DUTCH PHONOLOGY

Dutch is a Germanic language and as such has a similar phonology with other Germanic languages (particularily English and Frisian, and to a lesser extent, German).
Dutch language devoices all consonants at the ends of words (e.g. a final becomes ), which presents a problem for Dutch speakers when learning English. This is partly reflected in the spelling, the singular ''hui's''' (house) has the plural ''hui'z'en'' and ''dui'f''' (dove) becomes ''dui'v'en''. The other cases, viz. ‘p’/‘b’ and ‘d’/‘t’ are always written with the voiced consonant, although a devoiced one is actually pronounced, e.g. singular ''baar'd''' (beard), pronounced as , has plural ''baar'd'en'' and singular ''ri'b''' (rib), pronounced as , has plural .
Because of assimilation, often the initial consonant of the next word is usually also devoiced, e.g. ''het vee'' (the cattle) is .
In some regions (Amsterdam, Friesland) have almost completely lost the voiced fricatives , and . Further south these phonemes are certainly present in the middle of a word. Compare e.g. ''logen'' and ''loochen'' vs. . In the South (i.e. Zeeland, Brabant and Limburg) and in Flanders the contrast is even greater because the becomes a palatal. ('soft g').
The final 'n' of the plural ending -en is often not pronounced (as in Afrikaans where it is also dropped in the written language), except in the North East (Low Saxon) and the South West (West Flemish) where the ending becomes a syllabic n sound.
Dutch is a stress language, the stress position of words matters. Stress can occur on any syllable position in a word. There is a tendency for stress to be at the beginning of words. In composite words, secondary stress is often present. There are some cases where stress is the only difference between words. For example ''vóórkomen'' (occur) and ''voorkómen'' (prevent). Marking the stress in written Dutch is optional, never obligatory, but sometimes recommended.
The syllable structure of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, like in English, begin with three consonants - e.g. straat ''(street)''. There are words that end in four consonants - e.g. herfst ''(autumn)'', ergst ''(worst)'', interessantst ''(most interesting)'', sterkst ''(strongest)'' - most of them being adjectives in the superlative form.

Contents

Vowels

Consonants

Historical sound changes

See also

Vowels

The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four diphthongs. The vowels , and are included on the diphthong chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple vowels. In front of thes vowels are pronounced as , and respectively. (a near-open central vowel) is an allophone of unstressed and .

IPA chart Dutch monophthongs	IPA chart Dutch diphthongs
Dutch-monophthongs.png	Dutch-diphthongs.png

'Dutch Vowels with Example Words'

'Symbol'	'Example'
IPA	IPA	orthography	English translation
		''bit''	'bit'
		''biet''	'beetroot'
		''hut''	'cabin'
		''fuut''	'grebe'
		''bed''	'bed'
		''beet''	'bite'
		'' de''	'the'
		''neus''	'nose'
		''bad''	'bath'
		''baad''	'bathe'
		''bot''	'bone'
		''boot''	'boat'
		''hoed''	'hat'
		''bijt'', ''ei''	'bite', 'egg'
		''buit''	'booty'
		''bout'', ''faun''	'bolt', 'faun'

Consonants

'IPA chart Dutch consonants'

	Bilabial	Labio- dental	Alveolar	Post- alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Glottal
Plosive						1		2
Nasal
Fricative3				4			5
Approximant	6
Lateral

Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.
Notes:
# is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed words, like ''goal'' or when is voiced, like in ''zakdoek'' .
# is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words after and and often also at the beginning of a word.
# In some dialects, the voiced fricatives have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and is usually realized as , is usually realized as , and is usually realized as .
# and are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in borrowed words, like ''show'' and ''bagage'' (baggage). And even then they are usually realized as and respectively. However, + phoneme sequences in Dutch are often realized as , like in the word ''huisje'' (='little house'). In dialects that merge s and z often is realized as .
# The realization of the phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect. In "standard" Dutch, is realized as . In many dialects it is realized as the voiced uvular fricative or even as the uvular trill .
# The realization of the varies considerably from the Northern to the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. Some, mainly Hollandic, dialects pronounce it like a fricative: . Other, mainly Northern Dutch, dialects pronounce it like a labiodental approximant: .
# The "standard" Dutch is more or less that as spoken in Haarlem, ''not'' the Amsterdam dialect. Amsterdam dialect is different from standard Dutch in, for example, that is replaced by

'Dutch Consonants with Example Words'

'Symbol'	'Example'
IPA	IPA	orthography	English translation
		''pen''	'pen'
		''biet''	'beetroot'
		''tak''	'branch'
		''dak''	'roof'
		''kat''	'cat'
		''goal''	'goal' (sports)
		''mens''	'human being'
		''nek''	'neck'
		''eng''	'scary'
		''fiets''	'bicycle'
		''oven''	'oven'
		''sok''	'sock'
		''zeep''	'soap'
		''chef''	'boss, chief'
		''jury''	'jury'
		''acht''	'eight'
		''gaan''	'to go'
		''rat''	'rat'
		''hoed''	'hat'
		''wang''	'cheek'
		''jas''	'coat'
		''land''	'land / country'
		''beamen''	'to confirm'

Historical sound changes

Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate in the second Germanic (High German) Sound Shift - compare German ''machen'' Dutch ''maken'', English ''make'', German ''Pfanne'' , Dutch ''pan'', English ''pan'', German ''zwei'' , Dutch ''twee'', English ''two''.
Dutch underwent a few changes of its own. For example, words with -old or -olt lost the l in favor of a diphthong as a result of l-vocalization. Compare English ''old'', German ''alt'', Dutch ''oud''.
Germanic
★ turned into through palatalization, which sound in turn became a diphthong , spelled . Long
★ also diphthongized to , spelled .
The phoneme became a voiced velar fricative , or a voiced palatal fricative (in the South: Flanders, Limburg).

See also

★ Dutch orthography