The Sittard dialect is a Limburgish

Limburgish language

Limburgish, also called Limburgian or Limburgic is a group of East Low Franconian language varieties spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch / Belgian / German border...

 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,...

 spoken mainly in the Dutch city of Sittard

Sittard

Sittard is a city in the Dutch province of Limburg, which is the southernmost province of the Netherlands.On the east Sittard borders on Germany . It has some 48,400 inhabitants . Sittard is part of the municipality of Sittard-Geleen...

. It is also spoken in Herkenbosch

Roerdalen

- Population centres :*Herkenbosch*Melick*Montfort*Posterholt*Reutje*Sint Odiliënberg*Vlodrop- External links :*...

 and in a small part of 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...

 (Selfkant

Selfkant

Selfkant is a municipality in the Heinsberg district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the most westerly municipality in Germany...

), but quickly disappearing there. The dialect of Sittard is closely related to that of Roermond.

Characteristics

The Sittard dialect belongs to Middle Limburgish, which means it has 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...

 at the onset of words beginning with clusters

Consonant cluster

In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....

 such as st, sl and st in other variants of Limburgish such as Maastrichtian

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...

 and in 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...

. The most important characteristic by which the dialect of Sittard is distinguished from other Limburgish dialects is the presence of the diphthong

Diphthong

A diphthong , also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel...

s ei and ou, instead of ee and oo, as in neit ("not"), veil ("much") beier ("beer") and awd ("old"). This phenomenon has been examined thoroughly by Willy Dols.