Towards a Legal Dictionary Dutch–Limburgish: Preferences and Opportunities

Abstract

Limburgish is a regional language in the Limburg region consisting mostly of the Belgian and Dutch provinces of Limburg. The discussion will be on the Dutch province of Limburg where Limburgish has received some legal recognition as a language. It is desirable to have a Dutch–Limburgish legal dictionary to communicate Dutch law, although Limburgish legal terminology is not a working legal language in any legal system. Special structures and data are needed to collect accessible contents for a Dutch–Limburgish legal dictionary. However, there is no blueprint to create a bilingual legal dictionary for a single jurisdiction. Therefore, this paper first considers some options for the design of the intended dictionary before going into possible sources for Dutch and Limburgish data. The concluding remarks deal with the immediate challenges to be overcome before reaching the production stage of a useful and fully-fledged Dutch–Limburgish legal dictionary.