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| Names | |
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Main article: Names for the Dutch language
Though Dutch generally refers to the language as a whole, Belgian varieties, collectively known as Flemish, are differentiated from the varieties spoken in the Netherlands. In Belgium as well as in the Netherlands, the official designation of the language as a whole is "Nederlands", and the different dialects have their own name (e.g., "Hollands", "Limburgs", "Brabants").[3]
The language has been known under a variety of names. During the Middle Ages, most continental West Germanic dialects were referred to as dietsc and diutsc, and duutsc and other varieties (from which English Dutch is borrowed). These terms all derive from Old Frankish *thiudisk, from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz, which referred to the common people and their language - Dutch, Low German, and German. The word was used to translate Latin (lingua) vulgaris "popular language" and to set apart the Germanic vernacular from Latin (the language of writing and the Church) and the Romance vernaculars.[4] This is seen most clearly in the Oaths of Strasbourg of the 9th century, in which the main language is Latin, but Old High German passages are introduced as "teudisca lingua" and Old French passages as "romana lingua".
During the Renaissance in the 16th century, differentiation began to be made by opposing duytsch (modern Duits) "German" and nederduytsch "Low German" with dietsch or nederlandsch "Dutch",[5] a distinction that is echoed in English later the same century with the terms High Dutch "German" and Low Dutch "Dutch". However, due to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and 17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusively to the Dutch. In modern Dutch, Duits has narrowed in meaning to refer to "German", Diets went out of common use because of its Nazi associations[6] and now somewhat romantically refers to older forms of Dutch,[7] whereas Hollands and Vlaams are sometimes used to name the language.[8] Nederlands, the official Dutch word for "Dutch", did not become firmly established until the 19th century. The repeated use of "neder" or "low" to refer to the language is a reference to the Netherlands' downriver location at the mouth of the Rhine (harking back to Latin nomenclature, e.g., Germania inferior vs. Germania superior) and the fact that it lies in the lowest dip of the Northern European plain.[9][10][11]
Dutch is sometimes confused with German, most probably as the German word for the official language of Germany is Deutsch (and "Niederländisch" for Dutch). This error is made in different movies and TV series such as Bram Stoker's Dracula.
[edit] Tags:Netherlands,Belgium,Germany,Germanic,West Germanic,Latin,English,German,Flemish,Middle Ages,Dialects,Church,Oaths Of Strasbourg,Renaissance,Nazi,Rhine,Germania Inferior,Germania Superior,Northern European Plain,Deutsch,Bram Stoker's Dracula,Low German,Thou,Official Language,French, | |
| Classification | |
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Indo-European languages
Germanic
West Germanic
Low Franconian
Dutch
Afrikaans, Dutch-based creoles
Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic dialect group, West Low Franconian, paired with its sister language Limburgian, or East Low Franconian, both of which stand out by mixing characteristics of Low German and German; in Friedrich Maurer's classification,[12] these languages are Istsvaeonic. Dutch is at one end of a dialect continuum known as the Rhenish fan where German gradually turns into Dutch. There was also at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low German. In some small areas, there are still dialect continua, but they are gradually becoming extinct.
All three languages have shifted earlier /θ/ → /d/, show final obstruent devoicing (Du brood "bread" [bro:t]), and experienced lengthening of short vowels in stressed open syllables which has led to contrastive vowel length that is used as a morphological marker. Dutch stands out from Low German and German in its retention of the clusters sp/st, shifting of sk to [sx] and initial g- to [ɣ], highly simplified morphology, and the fact it did not develop i-mutation as a morphological marker. In earlier periods, Low Franconian of either sort differed from Low German by maintaining a three-way plural verb conjugation (Old Dutch -un, -it, -unt → Middle Dutch -en, -t, -en). But as the old plural form became used in the singular as well (as happened in English, where you replaced thou), the older distinction was levelled into a single form -en (Du jij maakt "you(sg) make", but we/jullie/ze maken "we/you(pl)/they make", although older also jullie maakt); however, it is still possible to distinguish it from German (which has retained the three-way split) and Low German (which has -t in the present tense: wi/ji/se niemmet "we/you(pl)/they take"). Dutch and Low German show the collapsing of older ol/ul/al + dental into ol + dental, but in Dutch wherever /l/ was pre-consonantal and after a short vowel, it vocalized, e.g., Du goud "gold", zout "salt", woud "woods" : LG Gold, Solt, Woold : Germ Gold, Salz, Wald.
