Hard and soft G in Dutch
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Hard and soft G in Dutch (Dutch: harde en zachte G) refers to a phonetic phenomenon of the pronunciation of the letters ⟨g⟩ and ⟨ch⟩ and also a major isogloss within that language.
In southern dialects of Dutch (that is, those spoken roughly below the rivers
In northern dialects of Dutch, the distinction (if present at all) is not consistent and is best described as a
Speakers normally use those pronunciations in both standard language and the local dialect. The only exception to that are speakers from the southern Netherlands that have undergone accent reduction training, in which case they will use a trill fricative when speaking standard Dutch. It is very rare for speakers to use the hard G when speaking
Pronunciation
Southern
In Southern Dutch, the phonemes /x/ and /ɣ/ are either cardinal velars [
In
In many cases, [j] still patterns as an obstruent, an allophone of /ɣ/ in Ripuarian. The plural form zeëje [ˈzeəjə][tone?] 'saws' has an underlying /ɣ/: /ˈzeəɣə/[tone?] because it alternates with a voiceless fricative in the root zeëg [ˈzeəç][tone?] 'saw', phonemically /ˈzeəɣ/.[tone?] Compare this with the alternation in vroag [ˈvʁoəχ][tone?] 'question' - vroage [ˈvʁoəʁə][tone?] 'questions' (phonemically /ˈvroəɣ/,[tone?] /ˈvroəɣə/)[tone?] or with the plural-singular pair löcher [ˈlœçəʁ] - laoch [ˈlɔːχ],[tone?] which has underlying voiceless fricatives: /ˈlœxər/, /ˈlɔːx/.[tone?] The /j/ phoneme is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations like the first two. Furthermore, Ripuarian features a different pronunciation of /x/ and /ɣ/ after back vowels, as uvular [χ, ʁ], not dissimilar from the Northern Dutch pronunciation in the first case. The realization of /ɣ/ as [ʁ] results in a phonetic merger with /r/ and is thus an example of rhotacism. The consonants surrounding the diphthong in vroage /ˈvroəɣə/[tone?] are indistinguishable from each other: [ˈvʁoəʁə]).[tone?] This is a typical feature of Ripuarian. This merger is also not phonemic as /r/ too is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations such as [ˈvʁoəχ][tone?] - [ˈvʁoəʁə][tone?] mentioned above.[9][10]
Northern
In Northern Dutch, /ɣ/ appears immediately before voiced consonants and sometimes also between vowels, but not in the word-initial position. In the latter case, the sound is not voiced and differs from /x/ in length (/ɣ/ is longer) and in that it is produced a little bit further front (mediovelar, rather than postvelar) and lacks any trilling, so that vlaggen /ˈvlɑɣən/ 'flags' has a somewhat lengthened, plain voiceless velar [
Further examples
The phrase zachte G 'soft G' is pronounced [ˈzɑxtə ˈʝeː] in Southern Dutch, whereas the Northern pronunciation is [ˈzɑχtə ˈχei]. The Ripuarian-influenced Standard Dutch pronunciation is [ˈzɑχtə ˈʝeː], that of vlaggen is [ˈvlɑʁə(n)] (as if spelled vlarren), whereas that of lachen is [ˈlɑχə(n)].
Geographical distribution
The hard ⟨g⟩ is used in most of the Netherlands, except the provinces of Limburg and most parts of North Brabant, and some dialects of Gelderland and Utrecht. It is also used in Afrikaans, a daughter language of Dutch. It is spoken in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
The soft ⟨g⟩ is used primarily in the southern part of the Dutch language area in Europe:
- The Netherlands
- Most parts of the provinces of Limburg and North Brabant, except for Bergen op Zoom and the area near Kerkrade and Vaals.
- Parts of the province of Gelderland namely the Betuwe, the region south of Nijmegen, Land van Maas en Waal, the southern part of the Veluwe and the Achterhoek.
- The southeastern part of the province of Utrecht.
- Dutch-speaking Belgium except for most of West Flanders and western East Flanders.
Ripuarian dialects spoken in the extreme southeast part of Limburg in the Netherlands have a special allophony that does not match the soft G used in the rest of Limburg but the German dialects of Aachen and Cologne; see above.
Dialects of West Flanders and western East Flanders also do not align with any other dialect group in this aspect, as they feature h-dropping and use weak glottal fricatives [ɦ, h] for standard /ɣ, x/. This pronunciation is also used in Zeelandic dialects spoken in the Netherlands.
See also
References
- ^ Gussenhoven (1999), p. 74.
- ^ a b c d e Collins & Mees (1982).
- ^ a b c d e Collins & Mees (2003).
- ^ Bowerman (2004:939): "White South African English is one of very few varieties to have a velar fricative phoneme /x/ (...), but this is only in words borrowed from Afrikaans (...) and Khoisan (...). Many speakers use the Afrikaans uvular fricative [χ] rather than the velar."
- ^ Heijmans & Gussenhoven (1998).
- ^ Peters (2010), p. 240.
- ^ Cited in Verhoeven (2005:244).
- ^ Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999), p. 156.
- ^ Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997), pp. 17, 19, 21, 126.
- ^ Russ (1989), pp. 228–229.
- ^ Goeman & Van de Velde (2001).
- ^ Tops (2009).
Bibliography
- Bowerman, Sean (2004). "White South African English: phonology". In Schneider, Edgar W.; Burridge, Kate; Kortmann, Bernd; Mesthrie, Rajend; Upton, Clive (eds.). A handbook of varieties of English. Vol. 1: Phonology. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 931–942. ISBN 978-3-11-017532-5.
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (1982). "A phonetic description of the consonant system of Standard Dutch (ABN)". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 12 (1): 2–12. S2CID 144910869.
- Collins, Beverley; Mees, Inger M. (2003) [First published 1981]. The Phonetics of English and Dutch (5th ed.). Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 9004103406.
- Goeman, Ton; Van de Velde, Hans (2001). "Co-occurrence constraints on /r/ and /ɣ/ in Dutch dialects". In van de Velde, Hans; van Hout, Roeland (eds.). 'r-atics. Brussels: Etudes & Travaux. pp. 91–112. )
- Gussenhoven, Carlos (1999). "Dutch". Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 74–77. ISBN 0-521-65236-7. Retrieved 16 February 2020.
- Gussenhoven, Carlos; Aarts, Flor (1999). "The dialect of Maastricht" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 29 (2). University of Nijmegen, Centre for Language Studies: 155–166. S2CID 145782045.
- Heijmans, Linda; Gussenhoven, Carlos (1998). "The Dutch dialect of Weert" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 28 (1–2): 107–112. S2CID 145635698.
- Peters, Jörg (2010). "The Flemish–Brabant dialect of Orsmaal–Gussenhoven". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 40 (2): 239–246. .
- Russ, Charles V.J. (1989). The dialects of Modern German: A Linguistic survey. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-00308-7.
- Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (1997) [1987]. Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer (in Dutch) (2nd ed.). Kerkrade: Stichting Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer. ISBN 90-70246-34-1.
- Tops, Evie (2009). Variatie en verandering van de /r/ in Vlaanderen. Brussels: VUBPress. ISBN 9789054874713.
- Verhoeven, Jo (2005). "Belgian Standard Dutch" (PDF). Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 35 (2): 243–247. S2CID 146567016.