Southeast Limburgish 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

Template:Dutch dialects 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 (Template:Langx, Template:Langx or ), which has a shortening effect on the syllable (not shown in transcriptions in this article) and the slurring tone (Template:Langx, Template:Langx). 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.Template:Sfnp

Kerkrade consonants

		Labial	Alveolar	Postalveolar	Dorsal	Glottal
Nasal		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		(Template:IPA link)
Affricate	voiceless		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced			Template:IPA link
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
	voiced	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Liquid			Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link
Approximant		Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link

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.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

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 ).Template:Sfnp 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.Template:SfnpTemplate:Sfnp

The palatal Template:IPAblink is an allophone of after consonants, the front vowels and the close-mid central , which phonologically is a front vowel.Template:Sfnp In some dialects, Template:IPAblink is fronted, which may result in a merger with Template:IPAblink. 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, Template:IPAblink is also fronted but without a merger with Template:IPAblink, with the resulting sound being Template:IPAblink, 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 Template:IPAblink, 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.

Kerkrade vowelsTemplate:Sfnp

		Front				Central		Back
		unrounded		rounded
		short	long	short	long	short	long	short	long
Close		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Close-mid		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open-mid		Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Open							Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Diphthongs	closing
	centering

• 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 Template:Angbr) and (spelled Template:Angbr) contrast with their lax counterparts (spelled Template:Angbr) and (spelled Template:Angbr) purely by quality. In Standard German, the tense (spelled Template:Angbr) contrast with the lax (spelled Template:Angbr) 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 Template:Angbr (, , )
• 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 Template:IPAblink, whereas the latter is a genuine back vowel Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfnp In other Ripuarian varieties, the latter may also be central Template:IPAblink, and for this reason it may be transcribed with Template:Angbr IPA.

Bibliography

• Template:Cite thesis