Drèents

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Drèents edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drèents, Drents, Dreins
Spoken in	Netherlands
Region	Drenthe and a strip of Overijssel just south of Drenthe
Total speakers	About half the population of Drenthe (total 483.173)[1] and a number of people in Overijssel
Language family	Indo-European Germanic West Germanic West Low German Drèents, Drents, Dreins
Official status
Official language in	the Netherlands (as part of Low Saxon)
Regulated by	Provincial States of Drenthe (spelling)
Language codes
ISO 639-1	None
ISO 639-2
ISO 639-3	drt
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Drèents (also Dreins, Dreints, Drents, Drints; Dutch: Drents) is a collective term for the dialects which are spoken in Drenthe a province of The Netherlands. The dialects like they are still spoken by half the population of Drenthe are Nedersaksisch variants.

Dialects of Drèents

As stated above, all dialects from Drenthe are classified as Nedersaksisch, but that is the only common linguistic factor there is. Though, most of the local languages exist in multiple forms and usually varies by village or town, for Drèents it is so much the case that linguistically speaking "Drèents" is not really a language or dialect on its own. The dialects from the north and the east (see below: 'Noordenvelds' and 'Veenkoloniaals') are usually considered to be Gronings, the dialects from the south-west are 'Stellingwerfs', and the dialects in a few villages along the southern border with the Grafschaft Bentheim (Germany) are considered to be Sallaans (because they have an umlaut in the diminutives).

The foundation Stichting Drentse Taol distinguishes seven main variants of Drèents within the province, based upon the research made by G.H. Kocks, the main editor of the Woordenboek der Drentse Dialecten (Dictionary of the Drèents Dialects):

• Noordenvelds
• Veenkeloniaols
• Zuudoost-Zaand-Drèents
• Zuudoost-Veen-Drèents
• Midden-Drèents
• Zuudwest-Noord-Drèents (Also see Stellingwarfs)
• Zuudwest-Zuud-Drèents

It also can be divided into Midden-Drents and Zuid-Drents.

Examples of usage

Footnotes