Southern
In Southern Dutch, the phonemes /x/ and /ɣ/ are either cardinal velars [x, ɣ] or post-palatal [ç, ʝ]. More specifically, post-palatals occur in contact with phonemic front vowels and /ə/, whereas the cardinal velars occur in contact with phonemic back vowels (including /aː/ and /ɑ/). The phonemes usually contrast by voicing, but /ɣ/ can be devoiced to a lenis [ɣ̊ ~ ʝ̊] that differs from /x/ in a less energetic articulation. Verhoeven and Hageman[7] have found that 70% of word-initial and 56% of intervocalic lenis fricatives (which includes /v/ and /z/) are realized as fully voiceless in Belgium. In Maastrichtian Limburgish, initial /ɣ/ is often partially devoiced as well.
In Ripuarian (spoken in the southeastern part of Limburg), [ʝ] has been so fronted and weakened as to merge with the palatal approximant [j]; compare Standard Dutch goed /ɣut/ with jód /jot/ in the Kerkrade dialect, with both words meaning 'good'. Those dialects are also an exception to the rule, as they switch over to the respective standard pronunciation when speaking Standard Dutch (in which case [ʝ] is used) or, on the other side of the border (e.g. in Herzogenrath, where the Kerkrade dialect is also spoken), Standard German (in which case [ɡ] is used). The pronunciation with [j] is marked on both sides of the border. On the Dutch side of the border, the standard pronunciation of /ɣ/ is only approximated after phonological back vowels /u, ɔ, oː, aː/, being uvular [ʁ] as in Ripuarian. On the German side, the standard German pronunciation [ɡ] is usual.
In many cases, [j] still patterns as an obstruent, an allophone of /ɣ/ in Ripuarian. The plural form zeëje [ˈzeəjə][tone?] 'saws' has an underlying /ɣ/: /ˈzeəɣə/[tone?] because it alternates with a voiceless fricative in the root zeëg [ˈzeəç][tone?] 'saw', phonemically /ˈzeəɣ/.[tone?] Compare this with the alternation in vroag [ˈvʁoəχ][tone?] 'question' - vroage [ˈvʁoəʁə][tone?] 'questions' (phonemically /ˈvroəɣ/,[tone?] /ˈvroəɣə/)[tone?] or with the plural-singular pair löcher [ˈlœçəʁ] - laoch [ˈlɔːχ],[tone?] which has underlying voiceless fricatives: /ˈlœxər/, /ˈlɔːx/.[tone?] The /j/ phoneme is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations like the first two. Furthermore, Ripuarian features a different pronunciation of /x/ and /ɣ/ after back vowels, as uvular [χ, ʁ], not dissimilar from the Northern Dutch pronunciation in the first case. The realization of /ɣ/ as [ʁ] results in a phonetic merger with /r/ and is thus an example of rhotacism. The consonants surrounding the diphthong in vroage /ˈvroəɣə/[tone?] are indistinguishable from each other: [ˈvʁoəʁə]).[tone?] This is a typical feature of Ripuarian. This merger is also not phonemic as /r/ too is a sonorant and thus cannot participate in alternations such as [ˈvʁoəχ][tone?] - [ˈvʁoəʁə][tone?] mentioned above.
Northern
In Northern Dutch, /ɣ/ appears immediately before voiced consonants and sometimes also between vowels, but not in the word-initial position. In the latter case, the sound is not voiced and differs from /x/ in length (/ɣ/ is longer) and in that it is produced a little bit further front (mediovelar, rather than postvelar) and lacks any trilling, so that vlaggen /ˈvlɑɣən/ 'flags' has a somewhat lengthened, plain voiceless velar [xˑ] (hereafter represented with ⟨ɣ̊⟩): [ˈvlɑɣ̊ə(n)], whereas lachen /ˈlɑxən/ 'to laugh' features a shorter, post-velar fricative with a simultaneous voiceless uvular trill, transcribed with ⟨x̠͡ʀ̥⟩ or ⟨ʀ̝̊˖⟩ in narrow IPA but normally written with ⟨χ⟩ or ⟨x⟩. In this article, ⟨χ⟩ is used ([ˈlɑχə(n)]), even though the fricative portion is usually more front than cardinal uvulars. In Northern Dutch, the contrast between /x/ and /ɣ/ is unstable, and vlaggen is more likely to feature [χ]: [ˈvlɑχə(n)]. Apart from Ripuarian, the voiceless trill fricative [ʀ̝̊] appears in very different contexts in Southern Dutch, being an allophone of /r/.