| Urkers | |
|---|---|
| Urks | |
| Native to | Netherlands |
| Region | Urk |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | urke1234 |
 A dialect map of the northern Netherlands. Urkers is the green bit at the western tip of the pink area at the bottom center. | |
Urkers is the local language of the municipality and former island ofUrk, located on the west coast of theDutch province ofFlevoland. Urk was an island until the middle of the 20th century. It was originally located in theZuiderzee, a bay of theNorth Sea, which became an inland sea calledIJsselmeer when a dam was built to secure the Dutch coast against floods. Inhabitants of Urk had been mostly fishermen and still predominantly make their living from North Sea fishing.
Urkers is part of thedialect continuum that linksWestphalian dialects in the North and East of Urk to theLower Franconian dialects, mainly in the South, West, and North-West of Urk. Standard Dutch, andAfrikaans are also part of the Lower Franconian group. Urkers is considered a part of theLow Saxon group of languages despite the fact that it is quite extreme in that group and both geographically and linguistically at its edge.
The author Gerrit Pasterkamp has written books in Urkers, including translations of the Jewish and ChristianPsalms andbelletristic works.[2]There is at least one band, Leuster, that publishes some of their songs sung in Urkers on CD.[3]
There is acrowdsourced online dictionary of Urkers and Dutch. The Urkers Dialect Circle has a small website collecting data on Urkers, including sample texts. SeeWebsites, below.
A request to have anISO 639-3 code assigned to Urkers was rejected due to incomplete treatment of the scope the rest ofLow Saxon.[4]