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Sallaans dialect

Dialects of Salland region

Sallaans (Dutch: Sallands; Low Saxon: Sallaands) is a collective term for the Westphalian dialects of the region Salland, in the province of Overijssel, as well as in minor parts of Gelderland and Drenthe in the Eastern Netherlands, and a small part in the North and the East of Veluwe. In the Kop van Overijssel, the Stellingwarfs dialect is spoken.

A common term used by native speakers for their dialect, which is also used by Low Saxon speakers from other regions for their respective dialects, is plat or simply dialect. Yet another common usage is to refer to the language by the name of the local variety, where for instance Dal(f)sens would be the name for the Sallaans variety spoken in the village of Dalfsen. Sallands is more influenced by the Hollandic dialects than Twents or Achterhoeks. This influence is known as the Hollandse expansie. For example, the word 'house' (Standard Dutch huis [ɦœys]) is hoes [ɦuːs] in Twents but huus [ɦyːs] in Sallaans. The Hollandic dialects of the 17th century still had not diphthongized [] to [œy], and due to their prestigious status they triggered the shift from [] to [].

01Phonology

Consonants

  • [ɡ] appears only as an allophone of /k/ before voiced consonants.
  • /ʋ/ occurring before and after back-rounded vowels is pronounced as a labio-velar approximant [w].
  • After long close and close-mid vowels, /r/ surfaces as a diphthongization of the vowel, as in zoer [ˈzuːə̯]. This also happens in compounds: veurkämer [vøːə̯kæːmər]. It is also often dropped preconsonantally after /ə/.

Vowels

Raalte monophthongs
Front Central Back
unrounded rounded
short long short long short long
Close i y u
Close-mid ɪ ʏ øː ə ʊ
Open-mid ɛ ɛː œ œː ɔ ɔː
Open æ æː ɑ ɑː
  • Unlike in Standard Dutch, the long close-mid monophthongs /eː, øː, oː/ are actual monophthongs and not narrow closing diphthongs [ei, øy, ou]. They do not appear before /r/ whenever that consonant occurs before a vowel or at the end of a word, where the open-mid series /ɛː, œː, ɔː/ occurs instead.
  • The schwa /ə/ is often dropped before /n/, resulting in a syllabic nasal homorganic with the preceding consonant. This occurs after most consonants, including nasals themselves: piepen [ˈpipm̩], slóffen [ˈslʊfɱ̍], gieten [ˈχiːtn̩], kieken [ˈkikŋ̍], esprungen [əˈsprœŋŋ̍], lachen [ˈlɑχɴ̩]. The sequences /əl/ and /ər/ are treated the same, except for the fact that they do not assimilate to the place of articulation of the preceding consonant.
Raalte diphthongs
Front Back
Close ij, iu yi, yu uw
Open ɛi ɪu œy ɔi ʊi ɑu
  • /œy/ is realized as [œi] before vowels and in the word-final position.

02Some examples

Present tense

SallaansDutchEnglish
Ik loop(e)Ik loopI walk
Ie loopt / lopenJij looptYou walk
Hee/hi'j / Zie/zi'j lup(t)Hij / Zij looptHe / she walks
Wie loopt / lopenWij lopenWe walk
Jullie / Juulu / ieluu loopt / lopenJullie lopenYou walk (plural)
Zie loopt / lopenZij lopenThey walk

Past tense

SallaansDutchEnglish
Ik liepeIk liepI walked
Ie liep'nJij liepYou walked
Hee / Zee liepHij / Zij liepHe / She walked
Wuu-lu liep'nWij liepenWe walked
Jullie / Juu-lu liep'nJullie liepenYou walked (plural)
Zie liep'nZij liepenThey walked

Plurals and diminutives

SallaansDutchEnglish
een kommeeen komOne bowl
twee komm'ntwee kommenTwo bowls
SallaansDutchEnglish
een kömmegieeen kommetjeone little bowl
twee kömmegiestwee kommetjestwo little bowls
Watch videos about Sallaans dialectExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Sallaans dialect, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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