South Guelderish (Dutch:
Zuid-Gelders, German:
Kleverländisch) refers to a group of dialects of the
Dutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
which are spoken roughly along the
Nederrijnthumb|right|250px|Edited [[satellite]] [[image]] of the [[Rhine]]-[[Waal |Waal]] fork showing the beginning of the Nederrijn branch .thumb|right|250px|Nederrijn in [[Arnhem]]...
-area in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
, and around the city of Cleves in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. They are sometimes included within Brabantic, another, larger, dialect of Dutch to which South Gelderish is most closely related.
The status of the dialect differs greatly between the Netherlands and Germany.
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South Guelderish (Dutch:
Zuid-Gelders, German:
Kleverländisch) refers to a group of dialects of the
Dutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language.
"1% of the EU population claims to speak Dutch well enough in order to have a conversation." Outside the European Union the number of second language...
which are spoken roughly along the
Nederrijnthumb|right|250px|Edited [[satellite]] [[image]] of the [[Rhine]]-[[Waal |Waal]] fork showing the beginning of the Nederrijn branch .thumb|right|250px|Nederrijn in [[Arnhem]]...
-area in the
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
, and around the city of Cleves in
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
. They are sometimes included within Brabantic, another, larger, dialect of Dutch to which South Gelderish is most closely related.
The status of the dialect differs greatly between the Netherlands and Germany. In the Netherlands, South Guelderish dialects are subject to the standardized form of Dutch; to which it, being a Dutch dialect, it is very similar, which means it has been relatively uninfluenced. In Germany however (beginning in 1713, when Prussia took control of the area) the dialect is subject to the German standard language, to which it is only distantly related, and this has left marks on the dialect, mainly vocabulary-wise.
Furthermore, large-scale industrialization of the Cleves/Duisburg-area in Germany (and the immigrants accompanying) during the late 19th and 20th century has greatly declinded its use today, leaving very few native speakers today. For example, in Duisburg (though traditionally within the South Guelderish area) it has virtually died out.
As noted before, South Guelderish is sometimes included within Brabantian. This because there exists no
isoglossAn isogloss refers to a specific type of language border. It is the geographical boundary or delineation of a certain linguistic feature , the meaning of a word, or use of some syntactic feature. Major dialects are typically demarcated by whole bundles of isoglosses, e.g...
bundle between the Brabantian and South Guelderish dialects. The distinction is mainly made, because the area in which South Guelderish is spoken has, historically been more economically focussed on the hanseatic Dutch cities, which has resulted in limited vocabulary differences. A dialect of South Guelderish origin spoken in the United States is
Pella DutchPella Dutch is a dialect of the Dutch language spoken in Pella, Iowa. It is derived from Zuid-Gelders, a dialect spoken in the Netherlands....
.