East Flemish

East Flemish is a collective term for the two easternmost subdivisions of the so-called Flemish dialects, native to the southwest of the Dutch language area, which also include West Flemish. Their position between West Flemish and Brabantian has caused East Flemish dialects to be grouped with the latter as well. They are spoken mainly in the province of East Flanders and a narrow strip in the southeast of West Flanders in Belgium and eastern Zeelandic Flanders in the Netherlands. Even though the dialects of the Dender area are often discussed together with the East Flemish dialects because of their location, the latter are actually South Brabantian.

History

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 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 from where it spread to the smaller cities and rural areas. For example, the Brussels pronunciation for 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
** Northeast Flemish
** Southeast Flemish
* The Ghent dialect
* The Ronse dialect
* Central Flemish
Waaslandic
* Waas
* Eastern Zeelandic Flemish or the Land-van-Hulst dialect
* The Hulst dialect
Transitional and mixed dialects
The Maldegem dialect
The Philippine dialect
The Sas van Gent dialect, a mixture of several dialects, as Sas van Gent was a colonial town with many people from different regions.

A special mention should go to continental West Flemish, which, despite being a West Flemish dialect, has some East Flemish colouring, as Kortrijk was historically governed under Ghent.

Notable characteristics

Even though the East Flemish dialect area is one of the most diverse linguistic landscapes in Belgium, the dialects share some traits that set them apart from Standard Dutch as well as the neighbouring dialects:

The vowels in ziek and voet are pronounced as a short and , respectively, like in Standard Dutch. In Brabantian, they are long and , and in West Flemish the ancient diphthongs and have been retained though the sound 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 and , respectively. The latter sound can also be heard in Central Flemish before velars and labials.
The so-called sharp 'oo' in boom is pronounced , monophthongised to in the city dialects of Ghent and Ronse, but surrounding dialects have , or . That trait originally came from the dialect of Brussels and was spread through East Flanders via Ghent. Therefore, that pronunciation also occurs in the southernmost Brabantian dialects. Also, has not spread across the entire East Flemish dialect area: the Maldegem dialect, the easternmost dialects of the Waasland and most dialects in Zeelandic Flanders use instead, and the Central Flemish dialects use or , depending on the following consonant.
The Old Dutch long vowels in ijs and huis are pronounced as the diphthongs and , respectively. Depending on their dialect and position, they have often been monophthongised to and , respectively. Coastal West Flemish has retained the old monophthongs and . In Maldegem and continental West Flemish, intermediary monophthongs also occur: and and and , respectively. Exceptions are the city dialects of Ghent and Ronse as well as the Central Flemish dialects.
Plural pronouns usually end in "ulder", like wulder, gulder and zulder. Those pronouns are also used in continental West Flemish, but Maldegem appears to use the coastal pronouns.
The past tense of weak verbs is formed with "-tege" or "-dege", as opposed to "-te" and "-de" of Standard Dutch and the surrounding dialects. While present in most East Flemish dialects as well as continental West Flemish and some Dender Brabantian dialects, that phenomenon seems to be diminishing in all but the Core Flemish area.
The -n of plurals and infinitives is usually retained, like in West Flemish, but it has been lost in Brabantian and in the dialects of Ghent and some Waaslaandic towns on the banks of the Scheldt.
Subordinating conjunctions are conjugated. The Dutch combination ...dat ze... would be in East Flemish ...da ze..., pronounced /dɑ sə/, in the singular, and ...dan ze..., pronounced /dɑn zə/, in the plural. That occurs also in West Flemish and Zeelandic.
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.
The most common realization of the phoneme is an alveolar trill, but uvular realisations or are used in the dialects of Ronse and Ghent and are spreading from the latter.
The lateral is velarised postvocalically. In the dialects around Maldegem, syllable-final is omitted altogether.
In the western dialects, is usually realised as an approximant.
and are not native to many East Flemish dialects and usually occur from the palatalisation of and, respectively. That is especially common close to the Dender area. Similarly, may merge into in some dialects like Platgents that lack postalveolar fricatives.
As in Standard Dutch, all plosives and fricatives are devoiced word-finally, but Core Flemish tends to voice plosives between a coloured vowel and. In some dialects, /k/ also has the allophone in that position.
Vowels

The following table gives an overview of some common phonemes in stressed syllables. Many East Flemish dialects have lost the phonemic vowel length distinction, but the distincition is made in the following table for the dialects that have kept it. Also, the central vowel /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables and is often heavily reduced or even omitted in many dialects.

	Front unrounded	Front rounded	Back
Close
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open