Зеландский диалект: особенности и современное состояние

Low Franconian dialect of Dutch
the British ship

Zeelandic (; Zeeuws; ) is a group of language varieties spoken in the southwestern parts of the Netherlands. It is currently considered a Low Franconian dialect of Dutch, but there have been movements to promote the status of Zeelandic from a dialect of Dutch to a separate regional language, which have been denied by the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs. More specifically, it is spoken in the southernmost part of South Holland (Goeree Overflakkee) and large parts of the province of Zeeland, with the notable exception of eastern Zeelandic Flanders. It has notable differences from Standard Dutch mainly in pronunciation but also in grammar and vocabulary, which separates it clearly from Standard Dutch. This makes mutual intelligibility with speakers of Standard Dutch difficult.

Zeelandic is spoken in most areas in Zeeland province, excluding East Zeelandic Flanders where, traditionally, more East Flemish dialects are spoken. North of Zeeland, Zeelandic is still spoken on the island of Goeree Overflakkee. Traditionally, the Zeelandic language area also extended further north to the island Voorne Putten, but the dialect has mostly disappeared from that area due to migration from urban areas such as Rotterdam. In urban areas in Zeeland, the dialect is in decline due to migration from other areas in the Netherlands. In Vlissingen, Goes, Middelburg and, to a lesser extent, Terneuzen, Zeelandic dialect is being mostly replaced by Standard Dutch, although elderly people and people from surrounding rural areas can often still speak Zeelandic. There are clear differences between Zeelandic and Hollandic, Brabantine and East Flemish dialects, but there is more of a dialect continuum with West Flemish language varieties. The dialects spoken more towards the western coastal region of Zeelandic Flanders, locally referred to as Bressiaans, resemble the West Flemish dialects spoken across the border more than the dialects spoken around Terneuzen and Axel, which preserve more Zeelandic features while also exhibiting West Flemish features. Although these similarities are greater than those between Zeelandic and Hollandic dialects, there are some minor dialectal influences in the dialects spoken in Voorne Putten, Hoeksche Waard and Rotterdam. There is hardly any dialectal influence from Zeelandic in the neighbouring Brabantine dialects, however, with the exception of the neighbouring villages of Oud Vossemeer in Tholen and Nieuw Vossemeer in North Brabant.

The province of Zeeland consists of several former islands that were difficult to reach until well into the 20th century. As a result, there is roughly one dialect per island. The respective dialects differ clearly but only slightly. The Goeree Overflakkee dialect, for example, does not drop the h, and the Walcheren and Zuid Beveland dialects have umlauted words, unlike the northern dialects (for example: beuter as opposed to boter Within the island dialects themselves, dialectal differences also exist, and native speakers can frequently tell the village (at least on their own island) a person is from by the specific dialect that is spoken, even if the differences are inaudible to outsiders. For example, within the Tholen dialect, speakers from Poortvliet, a village roughly on the middle of the island, can use widely different words for something than speakers from Sint Maartensdijk do, which lies only 5 km to the west of Poortvliet.

Zeelandic is strongly associated with the rural population, as it is spoken mainly in the countryside. The town dialects of Middelburg and Vlissingen are both much closer to Hollandic than the rural variants and are almost extinct. Surveys held in the 1990s found that at least 60% of Zeeland's population still use Zeelandic as their everyday language. An estimated 250,000 people speak Zeelandic as a mother tongue (West Zeelandic Flemish is included in that count), and although it is in decline, just as other regional languages, it is in no direct danger of extinction since in some villages with strong isolated communities, more than 90% of the youngsters still speak Zeelandic. On the other hand, in several villages with much immigration, the local dialect is spoken only by adults, as children are no longer taught it. A lobby for recognising the Zeelandic regional language under the European Charter for Minority Languages was, as of 2005, unable to achieve that status.