Het Vriezenveens : Waar komt het vandaan? Waar gaat het heen?

Abstract

The Vriezenveen Dialect. Where Does it Come from? Where Does it Go to? The village of Vriezenveen (not far from Almelo in Twente, an eastern region of the Netherlands) has a dialect that differs from its neighbouring dialects in a number of features. For instance, instead of lengthened vowels in open syllables it can have rising diphthongs whereas the other Twente dialects have centered diphthongs or short vowels more open than the original short ones: ljèvn 'o live' [æ.] opposite to lèëvn [æǝ] of lævvn [æ] (Standard Dutch leven [e.] < [ε]). The riezenveen dialect also has (or had) diphthongs in stein 'stone' [εi], geitn 'to pour', bouk 'book' [ɔu] instead of Twente dialect stèèn [ε.], geetn [e.], book [o.], Standard Dutch steen [e.], gieten [i], boek [u]. These conservative features can be explained by the fact that the inhabitants of Vriezenveen had extensive contacts with the estphalian region through which they travelled on their commercial tours to Russia (Saint Petersburg). In this German region these features can still be found. On the other hand, a form like huus 'house', with [y.] instead of [u.], points in a western direction. Nowadays the young inhabitants of Vriezenveen are adapting their dialect to the more general Twente dialect. This regiolectisation clearly manifested itself during interviews organised in 2012 through 2015.

Keywords

• vriezenveen
• dialect
• standard Dutch
• vowels
• diphthongs