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Main article: Names for the Dutch language
In English the language of the people of the Netherlands and Flanders is referred to as Dutch; or rarely (usually in technical linguistic contexts) as Netherlandic[8]; Flemish is a term which refers specifically to Belgian Dutch, Dutch as spoken in Belgium.
The origins of the word Dutch go back to Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages, *þeudiskaz (meaning "national/popular"); a cognate of Old Dutch diets, Old High German duitsch, Old English þeodisc and Gothic þiuda all meaning "(of) the common (Germanic) people". As the tribes among the Germanic peoples began to differentiate, its meaning began to change. The Anglo-Saxons of England for example gradually stopped referring to themselves as þeodisc and instead started to use Englisc, after their tribe. On the continent *theudo evolved into two meanings: Diets (meaning "Dutch (people)" <archaic>[9]) and Deutsch (German, meaning "German (people)"). At first the English language used (the contemporary form of) Dutch to refer to any or all of the Germanic speakers on the European mainland (e.g. the Dutch, the Flemings and the Germans). For example, in Gulliver's Travels, German is called "High Dutch", whereas what we call Dutch today is called "Low Dutch". Gradually its meaning shifted to the Germanic people they had most contact with, both because their geographical proximity, but also because of the rivalry in trade and overseas territories: the people from the Dutch Republic, the Dutch.[10]
In Dutch, the language is referred to as Nederlands. It derives from the Dutch word "neder", a cognate of English "nether" both meaning "low" and "down", and "land" (same meaning in both English and Dutch), a reference to the geographical texture of the Dutch homelands, the western and lowest portion of the Northern European plain.[11][12][13]
[ Tags:Netherlands,Belgium,Flanders,Germanic,English,German,Flemish,Cognate,Old Dutch,Old High German,Old English,Gothic,Anglo-saxons,England,Diets,Deutsch,Gulliver's Travels,Dutch Republic,Northern European Plain, | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Classification |
Indo-European languages
Germanic
West Germanic
Low Franconian languages or Dutch → Nederlands
(Afrikaans, Dutch-based creole languages)
Dutch is a descendant of several Frankish dialects spoken in the High Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, and to a lesser extent of Frisian, that was spoken by the original inhabitants of Holland. It did not undergo the High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a Low Franconian language. There was at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low Saxon. In some small areas, there are still dialect continua, but they are gradually becoming extinct.
[ | Tags:Indo-european,West Germanic,Low Franconian,Afrikaans,Creole Languages,Indo-european Languages,Low Franconian Languages,Dutch-based Creole Languages,Frankish,High Middle Ages,Early Modern Times,Frisian,Holland,High German Consonant Shift,Low Franconian Language,Dialect Continuum,Low Saxon,Continuum, Geographic distribution |
Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. Dutch is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union and the Union of South American Nations.[14] It is used unofficially in the Caribbean Community.
[ | Tags:Suriname,Aruba,Netherlands Antilles,Caribbean,South America,European Union,Union Of South American Nations,Official Language,Caribbean Community, Netherlands |
Dutch is the official and foremost language of the Netherlands, a nation of 16.4 million people, of whom 96 percent say Dutch is their mother tongue.[15] In the province of Friesland and a small part of Groningen, Frisian is also recognised, but is spoken by only some hundreds of thousands of Frisians. In the Netherlands there are many different dialects, but these are often overruled and replaced by the language of the media, school, government (i.e., Standard Dutch). Immigrant languages are Indonesian, Turkish, Moroccan, English, Spanish, Berber, Moroccan Arabic, Papiamento, and Sranan. In the second generation these newcomers often speak Dutch as their mother tongue, but sometimes alongside the language of their parents.
[ | Tags:Friesland,Groningen,Standard Dutch,Indonesian,Turkish,Moroccan,Spanish,Berber,Moroccan Arabic,Papiamento,Sranan,Indonesia, Belgium |
Language situation in Belgium
Belgium has three official languages, which are, in order from the greatest speaker population to the smallest, Dutch (sometimes colloquially referred to as Flemish), French, and German. An estimated 59% of all Belgians speak Dutch, while French is spoken by 40%.[16] Dutch is the official language of the Flemish Region (where it is the mother tongue of about 97% of the population)[15] and one of the two official languages —along with French— of the Brussels Capital Region. Dutch is not official nor a recognised minority language in the Walloon Region, although on the border with the Flemish Region, there are four municipalities with language facilities for Dutch-speakers. The most important Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium are West Flemish, which has a dialect continuum in North-West French Flanders (Frans Vlaanderen); East Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish, the latter having a dialect continuum in northeastern Wallonia (as Low Dietsch).
