Talk:Flemish dialects

Flemish as an autonomous language

1. Flanders is one of Belgium's three administrative regions, with its own Parliament and significant autonomy. It has declared Flemish is it's official language, NOT Dutch.

2. According to the late Jean Schoysman, a fully qualified Flemish legal interpreter (in fact, for a long while Head of Legal Services of the Belgian Army), Flemish has remained fairly frozen from its separation from the Dutch language in the early years of the 20th Century. Because Dutch is both the official language of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and has developed both as a language and in accent, I'd urge you to cease this attempt to merge them, because it's not representative of the reality on the ground. I came across this researching the Liege syrup page, which imposed a wholly incorrect Dutch translation, using the word stroop, whereas the Flemish label on the principal retail product uses Siroop.

Therefore, I'd urge you to stop the appropriation of one culture by another. In 1830, the Flemish decided by revolution NOT to remain part of the Netherlands, and seems still to be so minded. It is not for Wikipedia to know better than the people themselves. -- unsigned comment added 24 July 2020‎ by 90.213.9.109

In the future, my London IP friend, sign your comments with four tildas (~) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.111.8.23 (talk) 15:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

I am sorry, but in Flanders the Belgians commonly refer to their language as "Nederlands" (Dutch). The spelling is coordinated by the "Nederlandse Taalunie" (Dutch Language Union). Standard Flemish (as spoken for instance in television news shows) is hardly distinguishable from Dutch from the Netherlands. Perhaps there are emotional reservations for Belgians to name their language after a neighbouring country, but that does no alter the fact that it is virtually the same language. Rbakels (talk) 19:38, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

We go round this loop every few years it seems. The Belgian Constitution refers to a Vlaamse Gewest in territorial terms but a Nederlandse taalgebied in purely linguistic ones. The official language in Flanders is accordingly Dutch, not Flemish. —Brigade Piron (talk) 20:06, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

In addition, the local Standard Dutch varieties (not the ones used in the mainstream media) spoken just on the other side of the border are basically the same, maybe save for some bigger cities on the Dutch side of the border (Maastricht, perhaps?) where the Polder Dutch vowel shift may be in effect for some young speakers. Other than that, the accent is largely if not completely the same. The Belgian-Dutch border seems to be irrelevant in Limburgish dialectology: w:nl:Limburgs#Taxonomie, w:nl:Panninger zijlinie, w:nl:Uerdinger Linie, making the classification of Limburgish as a "Flemish dialect" a joke. It's either a separate language or a Dutch dialect spoken on both sides of the border (and a small part of Germany, too!). I mean, how do you explain the fact that the dialects of Maastricht and Weert, which are spoken in the Netherlands and are major dialects of Limburgish (spoken by a total of 8% of native speakers of Limburgish) belong to the Central Limburgish dialect group along with roughly one third of the Limburgish-speaking territory in Belgium? (I know that this one third of Limburgish-speaking territory in Belgium doesn't necessarily correspond with the number of speakers. It may or may not be roughly 30% of speakers of Limburgish who live in Belgium. I can't prove that it is or is not true, but I'm sure someone can come up with a RS that clarifies the issue).

Not only that, the dialects of Sittard and Kerkrade (both easily recognizable by all native speakers of Limburgish) both belong to dialect groups that are spoken in the Netherlands and Germany, namely w:nl:Oost-Limburgs (East Limburgish) in the first case and West Ripuarian or Southeast Limburgish in the latter case. A Ripuarian dialect (or perhaps several mutually intelligible dialects) is also spoken in the Belgian province of Liege, where it is classified as a German dialect (much like Kölsch and other Ripuarian dialects spoken in Germany), which itself is a bit silly (I mean, why classify it as such when the Kerkrade dialect and the neighboring few other dialects are a "statutory provincial language" [called "Limburgish"] in the Netherlands? Surely the self-identification of its speakers as "German" in Belgium and Germany or "Dutch" in the Netherlands doesn't magically change the linguistic classifcation of the language variety they speak? Do speakers of the Kerkrade dialect from Kerkrade speak a "language" and the people from Herzogenrath a "German dialect"?).

I don't know about Brabantian, but w:nl:Zuid-Brabants tells us that Jo Daan noemt in haar indeling van de Nederlandse en Vlaamse dialecten alle Brabantse dialecten gesproken in België "Zuid-Brabants". De rijksgrens tussen Nederland en België is echter lang geen taalgrens van grote betekenis. w:nl:Oost-Vlaams says this about East Flemish dialects: Het behoort tot de Nederfrankische taalgroep en kent een dialectcontinuüm met zowel het West-Vlaams als het Brabants. Sommigen zien het hele Oost-Vlaams als een overgang tussen West-Vlaams en Brabants.

