Ostend dictionary ready for fifth edition

Roland Desnerck is 83 and still passionate about Ostend. The fifth edition of his Ostend dictionary has 750 pages and 21,280 keywords. That is twice as many words as in the first edition 50 years ago. Roland Desnerck, dialect expert & author: “I have largely taken the words from the vernacular, I have spoken a lot with people. For example, in a café they say ‘geliek an de diek’, which means ‘equal points’. Or if you sewer worker, they say ‘den ulleshaker’. A ulle is a lid.”

Roland Desnerck is regent Dutch, but he considers his dictionary primarily a local work rather than a linguistic one. “Because the life of the past is important and that you can reconstruct it through the sounds. You can see how people lived, ate, played and worked.”