East Flemish (, ) is a collective term for the two easternmost subdivisions ("true" East Flemish, also called Core Flemish, and Waaslandic) of the so-called Flemish dialects, native to the southwest of the Dutch language area, which also include West Flemish. Their position between West Flemish and Brabantian has caused East Flemish dialects to be grouped with the latter as well. They are spoken mainly in the province of East Flanders and a narrow strip in the southeast of West Flanders in Belgium and eastern Zeelandic Flanders in the Netherlands. Even though the dialects of the Dender area are often discussed together with the East Flemish dialects because of their location, the latter are actually South Brabantian. History Before the occurrence of written records, the dialect continuum that took shape in the Old Dutch language area was characterised mainly by differences from east to west, with the east showing more continental Germanic traits and the west having more coastal Germanic features. In East Flanders, it can be noted that not a single typical eastern Low Franconian trait has reached the region, but coastal characteristics are fairly common, albeit less so than more to the west. In the 15th century, the dominant position in the Low Countries shifted from the County of Flanders to the Duchy of Brabant, which brought an expansian of linguistic traits from Brabant, the so-called 'Brabantic Expansion'. As the Scheldt delta formed a large barrier in the north, those traits were introduced mainly from South Brabant, particularly the city of Brussels. The Dender area probably already started the process in the 14th century, but Ghent (and probably the rest of the province) resisted those changes for at least another century, as writings from Ghent still indicated a phonology that was typically West Flemish phonology in the mid-16th century. Eventually, two processes caused the spread of Brabantian traits in eastern Flanders: The slow infiltration from the east, the Dender area; The spread of a trait in the biggest city (usually Ghent) from where it spread to the smaller cities and rural areas. For example, the Brussels pronunciation [yə] for [oə] was first used in Ghent and later spread to most of the province. While the second process has caused a fairly wide extension of some traits, the traits spread by the first process have reached only the eastern quarter of the province: the Dender and Waasland areas. Having