Nederlands | database (part) | importance | publications | financing | team

Goeman-Taeldeman project

The Goeman-Taeldeman project ran from 1979 till 1996 and comprised

• the sound recording of a questionnaire in 419 Dutch en 198 Belgian locations,
• the transcribing of the recordings
• and the entering of coded transcriptions into a database.

database
Not all recordings turned out to be suitable. The database comprises

• 361 Dutch (excluding Frisian)  nb: transcriptions available
• and 190 Belgian locations.

For the publication of the Morfological Atlas of Dutch Dialects another

• 58 Frisian locations

will be added to the database. The Fryske Akademy just completed the transcriptions of its share of 52 places; transcriptions will soon be published here.

The questionnaire consists of 1876 items (among which 22 small sentences and 106 adjectival word groups). The database comprises (at this moment; see above) 1.7 million units. Adding personal and possessive pronouns, determiners and variants brings the total number of 'words' to a fair 2.5 million.

Transcriptions will all be available this year on our website. For the Dutch recordings: see above.
The sound recordings are in the process of digitalisation.

importance
Observation of language change in real time is now possible by comparing the data of the Goeman-Taeldeman project with the material of the Reeks Nederlandse Dialectatlassen and with material taken from dialect monographies. A first article has been published in Taeldeman, J. en G. Verleyen (1999) "De FAND: een kind van zijn tijd." in: Taal en Tongval 51: 217-240.

The Goeman-Taeldeman material allows also for generalizations: the example, vowel length in the plural of the type 'dag-daagen', provides an interpolation of a synthesis of the data of seven words. The effect is a better visualisation of differences.
Mapping techniques as these allow for the prediction of the situation for localities for which there are no data available.

 
publications
A more detailed description of the motivation of the project and of the listed items has been published in Goeman, A en J. Taeldeman (1996), "Fonologie en morfologie van de Nederlandse dialecten. Een nieuwe materiaalverzameling en twee nieuwe atlasprojecten." in: Taal en Tongval 48: 38-59.

A study into the reliability of the project's transcriptions and validity of the material as dialectdata has been published in chapters 2, 3 (English) and 4 of Goeman, T. (1999) T-deletie in Nederlandse Dialecten. Kwantitatieve analyse van structurele, ruimtelijke en temporele variatie, Den Haag: HAG.

In 1999 the first volume appeared of the Phonological Atlas of Dutch Dialects (short: FAND), published by the (Flemish) Koninklijke Academie voor Nederlandse Taal- en Letterkunde at Ghent. This first volume illustrates a number of phonological phenomena of the (westgermanic) short vowel in closed syllable with 127 dialect maps based upon the Goeman-Taeldeman material.

In 2000 the second volume of the FAND appeared. It comprises parts II and III: the (westgermanic) short vowels in open syllable and the (westgermanic) long vowels and dipthtongues.

The atlas runs as a parallel project of the MAND.

Reviews of the first volume of the FAND are:

• Bert Schouten (1999) Bespreking van FAND 1.
  in Nederlandse Taalkunde 4.4:378-381
• Marc van Oostendorp (2000) Bespreking van: J. Goossens, J. Taeldeman, G. Verleyen. Fonologische Atlas van de Nederlandse Dialecten. Deel 1.
  just published (april 2002) in TNTL

financing
The project ran with combined efforts of the Meertens Instituut-KNAW and

• the University of Ghent
• the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
• the Fryske Akademy-KNAW
• the Nedersaksisch Instituut of Groningen
• the Free University of Amsterdam.

The project was co-financed by

• the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science
• the Belgian Fonds voor Kollektief Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek.

project team
The design of the questionnaire came from dr. A.C.M. Goeman (Meertens), prof. dr. J. Goossens (Leuven), dr. G. Kocks (Groningen), prof. dr. J. Taeldeman (Ghent) and prof. dr. R. Willemyns (Brussels).
The fieldwork was coordinated by prof. dr. J. Taeldeman (Gent), prof. dr. P. Th. van Reenen (VU) and dr. A.C.M. Goeman (Meertens).
A list of Dutch fieldworkers and transcribers has been published in chapter 2, note 4 of Goeman, T. (1999) T-deletie in Nederlandse Dialecten. Kwantitatieve analyse van structurele, ruimtelijke en temporele variatie, Den Haag: HAG.
The Belgian team comprised lic. V. de Tier and lic. R. Belemans (with lic. J. Verbeek for notation of the Limburgian tonal features and lic. G. Verleyen for part of the data entry).
The Frisian transcriber is drs. A. Versloot.

 
localities NL | localities B | localities F | questionnaire | studies

© 2000-2007 KNAW/Meertens Instituut