With Low German, Dutch shares the development of /xs/ → /ss/ (Du vossen "foxes", ossen "oxen", LG Vösse, Ossen vs. Germ Füchse, Ochsen), /ft/ → [xt] /cht/ though it is far more common in Dutch (Du zacht "soft", LG sacht vs. Germ sanft, but Du lucht "air" vs. LG/Germ Luft), generalizing the dative over the accusative case for certain pronouns (Du mij "me" (MDu di "you (sg.)"), LG mi/di vs. Germ mich/dich), and neither has undergone German's distinctive second consonant shift. Dutch and Low German have also monophthongized Germanic *ai → ē and *au → ō in all positions, e.g., Du steen "stone", oog "eye", LG Steen, Oog vs. G Stein, Auge, though this is not true of Limburgian (cf. sjtein, oug).
Dutch shares with German the reflexive pronoun zich (Germ sich), though this was originally borrowed from Limburgian, which is why in most dialects (Flemish, Brabantine) the usual reflexive is hem/haar, just like in the rest of West Germanic. Also, both languages have diphthongized Germanic ē² and long ō (Du hier "here", voet "foot", Germ hier, Fuß (from earlier fuoz) vs. LG hier [iː], Foot "foot" [oː]) and voiced pre-vocalic initial voiceless alveolar fricatives, e.g., Du zeven "seven", Germ sieben [z] vs. LG söven, seven [s]. The German pronoun wir "we" is absent from Dutch, but Limburgian has veer "we" instead of Dutch we (wij).
[edit] Tags:Afrikaans,Indo-european,Low Franconian,Indo-european Languages,Dutch-based Creoles,Limburgian,Istsvaeonic,Dialect Continuum,Rhenish Fan,Final Obstruent Devoicing,Vowels,Stressed,Syllables,Vowel Length,Morphological,I-mutation,Plural,Verb,Conjugation,Old Dutch,Middle Dutch,You,Dental,Dative,Accusative,Case,Pronouns,Second Consonant Shift,Monophthongized,Reflexive Pronoun,Brabantine,Diphthongized,Voiceless Alveolar Fricatives,Continuum, | |
| Geographic distribution | |
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Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten. Dutch is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union and the Union of South American Nations.[13] It is used unofficially in the Caribbean Community.
[edit] Tags:Suriname,Aruba,Curaçao,Sint Maarten,South America,Caribbean,European Union,Union Of South American Nations,Caribbean Community, | |
| Netherlands | |
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Dutch is the official and foremost language of the Netherlands, a nation of 16.7 million people of whom 96 percent speak Dutch as their mother tongue.[14] In the province of Friesland and a small part of Groningen, Frisian is also recognised but is spoken by only a few hundred thousand 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, English, Spanish, Berber, Moroccan Arabic, Papiamento, and Sranan. In the second generation these newcomers often speak Dutch as their mother tongue, sometimes alongside the language of their parents.
[edit] Tags:Indonesia,Friesland,Groningen,Frisian,Frisians,Standard Dutch,Indonesian,Turkish,Spanish,Berber,Moroccan Arabic,Papiamento, | |
| Belgium | |
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Language situation in Belgium
Belgium, a neighbouring nation of 11 million people, 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 as their first language, while French is the mother tongue of 40%.[15] Dutch is the official language of the Flemish Region (where it is the mother tongue of about 97% of the population)[14] 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).
