Hard and soft G in Dutch

Hard and soft G in Dutch ( nl, harde en zachte G) refers to a phonetic phenomenon of the pronunciation of the letters and and also a major isogloss within that language.

In southern dialects of Dutch (that is, those spoken roughly below the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal), the distinction between the phonemes and is usual, with both realized as cardinal velars or post-palatal , hereafter represented without the diacritics. The allophony between those two types of fricatives is termed soft G in Dutch dialectology. It is almost the same as the distinction between the and the in German, with an additional contrast of voicing.

In northern dialects of Dutch, the distinction (if present at all) is not consistent and is best described as a fortis–lenis contrast, rather than a contrast of voicing. In those varieties, and are no more front than cardinal velars. In addition, is usually a post-velar fricative with a simultaneous voiceless uvular trill: . , if distinct from , is pronounced as a somewhat lengthened voiceless cardinal velar , but it usually falls together with as , especially word-initially. This is termed hard G in Dutch dialectology. It is also used in Afrikaans, so that the Afrikaans word 'good' has the same pronunciation as in Northern Dutch, in addition to having the same meaning in both languages.

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 Brabantian or Limburgish.

In Ripuarian, the voiced has been so fronted as to merge with the palatal approximant (except after back vowels); cf. Standard Dutch 'good' with in the Kerkrade dialect. Those dialects are also an exception to the rule, as they switch over to the respective standard pronunciation when speaking Standard Dutch (in which case is used) or, on the other side of the border (e.g. in Herzogenrath, where the Kerkrade dialect is also spoken), Standard German (in which case is used). The pronunciation with is marked in both the Netherlands and Germany (where it is commonly associated with the Colognian dialect, which is another variety of Ripuarian).

Pronunciation

In Southern Dutch, the phonemes and are either cardinal velars or post-palatal . More specifically, post-palatals occur in contact with phonemic front vowels and , whereas the cardinal velars occur in contact with phonemic back vowels (including and ). The phonemes usually contrast by voicing, but can be devoiced to a lenis that differs from in a less energetic articulation. Verhoeven and HagemanCited in . have found that 70% of word-initial and 56% of intervocalic lenis fricatives (which includes and ) are realized as fully voiceless in Belgium. In Maastrichtian Limburgish, initial is often partially devoiced as well.

In Northern Dutch, appears immediately before voiced consonants and sometimes also between vowels. In the latter case, the sound is not voiced and differs from in length ( is longer) and in that it is produced a little bit further front (mediovelar, rather than postvelar) and lacks any trilling, so that 'flags' has a somewhat lengthened, plain voiceless velar (hereafter represented with ): , whereas 'to laugh' features a shorter, post-velar fricative with a simultaneous voiceless uvular trill, transcribed with or in narrow IPA but normally written with or . In this article, is used (), even though the fricative portion is usually more front than cardinal uvulars. In Northern Dutch, the contrast between and is unstable, and is more likely to feature : . A trill fricative appears in very different contexts in Southern Dutch, being an allophone of .

Thus, the phrase 'soft G' is pronounced in Southern Dutch, whereas the Northern pronunciation is .

Geographical distribution

The hard is used primarily in the northern part of the Dutch language area in Europe:
* All of the Netherlands, except the provinces of Limburg and most parts of North Brabant, and some dialects of Gelderland and Utrecht
* Most dialects of West Flanders and East Flanders. In those dialects, both in Belgium, as well as the ones of Zeeland, both and are considerably weaker than in Standard Dutch, and especially may sound close to or the same as standard . Since those dialects normally feature h-dropping, no confusion arises.

The soft is used primarily in the southern part of the Dutch language area in Europe:
* The Netherlands
**The provinces of Limburg and North Brabant, except for small parts of North Brabant (e.g. Bergen op Zoom).
**Parts of the province of Gelderland namely the Bommelerwaard, 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 East Flanders.

References

Bibliography

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See also

* Dutch phonology

Consonants
Dutch language
Dutch phonology

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