Bruges dialect

The Bruges dialect (Standard Dutch and West Flemish: Brugs) is a West Flemish dialect used in Bruges. It is rapidly declining, being replaced with what scholars call general (rural) West Flemish.

Phonology

Consonants

• After , the sequence is realized as a velar nasal .
• The sequence is realized as a sequence , rather than a syllabic .

Realization of

According to , is realized as a voiced uvular trill with little friction . In the neighbouring rural area, an alveolar is used.

However, according to , the vast majority of the speakers in Bruges realize as alveolar, not uvular.

Definitely, the most common realization of is a voiced alveolar tap , which is used about four times more often than the second most common realization, which is a voiced alveolar trill . The other alveolar realizations include: a voiceless alveolar trill , a partially devoiced alveolar trill , a voiceless alveolar fricative tap/trill , a voiceless alveolar/postalveolar fricative (the least common realization), a voiced alveolar/postalveolar fricative and a voiced alveolar approximant .

Among the uvular realizations, he lists a voiced uvular trill , a voiced uvular fricative trill , a voiced uvular fricative and a voiced uvular approximant , among which the uvular fricative trill is the most common realization. He also lists a central vowel (which probably means , or both of these) and elision of , both of which are very rare.

Vowels

• In comparison with Standard Dutch, the short front vowels underwent a chain shift, so that the standard became . The standard was also lowered to , yet the standard was left untouched.
• Among the back vowels, are rounded, whereas are unrounded.
• are near-close ; is fully front, whereas is fully back.
• (but not ) are rather weakly rounded .
• Phonetically, are mid , whereas are open-mid .
• Before , is lowered and retracted to . This feature is typical of working class speech and is nearly extinct.

• All of the diphthongs are falling.
• used to be pronounced as monophthongs , a realization which is rapidly regaining popularity among younger speakers.
• Traditionally, used to have such a close first element that there was practically no distinction between and .
• Phonetically, can be either or .

References

Bibliography