oa Tussen Oudorp en Oldorp: in hoeverre beantwoorden plaatsnamen aan isoglossen?

Between Oudorp and Oldorp: to what extent do place names obey isoglosses?

A widely known isogloss in the Dutch-German linguistic region separates a western area with the phoneme [ʌu] (rendered as <ou> or <au>), followed by a dental consonant (like in oud ‘old’ and hout ‘wood’ on the one hand, and an eastern area with [ɔl], followed by a dental consonant, on the other. The vocalization of /l/ started in the southwestern part of the Dutch language area and expanded to the east and north.

The position of the isogloss has been established in the 20^th century on the basis of appellatives in the spoken language. The question is, to what extent toponyms, too, coincide with the isogloss. In many locations two toponym variants exist, namely a supraregional – and official – one like Oudeschans and a regional one like Òlschans. Based on data concerning the above mentioned isogloss, the article explores whether the supraregional or the dialectal toponyms, respectively, respond to the expectations the isogloss evokes.