case, however, in the dialects of for example Venlo, Weert, Maastricht, Echt, Montfort and Posterholt.

Monophthongs

Front
Front vowel
A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...

Central
Central vowel
A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...

Back
Back vowel
A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...

Close
Close vowel
A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...

i iː y yː u uː
Near-close
Near-close vowel
A near-close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-close vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to a close vowel, but slightly less constricted. Near-close vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully close vowels...

ɪ
Close-mid
Close-mid vowel
A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...

e eː ø øː oː o
Mid
Mid vowel
A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...

ə ɔ
Open-mid
Open-mid vowel
An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...

ɛ ɛː œ œː œ̃ː ɔː ɔ̃ː
Near-open
Near-open vowel
A near-open vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a near-open vowel is that the tongue is positioned similarly to an open vowel, but slightly more constricted. Near-open vowels are sometimes described as lax variants of the fully open vowels...

æ æ̃ː
Open
Open vowel
An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...

a aː ɑ ɑː ɑ̃ː

/ə/ only occurs in unstressed syllables.

/øː œː uː/ are realised as [øə œə uə] before alveolar consonants.

Diphthongs

The diphthongs /iə øɪ eɪ æɪ uɪ ɔɪ aɪ ou/ occur, as well as combinations of /uː ɔː ɑː/ + /j/. /aɪ/ only occurs in French loanwords and interjection
Interjection
In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

s.

/ou/ is realized as [oə] before alveolar consonants. /eɪ/ can be realized as [eə] or [ejə]. In the dialect of Geleen
Geleen
Geleen is a city in the southern part of the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. With 33,960 inhabitants, it is part of the municipality of Sittard-Geleen. Geleen is situated along the river Geleenbeek, a right tributary to the river Meuse. The town centre is situated at about 60 m above sea...

, /ee/ is realized as /iè/ and /oo/ as /oa/. In many dialects such as that of Maastricht and Sittard, the long vowel /aa/ in Dutch cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...

s is most of the time realized as /ao/, as in nao ("after", "to, towards"). The Standard Dutch equivalents are na [naː] and naar [naːr].

The unrounded vowels ie, i, é/è, , , ê/èè and ei are very common in about 50 Belgian Limburgish dialects where they replace their rounded counterparts which occur almost only in French loanwords such as dzjuus.:

Tone

Many dialects of Limburgish (and of Ripuarian) have a pitch accent
Pitch accent
Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...

, having two different accents used in stressed syllables. The difference between these two accents is used for differentiating both various grammatical forms of a single lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...

 and minimal tone pairs
Minimal pair
In phonology, minimal pairs are pairs of words or phrases in a particular language, which differ in only one phonological element, such as a phone, phoneme, toneme or chroneme and have distinct meanings...

 one from the other. With specific regards to Limburgish, these two accents are traditionally known as sjtoettoen ("push tone") and sjleiptoen ("dragging tone"). The dragging tone is lexical while the push tone is not. For example, [daːx˦˨˧] daa~g with a dragging tone means "a day" in Limburgish, while in many Limburgish dialects [daːx˦˨] daa\g with a push tone is the plural form, "days" (in addition, [daːx] can also be articulated in a neutral tone as a third possibility. In this case, it means "be good").

This difference is grammatical, but not lexical. An example of a lexical difference caused by dragging tone is the word [biː˦˨] bie\ which is articulated with a push tone and means "bee", forming a tonal minimal pair with [biː˦˨˧] bie~, which is articulated with a dragging tone and means "at".

Pitch accent in comparison with "real" tonality

However, this feature cannot be compared to the "real" tone
Tone (linguistics)
Tone is the use of pitch in language to distinguish lexical or grammatical meaning—that is, to distinguish or inflect words. All verbal languages use pitch to express emotional and other paralinguistic information, and to convey emphasis, contrast, and other such features in what is called...

 systems such as for example that of the Chinese languages or some African languages
African languages
There are over 2100 and by some counts over 3000 languages spoken natively in Africa in several major language families:*Afro-Asiatic spread throughout the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and parts of the Sahel...

 such as Yoruba
Yoruba language
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers. The native tongue of the Yoruba people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas...

, the number of tone contour
Tone contour
A tone contour is a tone in a tonal language which shifts from one pitch to another over the course of the syllable or word. Tone contours are especially common in East and Southeast Asia, but occur elsewhere, such as the Kru languages of Liberia and the Ju languages of Namibia.-Themes:When the...

s and their division being far more restricted in Limburgish than in these languages. Other Indo-European languages
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a family of several hundred related languages and dialects, including most major current languages of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and South Asia and also historically predominant in Anatolia...

 with a pitch accent include Lithuanian
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they...

, Livonian
Livonian
Livonian can refer to one of the following.*Livonian people*Livonian language*Anything else pertaining to Livonia...

