| Brabantian | |
|---|---|
| Brabantish, Brabantic, Brabantine | |
| Brabants | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈbrɑːbans] |
| Native to | Belgium,Netherlands |
| Dialects | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | – |
| Glottolog | brab1243 |
| Linguasphere | 52-ACB-ak (varieties: 52-ACB-aka to-akk) |
 Brabantian dialectal region (blue, in the Netherlands and northern Belgium), within the Dutch language area (grey) | |
| This article is a part of a series on |
| Dutch |
|---|
| Low Saxon dialects |
| West Low Franconian dialects |
| East Low Franconian dialects |
Brabantian orBrabantish, alsoBrabantic orBrabantine[1] (Dutch:Brabants,Standard Dutch pronunciation:[ˈbraːbɑnts]ⓘ,Brabantian pronunciation:[ˈbrɑːbans]), is adialect group of theDutch language. It is named after the historicalDuchy of Brabant, which corresponded mainly to theDutch province ofNorth Brabant, theBelgian provinces ofAntwerp andFlemish Brabant as well as theBrussels-Capital Region (Brusselian; where its native speakers have become a minority) and the province ofWalloon Brabant. Brabantian expands into small parts in the west ofLimburg, and its strong influence on the Flemish dialects inEast Flanders weakens toward the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant (Willemstad),Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, theKleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but for no reason other than geography.[citation needed]
Over the relatively-large area in which it is spoken, Brabantian can be roughly divided into three subdialects, all of which differ in some aspects:
Over 5 million people live in the area where some form of Brabantian functions as the predominant colloquial language; this compares with a total of 22 million Dutch-speakers across the Netherlands and Flanders.[2][3]
Compared to the other dialects and sublanguages of Dutch, Brabantian has historically had a major influence on the development of Dutch. During theMiddle Ages, manuscripts from the 10th to 15th centuries show thatLimburgish and thenWest Flemish were the predominant literary languages, but there is no evidence of literary manuscripts farther north.
In the second half of the 14th century, emphasis in society shifted to Brabant and so the Brabantian dialect became dominant. A migration to the north was occurring; the West Flemish dialect influenced the coastal area of the province of South Holland ('s-Gravenhage and Leiden), and migrants from Brabant came to the provinces of North Holland and Utrecht.
In the 16th century, when theLow Countries were in turmoil, another migration occurred from theSpanish Netherlands (roughly what is now Belgium) to theUnited Provinces of the Netherlands. That made the cultural elite move from the oppressive Spanish and Roman Catholic region to the more liberal (and Protestant) north. Dutch linguistics historianNicoline van der Sijs[4] says that it is a popular myth that Brabantian was a dominant influence during the standardisation of Dutch from the 16th century. She says thatStandard Dutch is a standardised Hollandic dialect. However, researchers of variance linguistics at theGhent University[5] and Dutch linguists inBerlin[6] recognise the distinctive influence of Brabantian on the first Dutch standardisation in the 16th century. The first major formation of Standard Dutch also took place inAntwerp, where a Brabantian dialect is still spoken. That made the standard language develop mainly from Brabantian influence.
The early modern Dutch written language was initially influenced primarily by Brabantian, with strong influence from the Hollandic dialect after the 16th century. Since then, it has diverged from Standard Dutch and evolved its own way, but it is still similar enough for both to bemutually intelligible.[7]
Berlin scientists point to a very important phenomenon in the 20th century in the south of the Dutch language area: there has been an expansion in the use of Brabantian by the dominant presence of native Brabantian-speakers in the modern mass media like radio and television.
About one quarter of the Dutch-speaking population lives in the Brabantian dialect zone. In the Netherlands, rural areas still retain some of their original Brabantian dialects. In large Dutch cities, such asBreda andEindhoven, where theIndustrial Revolution drew many people from other parts of the country, the dialect has been diluted by contact with Standard Dutch. Because people tended to migrate towards the cities from the surrounding rural areas, Brabantian influence is still seen in some terms and in pronunciation (the "Brabantian accent" of Dutch), but the original Brabantian city dialects have largely disappeared there.
However, some large cities, such asTilburg and's-Hertogenbosch, still have many people speaking the original Brabantian dialect.
InAntwerp, the local dialect, known as "Antwerps" in Dutch, is Brabantian; however,Het Nieuwsblad wrote in 2020 that "few people can still master it", with its city folk now speakingTussentaal and Standard Dutch instead.[8] InBrussels,French largely replaced Dutch in the mid-20th century, but there are many cultural activities that use the Brussels dialect (sometimes calledMarols), such as theMass in a church inJette. Moreover, the use of Dutch is reviving because of young Dutch-speaking families moving back from the suburbs to the old city ofBrussels, and an increasing number of non-Dutch-speaking families putting their children in Flemish schools.[9]
The comic artistHergé based fictional languages likeSyldavian in his childhoodMarols.
Brabantian is rather close to and contributed to the development ofStandard Dutch.[citation needed] A characteristic phrase,houdoe ("take care"), derives fromhoud u goed (literally, "keep yourself all right"), but colloquial Dutch andHollandic usedoei ("bye").
In South Brabantian (Belgium), "Ale, salu(kes) e!", based onloanwords fromFrench "Allez!" and "Salut!", is a commonparting phrase .
Brabantian dialects have a characteristic historic tendency towardaccusativism, the use of theaccusative case instead of thenominative case. While the cases themselves have fallen out of use in modern language, the accusative form survives in Brabantian, rather than the nominative case of the more northern dialects (nominativism). As the accusative case had different forms for masculine and feminine nouns, both genders have thus remained separate in Brabantian.
The first attempts at standardising Dutch were in the 1540s and based on the Brabantian dialect of Antwerp and its surroundings. However, after theDutch Revolt, the Dutch economical and political focus shifted north to centre on theCounty of Holland, which caused the importance of Brabantian to dwindle. Later attempts to establish a standard form of Brabantian have met little success.[citation needed] However, the new phenomenon oftussentaal is becoming widespread.
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