Kerkrade dialect
Kerkrade dialect is a Ripuarian dialect spoken in Kerkrade and its surroundings, including Herzogenrath in Germany. It is spoken in all social classes, but the variety spoken by younger people is somewhat closer to Standard Dutch.
The most similar other Ripuarian dialects are those of Bocholtz, Vaals and Aachen.
Even though it is a Ripuarian dialect, native speakers call it Limburgsj, Kirchröadsj or simply plat. The name Ripuarisch is never used and is reserved for the related dialects spoken in Germany.
Vocabulary
The Kerkrade dialect has many loanwords from Standard German, a language that used to be used in school and church. However, not all German loanwords are used by every speaker.An example sentence in the Kerkrade dialect is Jód èse en drinke hilt lief en zieël tsezame, which means "eating and drinking well keeps one healthy". The Standard Dutch equivalent of that sentence is goed eten en drinken houdt de mens gezond. The Standard German equivalent of this sentence is gut essen und trinken hält Körper und Seele zusammen; the Kölsch equivalent is Jod esse un drinke hält Liev un Siel zesamme.
Phonology
Vowels
- The Kirchröadsjer Dieksiejoneer describes the quality of the following vowels in detail:
- * are fully close.
- * The main allophone of is near-close. In word-final positions, it is realized as fully close.
- * are all phonetically close-mid. is phonetically central and the main difference between it and the unstressable is rounding; is rounded, whereas is unrounded.
- * and are more open before than in other positions.
- * are open-mid.
- * is mid front.
- *, a phonological open-mid vowel, is phonetically open.
- * is open back.
- *, a phonological back vowel, is phonetically central.
- * The long have two types of allophones: half-long, which occur in words with stoottoon and long, which occur in words with sleeptoon. This allophony does not apply to the other long vowels, which are long in all positions.
- * Before, all of the long vowels are pronounced even longer than in Standard Dutch. In the case of, they are slightly diphthongized to .
- can be considered the umlauted variants of.
- is inserted allophonically between or and a labial or a dorsal consonant, as in milch and sjterk.
| Closing | |
| Centering |
- The starting point of is phonetically close to a shortened .
- The centering diphthongs begin with vowels close to the main allophones of the phonemic monophthongs and end in a schwa.
- is the only centering diphthong that can occur before.
Consonants
- are bilabial, whereas are labiodental.
- Syllable-final tend to be velarized, especially after. can also be velarized intervocalically after.
- are velar, is palatal, whereas is uvular.
- * occurs only intervocalically.
- * Most instances of historic have merged with, so that the word for green in the Kerkrade dialect is jreun . occurs only after back vowels.
- * varies between a trill and a fricative.
- is realized as velar after phonological back vowels and as palatal after consonants and phonological front vowels. Both allophones can appear within one lexeme, e.g. laoch and löcher. The phonetically central and trigger different allophones; the former requires the use of the palatal because it is a phonological front vowel, whereas is always followed by the velar because it is a back vowel phonologically.
Pitch accent
Spelling
The spelling presented here is used in Kirchröadsjer dieksiejoneer, the only dictionary of the Kerkrade dialect.| Spelling | IPA value | Example words | Notes |
| a | bakke | In closed syllables. | |
| a | jape | In open syllables. | |
| aa | kaat, sjaa | In closed syllables and word-finally. | |
| ai | fain | ||
| ao | kaod | ||
| äö | kräöche | ||
| äu | vräud | ||
| auw | kauw | ||
| b | |||
| b | Word-finally and before voiceless consonants in compounds. | ||
| ch | maache | ||
| d | |||
| d | Word-finally and before voiceless consonants in compounds. | ||
| dzj | pieëdzje | ||
| e | sjtek | In closed syllables. | |
| e | oavend | In unstressed syllables. | |
| e | dene | In open syllables. | |
| ee | deer | In closed syllables and word-finally. | |
| è | nès | ||
| eë | keëts | ||
| ei | knei | ||
| ij | jekkerij | ||
| eu | meun | ||
| f | |||
| g | |||
| gk | wegke | ||
| h | |||
| i | rikke | In closed syllables. | |
| ie | In closed syllables and in unstressed positions. | ||
| ie | |||
| ieë | |||
| j | |||
| k | |||
| l | |||
| m | |||
| n | |||
| ng | |||
| o | In closed syllables. | ||
| o | In open syllables. | ||
| oo | In closed syllables. | ||
| ö | In closed syllables. | ||
| ó | - | In closed syllables. | |
| oa | |||
| öa | |||
| oe | In closed syllables and in unstressed positions. | ||
| oe | |||
| oeë | |||
| ouw | |||
| p | |||
| r | |||
| s | |||
| sj | |||
| t | |||
| ts | |||
| tsj | |||
| u | In closed syllables. | ||
| u | In open syllables. | ||
| uu | In closed syllables. | ||
| ü | |||
| üe | |||
| ui | |||
| v | |||
| w | |||
| z | |||
| zj |