Standard Dutch
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans ...
: ''Haags'', ''het Haagse dialect''; The Hague dialect: ''Haags'', ''et Haagse dialek'') is a
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that ...
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a list of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's ad ...
. It differs from
Standard Dutch
Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic language spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives German and English. ''Afrikaans ...
almost exclusively in pronunciation.
It has two subvarieties:
* Low-class ''plat Haags'', generally spoken roughly south of the
Loosduinen
Loosduinen () is a former village in the Netherlands that was a municipality unto itself until 1923, when it was annexed by The Hague and subsequently became a district of the city.
Within the district there is also a neighbourhood (Dutch:wijk) c ...
# Kraayenstein
# Houtwijk
# Waldeck
# Laakkwartier
Rijswijk and Voorburg are for the most part Haags-speaking.
Scheveningen
Scheveningen is one of the eight districts of The Hague, Netherlands, as well as a subdistrict (''wijk'') of that city. Scheveningen is a modern seaside resort with a long, sandy beach, an esplanade, a pier, and a lighthouse. The beach is ...
has its own dialect ('' Schevenings''), which is different than the traditional The Hague dialect. However, some people also speak The Hague dialect there, or a mixture between the Scheveningen dialect and The Hague dialect (''Nieuw-Schevenings'').
The dialect of Loosduinen (''Loosduins'') is very similar to The Hague dialect, and Ton Goeman classifies it as a separate dialect. It differs from other varieties of Haags by having a diphthongal pronunciation of and .
Some people also speak The Hague dialect in
Zoetermeer
Zoetermeer () is a city in the Western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water. A small village until the late 1960s, it had 6,392 inhabitants in 1950. By 2013 this had grown to 123,328 ...
. That is because an influx of people from The Hague to Zoetermeer took place in the 1960s, multiplying the population of the latter twelve times.
Spelling
Apart from
Tilburg
Tilburg () is a city and municipality in the Netherlands, in the southern province of North Brabant. With a population of 222,601 (1 July 2021), it is the second-largest city or municipality in North Brabant after Eindhoven and the seventh-lar ...
, The Hague is the only Dutch city with an official dialectal spelling, used e.g. in the ''Haagse Harry'' comic series written by Marnix Rueb.
Apart from that, The Hague dialect is rather rarely written. The Haagse Harry spelling works as follows:
: The second spelling is used before a syllable that starts with one consonant followed by a vowel.
: The second spelling is used before a syllable that starts with a vowel.
: The spellings and are in free variation, as the Haagse Harry spelling is inconsistent in this case. The same applies to , and . For consistency, this article will use only and .
: is written only when the word in the standard language has a single stem that ends in ''-en''. Thus, standard ''ik teken'' "I draw" is written ''ik teiken'', but standard ''de teken'' "the ticks" is written ''de teike''.
Phonology
The sound inventory of The Hague dialect is very similar to that of Standard Dutch.
Vowels
* Among the back vowels, are rounded, whereas are unrounded.
* and may be somewhat closer to, respectively, cardinal and than in Standard Dutch.
* The long vowels correspond to closing diphthongs in Standard Dutch.
* may be realized as mid near-front .
* may be somewhat higher (closer to ) than in Standard Dutch, especially before .
* These diphthongs correspond to long vowels in Belgian Standard Dutch. In Netherlandic Standard Dutch, they are diphthongized just as in The Hague dialect.
* Some speakers may realize them as wider diphthongs , which sound almost like Standard Dutch .
* An alternative realization of is a central diphthong . It is common, albeit stigmatized.
* Before , contrasts with primarily by length for some speakers.
labiodental
In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Labiodental consonants in the IPA
The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:
The IPA chart shades out ''labio ...
.
** As in Standard Dutch, the speakers of The Hague dialect are inconsistent in maintaining the contrast, and tend to merge these two phonemes into . also occurs as an allophone of before voiced consonants, or even between vowels.
* As in Standard Dutch, are
laminal
A laminal consonant is a phone (speech sound) produced by obstructing the air passage with the blade of the tongue, the flat top front surface just behind the tip of the tongue in contact
with upper lip, teeth, alveolar ridge, to possibly, as ...
.
** Preconsontantal sequence of a vowel and is realized simply as a nasalized vowel, e.g. as in ''kans'' .
* are
velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive ...
, whereas are post-velar or pre-uvular . Both the place and the manner of articulation of varies; see below.
** As in Standard Dutch, the speakers of The Hague dialect are inconsistent in maintaining the contrast, and tend to merge these two phonemes into .
* As in Standard Dutch, are alveolo-palatal, whereas is
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...
.
** As in Standard Dutch, can be regarded simply as sequences .
* Some
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education f ...
s are simplified, e.g. ''nach'' "night" (Standard Dutch ''nacht'' ).
Realization of
* According to , the uvular articulation of in The Hague dialect is often considered to be a French influence.
* According to , in The Hague dialect is often uvular, with the fricative realizations and being more or less the norm. They also state that "elision of the final is common".
* According to :
** Alveolar realizations are practically non-existent. The only instances of alveolar include an alveolar approximant , a voiced alveolar trill and a voiceless alveolar tap , all of which occurred only once.
** The sequences (as in ''schrift'') and (as in ''gras'') tend to coalesce to (''schift'' , ''gas'' ).
** A retroflex/bunched approximant is the most common realization of , occurring about 30% more often than the second common realizations (a uvular trill and a uvular approximant ), but it appears almost exclusively in the syllable
coda
Coda or CODA may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Films
* Movie coda, a post-credits scene
* ''Coda'' (1987 film), an Australian horror film about a serial killer, made for television
*''Coda'', a 2017 American experimental film from Na ...
.
** Preconsonantal in the syllable coda (as in ''warm'') can be followed by a schwa (''warrem'' ). This is more common in older than younger speakers and more common in men than women.
** The stereotypical realization of the coda occurs only in about 2% cases. This may signify either that it is dying out, or that it is simply found in varieties broader than the one investigated in .
** Other realizations include: a uvular fricative , elision of , a uvular fricative trill , a palatal approximant , a mid front vowel , as well as elision of accompanied by a retraction of the following consonant.
Vocabulary
The following list contains only a few examples.
Sample
Harry-spelling
Et Haags is et stasdialek dat doâh de âhtogtaune "volleksklasse" van De Haag wogt gesprauke. Et behoâht tot de Zùid-Hollandse dialekte.
Standard Dutch spelling
Het Haags is het stadsdialect dat door de autochtone "volksklasse" van Den Haag wordt gesproken. Het behoort tot de Zuid-Hollandse dialecten.
Translation
The Hague dialect is a city dialect that is spoken by the autochthonous working class of The Hague. It belongs to the South Hollandic dialects.
Phonetic transcription
See also
*
Dutch dialect
Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both cognate with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language. Dutch dialects are remarkably diverse and are found in the Netherlands and northern ...