Raod veur't Limburgs

Now that we all have standard languages so that we finally understand each other and at least get a chance to use what even a scientist would consider a language correctly with all its patterns of orthography and grammar, there are some people who hold on to the opinion that we should not forget what we call "dialects" nowadays. In some German regions there is a real "dialect-renaissance" emotionally discussed by strong supporters and strict opponents - and neglected by a mayority of indifferents. The actively involved use scientific categories, heritage, social aspects to argument for the one or the other. And anyone of them must have a profound reason to do so.


As I said in the beginning, my approach is not scientific - it is creative. I love varieties. I value the richness of all of these "old" idioms and I am most curious about the new ones. There are people who might be happy to eat mama's guglhupf every Sunday and some of them might give you a lesson that everything needed for a cake is in this recipe: flour, milk, butter, sugar, eggs - so why try anything else made from the same ingredients. I love to taste the difference. It enriches me, it provides insight, it supports development. And if a cake is traditional in only one house you might be sure that I am interested to taste it.


So for me even in regions where only around 10% of the inhabitants still speak the former local idiom actively these 10% are most valuable inhabitants with a special approach to life in their language. Any language has certain expressions to describe common situations. And from these expressions you can learn how serious - or with how much humor - daily occurrencies are perceived and dealt with. 


"Dialects" in De Nederlands are as repelled by the standard language as in most of the German regions. Now Dutch is a very lovely  and down-to-earth language and the inhabitants of De Nederlands seem to be quite happy with it. Still the older regional varieties are in the minds of some people who want to support their continuing existence. A bigger group of dialects originally spoken in the South of De Nederlands, but also in the North-East part of  België and a small region in Germany is named "Limburgs" after the Dutch province Limburg.


It shows similarities with the Dutch, with German varieties and has its own special expressions. Fortunately there is someone taking care of this treasure. The "Raod veur't Limburgs" has a wonderful site with bunches of interesting informations on it. Try http://www.limburgsedialecten.nl/sjablonen/dialecten/index.asp?subsite=176 and let yourself inspire by the richness of these varieties and about how anyone can support ones own language with use of the internet.