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==Language?==
{{WikiProject Linguistics|importance=Low}}
Since this article is really not about a ''separate'' language, I don't see the reason for keeping the title. If no one opposes, I'll move this article to [[Flemish (linguistics)]] after a week or so. This title is by far the most neutral, since [[Flemish dialect]] is bound to cause protests sooner or later.
{{WikiProject Languages|importance=Low}}
[[User:Karmosin|Peter Isotalo]] 12:28, May 8, 2005 (UTC)
{{WikiProject Belgium|importance=top}}
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{{old move|date=12 June 2023|destination=Flemish language|result=moved to [[Flemish dialects]] and moved|link=Special:Permalink/1160762885#Requested move 12 June 2023}}


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:Since no one seems to be objecting, I'll make the move.
:[[User:Karmosin|Peter Isotalo]] 08:45, May 15, 2005 (UTC)


== Flemish as an autonomous language ==
Fine but really, the language is called '''Vlaams''' and we do speak it. It is not Dutch and yes, confusing as it may be Dutch is the official Language... however, to insist in any way or form that Vlaams is not a language is deeply insulting to the people who speak it.[[User:Siegfried74|Siegfried74]] 19:12, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


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.
There is no such thing as '''the Flemish language''' and it, as such is not spoken in Flanders or Belgium. Flemings speak Dutch, and Dutch dialects wether you like it or not.
[[User:Sandertje|Sander]] 19:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


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.
*The above type of discussion can go on till the end of Wikipedia (and longer), and still nothing good may come out of it if approached as black and white 'false/true' question. The annoying truth is somewhere in the middle: there are different (real, concurrent) definitions of Flemish, language, dialect (and not just in this context, e.g. some serious sources say there are about 100 Indian languages, other rather 600, depending on the border line betwen lanuages and (group of) dialects)... To be encyclopaedic, we must cater for various prevailing tasts, pointing out all linguistic meanings of Flemish fit within Dutch, but not necessarily interchangeably; the only inacceptable use of the word is for the official standard Dutch language. Thus all Flemish dialects are at the same time Dutch dialects (of which there are many other further north in the Low Countries), and it rather depends on the context (emphasizing historical use, linguistic similarity...) which term is to be preferred.
And Siegfried, as a Fleming I can testify many of us find it rather insulting (or worrying) when allophones call our language anything but Dutch since that means we can't expect them to know about our complex relationship with the North and mistake us for an insignificant backwater lingo, which was exactly what the Belgian francophony originally intended by calling 'our Dutch' Flemish, as if no Fleming could ever rise above boerish dialects; by now, even they started believing their own lies- I actually had a discussion on the matter with a Walloon (but non-hostile, clumsily 'bilingual') college graduate colleague who couldn't even believe it from a Flemish college graduate es literas. [[User:Fastifex|Fastifex]] 08:21, 4 April 2006 (UTC)


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
== West Flemish ==
:In the future, my London IP friend, sign your comments with four tildas (~) <!-- Template:Unsigned IP --><small class="autosigned">—&nbsp;Preceding [[Wikipedia:Signatures|unsigned]] comment added by [[Special:Contributions/50.111.8.23|50.111.8.23]] ([[User talk:50.111.8.23#top|talk]]) 15:57, 29 December 2020 (UTC)</small> <!--Autosigned by SineBot-->
"...among which the most deviant is West Flemish, which is also spoken in the Zeeland province of The Netherlands."
: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. [[User:Rbakels|Rbakels]] ([[User talk: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. —''[[User:Brigade Piron|Brigade Piron]]'' ([[User talk: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 [[Ripuarian language|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 (dialect)|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. [[User:Sol505000|Sol505000]] ([[User talk: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. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk: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. [[User:Crenshire|Crenshire]] ([[User talk:Crenshire|talk]]) 16:29, 18 June 2023 (UTC)


