South Guelderish

2008/9 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: European Geography; Languages

Position of South Guelderish (colour: liverish) among the other minority languages, regional languages and dialects in the Benelux

South Guelderish (D: Zuid-Gelders), or (G:) Kleverländisch (E.: Kleverlandish, from Land of Cleves), is a dialect of the Dutch language that is spoken on the edge of the Veluwe country, around Nijmegen, in the Bommelerwaard, and other neighbouring areas in the Netherlands. Among the local variants of South Guelderish spoken in the Netherlands are Zevenaars, Waals and Nijmegens.

Moreover, it is also spoken traditionally in parts of Western Germany at the Lower Rhine, including Duisburg and partly Wuppertal up to Wenden, which is the only Westphalian municipality where it is spoken. Each of the dialects from the South Guelderish group has many features shared with the Brabantian dialects. The South Guelderish dialects form no unity against the Brabantian dialects, i.e. they are not more closely related to each other than to any Brabantian dialect. There also exists no isogloss bundle between the Brabantian and South Guelderish dialects: thus, the distinction is purely conventional. To the south of Venlo and -at least formerly- in the area of today's Duisburg it borders to the Limburgish language.

South Guelderish is part of the Low Franconian languages, which are West Germanic languages. South Guelderish is considered a dialect of Low Rhenish in Germany. Low Rhenish is to include Limburgish as the only other form according to this definition. Together they belong to the greater Meuse-Rhine area, a large group of southeast Low Franconian dialects. This group is called Meuse-Rhenish (Dutch: Maas-Rijnlands, German: Rheinmaasländisch) by the Amsterdam Linguist Ad Welschen.

Kleverlandish as spoken in Germany

A dialect of South Guelderish origin spoken in the United States is Pella Dutch.

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