East Flemish

Before the occurrence of written records, the dialect continuum that took shape in the Old Dutch language area was characterised mainly by differences from east to west, with the east showing more continental Germanic traits and the west having more coastal Germanic features. In East Flanders, it can be noted that not a single typical eastern Low Franconian trait has reached the region, but coastal characteristics are fairly common, albeit less so than more to the west. In the 15th century, the dominant position in the Low Countries shifted from the County of Flanders to the Duchy of Brabant, which brought an expansian of linguistic traits from Brabant, the so-called 'Brabantic Expansion'. As the Scheldt delta formed a large barrier in the north, those traits were introduced mainly from South Brabant, particularly the city of Brussels. The Dender area probably already started the process in the 14th century, but Ghent (and probably the rest of the province) resisted those changes for at least another century, as writings from Ghent still indicated a phonology that was typically West Flemish phonology in the mid-16th century. Eventually, two processes caused the spread of Brabantian traits in eastern Flanders: • The slow infiltration from the east, the Dender area; • The spread of a trait in the biggest city (usually Ghent) from where it spread to the smaller cities and rural areas. For example, the Brussels pronunciation [yə] for [oə] was first used in Ghent and later spread to most of the province. While the second process has caused a fairly wide extension of some traits, the traits spread by the first process have reached only the eastern quarter of the province: the Dender and Waasland areas. Having been dominated by the French, the Austrians and the Spanish, their languages have been other influences on the vocabulary of East Flemish. ==Subdivisions==

Principal dialects • Core Flemish • "True" East Flemish (often called "Boers", Dutch for peasant language, by speakers of city dialects) • Northeast Flemish • Southeast Flemish • The Sas van Gent dialect, a mixture of several dialects, as Sas van Gent was a colonial town with many people from different regions. ==Notable characteristics==

Even though the East Flemish dialect area is one of the most diverse linguistic landscapes in Belgium, and in West Flemish the ancient diphthongs [iə] and [uə] have been retained though the sound [u] occurs before velars and labials. A notable exception is the dialects of Ghent and Ronse, which, apart from having a general tendency to stretch vowels, have diphthongised them in certain positions to [ɪ.i] and [o.u], respectively. The latter sound can also be heard in Central Flemish before velars and labials. Those pronouns are also used in continental West Flemish, but Maldegem appears to use the coastal pronouns. • As in West Flemish and Brabantian, the subject is doubled or even tripled. Standard Dutch "ik ga" becomes East Flemish "'k goa-kik". In the dialects of Ghent and its surroundings, that duplication can occur even after nouns and names. • As in West Flemish, Zeelandic and Brabantian, infinitive clusters are always ordered V1-V2-V3, with the auxiliary verb first. • As in most Belgian dialects, except those from the coast and Westhoek and Brabantian dialects, double negations like niemand niet are commonly used. ==Phonology==

As the realisation of phonemes can be quite divergent in different East Flemish dialects, the phonemes represented here are based on the most common Core East Flemish realisations. Consonants Notes: • occurs only in the consonant cluster or as an allophone of when it undergoes the assimilation of voicing or, for Core Flemish, intervocalic lenition. which had the indirect effect of current Platgents rounding to in multiple words as a counterreaction. • are diphthongised to before /z/ and /v/. In some northwestern dialects, that is the common pronunciation in most positions. The same goes for , which has merged with in most dialects. • After /d/ or word-finally, is pronounced [æ] in most dialects. In the dialect of Ghent, it is pronounced [æ] or even [a] in most positions except before . • are merged into when they are followed by . • When followed by alveolars, is diphthongised to in most dialects. In the dialect of Ronse, it is always pronounced [u]. • In many dialects, /o/ and /o:/ have merged. In the dialect of Ghent, the phoneme has later split, based on its position: before velars and labials and before alveolars. One exception is the short /o/ in front of nasal consonants nasals, which has consistently become [u] in Ghent. • and have become and , respectively, when followed by an /r/, but that is no longer productive on more recent borrowings or when the /r/ is followed by an alveolar. When they are followed by /rm/, they become in many dialects. • In the Ghent dialect, /i/ has diphthongised to , /y/ has diphthongised to when followed by an /r/ or /l/, and /u/ has inconsistently diphthongised to [ou]. The same diphthongisations of /i/ and /u/ occur consistently in the dialect of Ronse. • Word-finally or before , /y/ can be pronounced [œ], [ɔ], [ʏ] etc., depending on the dialect. • In Platgents, has an allophone [o] when it is followed by /l/. Diphthongs The following table shows the common diphthong phonemes in East Flemish, but it also includes some allophones or alternative realisations of the vowels mentioned above. Notes: • In most dialects, is realised , but some peripheral dialects have . Central Flemish has both sounds, depending on its position, but in the southeast of the Waasland, it is pronounced or , depending on its position. • In the city dialects of Ghent and Ronse, and are monophthongised to and , respectively. In the Ghent dialect, diphthongs, however, are still realised before /r/ and /l/. • and are the "true" East Flemish realisations of and . • is an allophone of . • and are northwestern realisations of and , respectively, but is a separate phoneme from only in the same area. In many other dialects, diphthongs occur only before /v/ or /z/. In the Central Flemish and the city dialects, those phonemes are generally realised as dark diphthongs. • used to be an allophone of /e/ before /r/. Because of elision the elision of /r/, can now also be found before other consonants, and the elision of /d/ and French loanwords have reintroduced [e] before /r/. In the dialect of Ghent, is either similar or identical to . • In the dialect of Ghent, has inconsistently split into two phonemes and . In the dialect of Ronse, is the common realisation for , but in Central Flemish, is an allophone of after velars or labials. • is an allophone of /o/ in the dialect of Ghent, and its most common realisation in the dialect of Ronse. • is a highly-divergent phoneme in East Flanders. In most dialects, it has two different realisations: when followed by /d/ or /w/, and are common realisations, bur before /t/ and /s/, it is usually pronounced or . Other realisations may, however, occur in both positions. ==Grammar==

Verbs As in many other southern Dutch dialects, verbal constructions can take several forms, depending on stress, the position of the subject and the next word. Unlike West Flemish, however, there is no subjunctive mood. The following table gives the general rules of conjugation in the present tense and the regular example of zwieren ("to toss"). The spelling is based on Dutch orthography with the addition of  ̊  to show devoicing and  ̆  to show vowel shortening. Notes: • The first-person singular varies depending on the dialect: western dialects tend to add -e, but Waaslandic simply uses the stem. For verbs with a vocal stem, like doen ("to do") Waaslandic and the dialects around Maldegem add -n, but Core Flemish simply uses the stem. • The ending -t in the second-person and the third-person singular has several realisations. When it is followed by a consonant or the neuter pronoun et, it is not pronounced even if it devoices the following consonant. Before a pause, it is pronounced [t]. In front of vowels, it is usually prononounced [d] except when it follows a voiceless consonant, when it becomes [t]. • In dialects that differentiate between long and short vowels, the stem vowel tends to be shortened in the third-person singular. Compare Waaslandic "gij sloapt" with "ij slopt". • Inversed forms tend to contract with the subject: verb + ge"l becomes -de (-te after a voiceless consonant), verb + singular ze becomes -se (written as -̊ze in the table above) and verb + we becomes -me. When it is stressed, the pronoun is simply added to contracted form. In the first-person plural the contracted form also commonly occurs in the regular indicatives in main clauses. Preterite Like most other Germanic languages, East Flemish differentiates between strong verbs and weak verbs. Even though there are a few strong verbs in East Flemish that are weak in Standard Dutch, the overall tendency is that East Flemish has more weak verbs. Unlike many other Germanic languages, the rules for the conjugation of the strong preterite are exactly the same as in the present tense. The weak preterite is formed by adding the suffix "-dege" ("-tege" when the stem ends in a voiceless consonant) to the verbal stem. While an -n is usually added in the first-person and the third-person plural, the t-ending is not added except in a few southwestern dialects. ==Ghent dialect==

The dialect of the province's capital, Ghent, is also different from the language of the surrounding region. The Brabantic expansion is believed to have started in Ghent, which has separated its speech from the other Flemish dialects. Some Brabantic traits were exported to other East Flemish dialects, but many were not. The most notable differences include n-dropping and the more extreme diphthongisation of ii and uu. At the same time, Ghent resisted many innovations characteristic for rural East Flanders. In the 19th and the early 20th centuries, the French uvular r was adopted. ==References==