Rhinelandic is a term for linguistic varieties in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, including the Limburgish language. Tonality is a major feature of the Limburgish language. Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic (Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois) is a group of Franconian varieties, spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch/Belgian/German border. ... Limburgish, or Limburgian or Limburgic (Dutch: Limburgs, German: Limburgisch, French: Limbourgeois) is a group of Franconian varieties, spoken in the Limburg and Rhineland regions, near the common Dutch/Belgian/German border. ...

The Benrather line both clearly divides the tonal area into two language areas and clearly fails to conceal they are yet very similar. There is a clear western group of Limburgic dialects, spoken roughly in the middle and some western areas of Belgian Limburgish. The northwesternmost strip of Belgian Limburg and Dutch Limburg above the village of Arcen (near Venlo) are anyway out of the Limburgish language area. The Benrather line marks the border between the Northern German (or Low German)dialects and the High and Middle German dialects. ... Limburg is the easternmost province of Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, and is located west of the Meuse river. ... Limburg is the southern-most of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands, located in the south-east of the country. ...

Any language border for Limburgish, both internal and external, even those on which is is agreed about the existence, is very vague and has a transition area; a strip which is sometimes more then ten miles broad. In Germany, they delimit Limburgish by the Uerdinger line (ik / ich for the pronoun I) and the Benrather line (maak / mach(e) for the verb make). "Limburgisch" and "Bergisch" are taken as one group of dialects. "Bergisch" is supposed to refer to the dialects spoken in Germany, "Limburgisch" to those in the Netherlands and Belgium. Nowadays, one usually takes tonality as the defining property. From the village of Tegelen just under Venlo to the small town of Valkenburg in the south, Limburgish changes only slightly, and within the sound, dialects change rapidly as one travels westward or eastward. Venlo is a municipality and a city in the southeastern Netherlands. ... Valkenburg aan de Geul - a town in the Netherlands. ...

The "German definition" excludes the dialects of Kerkrade and Venlo. The German definition - "Limburgish are all dialects between the Uerdinger and Benrather Linie" - is obsolete: those dialects have nothing in common except one single word (ich). However, taking tonality would include the dialect of Cologne (Köln). The Limburgish language is often taken to stop at the German border (with the exception of the Selfkant). It starts on the Flemish-Wallonian border and runs through Limburg, Belgian Limburg, with Sint Truiden west of it and Hasselt east of it (so the Hasselt dialect is tonal, the Sint Truiden dialect is not). Then it turns from running vertically to running horizontally at the Belgian-Dutch border and runs over the southwesternmost villages of the Noord-Brabant province, before entering Netherlands Limburg just over Weert (which has, thus, a tonal dialect as well). Then it makes a bow to the north over Venlo and enters Germany. But it stretches very wide, until well over Cologne, where it starts moving back eastward. Finally it enters Belgium again, in the German speaking eastern parts of Liege province, between Eupen and Sankt-Vith, where it touches the Romance language area. Kerkrade is a municipality and a town in the southeastern Netherlands. ... Venlo is a municipality and a city in the southeastern Netherlands. ... Tonality is a system of writing music according to certain hierarchical pitch relationships around a center or tonic. ... Cologne (German: â–¶ [kÅ“ln]; Kölsch: Kölle) is with its one million residents Germanys fourth largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. ... Hasselt is a city in Belgium, capital of the province of Belgian Limburg. ... This is about the city in the Netherlands. ... St Nikolaus church in Eupen Eupen (French: Néau) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège, 10 miles from the German border (Aachen), from the Dutch border (Maastricht) and from the nature reservation Hohes Venn (Ardennes). ... Sankt Vith (French: Saint-Vith) is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Liège, and in the German speaking community in Belgium. ...

There is a clear distinction between mere pitch accents, like the "tones" in Swedish, and the Limburgish sleeptoon, which is really more profound. Yet the way in which Limburgish is tonal is indeed much more like Swedish than, say, Chinese or even many African languages (though some Bantu languages come close): the pitches are still largely dictated by the rhythm of a sentence and the meaning or function a certain word has. Only before pauses the tonal nature of a word really wins out over the demands of a sentence, that is easily to be made out. In non-accented syllabes it does not occur and in stressed syllabes in the middle of a sentence it is present, but less prominently so. The term African languages refers to the approximately 1800 languages spoken in Africa. ... Map showing the approximate distribution of Bantu (dull yellow) vs. ...

The Benrather Linie, one of the isoglosses most frequently mentioned in books, runs through Netherlandic Limburg. Thus, it would be attractive to trim the few remain Ripuarian dialects (there are five places in the Netherlands where Ripuarian is spoken) from the Limburgic language area, but it frequently is chosen not to do so, since the speakers themselves consider their language "Limburgic". Isoglosses on the Faroe Islands An isogloss is the geographical boundary of a certain linguistic feature, e. ...