The Limburgish Dialect Continuum

The lexical data analyzed in this paper comes from the Limburgish dialects, spoken in the northeast of Belgium and in the southeast of the Netherlands (marked in green on Figure 1). In the south, the dialect area is demarcated from the Romance language area by the Germanic-Romance border (marked in purple). In the east, the dialect area is demarcated by the national border with Germany. The German and Dutch dialects (which include the Limburgish dialects) historically form a dialect continuum—some of the dialects spoken in the south of Limburg (e.g., the Ripuarian dialects, see Figure 2) in the Netherlands can even be considered dialects of German as they underwent the second Germanic consonant shift. In the north and west, the dialect area borders the Brabantic dialect area, another dialect area of Dutch (marked in orange on Figure 1). Although there is some discussion about where the Limburgish dialects end and the Brabantic dialects begin, the demarcation is often equated with the provincial borders in the Netherlands and in Belgium (Weijnen, Goossens and Goossens, 1983). Thus, it is accepted that Limburgish dialects are spoken in the Belgian province of Limburg and in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands, whereas Brabantic dialects are used in the Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant (including Brussels) and Antwerp, and in the province of North Brabant in the Netherlands.

The Limburgish dialect region (in green). The brown line within the green area is the boundary between the Dutch (on the right) and the Belgian (on the left) province of Limburg. The purple line in the south of the dialect region shows the boundary between the Dutch-speaking (northern) and French-speaking (southern) part of Belgium. The other provinces of the Netherlands and Belgium are colored light-blue and pink.

Map of locations included in the database, with their classification into one of six dialect areas.

Six subregions can be distinguished within the Limburgish dialect area: Western Limburgish, Central Limburgish, Eastern Limburgish, Kleverlands, Ripuarian, and Brabantic (Van de Wijngaard and Keulen, 2007). The latter three areas are peripheral and transitional areas that share a border with other dialect regions. In addition, the national border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs through the dialect area. Its current position was officially determined in 1839 when the independence of the nation of Belgium was definitively recognized internationally.