Article published in:
The Historical Sociolinguistics of SpellingEdited by Laura Villa and Rik Vosters
[Written Language & Literacy 18:2] 2015
► pp. 260–274
Three Southern shibboleths
Spelling features as conflicting identity markers in the Low Countries
Over the course of the long eighteenth century, a distinct Southern Dutch linguistic identity emerged in the region now known as Flanders, and spelling features are at the heart of this developing linguistic autonomy. By analyzing eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century normative and metalinguistic comments about three highly salient spelling variables (the spelling of the long vowels a and u in closed syllables, the ending 〈-n〉 or 〈-ø〉 in masculine adnominals, and the orthographic representation of etymologically different e and o sounds), we will show how seemingly insignificant features increasingly came to be portrayed as representing an unbridgeable linguistic gap between the Northern and Southern Low Countries. At the time of the political reunion of both parts of the Dutch speaking territories (1815–1830), this perceived gap then gave rise to different voices rejecting or embracing these shibboleths of linguistic ‘Southernness’, indicating how spelling features came to represent conflicting identities.
Keywords: iconization, vowel lengthening, masculine adnominals, historical sociolinguistics, orthography, language ideology, language norms, diacritics, Dutch
Published online: 31 August 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.18.2.05vos
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.18.2.05vos
References
Anon
Anon. [P.B.]
Deumert, Ana & Wim Vandenbussche
Dibbets, Gerardus R. W
Geerts, Guido
Goossens, Jan
Irvine, Judith T. & Susan Gal
Kroskrity, Paul V
Loon, Jozef Van
Maljaars, Abraham
Roches, Jan Des
Rutten, Gijsbert, in collaboration with Rik Vosters
Rutten, Gijsbert & Rik Vosters
(2012) As many norms as there were scribes? Language history, norms and usage in the Southern Netherlands in the nineteenth century. In Nils Langer, Steffan Davies & Wim Vandenbussche (eds.), Language and history, linguistics and historiography. Interdisciplinary approaches, 229–254. Oxford/Bern: Peter Lang.
Schieffelin, Bambi B., Kathryn A. Woolard & Paul V. Kroskrity
Siegenbeek, Matthijs
Vosters, Rik
Vosters, Rik, Gijsbert Rutten
Wim Vandenbussche (2012). The sociolinguistics of spelling. A corpus-based case study of orthographical variation in nineteenth-century Dutch in Flanders. In Ans van Kemenade & Nynke de Haas (eds.) Historical linguistics 2009. Selected papers from the 19th International Conference on Historical Linguistics 253 273 Amsterdam John Benjamins 
Vosters, Rik, Gijsbert Rutten & Marijke van der Wal
Cited by
Cited by 4 other publications
No author info given
Rutten, Gijsbert & Rik Vosters
van Eyndhoven, Sarah
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 11 november 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.