Language maintenance research generally argues that providing endangered varieties with a standard impacts positively their vitality by e.g. increasing positive attitudes. This paper investigates whether different degrees of linguistic proximity between vernacular varieties and the standard may lead to different speakers' attitudes towards the…

This study investigated how standard and substandard varieties of first language (L1) Dutch affect grammatical gender assignments to nouns in second language (L2) German. While German distinguishes between masculine, feminine, and neuter gender, the masculine--feminine distinction has nearly disappeared in Standard Dutch. Many substandard Belgian…

Flanders, the northern, Dutch-speaking part of Belgium, is experiencing growing intra- and interlingual diversity. On the intralingual level, Tussentaal ("in-between-language") has emerged as a cluster of intermediate varieties between the Flemish dialects and Standard Dutch, gradually becoming "the" colloquial language. At the…

This article examines ethnographic data that show Belgian adolescents of Moroccan descent stylizing Standard Dutch. Analysis addresses the importance of this variety in Belgian-Flemish society and in the school these boys attended, and shows how in interviews with Moroccan boys the hegemonic status of this variety is generally accepted. In…

Deals with divergence on the lexical, phonological, and morphological levels in three dialects that were the same until the mid-20th century (Maaseiks in Belgium, Susters in the Netherlands, and Waldfeuchts in Germany) and that have changed under the influence of three different standard languages (Belgian Dutch, Netherlandic Dutch, and Standard…

A discussion of the social network concept in sociolinguistics is examined from the perspective of language variation. This perspective is taken to gain insight into the actual importance of networks in speech communities and a more thorough understanding of a sociolinguistic concept that has drawn increasing attention in recent years. First, the…

Analyzes the devoicing of voiced fricatives in Southern Standard Dutch (spoken in Belgium) and Northern Standard Dutch (spoken in the Netherlands) based on archived recordings of radio broadcasts from 1935-93. Findings reveal a divergence between the two language varieties in the pronunciation of voiced fricatives in this period. (54 references)…

Investigates phonological variation and change in southern and northern spoken Dutch (spoken in Northern Flanders and the Netherlands). The study examines changes in progress from 1935-93 using a combination of insight and techniques from historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Results indicate that the southern variety remained stable while…

While the concepts of language continuum and diglossia are widely cited and discussed, they remain generally vague and are used in different ways by different linguists. Recent sociolinguistic research on Dutch-speaking Belgium provides a framework for examining the two concepts, a context for proposing a theoretical definition for language…

Papers from an international conference on the interaction of languages and dialects in contact are presented in this volume. Papers include: "Quelques reflexions sur la variation linguistique"; "The Investigation of 'Language Continuum' and 'Diglossia': A Macrological Case Study and Theoretical Model"; "A Survey of…