Maastricht develops app to teach local dialect writing

Nearly half of all Limburg residents speak Limburgish, yet most have never learned to write in the dialect. The Municipality of Maastricht has developed an app to teach residents the Mestreechs writing system.

Yuri Michielsen, chairman of the Limburg Academy, is one of the app’s creators. He stated to L1 News that the aim was to create learning materials for Maastricht’s spelling in a non-traditional way.

The app uses a game format, eliminating the need to learn spelling rules in a classroom setting. Research was conducted on a Maastricht Facebook page with 20,000 members to identify common spelling mistakes.

These common errors were incorporated into the app. The difficulty ranges from simple to more complex words that differ significantly from written Dutch.

The app is also intended to appeal to those who prefer not to attend traditional Limburgish courses. The creators hope to eventually use the app’s software to support other variations of Limburgish.

Source: NOS

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