== Requested move 12 June 2023 ==
I thought the most deviant Flemish dialect was West Flemish aka "bachten de kupe" (i.e., "achter de kuip", behind the tub, ''fig.'' inside the [river]bend), spoken from the Yser river to the language barrier with <u>French</u>, i.e., in the westernmost part of the province of West Flanders and in all or part of Flemish-speaking France but certainly nowhere in the Netherlands. If the text quoted above is in error, please correct it; if <i>I</i> am mistaken, please explain. - [[User:Tonymec|Tonymec]] 04:31, 2 November 2005 (UTC)


<div class="boilerplate mw-archivedtalk" style="background-color: #efe; margin: 0; padding: 0 10px 0 10px; border: 1px dotted #aaa;"><!-- Template:RM top -->
:''The following is a closed discussion of a [[Wikipedia:Requested moves|requested move]]. <span style="color:red">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a [[Wikipedia:move review|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. <small>([[Wikipedia:Requested moves/Closing instructions#Closure by a page mover|closed by non-admin page mover]])</small> [[User:ClydeFranklin|C<small>LYDE</small>]] <small>[[User talk:ClydeFranklin|<sup>TALK TO ME</sup>]]/[[Special:Contributions/ClydeFranklin|<sub>STUFF DONE</sub>]] (please [[Help:Talk_pages#Notifications|mention]] me on reply)</small> 22:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
This is total nonsense. West Flemish is NOT spoken in the Netherlands. Someobody look at the geography of this place sheesh! Furthermore the tone of the word "deviant" is insulting.[[User:Siegfried74|Siegfried74]] 19:12, 3 April 2006 (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 [[WP:AWB|AWB]] (~¼ of the way done), I have not forgotten about this RM and will move these pages once I'm done. [[User:ClydeFranklin|C<small>LYDE</small>]] <small>[[User talk:ClydeFranklin|<sup>TALK TO ME</sup>]]/[[Special:Contributions/ClydeFranklin|<sub>STUFF DONE</sub>]] (please [[Help:Talk_pages#Notifications|mention]] me on reply)</small> 23:43, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
----


* [[:Flemish]] → {{no redirect|Flemish language}}
I begg you're pardon.West Flemish dialects are spoken in the Netherlands as well.In Zeeuws Vlaanderen, part of [[Zeeland]] in Sluis for instance.
* [[:Flemish (disambiguation)]] → {{no redirect|Flemish}}
'''Your''' tone is the insulting one here.
– Similar to [[English]] and [[English language]], [[Russian]] and [[Russian language]], etc. —<span style="font-family: Consolas, Courier New;">[[User:Vigilantcosmicpenguin|'''Vigilant&nbsp;Cosmic&nbsp;Penguin''']]</span> <small>([[User talk:Vigilantcosmicpenguin|talk]] &#124; [[Special:Contributions/Vigilantcosmicpenguin|contribs]])</small> 20:42, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
[[User:Sandertje|Sander]] 19:18, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
*'''Support''' per nom. [[User:Tim O&#39;Doherty|Tim O&#39;Doherty]] ([[User talk:Tim O&#39;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"). [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 21:12, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
* '''Support''' [[Flemish people]] are a thing. This is a clarifying improvement. [[User:Walrasiad|Walrasiad]] ([[User talk:Walrasiad|talk]]) 23:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
**How does it clarify anything to call it "Flemish language" when Flemish ''isn't'' a language? [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 00:04, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
**: Clarifies its not people. [[User:Walrasiad|Walrasiad]] ([[User talk:Walrasiad|talk]]) 06:35, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
**:: That seems a rather silly argument... —''[[User:Brigade Piron|Brigade Piron]]'' ([[User talk: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. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk:Largoplazo|talk]]) 19:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)
**:::@[[User:Brigade Piron|Brigade Piron]] @[[User:Largoplazo|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". --[[User:Joy|Joy]] ([[User talk: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. [[User:Largoplazo|Largoplazo]] ([[User talk: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.) --[[User:Joy|Joy]] ([[User talk: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". --[[User:Glennznl|Glennznl]] ([[User talk:Glennznl|talk]]) 08:42, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
*'''Oppose''' - Per Largoplazo. Does not improve understanding. [[User:Sirfurboy|Sirfurboy🏄]] ([[User talk: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. --[[User:Joy|Joy]] ([[User talk: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. --[[User:Joy|Joy]] ([[User talk: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. [[User:Estar8806|estar8806]] ([[User talk:Estar8806|talk]]) [[Special:Contributions/Estar8806 |★]] 18:16, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
== Intro ==
*'''Oppose''' proposed move, but support "Flemish dialects". I note that we already have [[Brabantian dialect]] as a sub-article of this. —''[[User:Brigade Piron|Brigade Piron]]'' ([[User talk: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. [[User:Srnec|Srnec]] ([[User talk:Srnec|talk]]) 20:07, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
<div style="padding-left: 1.6em; font-style: italic; border-top: 1px solid #a2a9b1; margin: 0.5em 0; padding-top: 0.5em">The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.</div><!-- from [[Template:Archive bottom]] -->
</div><div style="clear:both;"></div>


