Brabantian is a dialect group of the Dutch language named for the historical Duchy of Brabant, spoken in the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, the Brussels-Capital Region, Walloon Brabant, and small areas of western Limburg. It has an estimated 5 million native speakers, making it the predominant everyday language for roughly a quarter of all Dutch speakers in the Netherlands and Flanders combined. It divides into West Brabantian around Breda, East Brabantian in the middle and east of North Brabant, and South Brabantian in Flemish Brabant and southern Antwerp, and is marked by a historic tendency toward accusativism, using the accusative case in place of the nominative, along with local vocabulary such as houdoe for take care, contrasting with the northern Dutch doei.
Facts
RegionSpoken in the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, the Brussels-Capital Region, and the province of Walloon Brabant; named after the historical Duchy of Brabant. 1 Speaker CommunityOver 5 million people live in the area where some form of Brabantian functions as the predominant colloquial language, compared with a total of 22 million Dutch-speakers across the Netherlands and Flanders. 1 Distinguishing FeaturesBrabantian dialects have a characteristic historic tendency toward accusativism, retaining the accusative case rather than the nominative case used in the more northern Dutch dialects, so that both masculine and feminine noun genders have remained distinct. 1 Classification
Variety Kind Sources
1. Wikipedia: Brabantian
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
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.
Differences from Standard Dutch section
Brabantian dialects have a characteristic historic tendency toward accusativism, the use of the accusative case instead of the nominative 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).
Variety kind, Brabantian entity page
Brabantian is a dialect group of the Dutch language named for the historical Duchy of Brabant, spoken in the Dutch province of North Brabant, the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant, the Brussels-Capital Region, Walloon Brabant, and small areas of western Limburg.
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