In September 2016, the municipality of Eijsden-Margraten started the ‘Kal Plat’ campaign for dialect and language development. This campaign wants to create awareness for the positive effect of dialect use, without imposing dialect on anyone.  With this campaign Eijsden-Margraten intends to show that speaking both Dutch and dialect works very well. For this campaign a series of activities has been organized, among which the development of a Dialect App. On Friday 1 September, from 16:00 until 17:00, professor dr. Leonie Cornips, endowed professor of Language Culture in Limburg at Maastricht University and the Meertens Institute in Amsterdam, will launch this Dialect App for Eèsjdes (the Eijsden dialect) and Mestreechs (the Maastricht dialect).

(Web)app
The (web)app for smartphones is created for everyone who wants to learn dialect, want to make his/her dialect heard, and wants to enjoy dialect. The app contains about fifty sentences in Eèsjdes and Mestreechs (presented in dialect, Dutch and English) that are useful for each tourist or visitor. The sentences have been chosen in such a way that they are not only practical for tourists, but also contain a series of linguistic characteristics that are interesting for research purposes.

Date:   1 September 2017
Time:  16:00 – 17:00
Venue:  Raadzaal of the Eijsden-Margraten town hall (Amerikaplein 1, 6269 DA Margraten)
Registration: marcellapinckers@eijsden-margraten.nl