== followup to move discussion ==
I see that the introduction paragraph has been restored to a version similar to the one before my intervention. The reason I deleted most of this paragraph was because the statements in it were either inaccurate or irrelevant. This is what it says now:


I checked https://wikinav.toolforge.org/?language=en&title=Flemish a few months after the move.
''the word "Flemish" may refer as an adjective to the dialects and as a substantive to varieties, spoken more widely in Flanders, of the Dutch language (which is one and undivided, as guaranteed by the Taalunie, an organisation set up by treaty between the governments of the Netherlands and the Flemish region) spoken in Belgium) which are, mainly for political reasons, sometimes referred to as "Flemish".''


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. --[[User:Joy|Joy]] ([[User talk:Joy|talk]]) 12:14, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
"as an adjective to the dialects and as a substantive to varieties" - this I just don't understand. As far as I'm concerned, dialects ''are'' varieties (vice versa is not necessarily the case). Also, as an adjective it does not refer to anything, but rather specifies something else (Flemish Dutch, Flemish people, Flemish city, whatever). "Spoken more widely" is a rather odd sentence, which can simply be exchanged for "spoken mainly in Flanders" (because this does not imply that no other languages are spoken there). Then the "one and undivided" part, which sounds rather nationalistic and POV to me. I fail to see the relevancy of the Taalunie here, because the Taalunie is only concerned with standardizing ''written'' Dutch, not the spoken language which is the basis of any linguistic analysis; suggesting Dutch is "one and undivided" is also misleading because it ignores the substantial dialectial variety. Finally, "the political reasons". Very few people would use "Flemish" for political reasons; if anything, those people would use the word "Vlaams". Also, "Vlaams" is used very widely in the Netherlands to describe one or more varieties of Dutch in Flanders, without any political connotation. So, these are the reasons why I will change the text once more. [[User:Junes|Junes]] 23:20, 9 January 2006 (UTC)


== Opening ==
:I feel you should read the term "political" in a somewhat wider sense.--[[User:MWAK|MWAK]] 18:42, 26 April 2006 (UTC)


In the pronunciation of '''Belgian Dutch''' ({{lang|nl-BE|Belgisch-Nederlands}} {{IPA|nl|ˈbɛlɣis ˈneːdərlɑnts||Nl-Belgisch-Nederlands.ogg}}) in Dutch, it is shown here that there is a "[[Voiced velar fricative|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 "[[Voiced palatal approximant|j]]". Am I hearing this incorrectly? [[User:Criticalthinker|Criticalthinker]] ([[User talk:Criticalthinker|talk]]) 01:14, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
== Complete redivison like Dutch version ==


