After years of work on it, the time has come to present a dictionary of the dialect of Midsland on Terschelling. This will be on Thursday 14 March in Het Wapen van Terschelling in Meslâns, as Midsland is locally called.

Terschelling is dialectologically a separate case. West Terschelling and the eastern villages have traditionally been Frisian-speaking, although that is a Frisian that differs considerably from that of the mainland. Moreover, Westers and Aasters also differ again. In between, a language belonging to the Dutch-Frisian mixed dialects such as Stadsfries, Bildts and Amelands is spoken in Midsland and its associated villages and hamlets. Within that whole, Meslânzers has its own character. For example, the initial sounds g- and sk- are pronounced in Dutch, just like the pronunciation in Westers and Aasters. Another peculiarity is that the so-called final declension is often missing. For instance, the word 'letter' as briiv is indeed pronounced with a v sound.

Own words
Furthermore, Meslânzers has a large number of its own words. These are collected in the 150-page dictionary section. They can also be traced through an index. The book, which totals 286 pages, has an introduction as well as an overview of pronunciation and grammar.

The dictionary has been worked on since 2008 by Triny Martens, Gettje Pals, Nel Swart and Piet Smit, with help from the sounding board group of dialect speakers. About five years ago, they received help from the then newly retired linguist/lexicographer Siebren Dyk. The former employee - and current guest researcher - of the Fryske Akademy took care of transferring the original word lists in dictionary format. He also took care of the grammatical part.

The Meslânzer Woardeboek is published by the Afûk, as number 1142 from the Fryske Akademy and as volume 14 in the Rige Fryske Dialektstúdzjes. The price is €29.90. ISBN: 978-94-93318-25-0.