What is “carnaval” in Brabant and Limburg?
Carnaval op school: meester in hanenpak en hobbyhorse
A2 Dutch listening practice · Dutch · Picked for people who know a little
Carnaval is the Netherlands' great regional split. South of the rivers (Brabant, Limburg, parts of Zeeland), the pre-Lent festival is a defining cultural event: weeks of parades, costumes, prinsen and jeugdprinsessen, optochten, kapellen (brass bands), and dialect-rich songs. North of the rivers, carnaval is largely absent. Schools in the south close or partly close, towns rename themselves for the weekend (Tilburg becomes Kruikenstad, Den Bosch becomes Oeteldonk), and primary-school classes elect their own jeugdprinses.
In this clip, a southern-Netherlands teacher dresses in a rooster costume (hanenpak) for the school carnaval, joins a class wagentje (parade float), and visits the school’s jeugdprinses: “Vandaag vieren we carnaval op school.”
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Harder words in this video
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-NL 2014 (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.
- ▸In Dutch southern-news coverage of carnaval week (Omroep Brabant, L1, De Telegraaf)
- ▸In Dutch primary-school content from the south (Schooltv, Het Klokhuis, NPO Zapp)
- ▸In Brabant and Limburg dialect music (Rowwen Hèze, Frans Bauer, Guus Meeuwis)
- ▸In Dutch travel and cultural-heritage writing about the cultuurgrens (NRC, De Volkskrant, Trouw)