Geographic Distribution and Social Aspects
Zeelandic bears the burden of being strongly associated with the rural population, being spoken chiefly in the countryside. The town dialects of Middelburg and Vlissingen are both much closer to Hollandic than the rural variants and on the edge of extinction. Surveys held in the nineties showed that at least 60% of the Zeeland population still use Zeelandic as their everyday language. There are an estimated 250,000 people who speak it as mother tongue (West Zeelandic Flemish is included in this count), and although it is in decline, just as any other regional language, it is in no direct danger of extinction, since in some villages with strong isolated communities more than 90% of the youngsters will speak Zeelandic. On the other hand, in several villages that have seen much immigration, the local dialect is spoken only by the adult population, as children are not taught it any longer.
There is a lobby for recognising the Zeelandic regional language under the European charter for minority languages. As of 2005, they failed so far to achieve this status.
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