Bachus, I was born like 16km from Maastricht, in Leut (Maasmechelen). I'm sure you've heard of it, at least Maasmechelen. Rode my bike countless times to Maastricht. By the way, is that music store still there on the Market Square, across from the Town Hall?
Our dialects are quite similar and yet different. In Maastricht they drag their words sound long while where I am originally from, we tend to cut them short.
Your dad's right. Every village or city has its own dialect. While they may sound similar, lots of words are completely different. In my old village, the word for "ant" was "zeikworm" and in the next village it was "amzeiksel".
Both of dialects are easily understood in Bavaria, Swiss, Austria...and even South Africa. In fact, our dialects are closer to Bavarian German than to Dutch.
It's a shame that many parents opt to speak Dutch to their kids now instead of the local dialect.
Het Limburgs Volkslied definitely sounds better in the local dialect than it does in Dutch. Of course, both of us will sing it with different accents and some words will be different as well. Limburgers are a breed apart.
The Dutch will sing Nederland, the Belgians sing Belgie and the Germans, Deutschland.
And let's not forget "In de Stille Kempen of de Purperen Hei" which was written by the Limburg (Peer) born Armand Preud'homme, another Limburger anthem in Dutch Limburg, Belgian Limburg and German Limburg. As you can see, Limburgers stick together. At gatherings in Limburg it's often "op sien plat gezongen".
By the way, what is really special in Limburger dialects, especially those from De Maaskant, is that often the singular form of a word is written the same as the plural form but with more stress on the plural form. For instance, "bein (leg)" is singular when it's pronounced longer and plural with stress on "b" and the word is pronounced shorter, with the 'n" as a falling tone.
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