East Brabantian ( or ) is one of the main divisions of the Brabantian dialect group recognized by the ''Woordenboek van de Brabantse dialecten''. East Brabantian dialects are mainly spoken in the eastern part of the province of

North Brabant North Brabant ( ; ), also unofficially called Brabant, Dutch Brabant or Hollandic Brabant, is a province in the south of the Netherlands. It borders the provinces of South Holland and Gelderland to the north, Limburg to the east, Zeeland to ...

. Classifications of Brabantian recognize it as a separate dialect group. Sometimes it is called Meierijs,Jos & Cor Swanenberg: ''Taal in stad en land: Oost-Brabants'', 2002, p. 17 & 19 after the

Bailiwick A bailiwick () is usually the area of jurisdiction of a bailiff, and once also applied to territories in which a privately appointed bailiff exercised the sheriff's functions under a royal or imperial writ. In English, the original French combi ...

Den Bosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

. East Brabantian dialects are further subdivided into Kempenlands (in a large area east and south east of

Eindhoven Eindhoven ( ; ) is a city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, located in the southern Provinces of the Netherlands, province of North Brabant, of which it is the largest municipality, and is also locat ...

, including Arendonk and

Lommel Lommel () is a municipality and city in the Belgian province of Limburg. Lying in the Kempen, it has about 34,000 inhabitants and is part of the arrondissement of Maaseik. Besides the residential town, Lommel also has a number of nature reserv ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

), Noord- Meierijs (in an area south of

's-Hertogenbosch s-Hertogenbosch (), colloquially known as Den Bosch (), is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands with a population of 160,783. It is the capital of ...

into

), Peellands (in Helmond and surroundings), Geldrops and Heeze-and-Leendes. The last two are small local dialects that are found as separate groups in few other classifications.

Characteristics

East Brabantian dialects are distinct from the more western variants, Central Brabantian and West Brabantian, and also from dialects of southern Brabant like Southern Brabantian, Kempens and

Getelands Getelands (, ) or West Getelands ( , ) is a South Brabantian dialect spoken in the eastern part of Flemish Brabant as well as the western part of Limburg (Belgium), Limburg in Belgium. It is a transitional dialect between South Brabantian and ...

. Some peculiarities are typical eastern and shared with the Limburgish dialects while others only occur locally. East Brabantian dialects have been somewhat influenced by the Cologne language expansion and thus share some features with it which are absent from western varieties. Such differences include umlaut in

diminutive A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle s ...

s and the

conjugation Conjugation or conjugate may refer to: Linguistics *Grammatical conjugation, the modification of a verb from its basic form *Emotive conjugation or Russell's conjugation, the use of loaded language Mathematics *Complex conjugation, the change o ...

of Germanic strong verbs (like in

Limburgish Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...

). Typical of East Brabantian are forms such as vs Dutch "believe", ''bruur'' vs Dutch ''broer'' "brother" and ''zuke'' vs Dutch ''zoeken'' "search". Also diminutives such as (with i-umlaut of the stem vowel) vs Dutch "little man" and ''jeske'' vs Dutch ''jasje'' "little coat". Conjugations such as ''velt'' vs Dutch ''valt'' "falls" are typically East Brabantian. (Compare

Standard German Standard High German (SHG), less precisely Standard German or High German (, , or, in Switzerland, ), is the umbrella term for the standard language, standardized varieties of the German language, which are used in formal contexts and for commun ...

''fällt'', also showing the effects of the final *''i'' in the reconstructed Common West Germanic protoform *''fallidi''.) * East Brabantian dialects feature umlaut in diminutive formation (''póp'' - ) and some words which end in ''-i'' in their historical West Germanic forms (e.g.: ''kees'' vs Dutch ''kaas'' "cheese", both representing the reconstructed Proto-West-Germanic ''form *kāsī''). * The variants ''wè'' and ''dè'' are used in East Brabantian for ''what'' and ''that''. (Western Brabantian uses ''wa'' and ''da'', and

''de''). * East Brabantian exhibits a more eastern-tinged

vocabulary A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...

(e.g. ''rad'' vs. ''wiel'' "wheel"). * As in most other Brabantian dialects, long ''ô'' undergoes fronting (''gruun'' vs. Markiezaats uses only ''groen'' "green"). * Typical of the Meierij is the preservation of the ''sk'' where standard Dutch has shifted to the ''sch'' ( vs. ''schoen "shoes"'') and the shortening of many original long

vowels A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

(''torre'' vs. ''toren'' "tower"). * The

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

s and are here often

monophthong A monophthong ( ) is a pure vowel sound, or one whose articulation at beginning and end is relatively fixed, with the tongue moving neither up nor down and neither forward nor backward towards a new position of articulation. A monophthong can be ...

ed into and (''èès'' and ''hèùs'' vs. West Brabantian ''ais'' and ''ois''). * Unlike in West Brabantian, ''h'' has been preserved in East Brabantian, the most common departing greet being (meaning "take care") (vs. the West Brabantian ). * The svarabhakti vocal is almost always pronounced (''mellek'' vs ''melk'' "milk"). * As all Brabantian dialects, East Brabantian uses a soft ''G''.

References

{{Germanic languages Dutch dialects Languages of Belgium Languages of the Netherlands Brabant Culture of North Brabant