# uitspraak- ie, oe



## Tazzler

Hallo ,

Ich heb een twijfel. Zijn de klanken, die de lettercombinaties _ie_ en _oe_ voorstellen, lang?

Mijn woordenboek zegt dat ze lang zijn, maar ik heb gelezen dat ze lang waren. Welke uitspraak is juist?

Bedankt voor jullie antwoorden.


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## Hitchhiker

Tazzler said:


> Hallo ,
> 
> Ich heb een twijfel. Zijn de klanken, die de lettercombinaties _ie_ en _oe_ voorstellen, lang?
> 
> Mijn woordenboek zegt dat ze lang zijn, maar ik heb gelezen dat ze lang waren. Welke uitspraak is juist?
> 
> Bedankt voor jullie antwoorden.



Hi Tazzler, I take it "Ich" is suppose to be "Ik". 

I'm not sure I understand your question though. Do you want to know if the sounds of "ie" and "oe" are long? There are "long" vowels in Dutch but I'm not sure that applies to these. For me "ie" is like "ee" in English "keep" and "oe" is like "oo" in English "stoop" or the "u" in "tube".


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## Grytolle

Prescriptionists say that ie and oe always are short (except before r), which is supposedly true for most people in the center of the Netherlands.

The spelling reflects a long vowel. It was invented before ie and oe were shortened in several of the Dutch dialects. Development:
(e: + eo + iu >) *ie: *iə > i: > i
(o: > uo) *oe: *uə > u: > u

So to answer your question, the spelling originally reflects two diftons: [iə] and [uə], the pronounciation in Middle Dutch (where <oe> could also reflect the _scherplange oo_: au > o: > oə). 

They are always pronounced long before r, and for the rest, there are no perfect rules... I have the feeling they are mostly long before l though... anyway, just ask one of your Dutch friends whenever in doubt (depending on whose Dutch you wanna learn).


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## Joannes

Oversimplifying, *ie* /i./ is half-long and *oe* /u/ is short except when they are followed by /r/, in which case they are long [i:] and [u:].


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## Grytolle

Joannes said:


> Oversimplifying, *ie* /i./ is half-long and *oe* /u/ is short except when they are followed by /r/, in which case they are long [i:] and [u:].


Don't ie and oe act the same way?


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## Joannes

I compare to my dialect for this kind of things. As you know the distinction *i*-*ie* there is /i/ - /i:/, by which I can tell that the Standard Dutch *ie* is half-long (except before /r/). The *oe* /u/ in my variety is the same as in Standard Dutch and I'd say it is short (except before /r/, again)..


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## Grytolle

Joannes said:


> I compare to my dialect for this kind of things. As you know the distinction *i*-*ie* there is /i/ - /i:/, by which I can tell that the Standard Dutch *ie* is half-long (except before /r/). The *oe* /u/ in my variety is the same as in Standard Dutch and I'd say it is short (except before /r/, again)..


boel, stoel short? I suppose you dont make the difference vlu:kə(n), (h)æ: vlukt though

Edit: oeps, "vloek" is long


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## Hitchhiker

I remember when I was in Belgium that in Antwerp "ie" became "ei" especially the number three "drie" became "drei". When I went to a student meeting in Leuven a lot of Belgians said "drie" as "drai", like German three. In Antwerp I remember the numbers een, twee and drie became ene, twiee(twie-e) and drei. Twiee is also the way twee is said in Afrikaans.


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## Grytolle

That's just one word. In de WNT we have:

 Woordsoort: telw., znw.
   Modern lemma: drie
    — DRIJ —, telw. en znw. Mnl. _dri_, _drie_ mnd. _dre_, ohd. _drî_ (m.), _drio_ (vr.), _driu_ (onz.), os. _thria_, _threa_, _thriu_; ags. _đrî_, _đrio_, _đreo_; eng. _three_; on. _þrîr_, _þrjar_, _þrjû_; got. *_þreis_, *_þreis_, _þria_, lat. _tres_; gr. τρε᭤ς, skr. _trayah_. Eigenlijk is _drie_ de vorm voor het vr., _drij_ die voor het m 

It's spelled _drij_; _drei_ is German spelling where they don't make the difference between ei en ij

...And Antwerps has the same ee in een and twee, which sounds like [iə]: iên, twiê, drij (last article is wrongly spelled too)


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## Hitchhiker

Grytolle said:


