Een Zuidoost-Vlaamse Great Vowel Shift in Ronse?

This contribution concerns series of interrelated vowel shifts (‘chain shifts’) in the dialects spoken in and around the southeastern Flemish town of Ronse, which lies almost on the Dutch-French language border. The aim is to better substantiate the facts systematically described by the late Johan Taeldeman and his interpretation of them as a Great Vowel Shift. To this end, Taeldeman’s data (presented here in diplomatic edition) are first compared with those from reliable other sources. Two stages of change can be distinguished in the data (the first with merger, the second without), the second being specific to the Ronse dialect. The patterns that emerge are interpreted in the light of older and younger approaches to sound shifts. Subsequently the question is addressed of why the Ronse dialect added a second, internally motivated series of vowel shifts to the series of shifts that had already taken place earlier in the other (South-) East Flemish dialects. The second series exhibits one striking shift that runs counter to empirically and theoretically solidly grounded universal patterns that sound shifts tend to exhibit. This ‘unnatural’ shift seems to be related to the influence of the dialect of Brussels, with which Ronse, like Ghent, formed a historical city network. Further research could focus on whether and how the long-term and intensive contact with Picard played a role and the nature, cause and development of the heterogeneity of the Ronse dialect identified by previous researchers.