, Swedish
Swedish language
Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

, Norwegian
Norwegian language
Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

, some Slovene dialects, and Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian
Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...

. Most of these languages being spoken at the borders of Europe, it has been suggested that tonality once was present in Proto-Indo-European
Proto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...

, and that its disappearance would have spread from the center of the European continent Another and slightly more plausible explanation of the origin of the Limburgish/Ripuarian tone system is that it originated in the Middle Ages from the apocope
Apocope
In phonology, apocope is the loss of one or more sounds from the end of a word, and especially the loss of an unstressed vowel.-Historical sound change:...

 of plural schwa
Schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean the following:*An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in some languages, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel...

's in the dialect of Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

 (Kölsch
Kölsch
Kölsch may refer to:*Kölsch , a beer speciality from Cologne, Germany*Kölsch language, a Ripuarian dialect spoken in Cologne*Historic Colognian, a predecessor of todays Kölsch language....

). This change necessitated at its turn a somewhat different articulation of the preceding vowel in the singular form, which was lengthened as in German but only to a limited extent, in order to keep on distinguishing the singular from the plural forms. This specific way of vowel lengthening may finally have resulted in the dragging tone.

Bitonality

It has been proved by speech analysis that in the Belgian Limburgish dialect of Borgloon
Borgloon
Borgloon is a city and municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. On January 1, 2006 Borgloon had a total population of 10,152. The total area is 51.12 km² which gives a population density of 199 inhabitants per km². Borgloon gave its name to the former county of Loon.-External...

, the dragging tone itself is bitonal, while it has also been proved that this is not the case in the adjacent Limburgish dialects of Tongeren and Hasselt
Hasselt
Hasselt is a Belgian city and municipality, and capital of the Flemish province of Limburg...

.

Steeper fall

Other research has indicated that the push tone has a steeper fall in the eastern dialects of Limburgish (e.g. those of Venlo, Roermond and Maasbracht) than it has in western dialects. In addition, both the phonetic realisation and the syllable-based distribution of the contrasts between push and dragging tone seem to be mora
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...

-bound in the eastern dialects only. This has been examined especially by Jörg Peters.

Dihpthongization

Moreover, in some dialects such as that of Sittard and Maastricht, especially the mid
Mid vowel
A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...

 and high vowels tend to diphthongize when they have a push tone. So in the dialect of Sittard keize means "to choose" while in the dialect of Maasbracht
Maasbracht
Maasbracht is a town in the southeastern Netherlands. It was a separate municipality until January 1, 2007, when it became a part of the new municipality of Maasgouw. Footballer Mark van Bommel was born in Maasbracht.-External links:*...

 no diphtonghization takes place, so keeze means the same here. This difference has been examined in particular by Ben Hermans and Marc van Oostendorp.

Other examples include plural stei~n "stone" stei\n "stones"
and lexical "grave" "hole next to a road"

Verbs distinguish mood with tone: "We conquer!" "May we conquer!"

The difference between push tone and dragging tone may also purely mark grammatical declension
Declension
In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and articles to indicate number , case , and gender...

 without there being any difference in meaning, as in the dialect of Borgloon: gieël ("yellow", with dragging tone) as opposed to en gieël peer ("a yellow pear", with push tone). This tonal shift also occurs when the adjective gets an inflectional ending, as in nen gieëlen appel ("a yellow apple").

In some parts of Limburg, the tonal plural is being replaced with the Dutch forms among the younger generation, so that the plural for
daag becomes dage ([daːʝə]).

Gender

Being more conservative than Dutch, Limburgish still has three grammatical genders. As in Dutch, the determinative particle is "de" for both masculine and feminine nouns and "'t" for neutral nouns. In some of the dialects however, "d'n" is used before masculine words beginning with
b, d, h, t or with a vowel and in many other dialects d'r is used before all masculine words. In most dialects, the indeterminative particle is eine(n) for masculine nouns, ein for feminine nouns and ei or n for neuter nouns. Without stress, these forms are most of the time realized as ne(n), n and e.

Plural

For some nouns, Limburgish uses simulfix
Simulfix
In linguistics, a simulfix is a type of affix that changes one or more existing phonemes in order to modify the meaning of a morpheme.Examples of simulfixes in English are generally considered irregularities, all of which left over from pluralization rules that existed before the Great Vowel Shift...

es (i.e. Umlaut
Germanic umlaut
In linguistics, umlaut is a process whereby a vowel is pronounced more like a following vowel or semivowel. The term umlaut was originally coined and is used principally in connection with the study of the Germanic languages...

) to form the plural:
  • broorbreurkebreur (brother – little brother – brothers)
  • sjoonsjeunkesjeun (shoe – little shoe – shoes): note this can also be 'sjoon' with sjtoettoen (pushing tone).