[ | Tags:Brussels,Ipa,French,Flemish Region,Brussels Capital Region,Walloon Region,Municipalities With Language Facilities,Dutch Dialects,West Flemish,East Flemish,Brabantian,Limburgish,Low Dietsch, Brussels |
Estimate of languages spoken at home (Brussels Capital Region, 2006)[17]
French only French & Dutch French & non-Dutch language Dutch only Neither French nor Dutch
Since the founding of the Kingdom of Belgium in 1830, Brussels has transformed from being almost entirely Dutch-speaking to being a multilingual city with French as the majority language and lingua franca. This language shift, the Frenchification of Brussels, is rooted in the 18th century but accelerated after Belgium became independent and Brussels expanded past its original boundaries.[18][19]
Not only is French-speaking immigration responsible for the Frenchification of Brussels, but more importantly the language change over several generations from Dutch to French was performed in Brussels by the Flemish people themselves. The main reason for this was the low social prestige of the Dutch language in Belgium at the time.[20] From 1880 on more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century the number of monolingual French-speakers carried the day over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants.[21] Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use.[22] This phenomenon is, together with the future of Brussels, one of the most controversial topics in all of Belgian politics.[23][24]
Today an estimated 16 percent of city residents are native speakers of Dutch, while an additional 13 percent claim to have a "good to excellent" knowledge of Dutch.[17]
[ | Tags:Kingdom Of Belgium,Lingua Franca,Frenchification Of Brussels,Independent,Flemish People,Language Border,Belgian Politics, France |
Language situation in the Arrondissement of Dunkirk, in northern France.
French Flemish, a variant of West Flemish, is spoken in the north-west of France by an estimated population of 20,000 daily speakers and 40,000 occasional speakers. It is spoken alongside French, which is gradually replacing it for all purposes and in all areas of communication.[25] Neither Dutch, nor its regional French Flemish variant, is afforded any legal status in France, either by the central or regional public authorities, by the education system or before the courts. In brief, the State is not taking any measures to ensure use of Dutch in France.[25]
In the 9th century the Germanic-Romance language border went from the mouth of the Canche to just north of the city of Lille, where it coincided with the present language border in Belgium.[26] From the late 9th century on, the border gradually started to shift northward and westward to the detriment of the Germanic language. Boulogne-sur-Mer was bilingual up to the 12th century, Calais up to the 16th century, and Saint-Omer until the 18th century. The western part of the County of Flanders, consisting of the castellanies of Bourbourg, Bergues, Cassel and Bailleul, became part of France between 1659 and 1678. However, the linguistic situation in this formerly monolingually Dutch-speaking region did not dramatically change until the French Revolution in 1789, and Dutch continued to fulfil the main functions of a cultural language throughout the 18th century.[26] During the 19th century, especially in the second half of it, Dutch was banned from all levels of education and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. The cities of Dunkirk, Gravelines and Bourbourg had become predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Roman Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the cathechism in Flemish in many parishes.[26] Nonetheless, since French enjoyed a much higher status than Dutch, from about the interbellum onward everybody became bilingual, the generation born after World War II being raised exclusively in French. In the countryside, the passing on of Flemish stopped during the 1930s or 1940s. As a consequence, the vast majority of those still having an active command of Flemish belong to the generation of over the age of 60.[26] Therefore, complete extinction of French Flemish can be expected in the coming decades.[26]
[ | Tags:France,Arrondissement Of Dunkirk,French Flemish,Canche, Asia |
An anachronous map of the Dutch Empire.
The growth of the Dutch East Indies.[27]
Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost three hundred and fifty years, the Dutch language has no official status there[28] and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession,[29] as some legal codes are still only available in Dutch.[30] Contrary to other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies.[31] In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business.[32] Nevertheless, the Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale out of fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite.[32] Instead, use of local languages —or, where this proved to be impractical, of Malay— was encouraged. As a result, less than two percent of Indonesians could speak Dutch in 1940.[32] Only when in 1928 the Indonesian nationalist movement had chosen Malay as a weapon against Dutch influence, the colonial authorities gradually began to introduce Dutch in the educational curriculum. But due to the 1942 Japanese invasion and the subsequent Indonesian independence in 1947, this shift in policy did not come into full effect.[32]
After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Malay. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch, both in words for everyday life, and as well in scientific or technological terminology.[33] One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words.[34]. Sometimes there is just a little spelling difference: e.g. "kantoor" (Dutch for "office") is in Indonesian "kantor". Many universities include Dutch as a source language, mainly for law and history students (roughly 35,000 of them nationally).[35][36].
In the official spelling of the Indonesian language, occasionally the spelling can be traced that was introduced on Dutch colonial schools, as can be seen and heard in nevertheless pure Malayan or Indonesian words with the originally Dutch letter combination "oe": in "tempo doeloe" to be pronounced as one vowel like in "moeder" (Dutch for "mother")
The century and half of Dutch rule in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and southern India left few or no traces of the Dutch language. Dutch-based creole languages (once) spoken in the Dutch East Indies include Javindo and Petjo.
[ | Tags: Oceania |
After the declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea.[37] Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been donated to Indonesia in 1963.
Immigrant communities can be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2006 Australian census showed 36,179 people speaking Dutch at home.[38] According to the 2006 census in New Zealand, 16,347 people claim sufficient fluency in Dutch to hold an everyday conversation.[39]
[ | Tags: Americas |
Location of Suriname in South America.
Location of the Netherlands Antilles in the southern Caribbean.
