The dialect of Hasselt

Abstract

Hasselt is the capital of the Belgian province of Limburg, with a population of some 68,000. The town is situated in the northern part of Belgium, about 35 km west of the national border between Belgium and the Netherlands, and 20 km north of the Dutch-French language border, which separates Belgium into a northern part (Flanders) and a southern part (Wallonia). The dialect of Hasselt belongs to the West-Limburgian dialect group (Goossens 1965). The number of dialect speakers is steadily diminishing, and the remaining ones are all bilingual with Standard Belgian Dutch (cf. Verhoeven 2005). An early comprehensive description of this dialect is given by Grootaers & Grauls (1930). The only available dictionary is Staelens (1989). The description is based on the speech of four middle-class, bilingual speakers in their sixties and seventies. The recording of the sample story and of the examples in the tables and in the running text are available at. All recordings except for those in the section 'Tone' are taken from a single speaker. Superscript 2 designates syllables with accent 2. All other stressed syllables have accent 1, which is equivalent to lack of accent 2 (cf. section 'Tone'). © International Phonetic Association.