West Flemish (West-Vlams or West-Vloams or Vlaemsch (in French Flanders), Dutch: West-Vlaams, French: flamand occidental) is a collection of Low Franconian varieties spoken in western Belgium and the neighbouring areas of France and the Netherlands.

West Flemish is spoken by about a million people in the Belgian province of West Flanders, and a further 50,000 in the neighbouring Dutch coastal district of Zeelandic Flanders (200,000 if including the closely related dialects of Zeelandic) and 10-20,000 in the northern part of the French department of Nord.

[1] Some of the main cities where West Flemish is widely spoken are Bruges, Dunkirk, Kortrijk, Ostend, Roeselare and Ypres.

[2] West Flemish has a phonology that differs significantly from that of Standard Dutch, being similar to Afrikaans in the case of long E, O and A.

[clarification needed] Here are some examples showing the sound shifts that are part of the vocabulary: Plural forms in Standard Dutch most often add -en, but West Flemish usually uses -s, like the Low Saxon dialects and even more prominently in English in which -en has become very rare.

This conjugation can be negated with the extra word, toet ([tut]), or strenght strengthened by adding mo- or ba- (or both).