The more you go to the east towards Germany, the more you will find plural and diminutive nouns based on Umlaut. If you go to the west, the phonemic distinction between dragging and pushing tone will stop just before Riemst
Riemst
Riemst is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Limburg. On January 1, 2006 Riemst had a total population of 15,963. The total area is 57.88 km² which gives a population density of 276 inhabitants per km²....

.:

This way of forming plurals is also known in other West Germanic languages, in particular German and to some extent also in English (manmen ; goosegeese), while it is very rare in Dutch.

Diminutives

The diminutive suffix is most often -ke, as in Brabantian, or -je/-sje after a dental consonant.

Adjectives

According to their declension, Limburgish adjectives can be grouped into two classes. Adjectives of the first class get the ending -e in their masculine and feminine singular forms and always in plural, but no ending in their neuter singular form. When combined with a masculine noun in singular adjectives may elso end on -en, under the same phonological conditions which apply to articles. To this class belong most adjectives ending on a -ch[t], -d, -k, -p, -t or -s preceded by another consonant or with one of the suffixes -eg, -ig and -isch. The other declension class includes most adjectives ending on -f, -g, -j, -l,-m,-n, -ng, -r, -w or -s preceded by a vowel; these adjectives only get the ending -e(n) in their masculine singular form.

When used as a predicate
Predicate (grammar)
There are two competing notions of the predicate in theories of grammar. Traditional grammar tends to view a predicate as one of two main parts of a sentence, the other being the subject, which the predicate modifies. The other understanding of predicates is inspired from work in predicate calculus...

, Limburgish adjectives never get an ending: Dee mins is gek (Maastrichtian: "That man is crazy"). Except for neuter adjectives which sometimes get -t: "'t Eint of 't angert", though this is dying out.

Personal pronouns

Subject Object
Venlo Roermond Maastricht Venlo Roermond Maastricht
first person singular ik ich iech mich miech
second person singular doe diech dich diech (especially in Maastrichtian)
third person singular masculine hae heer häöm (also dem in the dialect of Roermond)
third person singular feminine zie, het zie, zij häör, häöm häör
third person singular neutral het het
first person plural weej veer ós us
second person plural geej geer óch uuch
third person plural zie die häör hun

Possessive pronouns

Singular masculine Singular feminine Singular neuter Plural
first person singular miene(n) mien mie mien
second person singular diene(n) dien die dien
third person singular masculine ziene(n) zien zie zien
third person singular neutral ziene(n) zien zie zien
third person singular feminine häöre(n) häör häör häör
first person plural ooze(n) oos (Maastrichtian: eus) ós (Maastrichtian: us) oos (Maastrichtian: eus)
second person plural eure(n) eur eur eur
third person plural häöre(n) (easterly) / hunne(n) (westerly) häör (easterly) / hun (westerly) häör (easterly) / hun (westerly) häör (easterly) / hun (westerly)


In the masculine singular forms of mien, dien, zien and oos, final -n is added under the same phonological conditions which apply to articles and adjectives. Deletion of the final -n in the neuter forms of mien, dien, zien no longer occurs in the dialect of Venlo and is also disappearing in the dialect of Roermond.

Demonstrative pronouns

The most common (i.e. uninflected) demonstrative pronouns in Limburgish are:
Singular masculine Singular feminine Singular neuter Plural Translation
deze(n)/dizze(n) dees/dis dit dees this/these
dae(n) (Maastrichtian: dee) die det (Venlo, Roermond), dat (Maastricht) die that/those

Vocabulary

Most of the Limburgish vocabulary is very similar to that of Standard Dutch or to that of Standard German. However, the more basic words of the language clearly have their grounds in Central German Dialects. For Example, personal pronouns are overwhelmingly similar to German.

Historically, the vocabulary of the varieties of Limburgish spoken within Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 (Belgian) territory has been influenced by French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

 than that of the Limburgish dialects spoken on Dutch and German soil, as appears form words such as briquet ("cigarette-lighter"), camion ("truck") and crevette ("shrimp"). 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 of the earliest writers in Dutch.

See also

  • Limburgish Wikipedia
  • Meuse-Rhenish
    Meuse-Rhenish
    Meuse-Rhenish or Rheinmaasländisch is a modern term that geographically refers to the literature written in mediæval times in the greater Meuse-Rhine area. This area stretches in the northern triangle roughly between the rivers Meuse and Rhine...

  • Low Rhenish
  • Southeast Limburgish/Southern Meuse-Rhenish
  • Low Dietsch
    Low Dietsch
    Low Dietsch is a term mainly used within the Flemish terminology for the transitional Limburgish–Ripuarian dialects of a number of towns and villages in the north-east of the Belgian province of Liege, such as Gemmenich, Homburg, Montzen and Welkenraedt....


External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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