Also, per w:li:Völzer, In Oche zaat mer dat 't beste Öcher plat jekalld weat i Vols. I think this translates to "In Aachen it is said that the best/purest form of the Aachen dialect is spoken in Vaals". The local dialect, called Kerkrade dialect on Wikipedia, is spoken in both Kerkrade and Herzogenrath and, AFAIK, there are very few, if any, differences between the varieties spoken on both sides of the border (the dialect isn't homogenous in Kerkrade itself, by the way, so that'd be no argument anyway). See also Westphalian language. All this tells us that the border between Belgium and Netherlands as well as the border between Netherlands and Germany has little to do with proper classification of dialects spoken in those areas.

Furthermore, w:nl:West-Vlaams is also spoken in France (but yes, its speakers identify as Flemings) and a small southwestern part of the Dutch province of Zeeland. Dialects (called "Zeelandic") spoken elsewhere in the province are closely related to West Flemish anyway and both could perhaps be classified as one group of mutually intelligible dialects.

Also, the phenomenon of Tussentaal can be found in Belgium as well as the Netherlands (but to a more limited extent), see e.g. w:nl:Gronings#Gronings Nederlands, which is a mix of Standard Dutch and a local Dutch Low Saxon variety influenced by Frisian. Sol505000 (talk) 10:12, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

One of your premises is that having separate countries automatically means one speaks separate languages. The number of countries where the official and primarily spoken language is English, and called English, albeit in many varieties, demonstrates straight out that that premise is false. Therefore, your reasoning that what's spoken in Flanders is a different language from what's spoken in the Netherlands because the two, once united, were politically split from each other is invalid.

Another of your premises is that what a people thinks about itself or calls things related to itself supersedes knowledge based on research and analysis of data. By that reasoning, if people X thinks that plant Y cures disease Z, then plant Y does cure disease Z among them even though researchers have observed that, in reality, the same percentage of X people with disease Z who consume plant Y and recover is the same as the percentage with disease Z who don't consume plant Y and recover. Wikipedia communicates knowledge, as reported in reliable sources, and knowledge supersedes what this or that group of people claim, whether about themselves or anything else. Largoplazo (talk) 12:06, 9 May 2021 (UTC)

This reminds me of when moldova was part of the USSR and they declared "Moldovan" a language seperate from Romanian. Dialects differ a little bit from eachother, and differ from standized languages. Atleast even a few words or something. In the arab world there is Morrocan (Arabic), It is that mutually intellegible with other arabic dialects but is considered one of them. Or Fiji Hindi. I could give more examples. But I personally think it is a dutch dialect. I don't know if it should be merged with normal dutch. I think it should stay as a wikipedia article and be called dialect. But, Dutch in Belgium says otherwise. Crenshire (talk) 16:29, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 12 June 2023

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved to Flemish dialects and moved, respectively. (closed by non-admin page mover) CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 22:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

For the record, this page had 1k links, all of which need fixing, and some of which are incorrect and need more detailed fixing. I'm currently in the process of fixing these with AWB (~¼ of the way done), I have not forgotten about this RM and will move these pages once I'm done. CLYDE ^{TALK TO ME}/_{STUFF DONE} (please mention me on reply) 23:43, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

---

• Flemish → Flemish language
• Flemish (disambiguation) → Flemish

– Similar to English and English language, Russian and Russian language, etc. —Vigilant Cosmic Penguin (talk | contribs) 20:42, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Tim O'Doherty (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose because Flemish isn't a language. It would be bad to give an article a title that's immediately contradicted by its first sentence ("Flemish (Vlaams) is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language"). Largoplazo (talk) 21:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support Flemish people are a thing. This is a clarifying improvement. Walrasiad (talk) 23:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
  • How does it clarify anything to call it "Flemish language" when Flemish isn't a language? Largoplazo (talk) 00:04, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

    Clarifies its not people. Walrasiad (talk) 06:35, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

    That seems a rather silly argument... —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:31, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

    That's like clarifying that you mean the state of Mexico rather than the country of Mexico by describing it as the continent of Mexico. It doesn't exactly help the situation. Largoplazo (talk) 19:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

    @Brigade Piron @Largoplazo I think the point raised here is that just like "Mexican" is an ambiguous adjective, which legitimately refers to a place, people, characteristics of people like dialects, ..., that in the same vein so is "Flemish". --Joy (talk) 08:28, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

    Yes, I got that, and my response is that you don't clarify the matter by making up a title that's an outright falsehood. Largoplazo (talk) 10:34, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

