Loanwordsasmarkersofdifferentiation * Linguistics in the Netherlands 2002, 163–173. issn 0929–7332 / e-issn 1569–9919©JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany HansVandeVeldeandRoelandvanHout UniversitéLibredeBruxelles/UniversityofNijmegen/CLS 1. Introduction AlotofvariationshowsupinthepronunciationofstandardDutch,e.g.,thelong mid vowels show different degrees of diphthongization, voiced fricatives can be (partially)devoiced,numerous/r/-soundsshowupand/l/mayvarybetweenlight ordark.However,inmostcasesthisissegmentalvariationthatdoesnotchangethe underlying phonemic representation. Van Bezooijen and Gerritsen (1994:145) concludethatmostwordshaveonesinglepronunciationinstandardDutch.There isonlyaminorityofwordsthathavetwoormorephonemicallydifferentpronunci- ation variants. Most of these words are borrowings from another language. Borrowingandthephonologicalandmorphologicaladaptationofloanwordsare well-knownprocesses(Weinreich1968,VanCoetsem1988).Inthepresentpaper thefocusisonoldernon-nativeDutchwordsorloanwordsthathavealreadybeen incorporated in the Dutch vocabulary, but that are involved in pronunciation differences between the Netherlands and Flanders. Four phenomena that show variationintheDutchlanguageareawerestudied:[s]versus[ts]inwordsending in -tie,["]versus[7]inEnglishloanwords,nasalversusoralvowelsinFrenchloan wordsandtherealizationofvoicedvelarstops.Thispaperfocusesontheanalysis oftheexternalfactorscommunity,region,ageandsex. Loanwordscouldbeexcellentsourcesofvariationandmarkersofbetween-group differentiation as they can (re-)adapt to linguistic properties of both the donor languageandthehostlanguage.VanHaeringen(1957),forinstance,observedthat thepronunciationofFrenchloanwordshadchangedveryrapidlyinDutch. 2. Subjects This study of loan words is part of a large-scale study on the pronunciation of standardDutch(VanHout,DeSchutter,DeCrom,Huinck,KlootsandVandeVelde