:[ɣ] is correct as long as [[Help:IPA/Dutch|the linked key]] makes that distinction. [[User:Nardog|Nardog]] ([[User talk:Nardog|talk]]) 01:23, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
Sandertje 11:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
:You're almost correct - see [[hard and soft G in Dutch]]. {{IPA|/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 {{IPA|[j]}} (compare {{IPA|[ʒ]}} with {{IPA|[ɹ]}} in English, it's a similar distinction) and it's a little bit backer than {{IPA|[j]}}. A full-on replacement with {{IPA|[j]}} happens only in a fraction of dialects ([[Ripuarian language|Ripuarian]], to be precise, often mislabeled as Limburgish by the Dutch), e.g. [[Kerkrade dialect phonology|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 {{IPA|/ɣ/}} and {{IPA|/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: {{IPA|[χ]}}.

:If we introduced {{IPA|[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) {{IPA|[ʝ, ç]}} than others (pre-velar). Some also use these allophones in contact with {{IPA|/aː/}} (and {{IPA|/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 {{IPA|/r/}}. [[User:Sol505000|Sol505000]] ([[User talk:Sol505000|talk]]) 09:01, 27 September 2024 (UTC)
== Politics and Linguistics ==
::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. [[User:Criticalthinker|Criticalthinker]] ([[User talk: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.
I've gone over some of the fuzzy prose about "Flemish" and "standard Dutch" on this page and on [[Dutch language]]. Really, I would favor an approach that more clearly separates linguistics from politics.
:::Maybe the confusion stems from the fact that this fricative is far more weakly articulated than the northern {{IPA|[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 {{IPA|[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 {{IPA|[ˈbælɦis ˈneːdərlɑnts]}}. That's pretty common I think - or common enough to mention it here, anyway. [[User:Sol505000|Sol505000]] ([[User talk:Sol505000|talk]]) 13:04, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

First of all, dialects are not dialects "of a language." Dialects just are, and depending on how close you look, you will observe more or fewer of them. Sometimes, the transitions between dialects will be more fluid; sometimes, there will be marked discontinuities, where transition forms are absent or rare. Dialects are but one example of language variation. Language use also varies by social situation (sociolects), profession (jargon, argot), and between ethnically or culturally distinguished groups that may live in the same areas.

Languages are whatever the powers that be say they are. The status of "language" is like a diploma or license conferred by a government upon a form of language, which may or may not come with a more or less specific definition of that form of language. It so happens that in Belgium, this status has been conferred upon three forms of language, that in conferring this status, the government has named them French, German, and Dutch, and that there does exist an institution that offers a rather specific definition of what is and what isn't Dutch.

None of these things are obvious from the start. There is no institution, for example, that has a monopoly on defining English, even though some, but not all, governments of countries where forms of language are commonly used that are referred to as English may designate "English" as an official language, usually without going into detail about which dictionary or grammar to follow. In countries where languages do not have the major political and historical significance that they have in Belgium, the choice of language even in formal functions such as government and education may not be regulated at all. Many universities, for instance, will accept theses in whatever language a particular thesis committee agrees to accept. I recall that in one class that I took in the US, which involved 12 different small discussion groups that students could choose from, one of the groups was taught in Mandarin Chinese upon the whim of a particular teaching assistant.

Given all of this, we should stop making statements such as "the Flemish and the Dutch speak the same language", and say more specifically things like: "the official language in Flanders and The Netherlands is Dutch, as defined by the Taalunie; while many dialects are spoken within these territories, the form of language perceived by speakers as Dutch and most commonly used in government and education conforms quite closely to this standard."