Location of Aruba off the north coast of South America.
In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies, from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies. Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in the West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch. Most important were the efforts of Christianisation through Dutchification, which did not occur in Indonesia due to a policy of non-involvement in already Islamised regions. Secondly, most of the people in Dutch Guyana (now Suriname) worked on Dutch plantations, which reinforced the importance of Dutch as a means for direct communication.[32][40] In Indonesia, the colonial authorities had less interference in economic life. The size of the population was decisive: whereas the Antilles and Dutch Guyana combined only had a few hundred thousand inhabitants, Indonesia had many millions, by far outnumbering the population of the Netherlands.[32]
[ | Tags: Suriname |
In Suriname (former Dutch Guiana), where in the second half of the 19th century the Dutch authorities introduced a policy of assimilation,[32] Dutch is the sole official language[41] and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue.[1] A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language.[42] Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004.[43] The lingua franca of Suriname, however, is Sranan Tongo,[44] spoken natively by about a fifth of the population.[15].
Recognition of "Surinaams-Nederlands" ("Surinam Dutch") as an equal natiolect was expressed in 1976 by the publication of the Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands - een geannoteerde lijst van Surinaams-Nederlandse woorden en uitdrukkingen (Dictionary of Surinam Dutch - an annotated list of Surinam-Dutch words and expressions) [45], published in 1989 as the Woordenboek van het Surinaams-Nederlands (Dictionary of Surinam Dutch), by Van Donselaar, and later by the publication of the Woordenboek Surinaams Nederlands (Dictionary Surinam Dutch) in 2009 (editor Renata de Bies, in cooperation with lexicologists Willy Martin en Willy Smedts), which was previously published as the Woordenboek van de Surinaamse Bijdrage aan het Nederlands (Dictionary of the Surinam Contribution to Dutch").
[ | Tags:Second Language, Caribbean |
In Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, both part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch is the official language but spoken as a first language by only seven to eight percent of the population,[46][47] although most native-born people on the islands can speak the language since the education system is in Dutch at some or all levels.[48] The lingua franca of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao is Papiamento, a creole language that originally developed among the slave population. The population of the three northern Antilles, Sint Maarten, Saba, and Sint Eustatius, is predominantly English-speaking.[32]
[ | Tags: North America |
In New Jersey in the United States, an almost extinct dialect of Dutch, Jersey Dutch, spoken by descendants of seventeenth century Dutch settlers in Bergen and Passaic counties, was still spoken as late as 1921.[49]. Other Dutch-based creole languages once spoken in the Americas include Mohawk Dutch (in Albany, New York), Berbice (in Guyana), Skepi (in Essequibo, Guyana) and Negerhollands (in the United States Virgin Islands). Pennsylvania Dutch is something of a misnomer as that language is more closely related to German.
According to the 2000 United States census, 150,396 people spoke Dutch at home,[50] while according to the 2006 Canadian census, this number reaches 160,000 Dutch-speakers.[51] In Canada, Dutch is the fourth most spoken language by farmers, after English, French and German,[52] and the fifth most spoken non-official language overall (by 0.6% of Canadians).[53]
[ | Tags: Belgian Africa |
The Belgian colonial empire.
Belgium, which had gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1830, also held a colonial empire from 1901 to 1962, consisting of the Belgian Congo and Ruanda-Urundi. Contrary to Belgium itself, the colonies had no de jure official language.[54][55] Although a majority of Belgians residing in the colonies were Dutch-speaking,[54] French was de facto the sole language used in administration, jurisdiction and secondary education.[56] After World War II, proposals of dividing the colony into a French-speaking and a Dutch-speaking part —after the example of Belgium— were discussed within the Flemish Movement.[56][57] In general, however, the Flemish Movement was not as strong in the colonies as in the mother country.[58] Although in 1956, on the eve of Congolese independence, an estimated 50,000 out of a total of 80,000 Belgian nationals would have been Flemish,[54] only 1,305 out of 21,370 children were enrolled in Dutch-language education.[59] When the call for a better recognition of Dutch in the colony got louder, the évolués ("developed Congolese") —among whom Mobutu Sese Seko— argued that Dutch had no right over the indigenous languages, defending the privileged position of French.[54][59] Moreover, the image of Afrikaans as the language of the apartheid was injurious to the popularity of Dutch.[59]
The colonial authorities used Lingala, Kongo, Swahili and Tshiluba in communication with the local population and in education.[56] In Ruanda-Urundi this was Kirundi.[60] Knowledge of French —or, to an even lesser extent, Dutch— was hardly passed on to the natives,[54] of whom only a small number were taught French to work in local public services.[32] After their independence, French would become an official language of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi.[60] Of these, Congo is the most francophone country. Knowledge of Dutch in former Belgian Africa is virtually nonexistent.
[ | Tags: Afrikaans |
Main article: Afrikaans
Geographical distribution of Afrikaans in South Africa: proportion of the population that speaks Afrikaans at home.
0–20% 20–40% 40–60%
60–80% 80–100% | Tags: |