Tweants

Tweants (Tweants pronunciation: [tʋɛːnts]; Dutch: Twents, pronounced [tʋɛnts]) is a Dutch Low Saxon group of dialects, descending from Old Saxon. It is spoken daily by approximately 62% of the population of Twente, a region in the Dutch province of Overijssel bordering on Germany. Its speakers also refer to Twents as plat or use the name of their local variant. A widespread misconception is the assumption that it is a variety of Dutch. It is, however, a variety of Dutch Low Saxon, recognised by the Dutch government as a regional language according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. As such, it enjoys some loose stimulation from the part of the government.

Due to heavy stigmatisation, the use of the language declined in the decades following the Second World War, as it was deemed an inappropriate way of speaking and thought to hinder children's language learning abilities. Due to a general rise in regional pride, however, which has also found its way to the Twente region, interests in preserving and promoting the language have risen, resulting in dialect writing competitions, teaching material, festivals, and other culturally engaging projects.

Tweants does not have a standardised pronunciation or spelling; all towns and villages in Twente have their own local variety, which, although they are mutually intelligible and similar, makes it hard to be tagged as a single dialect. Due to this fragmentation, and the lack of a standard variety, many speakers of Tweants mostly do not refer to their language as "Tweants" or "Dutch Low Saxon". They rather call it by the locality their variety is from (e.g. a person from Almelo would say he speaks "Almeloos" rather than "Tweants"). Another possibility would be that speakers combine these two possibilities: a speaker from Rijssen could say he speaks "Riesns Tweants". There are, however, a number of characteristics that are shared across all varieties.