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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Sarcelles (talk | contribs) at 20:13, 20 April 2005. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Hallo Sarcelles! I've noted that you changed the section about "Flemish" dialects in the article about the Dutch language. You apparently based these changes on the Dutch article about Dutch and the German article about Limburgish. At first blush they seem very reasonable. They also pose a few major problems however:

I. You are now mixing up two irreconcilable systems. What most German linguists mean with Limburgisch-Bergisch is not the same either in range or interpretation as the Limburgs of linguists in the Low Countries. Hint: the old town of Limburg is today located in Germany.

II. You use Dutch and German names. However there are English ones and obviously these should be preferred, especially when they link to already existent articles.

III. You use the higher-level grouping of the Dutch article. It's not a very bad system and often used, but there is no consensus whatsoever among linguists about its validity. The relations between the various Low Franconian dialects are extremely complex. East Flemish in particular is very difficult to categorise. In some ways the southern Brabantic dialects and East Flemish are very closely related. That's one reason to talk about a Central Dialect Group. However there's also a very strong isogloss bundle between them, while there's none between the southern and more northern Brabantic dialects. And in some ways West Flemish and East Flemish are more closely related. So it seams preferable to me to use a more traditional and "atomistic" lower-level approach and to speak of four groups. Of course we should then add that according to some criteria East Flemish should be grouped with Brabantic.

IV Strangely however the system is in some ways too atomistic: it shows divisions where there are none. Now why should it do that? The answer is: Hollandocentrism. Holland has been for four centuries the dominant province in The Netherlands. The normal sociological process has taken place of creating a value system in which the Hollander is at the top and the others are his inferiors. To emphasize his uniqueness his language also has to be set apart. In reality however the standard Dutch the Hollander today uses is basically Brabantic in origin. To repress this painful truth defence mechanisms have been activated. One other reason to use the term Central Dialect Group, is that "Brabantic" can be avoided. Also the fact is hidden that Brabantic very gradually fades into present Hollandic. So artificial dialects are created in the system to form a buffer, like the non-existent Zuid-Gelders (no isogloss bundle exists) and the barely discernable Utrechts (very weak isogloss bundle). The same trick is used to keep the Flemish away by talking about Zeeuws which in fact is northern West Flemish. But is there no justification to be found to distinguish a separate Zeeuws in the fact that the dialect continuum is broken by the geographical division in several islands? No. For the dialect of each islands then would have be considered its own dialect group: they form no unity.

Do you find my remarks correct or do you disagree? I'll also put them on the talk page of Dutch, in case anyone else should care to comment.

--MWAK 09:23, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Hallo MWAK,

your comments on Dutch are founded and seem valid. Thanks a lot, Sarcelles 20:13, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)