    That is fine, we are not bound to consider only the original submitter's ideas verbatim. (Also they're a comparably a very new editor, so errors are to be expected.) --Joy (talk) 20:26, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose because it is not a language. The only change I would support is "Flemish (language variety)". The alternative "Flemish (dialect cluster)" would be incorrect as certain dialect groups in Flanders like Brabantian and Limburgish are more related to the dialects across the border in the Netherlands than to other "Flemish dialects". --Glennznl (talk) 08:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose - Per Largoplazo. Does not improve understanding. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 08:48, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
• Flemish dialects is already an incoming redirect (since 2003), that can be used instead of 'language'? The idea of clarifying that the adjective is ambiguous while there are clear replacement proper nouns - seems reasonable, it sounds like we could have a lot of ambiguous links as it is now. --Joy (talk) 10:27, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

  It should be noted that while https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Flemish doesn't clearly indicate a preponderance of clicks on a hatnote, Flanders and Flemish people are already the most common outgoing destinations, so there's reason to believe that the graph would look like any other such adjective disambiguation page graph if we disambiguate. --Joy (talk) 17:38, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Move to Flemish dialect(s) - Flemish is not a language, rather a dialect of Dutch. But there is still a reasonable case for confusion so the present title is unsustainable. estar8806 (talk) ★ 18:16, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose proposed move, but support "Flemish dialects". I note that we already have Brabantian dialect as a sub-article of this. —Brigade Piron (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
• Support. I don't really care if it says 'language' or 'dialect(s)'. Given the existence of articles like Bosnian language and Montenegrin language, we can handle it. Srnec (talk) 20:07, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

followup to move discussion

I checked https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Flemish a few months after the move.

In October '23, there were 6.9k incoming views, and 3.5k outgoing to 5 identified destinations: 1.64k to dialects, 1.08k to Flanders, 720 to people and two much smaller ones. --Joy (talk) 12:14, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

Opening

In the pronunciation of Belgian Dutch (Belgisch-Nederlands [ˈbɛlɣis ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) in Dutch, it is shown here that there is a "ɣ" for the "g" sound. But the audio doesn't appear to show this. It very much sounds like the "g" in the audio is rendered as a "j". Am I hearing this incorrectly? Criticalthinker (talk) 01:14, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

[ɣ] is correct as long as the linked key makes that distinction. Nardog (talk) 01:23, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

You're almost correct - see hard and soft G in Dutch. /ɣ/ is often pre-velar or post-palatal in Belgium and Zeeland, Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands. It's still a fricative, so it's articulated more forceful than [j] (compare [ʒ] with [ɹ] in English, it's a similar distinction) and it's a little bit backer than [j]. A full-on replacement with [j] happens only in a fraction of dialects (Ripuarian, to be precise, often mislabeled as Limburgish by the Dutch), e.g. Kerkradish and it's regionally marked (as it is in Germany, see Colognian phonology). Maybe I'd go as far as to say that the phonemic distinction between /ɣ/ and /j/ in Southern Dutch is a distinction between a fricative and an approximant as they can have a very similar if not identical place of articulation. I'm pretty sure that even northern speakers can easily tell the difference between the two, even though they use a very different (uvular) sound instead: [χ].

If we introduced [ʝ, ç] to the Help:IPA/Dutch guide we'd have to account for the allophony, and it seems to be dialect- and speaker-specific, with some speakers having more fronted (post-palatal) [ʝ, ç] than others (pre-velar). Some also use these allophones in contact with /aː/ (and /ɑ/ if it's not back but central or front), yet others don't. It's a bit variable, but not nearly as much as the pronunciation of /r/. Sol505000 (talk) 09:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I appreciate you two explaining this. But all I was asking about was the voice in the audio attached to the pronunciation. I'm not hearing a "g" at all, the hard or soft one. Criticalthinker (talk) 11:43, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I understand you can't hear the difference, but it's there. I hear a voiced pre-velar fricative on the recording. It's a standard pronunciation, the southern one.

Maybe the confusion stems from the fact that this fricative is far more weakly articulated than the northern [χ], if that's what you're used to hearing - but it's still a fricative, not an approximant. The speaker is not saying Beljisch-Nederlands. Not even the residents of Kerkrade or Vaals say that (they'd say [ˈbælɣiz‿ˈneːdəʁlɑn(t)s], with a cardinal velar (or maybe pre-velar)), it's un-Dutch. What you can hear in (West-Flemish-accented or Zeelandic-accented) Dutch is a glottal fricative instead of the velar, thus [ˈbælɦis ˈneːdərlɑnts]. That's pretty common I think - or common enough to mention it here, anyway. Sol505000 (talk) 13:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)