Taal en Tongval - Volume 62, Issue 1, 2010

Dit eerste Taal en Tongval-nummer van de jaargang 62 (2010) is gewijd aan de figuur van Toon Weijnen, de onlangs overleden ‘nestor’ van de Nederlandse dialectologie.

Op 28 december 2009 was het de honderdste geboortedag van prof. dr. A.A. (Toon) Weijnen, grondlegger van de systematische studie van de Brabantse en Limburgse dialecten, vermaard neerlandicus en dialectoloog, tot ver over de grenzen van Nederland en Vlaanderen bekend vanwege zijn Europese klank- en woordstudies. Hij overleed op 9 februari 2008. Op 11 december 2009 herdacht de Radboud Universiteit van Nijm Read More

This paper discusses Weijnen’s most important and most representative contributions to Dutch dialectology. Weijnen’s scientific work is marked by combining an overall synthetic motivation and a stringently analytical approach. This combination resulted in both stratigraphic studies of the dialect lexicon and innovative insights in the classification of the Dutch dialects. Weijnen succeeded in uniting bundles of isoglosses result Read More

This contribution discusses the importance of Weijnen’s lexicographical work. He was an lexicographical autodidact, but his work was exemplary and outstanding. This is illustrated by reviewing three impressive projects that he conceived and completed. The three projects are: (1) a monolingual pocket dictionary of the Dutch language which was the leading educational book for decennia, (2) two large-scale scientific Read More

Weijnen paid elaborate attention to the societal position of dialects already in his earliest work, in a respectful way, without any romantic cherishing. The goals of language policy and language education needed to be directed, in his view, to competence in the standard language. That meant that dialects were especially relevant from a scientific, linguistic point of view. He focused his academic work on dialect geograph Read More

The Dutch dialectologist Weijnen was a central figure in the instigation and development of the Atlas Linguarum Europae (ALE). This paper discusses the role of comparative dialect syntax in Weijnen’s work and the ALE and compares this with modern comparative dialect syntax research. One main conclusion is that collecting comparative dialect syntax data on a large scale requires a theoretical perspective to g Read More

This contribution evaluates the role and position of Weijnen in dialectological debates about the relationships between the Netherlands in the north and Flanders in the south. This is done on the basis of the reception of Weijnen’s most important works by studying the book reviews of his Flemish colleagues. It is examined how critical comments from Flemish origin were dealt with in reissues of these works and in other scientific w Read More

This paper addresses the division of dialect areas in the Dutch province North-Brabant, as proposed by Weijnen, predominantly in his dissertation (1937). The spread of dialect phenomena as described in more recent research results, such as Woordenboek van de Brabantse Dialecten (‘Dictionary of the Brabantic Dialects’) or Morphology Atlas of Dutch Dialects, is compared to the isoglosses Weijnen has drawn. Special Read More

In this contribution, the paper legacy of Toon Weijnen, as stored and made digitally searchable in the library and archives of the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, is described. Weijnen’s library is a reflection of the entire state of Dutch dialectology until the final decade of last century. His scientific correspondence includes almost 2000 letters from the period 1935-2006 and around 500 other manuscripts. But above all this, Read More