Dialects

 
Despite an overarching standard language the Dutch language-area still has a large number of regional variants right to this day, differing strongly from each other.

For most Dutch and Flemish speakers the most obvious division is into northern and southern dialects - to the south of the "great rivers" (the Rhine and the Meuse) people use a "soft g" and to the north they don't.

For dialectologists the contrast between east and west is more important. The western dialects still show a number of Inguaeonic characteristics ("Coastal Germanic" - cf Characterisation of the German language family) whilst the eastern dialects (Saxon regions and Limburg), for example, did not fully participate in the diphthongisation (huus, hoes) and moreover have a number of features in common with German dialects (old/ald instead of oud).
(see De Vries, 1993:179)

The dialectologist Jo Daan distinguishes between 28 dialects of Dutch. These can be subdivided into six main groups:

• The south-eastern dialects (Belgian and Dutch Limburg and some villages in north Brabant)
• The north-eastern dialects (Groningen, Drente, some northern border regions by Friesland, Overijssel and eastern Gelderland)
• The south-western dialects (West Flanders, French-Flanders, Zeeland and the islands of Goeree and Overflakkee in the province of South Holland)
• The south central dialects (Brabant, Antwerp, East Flanders, North Brabant and southern Gelderland)
• The north-western dialects (North Holland above the IJsselmeer, the non-Frisian Wadden islands, the coastal stretch of Holland province and the South Holland islands apart from Goeree and Overflakkee)
• The north central dialects (the larger part of Utrecht and the provinces of North and South Holland between the IJsselmeer to the north and the Meuse and Lek to the south).

Dialects which are widely separated from each other show differences which can sometimes be very great - a speaker of Groningen dialect will scarcely be able to understand a speaker of West-Flemish unless they both speak standard Dutch.

Some Dutch dialects show marked correspondences to neighbouring German dialects. For example Venlo dialect has more features in common with the German dialect of Krefeld (which is close to Venlo) than, for example, the dialect of the Zaan area. Yet Venlo dialect is still Dutch.

The demarcation between Dutch and German dialects is made on the basis of the standard language spoken in the region concerned. Venlo dialect is regarded as Dutch because the inhabitants of Venlo use Dutch in school and in "official" situations; the language of Krefeld on the other hand is treated as a German dialect because High German is the overarching standard language there.

It is more difficult to define the demarcation between Dutch and Frisian dialects - it is not easy to decide whether the dialects of Leeuwarden, the Het Bildt area, Ameland and Midland are Frisian or Dutch, since both standard languages (Dutch and Frisian) are spoken in the same area (ie in the Netherlands). (seeBoves/Gerritsen, 1995:39)

As a result of increasing mobility, improved education and a stronger sense of conformity (parents often no longer bring their children up in their own dialect), more and more dialects are disappearing. Instead of dialects we find a sort of regionally coloured standard language. This "regiolect" adopts a number of characteristics of a certain group of dialects (eg from the north-eastern dialects) - but only those characteristics which do not hamper communication between speakers from the different regions. The "regiolects" are therefore coming ever closer to the standard language. Many dialects, especially those in towns, are now only used by speakers from the lower classes. This turns them into sociolects - this is the case for example with the dialect of Leeuwarden, the Frisian capital.

Finally it should be noted that the dialect "Pennsylvania Dutch" spoken in a small part of the north-eastern United States of America is actually a variant of German, not of Dutch. The German settlers in that region referred to their language as "Deutsch" ["German"], which their English-speaking neighbours took to mean "Dutch", though at the time of their first immigration "Dutch" could still be used to refer both to German and to Dutch itself.