Odd ones out (draft, DO NOT REPLY)
editYou might be wondering where the symbols ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ are (apart from being classified as "dialectal diphthong offsets"). After all, hin and stum have the same vowels as Dutch pin and gum, no? Well, the difference lies in transcription alone. Nobody is claiming that those vowels are not the same, because they are. In Limburgish, the short-long correspondences are far more important than in Dutch because almost all vowels occur short and long in native words. The symbols ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ are the odd ones out - all other short vowels differ from their long counterparts only by the absence of the length mark (the /ɑ–aː/ pair aside, some dialects feature /ɑː/ as a separate phoneme, which is good enough for this guide).
- The shape of ⟨ɪ ʏ ʊ⟩ may incorrectly imply a relation to /iː yː uː/ instead of /eː øː oː/ or no relation to either set, which is just as wrong (that could imply a 5-height vowel system which Limburgish doesn't have, apart from the phonologically controversial analysis of the Weert dialect).
- The Mestreechter taol dictionary uses ⟨ɪˑ ʏˑ ʊˑ⟩ for /eː øː oː/ combined with Accent 1 that do not surface as closing diphthongs. This can be easily deduced from the spelling (⟨e(e) eu o(o)⟩ stand for /eː øː oː/).