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| Brussels | |
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Home languages (Brussels Capital Territory, 2006)[16]
French only
French & Dutch
French & language other than Dutch
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, with a small French minority, 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.[17][18]
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.[19] 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.[20] 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.[21] This phenomenon is, together with the future of Brussels, one of the most controversial topics in all of Belgian politics.[22][23]
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.[16]
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| France | |
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Language situation in the Dunkirk district of northern France in 1874 and then in 1972.
French Flemish, a variant of West Flemish, is spoken in the north-east 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.[24] 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.[24]
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.[25] From the late 9th century on, the border gradually started to shift northward and eastward 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.[25] 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.[25] 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.[25] Therefore, complete extinction of French Flemish can be expected in the coming decades.[25]
[edit] Tags:France, | |
| Asia | |
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An anachronous map of the Dutch colonial Empire. Light green: territories administered by or originating from territories administered by the Dutch East India Company; dark green the Dutch West India Company.
The growth of the Dutch East Indies.[26]
Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost three hundred and fifty years, the Dutch language has no official status there[27] and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession,[28] as some legal codes are still only available in Dutch.[29] Many universities include Dutch as a source language, mainly for law and history students (roughly 35,000 of them nationally).[30][31]
Contrary to other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies.[32] 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.[33] 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.[33] 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.[33] 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 1949, this shift in policy did not come into full effect.[33]
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.[34] One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words,[35] many of which transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. "kantoor" (Dutch for "office") in Indonesian is "kantor", while "bus" ("bus") becomes "bis".
In addition, many Indonesian words are calques on Dutch, for example, "rumah sakit" (Indonesian for "hospital") is calqued on the Dutch "ziekenhuis" (literally "sick house"), "kebun binatang" ("zoo") on "dierentuin" (literally "animal garden"), "undang-undang dasar" ("constitution") from "grondwet" (literally "basic law"). These account for some of the differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay.
The original spelling system devised for Indonesian, devised by Charles van Ophuijsen[35] was influenced by Dutch, with the use of Dutch letter combinations such as "oe". For example, "tempo doeloe" (meaning "the past") was pronounced as one vowel like in "moeder" (Dutch for "mother"). In 1947, this was changed to "u", hence "tempo dulu". However, the letter combination "oe" continued to be used in people's names, for example, the spelling of the names of the first and second Presidents, Sukarno and Suharto are often written as "Soekarno" and "Soeharto". In 1972, following an agreement with Malaysia to harmonise the spelling of Indonesian and Malay, other Dutch-influenced letter combinations such as "tj" and "dj" were replaced with "c" and "j", hence "tjap" ("brand" in Indonesian) became "cap" and "Djakarta", the country's capital, became "Jakarta".
Dutch-based creole languages (once) spoken in the Dutch East Indies include Javindo and Petjo, most of whose speakers were Indo or Eurasians. As a result of Indo emigration to the Netherlands following independence, the use of these languages declined.
The century and half of Dutch rule in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and southern India left few or no traces of the Dutch language.
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| Oceania | |
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After the declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea.[36] Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded 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.[37] According to the 2006 census in New Zealand, 16,347 people claim sufficient fluency in Dutch to hold an everyday conversation.[38]
[edit] Tags:Australia, | |
| Americas | |
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Location of Suriname in South America.
Location of the former Netherlands Antilles in the southern Caribbean.
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 Guiana (now Suriname) worked on Dutch plantations, which reinforced the importance of Dutch as a means for direct communication.[33][39] In Indonesia, the colonial authorities had less interference in economic life. The size of the population was decisive: whereas the Antilles and Dutch Guiana combined only had a few hundred thousand inhabitants, Indonesia had many millions, by far outnumbering the population of the Netherlands.[33]
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| Suriname | |
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In Suriname, where in the second half of the 19th century the Dutch authorities introduced a policy of assimilation,[33] Dutch is the sole official language[40] 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.[41] Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004.[42] The lingua franca of Suriname, however, is Sranan Tongo,[43] spoken natively by about a fifth of the population.[14]
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),[44] 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").
[edit] Tags: | |
| Caribbean | |
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In Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, all 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,[45] Tags: | |
zote monety |