Glottal Fricative in West Flemish

West Flemish is a Dutch dialect that is spoken in the Belgian province of West Flanders. It is also spoken in parts of the Netherlands and France. Of the Dutch dialects, it is considered one of the dialects which is most different from Standard Dutch. 

In Dutch, the g represents either a uvular or velar fricative. However, in West Flemish, it represents a glottal fricative and is pronounced the same as the h. The following words are pronounced with the glottal fricative in West Flemish:

geel (yellow) heel (quite) 

geen (no) heen (away) 

geld (money) held (hero) 

gier (vulture) hier (here) 

goed (good) hat (hoed) 

In the pairs geel/heel, geen/heen, geld/held and gier/hier, the first word of each pair is pronounced with a palatal glide following the glottal fricative. This is all that distinguishes the pairs. The palatal glide is only realized before front vowels and is thus not present in the word goed. Certain speakers drop the h in words such as hoed. In these cases, goed and hoed are minimal pairs. 

One characteristic of West Flemish is the use of the glottal fricative for words which have a velar or uvular fricative in Standard Dutch. The result is that word pairs such as goed/hoed are pronounced identically in West Flemish but distinctly in Standard Dutch. The velar or uvular fricative of Standard Dutch is not used in West Flemish.