> That's just one word. In de WNT we have:
> 
> Woordsoort: telw., znw.
> Modern lemma: drie
> — DRIJ —, telw. en znw. Mnl. _dri_, _drie_ mnd. _dre_, ohd. _drî_ (m.), _drio_ (vr.), _driu_ (onz.), os. _thria_, _threa_, _thriu_; ags. _đrî_, _đrio_, _đreo_; eng. _three_; on. _þrîr_, _þrjar_, _þrjû_; got. *_þreis_, *_þreis_, _þria_, lat. _tres_; gr. τρε᭤ς, skr. _trayah_. Eigenlijk is _drie_ de vorm voor het vr., _drij_ die voor het m
> 
> It's spelled _drij_; _drei_ is German spelling where they don't make the difference between ei en ij
> 
> ...And Antwerps has the same ee in een and twee, which sounds like [iə]: iên, twiê, drij (last article is wrongly spelled too)



Okay, I've never seen Antwerps written. In Afrikaans "ee" has the same sound as in Antwerps.


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## Grytolle

Hitchhiker said:


> Okay, I've never seen Antwerps written. In Afrikaans "ee" has the same sound as in Antwerps.


Yeah  I wonder why that is  By the way, the oê sounds like the Afrikaanse oo
groêt, smoêre(n), oêk, bloemkoêl [u:ə] (like Afrikaans)
stiênkool, riool, goal, goot [ə:u](?) (like in English "coal")
(both correspond with standard Dutch oo)

Furthermore there are two more ee (corresponding with the one in Standard Dutch):
keêl, meêl, peêr: [e:ə]
stele(n), geve(n), gedreve(n): [ɛi)]
miêr, kiêr, striêle(n), iên, twiê: [i:ə]


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## berndf

Grytolle said:


> It's spelled _drij_; _drei_ is German spelling where they don't make the difference between ei en ij


How would you describe the difference?


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## Grytolle

berndf said:


> How would you describe the difference?


As etymological in the standard language, but alive in some dialects (I think German dialects have it too, but the written standard doesn't)

ij always comes from an older [i:]: wijn, Rijn, rijden, ...
ei is used for everything else, the largest groups are:
-from germanic ai: eik, rein, .. (other words have become ee: steen, been)
-from earlier -ege-, -egi (or so): zeil (< *zegel), dweil (< dwegel), ...


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## berndf

Grytolle said:


> As etymological in the standard language, but alive in some dialects (I think German dialects have it too, but the written standard doesn't)


Sorry, I meant what is the phonetic difference in Modern Dutch; any variety. I ask because to my knowledge there is no relevant distinction in the Standard Language.


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## Grytolle

berndf said:


> Sorry, I meant what is the phonetic difference in Modern Dutch; any variety. I ask because to my knowledge there is no relevant distinction in the Standard Language.


West-Flemish: ij _/[i:], ei [ei]/[ɛi] (or so)
East-Flemish: ij [ɛi], ei [ɛ:] (or maybe it was the other way around)
Brabantic never makes the difference afaik
Limburgs might uphold it somehow, I don't know much about it.
Of the dialects in the Netherlands, I don't know much either... But if I recall correctly certain eastern dialects have [i:] or _


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## berndf

Thank you.


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## Grytolle

...and in the case of Dutchified French ("fontein" for example), the pronounciation is mostly some ä-ish sound, eventhough the normal "ei" doesn't sound like that. (Sometimes you can suspect reading pronounciation: City-Antwerpian "fontein" = [fɔntaən])


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## jacquesvd

berndf said:


> Sorry, I meant what is the phonetic difference in Modern Dutch; any variety. I ask because to my knowledge there is no relevant distinction in the Standard Language.


 
There is no difference in the  prononciation of ei/ij in the standard language, but the prononciation differs between the dialects.
So the pairs wijds/weids or vlijen/vleien though very different in meaning sound the same.
There is a small difference between the prononciation in the Netherlands and in Flanders in the sense that the diphtong is more marked in Holland (the word often used in Flanders to describe the whole of the Netherlands even though it concerns only two provinces) but then it is also true that there exists in Holland a trend to diphtongise the long vowels 'oo' and 'ee'
to 'oo followed by a sort of half w' and 'ee followed by a sort of half j' which is not at all done in Flanders or Dutch Limburg.

As to the length of 'ie' and 'oe' I would describe'ie' as half long except before 'r' where it is long and 'oe' going from short (boek, though still a longer sound than e.g.the 'o' in bok, totally comparable to  the German 'u' in Fuchs) over half long 'vloeken, goed' and almost imperceptibly getting longer in 'boel' and still longer in 'doem' to right out long before 'r' in boer.


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