The reason I care so much is mainly that readers who are not used to language being such a strong political issue as it is in Belgium can be really confused by statements about what "the language is" and how people speak "the same language" if it isn't explicitly clarified what all the terms mean.
Unsigned comment by 194.109.198.99

==Ethnologue says that Flemish and Dutch are different languages==
[[Ethnologue]] clasify Dutch and Flemish as separate languages. What do you think about this?
*[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=vls Flemish language]
*[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=nld Dutch language]
--[[User:Er Komandante|Er Komandante]] 10:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

[[Ethnologue]], has a rather strange method of determining if a language is a dialect or a dialect is a language.I often feel as if they use the more philosophical meaning of "language" ie, a means of comunication ...
[[User:Sandertje|Sander]] 14:04, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
:I tried to investigate the question, and another surprise: it has appeared recently a [[vls:Oofdpahina|West Flemish Wikipedia]]. The language map of Ethnologue is this one: [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=BE&seq=10]. And I have found the request for this flemish wikipedia: [[meta:Talk:Requests_for_new_languages#West_Flemish_.2816_support.2C_1_object.29]]. [[User:Er Komandante|Er Komandante]] 09:14, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

::Beware: what the ethnologue calls "Flemish" here is West Flemish. The map is very interesting. It reflects the deep truth that "Dutch" is another word for Brabantian. :o)--[[User:MWAK|MWAK]] 18:40, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

=='Different linguistic meanings of Flemish'==
That chapter now incorporates a distinct practically perceived 'Flemish' speech ('linguistic' used as ''relating to language'', differentiating from other meanings of 'Flemish'), setting it off against the more strictly ''scientific'' 'linguistic' view on the ancient regions' differences. This may lead to abandoning part of the next chapter 'Other dialects' and therefrom not clearly distinguishable content of then next chapter 'Language history'.
Please note that the distinction between 'separate' or 'same' language is largely artificial: at least the article now states that in Limburg a ''separate language'' is spoken (see article [[Limburg]] as reference); as another example my own [[Mechelen|Mechlinian]] dialect &ndash; spoken in the ''west'' of, and north-to-south centrally in, the old Brabantian area &ndash; mixes 'ge' [Brabantian] and 'du' [eastern: Limburgish, German] (versus 'je' [western and northern: historical Flemish, Hollandish]). The dialects of ancient times may be interesting enough to study, but their differences are now becoming a mere shadow in view of the influences by Standard Dutch and migration on the practical 'Flemish' speech, which is or should be the main subject of the article. [[User:SomeHuman|SomeHuman]] 2006-06-12 04:59 (UTC)

