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East Brabantian is one of the main divisions of the Brabantian dialect groups which the "Woordenboek van de Brabantse Dialecten" recognizes. East Brabantian dialects are mainly spoken in the eastern part of the province of North Brabant. Many other classifications of Brabantian recognize it as a separate dialect group. Sometimes it is called Meierijs, after the Bailiwick of Den Bosch. East Brabant dialects are further subdivided into the Kempenlands (in Eindhoven and a large area east and south east of this city, including Arendonk and Lommel in Belgium), North Meierijs (in an area south of 's-Hertogenbosch), Peellands (in Helmond and surroundings), Geldrops and Heeze-and-Leendes. The last two are small local dialects that are found as separate groups in few other classifications. Not to East Brabantian belong Maaslands (including Bosch's which is put among the Central North Brabantian, although others also describe it as East Brabantian), the Land-van-Cuijks (with many similarities with neighboring South Gelderland and the Northern Limburgish dialects Kleverlands and Budels (linguistically a Limburgish dialect).

Characteristics

East Brabantian dialects differ on some points distinctively of the more western variants: Central Brabantian and West Brabantian and also from the southern dialects like Southern Brabantian, Kempens and Getelands. Some peculiarities are typical eastern and shared with the Limburgish dialects, others only occur locally.

• East Brabantian dialects know an umlaut in diminutive formation (póp - pupke) and some words which ends on -i in their previous West Germanic form, e.g.: kees (kaas), which original form was Kâsi.
• The variants wè and dè are used in East Brabantian for what and that (vs. the Western Brabantian uses wa and da, and Limburgish de).
• East Brabantian exhibit a more eastern tinged vocabulary ("rad" vs. "wiel").
• As in most other Brabantian dialects an umlaut occurs in words with originally a long ô (gruun vs. Markiezaats uses only groen).
• Typical of the Meierij is the preservation of the sk where standard Dutch has the sch (skoewn vs. Schoen) and the shortening of many original long vowels (torre vs. toren).
• The diphthongs ij / ei and ui are here often monophthonged into èè and èù (èès and hèùs vs. West Brabantian ais and ois).
• Unlike in the West Brabantian dialects the h has been preserved in East Brabantian, the most common departing greet being houdoe (meaning "take care") (vs. the West Brabantian oudoe).
• The svarabhakti vocal is almost always pronounced (Mellek vs. Melk).
• The Brabantian dialect is rather close to standard Dutch (Standard Dutch has mainly developed from Brabantian and Hollandish dialects).
• As all Brabantian dialects, East Brabantian uses a weak "G".

References

1. Jos & Cor Swanenberg: Taal in stad en land: Oost-Brabants, ISBN 9012090105
2. http://taal.phileon.nl/brabants.php

• Dutch language
• Dutch dialects
• Languages of Belgium
• Languages of the Netherlands
• Brabant