Limburgish language

Limburgish (Limburgish: Lèmburgs Dutch: Limburgs [ˈlɪmbɵrxs], German: Limburgisch [ˈlɪmbʊʁɡɪʃ], French: Limbourgeois [lɛ̃buʁʒwa]), also called Limburgian or Limburgic, is a group of East Low Franconian varieties spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, along the Dutch–Belgian–German border. The area in which it is spoken roughly fits within a wide circle from Venlo to Düsseldorf to Aachen to Maastricht to Tienen and back to Venlo. In some parts of this area it is generally used as the colloquial language in daily speech.

It shares many characteristics both with German and Dutch and is often considered as a variant of one of these languages (see also Dachsprache). Within the modern communities of the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg, intermediate idiolects are also very common, which combine standard Dutch with the accent and some grammatical and pronunciation tendencies derived from Limburgish. This "Limburgish Dutch" is confusingly also often referred to simply as "Limburgish", although in Belgium such intermediate idiolects tend to be called "tussentaal" ("in-between language"), no matter the exact dialect/language with which standard Dutch is combined.