Flemish/Dutch dialects

[C. Michiel Driessen]

Michiel Driessen:

I would just like to briefly remark that Selleslagh is completely correct. The
Dutch dialectology is remarkably rich and indeed very interesting. To give an
amazing example: Most Dutch dialects (including the standard language) are
quite ordinary, typically European style vernaculars in the sense that they are
charcterised by a heavy stress accent (in the case of Dutch initial accent).
The dialects of South Limburg Limburg (both the Belgian and the Dutch parts)
are tone languages, however. They have two phonological tones, that can make a
semantic difference and a morphological difference (they create the singular
versus the plural in certain categories of nouns). Selleslagh is also correct,
when he assumes that Dutch dialoctology is mostly descriptive. Unfortunately,
Dutch dialectologists merely confine themselves to reporting phenomena (Of
couse this does have a positive side; Dutch now has an large amount of
excellent dialect descriptions and dialect dictionaries).