Hard and soft G in Dutch () refers to a phonetic phenomenon of the pronunciation of the letters and and also a major isogloss within that language.
In southern dialects of Dutch (that is, those spoken roughly below the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Waal), the distinction between the phonemes and is usual, with both realized as cardinal velars or post-palatal , hereafter represented without the diacritics. The allophony between those two types of fricatives is termed soft G in Dutch dialectology. It is almost the same as the distinction between the and the in German, with an additional contrast of voicing.
In northern dialects of Dutch, the distinction (if present at all) is not consistent and is best described as a fortis–lenis contrast, rather than a contrast of voicing. In those varieties, and are no more front than cardinal velars, with usually being uvular: . , if distinct from , is typically a voiceless velar fricative . This is termed hard G in Dutch dialectology. It is also used in Afrikaans, so that the Afrikaans word 'good' has the same pronunciation as in Northern Dutch (), in addition to having the same meaning in both languages.
Speakers normally use those pronunciations in both standard language and the local dialect. The only exception to that are speakers from the southern Netherlands that have undergone accent reduction training, in which case they will use a trill fricative when speaking standard Dutch. It is very rare for speakers to use the hard G when speaking Brabantian or Limburgish.
Pronunciation
Southern
In Southern Dutch, the phonemes and are either cardinal velars or post-palatal . More specifically, post-palatals occur in contact with phonemic front vowels and , whereas the cardinal velars occur in contact with phonemic back vowels (including and ). The phonemes usually contrast by voicing, but can be devoiced to a lenis that differs from in a less energetic articulation. Verhoeven and Hageman have found that 70% of word-initial and 56% of intervocalic lenis fricatives (which includes and ) are realized as fully voiceless in Belgium. In Maastrichtian Limburgish, initial is often partially devoiced as well.
In Ripuarian (spoken in the southeastern part of Limburg), has been so fronted and weakened as to merge with the palatal approximant ; compare Standard Dutch with in the Kerkrade dialect, with both words meaning 'good'. Those dialects are also an exception to the rule, as they switch over to the respective standard pronunciation when speaking Standard Dutch (in which case is used) or, on the other side of the border (e.g. in Herzogenrath, where the Kerkrade dialect is also spoken), Standard German (in which case is used). The pronunciation with is marked on both sides of the border. On the Dutch side of the border, the standard pronunciation of is only approximated after phonological back vowels , being uvular as in Ripuarian. On the German side, the standard German pronunciation is usual.
In many cases, still patterns as an obstruent, an allophone of in Ripuarian. The plural form 'saws' has an underlying : because it alternates with a voiceless fricative in the root 'saw', phonemically . Compare this with the alternation in 'question' - 'questions' (phonemically , ) or with the plural-singular pair - , which has underlying voiceless fricatives: , . The phoneme is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations like the first two. Furthermore, Ripuarian features a different pronunciation of and after back vowels, as uvular , not dissimilar from the Northern Dutch pronunciation in the first case. The realization of as results in a phonetic merger with and is thus an example of rhotacism. The consonants surrounding the diphthong in are indistinguishable from each other: ). This is a typical feature of Ripuarian. This merger is also not phonemic as too is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations such as - mentioned above.