The organizing concept behind dialect variation is still seen
predominantly as the areas within which similar varieties are
spoken. The opposing view—that dialects are organized
in a continuum without sharp boundaries—is likewise popular.
This article introduces a new element into the discussion, which
is the opportunity to view dialectal differences in the aggregate.
We employ a dialectometric technique that provides an additive
measure of pronunciation difference: the (aggregate) pronunciation
distance. This allows us to determine how much of the linguistic
variation is accounted for by geography. In our sample of 27
Dutch towns and villages, the variation ranges between 65% and
81%, which lends credence to the continuum view. The borders
of well-established dialect areas nonetheless show large deviations
from the expected aggregate pronunciation distance. We pay
particular attention to a puzzle concerning the subjective
perception of continua introduced by Chambers and Trudgill (1998):
a traveller walking in a straight line from village to village
notices successive small changes, but seldom, if ever, observes
large differences. This sounds like a justification of the
continuum view, but there is an added twist. Might the traveller
be misled by the perspective of most recent memory? We use the
Chambers–Trudgill puzzle to organize our argument at several
points.