West Flemish (Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a dialect group of Dutch spoken in parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and France.
West Flemish is spoken by around 1.05 million people in West Flanders (in Belgium), 90,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders, and approximately 20,000 in the northern part of the French département of Nord where it is classified, as a recognized dialect of Dutch, as one of the languages of France. Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken include Bruges, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare and Ypres.
The dialects of the rest of the Dutch province of Zeeland, Zeelandic, are sometimes also included in West Flemish although this classification is controversial. The dialects of Zeelandic Flanders however do count as West and East Flemish variants. In fact, both dialects are linked by a dialect continuum which proceeds further north into Hollandic.
West Flemish is listed as a "vulnerable" language in UNESCO's online Red Book of Endangered Languages.
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| Dutch dialects |
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| "Dutch Low Saxon" |
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| West Low Franconian |
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| East Low Franconian |
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| Low German |
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Famous quotes containing the words west and/or flemish:
“Anyone with a real taste for solitude who indulges that taste encounters the dangers of any other drug-taker. The habit grows. You become an addict.... Absorbed in the visions of solitude, human beings are only interruptions. What voice can equal the voices of solitude? What sights equal the movement of a single day’s tide of light across the floor boards of one room? What drama be as continuously absorbing as the interior one?”
—Jessamyn West (1902–1984)
“These Flemish pictures of old days;
Sit with me by the homestead hearth,
And stretch the hands of memory forth
To warm them at the wood-fire’s blaze!”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)