Dialectology is the branch of linguistics that studies the dialects of a language. The first dialectological studies appeared as early as the nineteenth century. Dialects were and still are worth studying because many old linguistic phenomena have been preserved in dialects but have not made it into the standard language.

Moreover, because dialects are usually not written but only spoken, they develop spontaneously, making them much more interesting to study than the standard language, which is largely codified and regulated. After all, a biologist finds it more interesting to venture into the wild jungle than to study a neatly landscaped city park.

Dialectology at Ghent University

Ghent University has a long tradition of dialectological research. Not only were many professors of Dutch linguistics prominent dialectologists, but various large collections of dialect material were also compiled, often in collaboration with other institutes and universities. For example, the Dutch linguistics department has a very extensive collection of spoken dialect material, excerpts of which can be listened to on the homepage.

These conversations were recorded in the 1960s and 1970s with the aim of collecting as much spontaneous dialect use as possible across the entire Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. The dialect speakers on the tapes (almost all of which have now been copied onto CD) talk about everyday life: the war, the fair, work and church... So they are not only extremely interesting from a linguistic point of view, but can also teach us a lot about everyday life during the last century.

More information: https://www.variatielinguistiek.ugent.be/

Dialectloket

Nowhere else in the world will you find as much linguistic variety as in Flanders! Dialectloket was developed by dialectologists at Ghent University to illustrate this variety in our Dutch language. Dialects, intermediate languages, Surinamese Dutch, Afrikaans... Everything is covered in numerous informative texts, digital dictionaries, hundreds of audio clips, fascinating videos and language maps.

https://www.dialectloket.be/