Vaals Dialect

Southeast Limburgish ( Dutch: ''Zuidoost-Limburgs'') is a cover term for the Ripuarian dialects spoken in Dutch Limburg.

In the Netherlands and Belgium this group is often included in the generic term Limburgish. Limburgish was recognised as a regional language in the Netherlands and as such it receives moderate protection under chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

Southeast Limburgish and related dialects in Germany and Belgium

Variants of Southeast Limburgish are spoken around Kerkrade, Bocholtz and Vaals in the Netherlands. Closely related Ripuarian varieties are spoken in Herzogenrath and Aachen in Germany and Raeren and Eynatten in Belgium.

Phonology

As most other dialects of Ripuarian and Limburgish, Southeast Limburgish features a distinction between the ''thrusting tone'' (, or ), which has a shortening effect on the syllable (not shown in transcriptions in this article) and the ''slurring tone'' (, ). In this article, the slurring tone is transcribed as a high tone, whereas the thrusting tone is left unmarked. This is nothing more than a convention, as the phonetics of the Southeast Limburgish pitch accent are severely under-researched. There are minimal pairs, for example 'wall' - 'carrot' in the Kerkrade dialect.

The sounds corresponding to Limburgish are very back after back vowels, being uvular (as in Luxembourgish), rather than velar as in Limburgish. In fact, there is not much of a difference between and in the Kerkrade dialect.

Most instances of historical ( in Limburgish and (southern) Standard Dutch) have merged with , so that the word for ''green'' in the Kerkrade dialect is (compare Standard Dutch ). The dialect of Lemiers is much more similar to the dialect of Vaals than the dialect spoken in Vijlen (called or ) as the former features the High German consonant shift. In Lemiers, the etymological ( in Limburgish and southern Standard Dutch) has not fully shifted to in consonant clusters. Thus, the word for ''big'' (Standard Dutch ), varies between and . A Limburgish dialectologist Will Kohnen recommends the spelling to cover this variation (cf. Vieleter ). In Kerkrade, the shift has been completed and so only the form occurs.

The palatal is an allophone of after consonants, the front vowels and the close-mid central , which phonologically is a front vowel. In some dialects, is fronted, which may result in a merger with . That is the case in the dialect of Vaals, in which the first person singular pronoun is , rather than or found in other dialects of Limburgish. In Aachen, is also fronted but without a merger with , with the resulting sound being , as it used to be the case in Luxembourgish (which is rapidly transitioning towards a full merger). The two sounds are not distinguished in Rheinische Dokumenta.

Before consonants and pauses, may be vocalized to , especially in Germany. Thus, the name of the Aachen dialect in the dialect itself is . In the Netherlands, the consonantal pronunciation is more likely to occur.

* The short close-mid vowels , and in , and are the same as Limburgish , and . The difference lies in transcription, not in realization. The latter transcription is rooted in Standard Dutch spelling, in which the tense (spelled ) and (spelled ) contrast with their lax counterparts (spelled ) and (spelled ) purely by quality. In Standard German, the tense (spelled ) contrast with the lax (spelled ) mainly by length, with the quality difference being secondary. In Western Germany (where Ripuarian in spoken), they are often close , mapping onto Ripuarian , whereas the vowels in , and are perceived as in-between the local realizations of Standard German and , which is why they are spelled (, , )
* occurs only in unstressed syllables.
* is a phonological back vowel like , and the two function as a long–short pair. The former is phonetically central , whereas the latter is a genuine back vowel . In other Ripuarian varieties, the latter may also be central , and for this reason it may be transcribed with .

References

Bibliography

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West Germanic languages
Limburgish language
Low Franconian languages
Ripuarian language