== 'General Dutch' or 'Common Dutch'? ==

User [[User:Rex Germanus|Rex Germanus]] started again to stubbornly replace 'Common Dutch' with 'General Dutch'.<br>Rex, I like to ''assume good faith'' thus you should ''have a good look'' in your own [[User talk:Rex Germanus/archive2#General Dutch or Common Dutch|User talk:Rex Germanus/archive2]] for our earlier discussion about 'General Dutch' or 'Common Dutch'. On Wikipedia you can find only '[[General Dutch Youth League]]', '[[General Dutch Fascist League]]' [or 'General D. F. Association', or 'General D. F. Union', or [[Fascism_as_an_international_phenomenon|'General D. F. Federation' for (Dutch language old spelling) 'Algemeene Nederlandsche Fascisten Bond']] that makes clear it has nothing to do with the language, but ''must'' mean either 'General Federation of the Dutch nation's Fascists' or, theoretically, 'Dutch nation's Federation of General Fascists'], '[[Pillarization|General Dutch Workers' Unions (ANWV)]]' [or 'General D. W. Association'], '[[Leiden_University|General Dutch Law]]' and '[[SUEZ|General Dutch Company]]'.<br>These are all ''general somethings'' in the Netherlands or of the Dutch people and have nothing to do with the language. The single exception ''might'' be '[[Matthias Storme|General Dutch Alliance (Algemeen Nederlands Verbond, ANV)]]' though I'm sure you're first interpretation of the term even in [[Dutch language|Dutch]] would have nothing to do with the language &ndash; and I think that organization wanted a 'Groot Nederland' (Flanders and the Netherlands back in one nation) thus 'General as well as Netherlandic Alliance', perhaps this particular translation would be improved by 'General Netherlandic Alliance'.<br>As stated before, the interpretation of 'Algemeen Nederlands' as 'general purpose Dutch' makes no sense because any other language is just as 'general purpose' and there are no such terms naming languages as 'General English', 'General German', or even 'General French' (though the ''Académie française'' acts more strictly than the ''Nederlandse Taalunie'' in standardizing the language). It is then clear that 'algemeen' in 'Algemeen Nederlands' means that the standard language is 'gemeen aan alle' or 'common to all' the speakers of one or another dialect native to the Dutch nation named 'The Netherlands' or to the Flemish region in Belgium, hence 'Common Dutch'.<br>I don't like that the language 'Nederlands' (the Netherlands was/were once the '[[Low Countries]]' of which my home city in the nowadays Belgian region Flanders had been the capital for a while, and thus 'Nederlands' feels as much mine as yours) is called 'Dutch' (as if belonging to the Dutch people who are never Flemish, and thus as if the Dutch people would have ''colonialized'' my people by enforcing their language) in [[English language|English]], you don't like its standard language being called 'Common' (as if it might be vulgar and depreciated) and I assume you would oppose to ''Mean Dutch'' as well.&nbsp;&nbsp;};-|><br>We however, do not make the English language and have to convince the hundreds of millions of its users to forget 'Dutch' and 'Common Dutch' when referring to the language in general and its official standard respectively, and to generally accept more proper terms (''<b>Netherlandic</b>'' and ''<b>Mutual Netherlandic</b>'' — or ''Shared Netherlandic''? [''Universal Netherlandic'' sounds best but would be over-the-top and it's not 'Universeel Nederlands' in [[Dutch language|Dutch]] either]), before we can put things our way in the English language encyclopedia. Anyway, the [[Dutch language|Dutch]] word 'algemeen' (as in 'Algemeen Nederlands') comes from 'al gemeen' ('all common' or in fact 'all vulgar' which is usually interpreted as strongly depreciating) but you don't think about it like that because we use 'algemeen' in a far more neutral way; this is also the case for English speakers regarding 'common' in most contexts. — [[User:SomeHuman|SomeHuman]] 2006-07-29 11:18 - 12:36 (UTC)

:Netherlandic? No, that sound kind of ridiculous. Thing is, "common Dutch" somehow sounds like "the speech of the commoners/plebs/proletariat" and I have seen many translations of AN with general. Translating "algemeen" heavily depends on context. A quick test, and this [http://ets.freetranslation.com/ online translator] translates algemeen as general.
:[[User:Rex Germanus|Rex]] 12:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm afraid your link does not work, but is it not rather ridiculous to even suggest that an online translator would be so capable to understand a context, as to be infallible in choosing the most appropriate translation where several different meanings of a word exist? In any case, [http://www.majstro.com/Web/Majstro/dict.php?gebrTaal=eng&prec=1&bronTaal=dut&doelTaal=eng&teVertalen=algemeen one of the better online multi-language translation dictionaries that I encountered], in its its primary dictionary, reads 'algemeen' as synonym of 'gemeenschappelijk; gezamenlijk' as well as of 'universeel' and its translation for either interpretation is 'common'. (If you wonder where the shown secondary dictionary got its translations besides again 'common', click underneath on 'Translations of algemeen in other languages' and look at Latin). You deliberately step away from attempting to disprove any of my arguments and only confirm my assumption about the origin of your objection to 'common', which I explained to be mainly your personal interpretation and not something speakers of English are likely to see that way. It is not quite proper to then come up with as badly chosen an excuse for the, frankly, [[WP:POV]] translation that does not occur anywhere else on Wikipedia either. I'm glad though that you did not again revert this time and participate on this discussion. We will both have to learn and live with the quirks of the English language regarding ours. — [[User:SomeHuman|SomeHuman]] 2006-07-29 13:40 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 14:13, 27 September 2024

Flemish as an autonomous language

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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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]
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)[reply]

Requested move 12 June 2023

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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)[reply]

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)[reply]

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

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)[reply]
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

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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)[reply]

Opening

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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)[reply]

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