Central Dutch dialects are a group of dialects of the

Dutch language Dutch ( ) is a West Germanic languages, West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the List of languages by total number of speak ...

from the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

.Wilbert (Jan) Heeringa, ''Chapter 9: Measuring Dutch dialect distances'', of the doctor's thesis: ''Measuring Dialect Pronunciation Differences using Levenshtein Distance'', 2004
thesischapter 9 (PDF)
They are spoken in

Holland Holland is a geographical regionG. Geerts & H. Heestermans, 1981, ''Groot Woordenboek der Nederlandse Taal. Deel I'', Van Dale Lexicografie, Utrecht, p 1105 and former provinces of the Netherlands, province on the western coast of the Netherland ...

, Utrecht Province, south-western

Gelderland Gelderland ( , ), also known as Guelders ( ) in English, is a Provinces of the Netherlands, province of the Netherlands, located in the centre-east of the country. With a total area of of which is water, it is the largest province of the Nethe ...

, North Brabant and few parts of Limburg (Netherlands) and Friesland ( Vlieland), and include Hollandic. It borders Low Saxon without Gronings,

Limburgish Limburgish ( or ; ; also Limburgian, Limburgic or Limburgan) refers to a group of South Low Franconian Variety (linguistics), varieties spoken in Belgium and the Netherlands, characterized by their distance to, and limited participation ...

, Brabantian and Zeelandic. Urkers, Frisian and Frisian mixed varieties are geographically close, too. ''De analyse van taalvariatie in het Nederlandse dialectgebied'' has several classifications based on several characteristics: Considering distances in

lexicon A lexicon (plural: lexicons, rarely lexica) is the vocabulary of a language or branch of knowledge (such as nautical or medical). In linguistics, a lexicon is a language's inventory of lexemes. The word ''lexicon'' derives from Greek word () ...

and pronunciation, it has some of the area of Central Dutch as ''Overijssel'' and vice versa, ' (Central Western dialects) and Central Dutch area is greatly contingent, ' (Central Southern dialects) is also greatly contingent with Central Dutch. Excluding one place in

, Central Dutch in the Netherlands can be grouped into a cluster in Central Gelderland and a one of other varieties. Both clusters border to Germany. Most varieties in Gelderland South of the aforementioned variety of Central Gelderland cluster together with the dialect of

Amersfoort Amersfoort () is a Cities of the Netherlands, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Utrecht (province), Utrecht, Netherlands. As of 31 January 2023, the municipality had ...

and several varieties in North Brabant. Boundaries have been drawn on the basis of old isoglosses. Stadsfries is wrongly seen as Hollandic. Frisian mixed varieties has Stadsfries together with Amelands, Bildts and Midslands. These dialects have similarities with Frisian. The other dialects in this group in that study are Stellingwerfs. Stellingwerfs is not very close to them. The question cannot be answered whether Stellingwerfs varieties are more related to Frisian or to Low Saxon. Eupen dialect is similarly different from Luxembourgish as from Hollandic. Wenker's original

Rhenish fan The subdivision of West Central German into a series of dialects, according to the differing extent of the High German consonant shift, is particularly pronounced. It is known as the Rhenish fan (, ) because on the map of dialect boundaries, the li ...

outside the Netherlands largely has been reduced to regiolects and formal Luxembourgish. In both Germany and Belgium, dialect use has declined sharply since 1970. Young people only speak regiolect.

References

External links

Frens (Theo Marie) Bakker, ''Waar scheiden de dialecten in Noord-Limburg? Een dialectometrisch onderzoek naar het gewicht van isoglossen'' (''Where do the dialects in North Limburg separate? A dialectometric examination based on the weight of isoglosses''), updated version from 2017 (originally 2016)
octor's thesis
R. Belemans, J. Kruijsen, J. Van Keymeulen, ''Gebiedsindeling van de zuidelijk-Nederlandse dialecten'' (''area classification of the southern-Dutch dialects''), Taal en Tongval jg. 50, 1998
– areas of various dialects of the Dutch language {{Languages of the Benelux Dutch dialects Languages of the Netherlands Low Franconian languages