I printed out some papers,
otherwise I'd forget all that I want to say.

Good day, my name is Yorick

and I'm from Haaltert,
that's a municipality in between Aalst and Ninove.

Since the last generation our language
isn't taught to our children anymore,

while most people here, 40 or older

are still able to speak it.

My old man and my mother have tried

to raise me to speaking proper Flemish,

but they only half succeeded

because I can speak properly,

but when I'm in my own neighbourhoud,
it switches to Haalterts by itself.

I learned most of the language
by listening very carefully to my dad,

and to the people in our street.

On top of that I bought two books

from the library, next to the church

about the language of Greater Haaltert.

Those books are written by Gilbert Redant,

that's...

the founding father
of the Haaltertish spelling.

Without him there would have been
close to no documentation of Haalterts.

God rest his soul.

The Haaltertish language isn't being maintained
like Aalsters of Ninoofs

because Haaltert is in fact
not bigger than a village

and there's no carnival here either,

whilst that's just such a cultural boost
for local languages,

for local spoke.

I'm doing my best to babble
as much Haalterts as I can

to my family and friends,

and I have written some songs in Haalterts

to be accompanied
by accordion or hip hop music.

Haalterts is a Little-Brabantic language

or a dialect.

It's actually Brabantic
with a lot of East-Flemish influences,

causing multiple types of conjugation

which stem from both regional languages.

There is, for example:

"È stontj gèjer"

and "stontj" is a Brabantic past tense,
whilst there's also

"Oë beldjegen èjer"

and the conjugations which end with:

"-egen", "-tjegen" or "-tegen"

are from East-Flemish descent.

In the Middle Ages
we spoke East-Flemish here,

but because of the
territorial shifts of Brabantic, it changed.

Haalterts is not just Flemish
with a differentiating pronunciation:

we have a large vocabulary
that proper Flemish or Dutch doesn't have.

For example:

"Noste" = next

"Pertang" = nevertheless

"En Pantomiene" =
an occurrence that's almost impossible

Ouvèjerdeg = stupid and thrasonical

"Ne karrot'ntrekker" =
somebody who's pretending

Gèjeloeëgen =
looking at something with longing

"Ne pèjeremiejester" =
a veterinarian

"Ne cinnemamaan" =
somebody who lies or speaks with great gestures

"Drolleg" = nauseous

"Nen bezz'ager" =
somebody who caries the money

Besides vocabulary, thare's also
a couple of length and weight measurements

which are still used here or at least
are still known to the people.

For example:

An "el".

This is the distance
from your elbow to your hand

and that's about...

72 centimeter (28'3 inches).

Then a "dagwand":

that's the area an ox can plow in one day.

That's...

3300 m² / 3946.8 yrd²

There's also a lot of folks
who use "pond" as a weight measurement.

they've converted it
to half a kilo (1'1 pound),

but it's actually closer
to 430 grams (0'9 pound).

I'll give you some sayings in Haalterts:

"È zal zoëne loeëp oël'n"
= Something he won't want to do

"D' endj za' 'nt outjwoëz'n"
= we'll see in the end

"Dad Ooz'n Iejer doër Zè goed eet'n instekt"
= something people say of a useless person

"A va' krommen oës agen"
= pretend to not understand

and lastly:

"Steek et woër da ter giejen otto's roë'n"
= go play in traffic (kinda)

And last but not least, I'd like to ask all people
who are still able to speak Haalterts from the bottom of my heart

to teach your children
and grand-children Haalterts

because it's just a rich
and beautiful language.

And if you're not from Haaltert
or just...

...or just are unable to speak Haalterts,

to still do your best to learn some.

You can take some from this video
or you could buy a book from Gilbert Redant, etc.

Maybe the day will come that nobody
will be able to speak or understand Haalterts

and I hope that this footage
could still give an idea

about how it sounded

and what the syntax and
conjugations were like.

And last but not least:
three Haaltertish tongue twisters to practise:

The first one is:

"Wa riek ek ik ier?
Riek ek ik ier kak of kak ek ik ier?"

The second one is:

"D' esp angd on de ska,
es 't dij van a, kom pak s' a."

And the third one is:

"Droë ra oër'n in e penneke gekloesjt,
as ke ze lotj vaal'n, tij' zè ze gebloesjt."

Allez, bye bye, take good care
and "the balls", eh!