Maastrichtian dialect

In 1999, the municipal government recognised a standardised spelling of Maastrichtian made by Pol Brounts and Phil Dumoulin as the official spelling of the dialect.[4]

• Aarts, F. (2005). Dictionairke vaan 't Mestreechs. (2nd ed.). Maastricht, the Netherlands: Stichting Onderweg.
• Brounts P., Chambille G., Kurris J., Minis T., Paulissen H. & Simais M. (2004). De Nuie Mestreechsen Dictionair. Maastricht, the Netherlands: Veldeke-Krink Mestreech.
  • Online Dutch to Maastrichtian translation version of De Nuie Mestreechsen Dictionair

• Aarts, F. (2009). 't Verhaol vaan eus Taol. Maastricht, the Netherlands: Stichting Onderweg.

In 2002, the municipal government officially adopted a local anthem (Mestreechs Volksleed) composed by lyrics in Maastrichtian. The theme had originally been written by Alfons Olterdissen (1865–1923) as finishing stanza of the Maastrichtian opera "Trijn de Begijn" of 1910.[6] There are claims that the anthem actually originates from "Pe-al nostru steag e scris Unire" by the Romanian composer Ciprian Porumbescu.[7]

• Wikipedia: Maastrichtian is included in the Limburgish Wikipedia. Since there are only standardised 'variants' of Limburgish but no widely accepted/recognised standardised Limburgish itself, each article is tagged as being written in a certain variant of the language. All articles in Maastrichtian can be found here.
• Wiktionary: For an overview of some Maastrichtian dialect specific words, their English translations and their origins proceed to this Wiktionary category.

Monophthongs of the Maastrichtian dialect, from Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:159)

• The front vowels /ɪ, eː, æ, aː/ are somewhat retracted [ɪ̞, e̠ː, æ̠, a̠ː], but not retracted enough to be labelled as central vowels. On the other hand, /ø/ is so retracted that it is best labelled as central [ɵ].[8]
• Among the central vowels, /ø/ is rounded, whereas /ə/ is unrounded.
  • /ə/ occurs only in unstressed syllables.[9]
• Among the back vowels, /u, uː, o, oː, ɔ, ɔː/ are rounded, whereas /ɑ/ is unrounded.
  • /u, uː, o, oː, ɔ, ɑ/ are somewhat advanced [u̟, u̟ː, ʊ̞, o̟ː, ɔ̟, ɑ̟], but not advanced enough to be labelled as central vowels.[8]
• The qualitative differences between the short /ɪ, ø, o/ and long /eː, øː, oː/ close-mid vowels are not very big; the short vowels are slightly higher and somewhat more central. In the case of the /ø/–/øː/ pair, the difference is the smallest.[8]
• Among the open-mid vowels, only /ɛː, œː, ɔ/ are open-mid [ɛː, œː, ɔ], whereas /ɛ, œ, ə/ are actually mid [ɛ̝, œ̝, ə].[8]
• The open vowels /æ, ɑ, ɔː/ are somewhat raised (i.e. near-open) [æ, ɑ̝, ɒ̝ː]. /æ/ is similar in quality to /ɛː/; the main difference between them is backness (/æ/ is somewhat more retracted), rather than height.[8]
• The short counterpart of /aː/ is /ɑ/, not /æ/ (which does not have a long counterpart).

Diphthongs of the Maastrichtian dialect, from Gussenhoven & Aarts (1999:159)

Diphthongs in Maastrichtian are /ɛi, œy, ɔu/ having closer starting points than the equivalent three in Standard Dutch. The start point of /ɔu/ is rounded unlike standard Dutch /ʌu/.[8]

• /m, p, b, β/ are bilabial, whereas /f, v/ are labiodental.[1]
  • In the syllable onset, /β/ is articulated with spread lips. However, in the syllable coda, the lips are weakly rounded.[10]
• Voiceless plosives are unaspirated, whereas the voiced plosives are fully voiced.[10]
• Word-initial /v/ and especially /ɣ/ can be only partially voiced [v̥, ɣ̊] but without merging with, respectively, /f/ and /x/.[10]
• /ɲ, c, ʃ, ʒ/ are laminal postalveolar. Phonemically, they can be analysed as /nj, tj, sj, zj/.[10]
• /ŋ, k, ɡ, x, ɣ/ are velar, whereas /j/ is palatal.[1]
  • Word-initial /x/ is restricted to loanwords.[10]
• /ʀ/ is a voiced fricative trill, either uvular [ʀ̝] or pre-uvular [ʀ̝˖]. The fricative component is particularly audible in coda, where a partial devoicing to [ʀ̝̊ ~ ʀ̝̊˖] also occurs.[10]
• A non-phonemic glottal stop [ʔ] can be heard when separating a preceding unstressed vowel (particularly a schwa [ə]) from other following vowel sounds.

Maastrichtian vocabulary, as the language family it belongs to suggests, is based on the Germanic languages (apart from the Limburgish language family this also includes varying degrees of influence from both archaic and modern Dutch and German). However, what sets Maastrichtian apart from other variants of Limburgish is its relatively strong influences from French. This is not only because of geographic closeness of a Francophone region (namely Wallonia) to Maastricht but also because of French being the predominant spoken language of the Maastrichtian cultural elite and the higher secondary educational system of the region in the past. Some examples:

Some examples of specific Maastrichtian vocabulary:

Some examples of Maastrichtian expressions: