Dutch Language

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Dutch language

For other uses of Dutch, seeDutch (disambiguation).

Dutch ( Nederlands) is aWest Germanic languagethat is spoken in theEuropean Unionby about 23 mil-lion people as a first languageincluding most of thepopulation of theNetherlandsand about sixty percent ofthat ofBelgiumand by another 5 million as a secondlanguage.[2][3][5][6]

Outside of theLow Countries, it is the native language

of the majority of the population ofSuriname, and alsoholds official status in theCaribbeanisland nations ofAruba, CuraaoandSint Maarten. Historical minori-ties remain in parts of FranceandGermany, and to alesser extent, in Indonesia,[n 1] while up to half a mil-lion native speakers may reside in the United States,CanadaandAustraliacombined.[n 2] TheCape Dutchdi-alects ofSouthern Africahave evolved intoAfrikaans, amutually intelligibledaughter language[n 3] which is spo-ken to some degree by at least 16 million people, mainlyinSouth AfricaandNamibia.[n 4]

Dutch is one of the closest relatives of bothGermanand

English[n 5]

and is said to be roughly in between them.[n 6]

Dutch, like English, has not undergone the High Ger-man consonant shift, does not useGermanic umlautas agrammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of thesubjunctive, and haslevelledmuch of its morphology, in-cluding the case system.[n 7] Features shared with Germaninclude the survival of three grammatical gendersalbeitwith few grammatical consequences[n 8]and the use ofmodal particles,[7] final-obstruent devoicing, andV2 withsubjectobjectverb word order.[n 9] Dutch vocabulary ismostly Germanic and incorporates moreRomance loansthan German but fewer than English.[n 10]

1 Name

Main article:Names for the Dutch language

While Dutchgenerally refers to the language as a whole,Belgian varieties are sometimes collectively referred toasFlemish. In both Belgium and the Netherlands, the na-tive official name for Dutch isNederlands, and its dialectshave their own names, e.g. HollandsHollandish,West-Vlaams Western Flemish, BrabantsBrabantian.[8]

The use of the word Vlaams (Flemish) to describeStandard Dutchfor the variations prevalent in Flandersand used there, however, is common in the Netherlands

and Belgium.[9]

The Dutch language has been known under a variety ofnames. InMiddle Dutch, which was a collection of di-alects,dietscwas used in Flanders and Brabant, whiledi-etsor duutscwas in use in the Northern Netherlands.[10]

It derived from the Old Germanic wordtheudisk, one ofthe first names ever used for the non-Romance languagesof Western Europe, meaning(pertaining to the language)of the people, that is, the native Germanic language. Theterm was used as opposed toLatin, the non-native lan-

guage of writing and theCatholic Church.[11] In the firsttext in which it is found, dating from 784, it refers to theGermanic dialects of Britain.[12] In theOaths of Stras-bourg(842) it appeared as teudiscato refer to the Ger-manic (Rhenish Franconian) portion of the oath.

Until roughly the 16th century, speakers of all the vari-eties of theWest Germanic languagesfrom the mouthof theRhineto theAlpshad been accustomed to refer totheir native speech as Dietsch,(Neder)duytsor some othercognate oftheudisk. This let inevitably to confusion sincesimilar terms referred to different languages. Therefore,in the 16th century, a differentiation took place. Owing

to Dutch commercial and colonial rivalry in the 16th and17th centuries, the English term came to refer exclusivelyto the Dutch. A notable exception isPennsylvania Dutch,which is aWest Central Germanvariety calledDeitschbyits speakers.Jersey Dutch, on the other hand, as spokenuntil the 1950s inNew Jersey, is aDutch-based creole.

In Dutch itself,Dietswent out of common use - althoughPlatdiets is still used for the transitional Limburgish-Ripuarian dialects in the north-east of Belgium. Neder-lands, the official Dutch word for Dutch, did not be-come firmly established until the 19th century. This des-ignation had been in use as far back as the end of the

15th century, but received competition from the morepopular terminology Nederduits, Low Dutch, for sev-eral reasons. One of them was it reflected a distinctionwith Hoogduits, High Dutch, meaning thelanguage spo-ken in Germany. TheHoogwas later dropped, and thus,Duitsnarrowed down in meaning to refer to theGermanlanguage.

The term Nederduits, however introduced new confu-sion, since the non standardised dialects spoken in thenorth of Germany came to be known as Niederdeutschas well, and thus the Duits reference in the name wasdropped, leading to Nederlandsas designation to refer

to the Dutch language. The repeated use of Neder(orlow) to refer to the Dutch language is a reference to

1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Dietschhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-based_creole_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jerseyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Central_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine_Franconian_dialectshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaths_of_Strasbourghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oaths_of_Strasbourghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Churchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_Dutch_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order#German,_Dutch,_Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_order#German,_Dutch,_Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_particlehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_in_Dutch_grammarhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphological_levelinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_in_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_umlauthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibilityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Maartenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7aohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arubahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbeanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Countrieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media:Nl-Nederlands.ogghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_(disambiguation)


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2 2 HISTORY

the Netherlands downriver location at the RhineMeuseScheldt deltanear theNorth Sea, harking back to Latinnomenclature, e.g. Germania Inferior.[13][14][15] See also:Netherlands (toponymy).

2 History

Main article:History of the Dutch language

Three Germanic dialects were originally spoken in theLow Countries: Frisian in the north and along the westerncoast; Saxon in the east (contiguous with the Low Ger-man area); and Franconian in the centre and south. It isthe Franconian dialects that is designated as Old Dutch,and that would develop in Middle Dutch and later Mod-ern Dutch. The division in these development phases is

mostly conventional, since the transition between themwas very gradual. One of the few momentslinguistscan detect somewhat of a revolution is when the Dutchstandard language emerged and quickly established itself.The development of the Dutch language is illustrated bythefollowingsentence in Old, Middle andModern Dutch:

Irlsin sol an frithe sla mna fan thn thia gin-cont mi, wanda under managon he was mit mi (OldDutch)

Erlossen sal [hi] in vrede siele mine van dien die

genaken mi, want onder menegen hi was met mi(Middle Dutch)

Verlossen zal hij in vrede ziel mijn van degenen die[te] na komen mij, want onder menigen hij was metmij (Modern Dutch, same word order)

Hij zal mijn ziel in vrede verlossen van degenen diemij te na komen, want onder menigen was hij metmij (Modern Dutch, default word order)[16]

He will deliver my soul in peace from those who at-tack me, because, amongst many, he was with me(English)[17]

2.1 Origin

Within the Indo-European language tree, Dutch isgrouped within theGermanic languages, which means itshares a common ancestor with languages such as En-glish, German, and Scandinavian languages. All Ger-manic languages are united by subjection to the soundshifts ofGrimms lawandVerners lawwhich originatedin the Proto-Germanic language and define the basicdifferentiating features from other Indo-European lan-

guages. This assumed to have originated in approxi-mately the mid-first millennium BCE inIron Age north-ern Europe.[18]

Map of the Pre-Roman Iron Age culture(s) associated with Proto-

Germanic, ca 50050 BCE. The area south of Scandinavia is the

Jastorf culture.

The distribution of the primary Germanic dialect groups in

Europe in around AD 1:

North Germanic

North Sea Germanic, or Ingvaeonic

Weser-Rhine Germanic, or IstvaeonicElbe Germanic, or Irminonic

East Germanic

The Germanic languages are traditionally divided intothree groups: West,EastandNorthGermanic.[19] Theyremained mutually intelligible throughout theMigrationPeriod. Dutch is together with English and German partof the West Germanic group, that is characterized by anumber ofphonologicaland morphologicalinnovationsnot found in North and East Germanic.[20] The West

Germanic varieties of the time are generally split intothree dialect groups: Ingvaeonic(North Sea Germanic),Istvaeonic(Weser-Rhine Germanic) andIrminonic(Elbe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irminoneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istvaeoneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Periodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Periodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irminoneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istvaeoneshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jastorf_culturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Roman_Iron_Agehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Roman_Iron_Agehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Roman_Iron_Agehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verner%2527s_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimm%2527s_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguisticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Countrieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Dutch_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_(toponymy)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germania_Inferiorhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Seahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine%E2%80%93Meuse%E2%80%93Scheldt_deltahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhine%E2%80%93Meuse%E2%80%93Scheldt_delta


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2.4 Middle Dutch 3

Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit pri-marily into theIstvaeonicdialect group with certain In-gvaeonic influences towards the northwest, still seen inmodern Dutch.

2.2 The Frankish language

Main article:Frankish language

A Frankish identity emerged and so did their Frankishor Franconian language. The language itself is poorly at-tested. A notable exception is theBergakker inscription,found near the Dutch city ofTiel, which may represent aprimary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although someplacenames recorded in Roman texts could arguably beconsidered as theoldest Dutch single words, like vadam(modern Dutch:wad, English: mudflat), the Bergakkerinscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphol-ogy, but there is no consensus on the interpretation of therest of the text.[21]

TheFranksemerged in the southern Netherlands (SalianFranks) and central Germany (Ripuarian Franks), andlater descended intoGaulwhere they gave their name toit: France. Although they ruled theGallo-Romansfornearly 300 years, their language,Frankish, went extinctin most of France and also in all of Germany in aroundthe 7th century. It was replaced in France byOld French(aRomance languagewith a considerable Old Frankishinfluence), and in Germany mostly byAlemannic Ger-man.However, the Old Franconian language did not die outcompletely. Around the same time as it begins to declinein France and Germany it remainedin the Low Countries,and evolved into what we know call Old Low Franconian,also known as Old Dutch. in fact, Old Frankish couldmostly be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankishloanwords in Old French.

2.3 Old Dutch

Main article:Old DutchOld Low Franconian or Old Dutch is regarded as the

primary stage in the development of a separate Dutchlanguage. The Low in Old Low Franconian refers tothe Frankish spoken in the Low Countries where it wasnot influenced by theHigh German consonant shift, asopposed to Central and high Franconian in Germany.The latter would as a consequence evolve with AllemanicintoOld High German. At more or less the same timetheIngvaeonic nasal spirant lawled to the developmentofOld Saxon,Old Frisian(Anglo-Frisian) andOld En-glish(Anglo-Saxon). Hardly influenced by either devel-

opment, Old Dutch remained close to the original lan-guage of the Franks, the people that would rule Europefor centuries. The language however, did experienced de-

Area in which Old Dutch was spoken

velopments on its own, likefinal-obstruent devoicingina very early stage. In fact, by judging from the find atBergakker, it would seem that the language already ex-perienced this characteristic during the Old Frankish pe-riod.

Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare.The oldest one first recorded has been found in theSaliclaw. From thisFrankishdocument written around 510the oldest sentence has been identified as Dutch: Malthothi afrio lito(I say to you, I free you, serf) used to freea serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot af-tar themo uuatare (A fish was swimming in the water).The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht bap-tismal vow(776-800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae[...] ec forsacho diabolae(Do you forsake the devil? [...]I forsake the devil). Probably the most famous sentenceHebban olla vogalanestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu,

wat unbidan we nu(All birds have started making nests,except me and you, what are we waiting for), is datedaround the year 1100, written by a Flemishmonkin aconvent inRochester,England.

The Utrecht baptismal vowForsachistu diobolae...

2.4 Middle Dutch

Main article:Middle Dutch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Englandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochester,_Kenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebban_olla_vogalahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Saxon_Baptismal_Vowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Saxon_Baptismal_Vowhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salic_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Frisianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_nasal_spirant_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_High_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Franconian_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Countrieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alemannic_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romance_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Frenchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallo-Roman_culturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaulhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripuarian_Frankshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salian_Frankshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salian_Frankshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tielhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergakker_inscriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankish_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istvaeones


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4 3 CLASSIFICATION

Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch. The year1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, butit actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing andduring this period a richMedieval Dutch literaturede-veloped. There was at that time no overarchingstandardlanguage; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for

a number of closely related dialects whose ancestor wasOld Dutch. But they were all mutually intelligible. Infact, since Dutch is a rather conservativelanguage, thevarious literary works of that time today are often veryreadable for modern-day speakers.

The most notable difference between Old and MiddleDutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduc-tion. Round vowels in word-final syllables are rather fre-quent in Old Dutch, in Middle Dutch, such are leveled toaschwa.

The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by polit-

ical boundaries. The sphere of political influence of acertain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic in-fluence, with the language within thearea becoming morehomogenous. Following the contemporary political divi-sions they are in order of importance:

Flemishwith theCounty of Flandersat its centre. Ithad been influential during the earlier Middle Ages(the Flemish expansion) but lost prestige to theneighbouring Brabantian in the 13th century.

the Brabantian dialect, spoken primarily in theDuchy of Brabant and adjacent parts. It was

an influential dialect during most of the MiddleAges, during the so-called Brabantian expansionin which the influence of Brabant was extended out-wards into other areas.

theHollandic dialect, which had theCounty of Hol-landas its heartland, where originally Old Frisianwas spoken. The people mixed with Frankish set-tlers from Flanders and Brabant and a new Frankishdialect with a Frisiansubstratewas created. It wasless influential during most of the Middle Ages butbecame more so in the 16th century during the Hol-landic expansion, in the time theEighty Years War

took place in the Southern Netherlands. theLimburgish language, spoken by the people in

the modern-day provinces of Dutch and BelgianLimburg, and adjacent lands in Germany. It wasover time tied to different political areas and istherefor the most divergent of the dialects. It waseven partly influenced by the High German conso-nant shift and is the most distant to the later devel-oped standard language to which it contributed little.It was however the earliest Middle Dutch dialect thatdeveloped a literary tradition.

Since it has Old Saxonand not Low Franconian (OldDutch) as ancestor,Dutch Low Saxonis strictly speak-ing not an Middle Dutch dialect. It was spoken in

theOverstichtterritories of theepiscopal principality ofUtrecht and adjacent parts of Guelders. It did play a mod-est part in the formation of the standard Dutch languagein later periods.

2.5 Modern Dutch

A process ofstandardisationstarted in theMiddle Ages,especially under the influence of theBurgundianDucalCourt in Dijon (Brussels after 1477). The dialects ofFlanders andBrabantwere the most influential aroundthis time. The process of standardisation became muchstronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly basedon the urban dialect ofAntwerp. In 1585 Antwerpfellto the Spanish army: many fled to the Northern Nether-lands, where theDutch Republicdeclared its indepen-dence from Spain. They particularly influenced the urbandialects of the province ofHolland. In 1637, a furtherimportant step was made towards a unified language,[22]when theStatenvertaling, the first major Bible translationinto Dutch, was created that people from all over the newrepublic could understand. It used elements from var-ious, evenDutch Low Saxon, dialects but was predomi-nantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16thcentury.[23]

In the Southern Netherlands (now Belgium andLuxembourg) developments were different. UnderSpanish, thenAustrian, and thenFrench rulestandard-isation of Dutch language came to a standstill. Thestate, law, and increasingly education used French, yetmore than half the Belgian population were speaking aDutch dialect. In the course of the nineteenth centurytheFlemish movementstood up for the rights of Dutch,mostly called Flemish. But in competing with theFrench language the variation in dialects was a seriousdisadvantage. Since standardisation is a lengthy process,Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with thestandard language that had already developed in theNetherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situationin Belgium is essentially no different from that in theNetherlands, although there are recognisable differencesin pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation

differences between standard British and standardAmerican English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgiumconcluded theLanguage Union Treaty. This treaty laysdown the principle that the two countries must gear theirlanguage policy to each other, among other things, for acommon system of spelling.

3 Classification

Indo-European languages

Germanic West Germanic

Low Franconian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Franconian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-European_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_movementhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolutionary_warshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luxembourghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statenvertalinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Hollandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Republichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Antwerp_(1584%E2%80%931585)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgundian_Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Ageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gueldershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_principality_of_Utrechthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_principality_of_Utrechthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overijssel#Overstichthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Belgium)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Belgium)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Netherlands)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgish_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eighty_Years%2527_Warhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratum_(linguistics)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Frisianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Hollandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Hollandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollandic_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchy_of_Brabanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantian_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/County_of_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_reductionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vowel_reductionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_(language)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Dutch_literaturehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Dutch


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4.1 First dichotomy 5

The simplified relation between the West Germanic languages.

Dutch

Afrikaans,Dutch-based creoles

Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,West Low Franconian, paired with its sister languageLimburgish, or East Low Franconian. Closest relativeis themutual intelligible daughter languageAfrikaans.Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch areGerman,Englishand theFrisian languages, and the nonstandardised languagesLow GermanandYiddish. Dutchstands out in combining a small degree of Ingvaeoniccharacteristics (occurring consistently in English andFrisian and reduced in intensity from 'west to east'over thecontinental West Germanicplane) with mostlyIstvaeonic characteristics, of which some of them are also

incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apartfrom Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the'south to north' movement of the High German soundshift, and had some changes of its own.[24] The cumu-lation of these changes resulted over time in separate, butrelated standard languages with various degrees of simi-larities and differences between them. For a comparisonbetween the West Germanic languages, see the sectionsMorphology, Grammar and Vocabulary.

4 Dialects

Main article:Dutch dialects

Dutch dialectsare primarily the dialects that are bothcognate with the Dutch language and are spoken in thesame language area as the Dutch standard language.Dutch dialects are remarkably diverse and are found inthe Netherlands and northern Belgium.

The province ofFrieslandis bilingual. TheWest Frisian

language, distinct from Dutch, is spoken here along withstandard Dutch and the Stadsfries dialect. A (West)Frisian standard language has also been developed.

Low Saxon in the Netherlands

4.1 First dichotomy

In the east there is a Dutch Low Saxondialect area,comprising the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe andOverijssel, and parts of the province ofGelderlandaswell. TheIJsselriver roughly forms the linguistic water-shed here. This group, though not beingLow Franconian

and being close to neighbouringLow German, is regardedas Dutch, because of a number of reasons. From the14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers (Deventer,ZwolleandKampenas well asZutphenandDoesburg)where increasingly influenced by the Westerly flavouredwritten Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area.From the 17 century onward, it was gradually integratedinto the Dutch language area.[25] In other words, thisgroup is Dutchsynchronicallybut notdiachronically.

Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of adialect con-tinuumwith Low German dialects, however the nationalborder has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding

with a political border, because the traditional dialectsarestrongly influenced by the national standard varieties.[26]

Cross-the-border dialects now separated by a plain gapincludes alsoSouth Guelderish/Limburgishat the Dutchside of the border andLow Rhenishat the German sideof the border.[27]

4.2 Extension across the borders

Gronings, spoken inGroningen (Netherlands), aswell as the closely relatedvarietiesin adjacentEast

Frisia (Germany), hasbeen influenced by theFrisianlanguageand takes a special position within theLowSaxon Language.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Low_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Frisiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Frisiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variety_(linguistics)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_(province)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Rhenishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Guelderishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect_continuumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diachronic_linguisticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronic_analysishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doesburghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zutphenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kampenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zwollehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deventerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Franconianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJsselhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelderlandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overijsselhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drenthehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_(province)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieslandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_standard_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_dialectshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_sound_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_sound_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istvaeonichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_West_Germanichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_nasal_spirant_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingvaeonic_nasal_spirant_lawhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yiddishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibilityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Franconian_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-based_creole_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans


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6 4 DIALECTS

South Guelderish(Zuid-Gelders) is a dialect spokeninGelderland(Netherlands) and in adjacent parts ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia(Germany).

Brabantian (Brabants) is a dialect spoken inAntwerp, Flemish Brabant (Belgium) and North

Brabant(Netherlands). Limburgish(Limburgs) is spoken inLimburg (Bel-

gium)as well as inLimburg (Netherlands)and ex-tends across the German border.

West Flemish(Westvlaams) is spoken inWest Flan-ders(Belgium), the western part ofZeelandic Flan-ders(Netherlands) and historically also in FrenchFlanders(France).

East Flemish(Oostvlaams) is spoken inEast Flan-ders (Belgium) and the eastern part of ZeelandicFlanders(Netherlands).

4.3 Holland and the Randstad

In Holland, Hollandic is spoken, though the originalforms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced bya Frisian substratumand, from the 16th century on, byBrabantian dialects) are now relatively rare. The urbandialects of theRandstad, which are Hollandic dialects, donot diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there isa clear difference between the city dialects ofRotterdam,The Hague,AmsterdamorUtrecht.

In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandicdialects are still being used, especially north of Amster-dam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is thatspoken in the cities and larger towns ofFriesland, whereit partially displacedWest Frisianin the 16th century andis known asStadsfries(Urban Frisian).

4.4 Minority languages

Limburgish has the status of official regional language(orstreektaal) in theNetherlandsandGermany(but notinBelgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the

European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.Limburgish has been influenced by theRhinelandicvari-eties like theColognian dialect, and has had a somewhatdifferent development since the late Middle Ages.

Dutch Low Saxonhas also been elevated by the Nether-lands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal(regional language) according to theEuropean Charterfor Regional or Minority Languages.

Gronings isverymuchaliveintheprovinceof Groningen,although it is not so popular in the city of the same name.

TheWest Flemish(Vlaemsch) dialect is listed as a mi-

nority language in France, however only a very smalland aging minority of the French-Flemish population stillspeaks and understands West Flemish.

Dutch dialects and their peripheries to the West (French Flemish)

and to the East (Meuse-Rhenish)

Belgium didn't choose to list any dialect as a minority lan-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meuse-Rhenishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groningen_(province)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gronings_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Low_Saxonhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colognian_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhinelandichttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Charter_for_Regional_or_Minority_Languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgish_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stadsfries_dialectshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Frisian_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frieslandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utrechthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amsterdamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Haguehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotterdamhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randstadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantian_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratum_(linguistics)#Substratumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollandic_dialecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Netherlands)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Belgium)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburg_(Belgium)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgish_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Brabanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Brabanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flemish_Brabanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerp_(province)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Rhine-Westphaliahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelderlandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Guelderish


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4.7 Sister and daughter languages 7

guage, because of the already complicated language situ-ation that appears in the country.

4.5 Recent use

Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spokenas often as they used to be. Recent research by GeertDriessen shows that the use of dialects and regional lan-guages among both Dutch adults and youthis in heavy de-cline. In 1995, 27 percent of the Dutch adult populationspoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis,while in 2011 this was no more than 11 percent. In 1995,12 percent of the primary school aged children spoke adialect or regional language, while in 2011 this had de-clined to 4 percent. Of the three officially recognizedregional languages Limburgish is spoken most (in 2011among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low

Saxon least (adults 15%, children 1%); Frisian occupiesa middle position (adults 44%, children 22%).

4.6 Flanders

In Flanders, there are four main dialect groups:Brabantian, including the dialects of Antwerp andBrussels,West Flemish, includingFrench Flemish,EastFlemishandLimburgish.

The different dialects show many sound shifts in dif-ferent vowels (even shifting between diphthongs and

monophthongs), and in some cases consonants also shiftpronunciation. For example, an oddity of West Flem-ings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, thevoiced velar fricative(written as g in Dutch) shifts toavoiced glottal fricative(written as h in Dutch), whilethe letter h in West Flemish becomes mute (just likein French). As a result, when West Flemish try to talkStandard Dutch, they're often unable to pronounce theg-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. Thisleaves f.e. no difference between held (hero) and geld(money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the prob-lem, andhyper-correct theh into a voiced velar fricative

or g-sound, again leaving no difference.Next to sound shifts, there are ample examples of suf-fix differences. Often simple suffix shifts (like switchingbetween -the, -ske, -ke, -je, ...), sometimes the suffixeseven depend on quite specific grammar rules for a cer-tain dialect. Again taking West Flemish as an example.In that language, the words ja (yes) and nee (no) arealso conjugated to the (often implicit) subject of the sen-tence. These separate grammar rules are a lot more diffi-cult to imitate correctly than simple sound shifts, makingit easy to recognise people who didn't grow up in a certainregion, even decades after they moved.

Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, however,a lot of cities have a distinct city dialect. For exam-ple, the city ofGhenthas very distinct g, e and r

sounds, differing a lot from the surrounding villages. TheBrussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adoptedfromWalloonandFrench.

Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might beconsidered as separate language variants, although the

strong significance of language in Belgian politics wouldprevent the government from classifying them as such.West Flemishin particular has sometimes been consid-ered a distinct variety. Dialect borders of these dialectsdo not correspond to present political boundaries, but re-flect older, medieval divisions. TheBrabantiandialectgroup, for instance, also extends to much of the south ofthe Netherlands, and so doesLimburgish. West Flemishis also spoken inZeelandic Flanders(part of the Dutchprovince of Zeeland), andby older people in French Flan-ders(a small area that borders Belgium).

4.7 Sister and daughter languages

Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and theNetherlands, assume thatAfrikaansand West Frisian aredialects of Dutch but are considered separate and distinctfrom Dutch: adaughter languageand asister language,respectively. Afrikaans evolved mainly from 17th cen-tury Dutch dialects, but had influences from various otherlanguagesinSouth Africa. However, it is still largelymutually intelligiblewith Dutch. (West) Frisian evolvedfrom the sameWest Germanicbranch asOld Englishandis less akin to Dutch.

5 Geographic distribution

See also:Dutch diaspora

Dutch is anofficial languageof theNetherlandsproper,Belgium, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles: Aruba,CuraaoandSint Maarten. Dutch is also an official lan-guage of several international organisations, such as theEuropean Union,Union of South American Nations [29]

and theCaribbean Community. At an academic level,Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 coun-tries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch atuniversity.[30]

5.1 Europe

In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Nether-lands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as a minoritylanguage inGermanyand northernFrance'sFrench Flan-ders, where it is in the ultimate stage oflanguage death.Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, the two re-

gions into which the country is divided (Flanders, fran-cophoneWallonia, bilingualBrusselsand small 'facility'zones) are largely monolingual. The Netherlands and Bel-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloniahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_deathhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_Communityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_American_Nationshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Maartenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7aohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arubahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_diasporahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Germanic_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibilityhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans#Historyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaans#Historyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daughter_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeelandic_Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walloon_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_glottal_fricativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_velar_fricativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monophthonghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphthonghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antwerphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brabantianhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders


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8 5 GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

gium produce the vast majority ofmusic,films,booksand other media written or spoken in Dutch.[31] Dutch isamonocentric language, with all speakers using the samestandard form (authorized by the DutchLanguage Union)basedona Dutch orthography employing the Latin alpha-betwhen writing. In stark contrast to its written unifor-

mity, Dutch lacks aprestige dialectand has a large di-alectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, whichcan themselves be further divided into at least 600 distin-guishable varieties.[32][33]

Outside of the Netherlands and Belgium, the dialectaround the German town of Kleve(South Guelderish)both historically and genetically belongs to the Dutchlanguage. In Northeastern France, the area aroundCalais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish)of which an estimated 20,000 daily speakers. The citiesofDunkirk,GravelinesandBourbourgonly became pre-dominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th cen-

tury. In the countryside, untilWorldWarI, many elemen-tary schools continued to teach in Dutch, andthe CatholicChurch continued to preach and teach thecatechisminFlemish in many parishes.[34]

During the second half of the 19th century Dutch wasbanned from all levels of education by both PrussiaandFranceand lost most of its functions as a cultural lan-guage. In both Germany and France the Dutch standardlanguage is largely absent and speakers of these Dutchdialects will use German or French in everyday speech.Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany,either by the central or regional public authorities and

knowledge of the language is declining among youngergenerations.[35]

As aforeign language, Dutch is mainly taught in pri-mary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to theNetherlandsandFlanders. InFrench-speaking Belgium,over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, fol-lowed by over 23,000 in theGerman statesofLowerSaxonyandNorth Rhine-Westphalia, and about 7,000in theFrench regionofNord-Pas-de-Calais(of which4,550 are in primary school).[36] At an academic level, thelargest number of faculties ofneerlandistiekcan be foundin Germany (30 universities), followedby France (20 uni-

versities) and theUnited Kingdom(5 universities).[36][37]

5.2 Asia and Australasia

5.2.1 Asia

Despite the Dutch presence inIndonesiafor almost 350years, as the Asian bulk of theDutch East Indies, theDutch language has no official status there[38] and thesmall minority that can speak the language fluently areeither educated members of the oldest generation, or em-

ployed in the legal profession,[39] as some legal codes arestill only available in Dutch.[40] Dutch is taught in var-ious educational centres inIndonesia, the most impor-

tant of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) inJakarta. Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students takeDutchcourses there.[41] In total, several thousand Indone-sians study Dutch as a foreign language.[42] Owing to cen-turies of Dutch rule inIndonesia, many old documentsare written in Dutch. Many universities therefore in-

clude Dutch as a source language, mainly for law and his-tory students.[43] In Indonesia this involves about 35,000students.[30]

Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not tofollow a policy of language expansion amongst the indige-nous peoples of their colonies.[44] In the last quarter ofthe 19th century, however, a local elite gainedproficiencyin Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureau-cracy and business.[45] Nevertheless, the Dutch govern-ment remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scalefor fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the languageof power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the

leading elite.[45]

After independence, Dutch was dropped as an officiallanguage and replaced by Malay. Yet the Indonesianlanguage inherited many words from Dutch: wordsfor everyday life as well as scientific and technologicalterms.[46] One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesianwords can be traced back to Dutch words,[47] many ofwhich are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciatione.g. kantoor(Dutch for office) in Indonesian is kan-tor, whilebus(bus) becomesbis. In addition, many In-donesian words are calques on Dutch, for example, rumahsakit(Indonesian for hospital) is calqued on the Dutch

ziekenhuis(literally house of the sick),kebun binatang(zoo) ondierentuin(literally animal garden),undang-undang dasar(constitution) from grondwet (literallyground law). These account for some of thedifferencesin vocabularybetween Indonesian and Malay.

5.2.2 Australasia

After the declaration of independence of Indonesia,Western New Guinea, the 'wild east' of theDutch EastIndies, remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known asNetherlands New Guinea.[48] Despite prolonged Dutchpresence, the Dutch language is not spoken by manyPapuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in1963.

Immigrant communities can be found in Australia andNew Zealand. The 2006 Australian census showed36,179 people speaking Dutch at home.[49] At the 2006New Zealand Census, 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent ofthe total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficientfluency that they could hold an everyday conversation.[50]

5.3 Americas

In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies, from thesecond half of the 19th century onwards, the Nether-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Census_of_Population_and_Dwellingshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Census_in_Australiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealandhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_New_Guineahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_New_Guineahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Malay_and_Indonesian#Vocabulary_differenceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Malay_and_Indonesian#Vocabulary_differenceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calquehttps://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kantoor#Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesian_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_proficiencyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakartahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indieshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indonesiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdomhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord-Pas-de-Calaishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regions_of_Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Rhine-Westphaliahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Saxonyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lower_Saxonyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Germanyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Community_of_Belgiumhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flandershttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prussiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catechismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Ihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bourbourghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelineshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Flemishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calaishttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Guelderishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klevehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prestige_(sociolinguistics)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabethttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_alphabethttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_orthographyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardizationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluricentric_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filmhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music


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5.4 Africa 9

The location ofSurinameinSouth America

The location of theDutch Caribbeanin the southernCaribbean

lands envisaged expansion of Dutch in its colonies intheWest Indies. Until 1863, whenslaverywas abol-ished in the West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speakDutch. However, as most of the people in theColony ofSurinam(nowSuriname) worked on Dutch plantations,this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for directcommunication.[45][51]

InSurinametoday, Dutch is the sole official language,[52]and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as amother tongue.[5] Dutch is the obligatory medium ofinstruction in schools inSuriname, even for non-nativespeakers.[53] A further twenty-four percent of the popu-lation speaks Dutch as asecond language.[54] Surinamegained its independence from the Netherlandsin 1975and has been an associate member of theDutch Lan-guage Unionsince 2004.[55] Thelingua francaof Suri-name, however, isSranan Tongo,[56] spoken natively byabout a fifth of the population.[31][57]

InAruba, CuraaoandSint Maarten, all parts of the

Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch is the official lan-guage but spoken as a first language by only 7% to 8%of the population,[58] although most native-born peopleon the islands can speak the language since the educationsystem is in Dutch at some or all levels.

In theUnited States, an almost extinct dialect of Dutch,Jersey Dutch, spoken by descendants of 17th-centuryDutch settlers in Bergen and Passaic counties, was stillspoken as late as 1921.[59] OtherDutch-based creole lan-guagesonce spoken in the Americas include MohawkDutch (in Albany, New York), Berbice (in Guyana),Skepi(inEssequibo, Guyana) andNegerhollands(in the

United States Virgin Islands).Pennsylvania Dutchis nota member of the set of Dutch dialects and is less mislead-ingly calledPennsylvania German.[60]

Martin Van Buren, the eighthPresident of the UnitedStates, spoke Dutch as his first language and is the onlyU.S. President to have spoken a language other than En-glish as his first language. Dutch prevailed for many gen-erations as the dominant language in parts ofNew Yorkalong theHudson River. Another famous American born

in this region who spoke Dutch as a first language wasSojourner Truth.

According to the 2000 United States census, 150,396people spoke Dutch at home,[61] while according to the2006 Canadian census, this number reaches 160,000Dutch speakers.[62] At academic level, 20 universities of-fer Dutch studies in the United States.[36][63] In Canada,Dutch is the fourth most spoken language by farm-ers, after English, French and German,[64] and the fifthmost spoken non-official language overall (by 0.6% ofCanadians).[65]

5.4 Africa

Main article:AfrikaansThe largest legacy of the Dutch language lies inSouth

The distribution ofAfrikaansacross South Africa: proportion of

the population speaking Afrikaans in the home

Africa, which attracted large numbers of Dutch, Flemishand other northwest European farmer (in Dutch, boer)settlers, all of whom were quickly assimilated.[66] Thelong isolation from the rest of the Dutch-speaking worldmade the Dutch as spoken in Southern Africa evolve intowhat is nowAfrikaans.[67] In 1876, the first Afrikaansnewspaper calledDie Afrikaanse Patriotwas published inthe Cape Colony.[68]

European Dutch remained theliterary language[67] untilthe start of the 1920s, when under pressure ofAfrikanernationalismthe local African Dutch was preferred overthe written, European-based standard.[66] In 1925, sec-

tion 137 of the 1909 constitution of theUnion of SouthAfricawas amended by Act 8 of 1925, stating the wordDutch in article 137 [...] is hereby declared to include
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_nationalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaner_nationalismhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Afrikaanse_Patriothttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boerhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikaanshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_2006_Censushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_Censushttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourner_Truthhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_Riverhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Van_Burenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_German_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Virgin_Islandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negerhollandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essequibo_(colony)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepi_Creole_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyanahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berbice_Creole_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albany,_New_Yorkhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohawk_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohawk_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-based_creole_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch-based_creole_languageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Stateshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_the_Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sint_Maartenhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cura%C3%A7aohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arubahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sranan_Tongohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_francahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Language_Unionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlandshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinamehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_(Dutch_colony)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surinam_(Dutch_colony)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaveryhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbeanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbeanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Caribbeanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Americahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suriname


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10 6 PHONOLOGY

Afrikaans.[69][70] The constitution of 1983 only listedEnglish and Afrikaans as official languages. It is esti-mated that between 90% to 95% of Afrikaans vocabularyis ultimately of Dutch origin.[71][72]

Both languages are still largelymutually intelligible, al-

though this relation can in some fields (such as lexicon,spelling and grammar) be asymmetric, as it is easier forDutch speakers to understand written Afrikaans than it isfor Afrikaans speakers to understand written Dutch.[73]

Afrikaans is grammatically far less complex than Dutch,andvocabulary items aregenerally altered in a clearlypat-terned manner, e.g. vogelbecomesvol(bird) and re-

genbecomesren(rain).[74] In South Africa, the num-ber of students following Dutch at university, is difficultto estimate, since the academic study of Afrikaans in-evitably includes the study of Dutch.[30] Elsewhere in theworld, the number of people learning Dutch is relativelysmall.

See also:Differences between Afrikaans and Dutch

It is the third language of South Africa in terms ofnative speakers (~13.5%),[75] of whom 53 percent areColouredsand 42.4 percentWhites.[76] In 1996, 40 per-cent of South Africans reported to know Afrikaans atleast at a very basic level of communication.[77] It is thelingua francainNamibia,[66][78][79] where it is spoken na-tively in 11 percent of households.[80] In total, Afrikaansis thefirst languagein South Africa alone of about 6.8million people[75] and is estimated to be asecond lan-

guagefor at least 10 million people worldwide,[81]

com-pared to over 23 million[5] and 5 million respectively, forDutch.[2]

Dutchcolonial presence elsewhere on the black continent,notablyDutch Gold Coast, was too ephemerous not to bewiped out by prevailing colonizing European successors.Belgian colonial presence inCongoandRwanda-Urundi(Burundiand Rwanda, held under League of Nationsmandate and later UN trust) left little (Flemish) Dutchlegacy, as French was the main colonial language.

6 Phonology

Main article:Dutch phonology

For further details on different realisations of phonemes,dialectal differences and example words, see the full ar-ticle atDutch phonology.

6.1 Consonants

Unlike other Germanic languages, Dutch doesn't have

phonologicalaspiration of consonants[82]. Like English,Dutch did not participate in thesecond consonant shift.Like most Germanic languages, the Dutchconsonantsys-

tem did not undergo theHigh German consonant shiftand has a syllablestructure that allows fairly complexconsonant clusters. Dutch also retains full use of the velarfricativesthat were present inProto-Germanic, but lostor modified in many other Germanic languages. Dutchhas final-obstruent devoicing: at the end of a word,

voicing distinction is neutralised and all obstruents arepronounced voiceless. For example, goede(good) is/ud/ but the related form goed is /ut/. Dutch shareswith German Final-obstruent devoicing (Du brood[brot]and GermanBrotvs Eng bread).

Voicing of pre-vocalic initialvoiceless alveolar fricativesoccurs, although less in Dutch than in German (Duzeven,Germ sieben [z] vs. Eng seven andLG seven [s]), and alsothe shift in // > /d/. Dutch shares only with Low Germanthe development of /xs/ > /ss/ (Du vossen,ossenand LGVsse, Ossen vs. GermFchse, Ochsenand Eng foxes,oxen), and also the development of /ft/ /xt/ though it is

far more common in Dutch (Du zachtand LG sachtvs.Germ sanftand Eng soft, but Du kracht vs. LG/Germkraftand Eng cognatecraft).

Notes:

[] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is in-serted before vowel-initial syllables within words af-ter /a/ and // and often also at the beginning of aword.

The realization of /r/ phoneme varies considerablyfrom dialect to dialect and even between speakers

in the same dialect area. Common realisations areanalveolar trill[r],alveolar tap[],uvular trill[],voiceduvular fricative [], and alveolar approximant[].

The realization of // also varies somewhat by areaand speaker. The main realisation is a labioden-tal approximant [], but some speakers, particularlyin the south, use a bilabial approximant [] or alabiovelar approximant [w].

The lateral /l/ is slightly velarized postvocalically inmost dialects, particularly in the north.[83]

/x/ and // may be true velars [x] and [], uvular []and [] or palatal [] and []. The more palatal reali-sations are common in southern areas, while uvularsare common in the north.

Some northern dialects have a tendency to devoiceall fricatives regardless of environment. This is par-ticularly common with // but can affect others aswell.

// and // are not native phonemes of Dutch, andusually occur in borrowed words, like show andbagage('baggage').

/a/ is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occursin borrowed words, like garon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_approximanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_uvular_fricativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvular_trillhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_taphttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alveolar_trillhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_alveolar_fricativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final-obstruent_devoicinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Germanic_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fricativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velar_consonanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonant_clusterhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllablehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consonanthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_German_consonant_shifthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirated_consonantshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_phonologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_phonologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Nationshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burundihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwanda-Urundihttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Gold_Coasthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibiahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_francahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_South_Africanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colouredhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Afrikaans_and_Dutchhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_intelligibility


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6.4 Phonotactics 11

6.2 Vowels

Like English, Dutch did not developi-mutationas a mor-phological marker and shares with most Germanic lan-guages the lengthening of shortvowelsinstressedopensyllables, which has led to contrastivevowel lengththat

is used as amorphologicalmarker. Dutch has an exten-sivevowelinventory. Vowels can be grouped as backrounded, front unrounded and front rounded. They arealso traditionally distinguished bylengthortenseness.

Vowel length is not always considered a distinctive fea-ture in Dutch phonology, because it normally co-occurswith changes in vowel quality. One feature or the othermay be considered redundant, and some phonemic anal-yses prefer to treat it as an opposition oftenseness. How-ever, even if not considered part of the phonemic oppo-sition, the long/tense vowels are still realised as phonet-icallylonger than their short counterparts. The changes

in vowel quality are also not always the same in all di-alects, and in some there may be little difference at all,with length remaining the primary distinguishing feature.And while it is true that older words always pair vowellength with a change in vowel quality, new loanwords havereintroduced phonemic oppositions of length. Compare

zonne(n) [zn] (suns) versus zone [zn] (zone)versuszonen[zon(n)] (sons), orkroes[krus] (mug)versuscruise[krus] (cruise).

Notes:

The distinction between /i y u/ and /i y u/ is onlyslight, and may be considered allophonic for mostpurposes. However, some recent loanwords haveintroduced distinctively long /i y u/, making thelength distinction marginally phonemic.

The long close-mid vowels /e o/ are realised asslightly closing diphthongs [e o] in many north-ern dialects.

The long open-mid vowels / / only occur in ahandful of loanwords, mostly from French.

The long close and close-mid vowels are often pro-

nounced more closed or as centering diphthongs be-fore an /r/ in the syllable coda. This may occur be-fore coda /l/ as well.

6.3 Diphthongs

See also:IJ (digraph)

Unique to the development of Dutch is the collaps ofolder ol/ul/al+ dentalinto ol+ dental, followed by vo-calisation of pre-consonantal/l/ and after a short vowel,

creating the diphthong /u/ e.g., Dutch goud, boutandboutcorresponds with Low German Gold,Solt,Bolt; Ger-manGold,Salz,Baltand Englishgold,salt,bold. This is

the most common diphthong along with /i y/. All threeare commonly the only ones considered unique phonemesin Dutch. The tendency for native English speakers is topronounce Dutch names with /i/ (written asijor ei) as/a/, (like the English vowel y) which does not normallylead to confusion among native listeners, since in a num-

ber of dialects (e.g. in Amsterdam[84]) the same pronun-ciation is heard.

In contrast, /i/ and /i/ are rare in Dutch, and occur onlyin some words. The long/tense diphthongs, while theyare indeed realised as proper diphthongs, are generallyanalysed phonemically as a long/tense vowel followed bya glide /j/ or //. All diphthongs end in a close vowel (/iy u/). They are grouped here by their first element.

6.4 Phonotactics

The syllable structure of Dutch is(C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words, as in En-glish, begin with three consonants; for example, straat/strat/ (street). There are words that end in four conso-nants, e.g., herfst/rfst/ 'autumn', ergst/rxst/ 'worst',interessantst'most interesting',sterkst/strkst/ 'strongest',the last three of which aresuperlativeadjectives.

The highest number of consonants in a single cluster isfound in the word slechtstschrijvend /slxtstsxrivnt/'writing worst' with 7 consonant phonemes. Similar isangstschreeuw /stsxreu/scream in fear, with sixin a row.

6.5 Polder Dutch

A notable change in pronunciation has been occurring inyounger generations in the provinces of Utrecht,Northand South Holland, which has been dubbed PolderDutch by Jan Stroop.[85] These speakers pronounceij/ei, ou/au, and ui, which used be pronounced as/i/, /u/, and /y/, increasingly lowered, as [ai], [au],and [ay] respectively. Instead, /e/, /o/, and // are pro-nounced as diphthongsnow, as [i], [u], and [y] re-

spectively, which makes this change an instance of a chainshift.

This change is interesting from a sociolinguistic point ofview because it has apparently happened relatively re-cently, in the 1970s, and was pioneered by older well-educated women from the upper middle classes.[86] Thelowering of the diphthongs has long been current in manyDutch dialects, and is comparable to the EnglishGreatVowel Shift, and the diphthongisation of long high vowelsin ModernHigh German, which centuries earlier reachedthestate now found in PolderDutch. Strooptheorizes thatthe lowering of open-mid to open diphthongs is a pho-

netically natural and inevitable development and thatDutch, after having diphthongised the long high vowelslike German and English, shouldhave lowered the diph-
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12 7 GRAMMAR

thongs like German and English as well.

Instead, he argues, this development has been artificiallyfrozen in an intermediate state by the standardisation ofDutch pronunciation in the 16th century, where lowereddiphthongs found in rural dialects were perceived as ugly

by the educated classes and accordingly declared substan-dard. Now, however, in his opinion, the newly affluentand independent women can afford to let that natural de-velopment take place in their speech. Stroop comparesthe role of Polder Dutch with the urban variety of BritishEnglish pronunciation calledEstuary English.

Among Belgian and Surinamese Dutch speakers andspeakers from other regions in the Netherlands, this vowelshift is not taking place.

7 Grammar

Main article:Dutch grammarSee also:DT-Manie

Dutch is grammatically similar to German, such asin syntaxand verb morphology (for a comparison ofverb morphology in English, Dutch and German, seeGermanic weak verbandGermanic strong verb). Dutchhasgrammatical cases, but these are now mostly limitedto pronouns and a large number ofset phrases. Inflectedforms of the articles are also often found in surnames andtoponyms.

Standard Dutch uses threegendersto differentiate be-tween natural gender and three when discerning gram-matical gender. But for most non-Belgian speakers, themasculine and feminine genders have merged to form thecommon gender (de), while the neuter (het) remains dis-tinct as before. This gender system is similar to those ofmostContinental Scandinavian languages. As inEnglish,but to a lesser degree, the inflectional grammar of the lan-guage (e.g., adjective and noun endings) has simplifiedover time.

7.1 Verbs and tenses

When grouped according to their conjugational class,Dutchhasfourmainverbtypes:weakverbs, strong verbs,irregular verbsand mixed verbs.

Weak verbs are the most numerous verbs, constitutingabout 60% of all verbs. In weak verbs, the past tenseand past participle are formed with a dental suffix:

Weak verbs with past in -de

Weak verbs with past in -te

Strong verbs are the second most numerous verb group.Herethepasttenseisformedbychangingthevowelofthe

stem. This pattern is not uniform and Dutch distinguishesbetween 7 classes of strong verbs, of which 5 have aninternalvariant allowing for 12 different patterns of strongverb conjugation.

Mixed verbs are verbs which have a weak past tense (-

deor-te), but strong past participle (-en) or a strong pasttense (vowel change), but weak past participle.

In Dutch the irregular verbs are the least numerous, butmost used verb forms.

7.2 Genders and cases

Like in English, Dutch has a case system andsubjunctivelargelyfallenoutofuseandgeneralisedthedative overtheaccusative casefor certainpronouns(Dume,je, Engme,you, and LG mi,divs. Germmich/mir dich/dir). Dutchhas also fewergrammatical gendersthan German (Eng:none; Du/LG: common and neuter, but not in Belgiumwhere common/masculine, feminine and neuter is in use).

Modern Dutch has mostly lost its case system. [87] How-ever, certain idioms and expressions continue to includenow archaic case declensions. The article has just twoforms,deandhet, more complex than English, which hasonly the. The use of the older inflected form deninthe dative or accusative as well as use of 'der' in the da-tive are restricted to numerous set phrases, surnames andtoponyms.

In modern Dutch, the genitive articles 'des and 'der'

are commonly used inidioms. Other usage is typicallyconsidered archaic, poetic or stylistic. In most circum-stances, the preposition 'van' is instead used, followed bythe normal definitive article 'de' or 'het'. For the idiomaticuse of the articles in the genitive, see for example:

Masculine singular: "desduivels" (litt: of the devil)(common proverbial meaning: Seething with rage)

Feminine singular: het woordenboekderFriese taal(the dictionary of the Frisian language)

Neuter singular: de vrouw des huizes(the lady of

the house)

Plural: de voortgang derwerken (the progress of(public) works)

In contemporary usage, thegenitive casestill occurs a lit-tle more often with plurals than with singulars, as the plu-ral article is 'der' for all genders and no special noun in-flection must be taken account of. 'Der' is commonly usedin order to avoid reduplication of 'van', e.g. het merendeeldergedichtenvan deauteurinstead ofhet merendeelvandegedichtenvan deauteur(the bulk of the authors po-

ems).There are also genitive forms for the pronoun die/dat(that [one], those [ones]"), namely diensfor masculine
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7.4 Diminutives 13

and neuter singulars and dierfor feminine singular andall plurals. Although usually avoided in common speech,these forms can be used instead of possessive pronounsto avoid confusion, these forms often occur in writing .Compare:

Hij vertelde van zijn zoon en zijnvrouw. He toldabout his son andhis (own)wife.

Hij vertelde van zijn zoon endiensvrouw. He toldabout his son andthe latterswife.

Analogically, the relative and interrogative pronoun wie(who) has the genitive forms wiensand wier(corre-sponding to English whose, but less frequent in use).

Dutch also has a range of fixed expressions that makeuse of the genitive articles, which can be abbreviated

using apostrophes. Common examples include "'s ocht-ends (with 's as abbreviation of des; in the morning) anddesnoods (lit:of the need, translated: if necessary).

The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past100 years: casesare now mainly used for the pronouns,such as ik(I),mij, me(me),mijn(my),wie(who),wiens(whose: masculine or neuter singular),wier(whose: fem-inine singular; masculine, feminine or neuter plural).Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except forthe genitive of proper nouns (names): -s, -'s or -'). In thespoken language cases and case inflections had alreadygradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (prob-

ably the 15th century) as in many continental West Ger-manic dialects.

Inflection of adjectives is more complicated. The adjec-tive receives no ending with indefinite neuter nouns insingular (as witheen/n/ 'a/an'), and -e in all other cases.(This was also the case in Middle English, as in a goodeman.) Note thatfietsbelongs to the masculine/femininecategory, and thatwaterandhuisare neuter.

An adjective has noeif it is in thepredicative: De soep iskoud.

More complex inflection is still found in certain lexical-ized expressions likede heer deshuizes(literally, the manof the house), etc. Theseareusually remnants of cases (inthis instance, the genitive case which is still used in Ger-man, cf. Der Herr des Hauses) and other inflections nolonger in general use today. In such lexicalized expres-sions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be foundtoo, e.g. in het jaar des Heren(Anno Domini), where "-en is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Alsoin this case, Germanretains this feature. Though the gen-itive is widely avoided in speech.

7.3 Word order

Dutch shares with German: Word order. Dutch exhibitssubjectobjectverbword order, but in main clauses the

conjugated verb is moved into the second position in whatis known as verb second orV2 word order. This makesDutch word order almost identical to that of German, butoften different from English, which has subjectverbobjectword order and has since lost the V2 word orderthat existed inOld English.[88]

An example sentence used in some Dutch languagecourses and textbooks is "Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden om-dat het veel te donker is", which translates into Englishword for word as "I can my pen not find because it fartoo dark is", but in standard English word order would bewritten "I cannot find my pen because it is far too dark".If the sentence is split into a main and subclause and theverbs highlighted, the logic behind the word order can beseen.

Main clause: "Ikkanmijn pen nietvinden"Verbs are placed in the final position, but the conjugated

verb, in this case kan (can), is made the second elementof the clause.

Subclause: "omdat het veel te donkeris"The verb or verbs always go in the final position.

In an interrogativemain clause the usual word order is:conjugated verb followed by subject; other verbs in finalposition: "Kun jij je pen niet vinden?" (literally "Can youyour pen not find?") "Can't you find your pen?"In the Dutch equivalent of awh-questionthe word orderis: interrogative pronoun (or expression) + conjugatedverb + subject; other verbs in final position: "Waaromkun jij je pen niet vinden?" ("Why can you your pen not

find?") "Why can't you find your pen?""In atag questionthe word order is the same as in a declar-ative clause: "Jij kunt je pen niet vinden?" ("You can your

pen not find?") "You can't find your pen?""A subordinate clause does not change its word order:"Kun jij je pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is?"("Can you your pen not find because it far too dark is?")"Can you not find your pen because its too dark?""

7.4 Diminutives

Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -jefor singulardiminutiveand-jesfor plural diminutive. Between thesesuffixesand the radical can come extra letters dependingon the ending of the word:

boom(tree) boompje

ring(ring) ringetje

koning(king) koninkje

tien(ten) tientje(a ten-euro note)

These diminutives are very common. As in German, alldiminutives are neuter. In the case of words like het

meisje" (the girl), this is different from the natural gen-der. A diminutive ending can also be appended to an ad-verb or adjective (but not when followed by a noun).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affixhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutivehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tag_questionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wh-questionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interrogativehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Englishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93objecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93verb%E2%80%93objecthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V2_word_orderhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_conjugationhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subject%E2%80%93object%E2%80%93verbhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_grammar#Irregular_declensionshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predicative_(adjectival_or_nominal)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_case


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14 9 SPELLING AND WRITING SYSTEM

klein(little, small) een kleintje(a small one)

In Belgian Dutch, diminutives are frequently formed with-ke(n), being similar to German -chen, but only occurrarely in writing, instead giving preference to the diminu-tives using-je.

7.5 Pronouns and determiners

Dutch shares with English and Low German the presenceof h- pronouns (Duhij,hem,haar,hunand Enghe,him,her vs. Germ er, ihn, ihr, ihnen), and the loss of Ger-manic-z (which later became -r) inmonosyllabicwords(Du/Engwe, LGwivs Germwir)

Thereflexive pronoun zich (Germ sich) was originallyborrowed from Limburgish, which is why in all otherDutch dialects (like in English) the usual reflexive ishem/haarorz'n eigen.

7.6 Compounds

Dutch language street sign in the Netherlands

Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms nouncompounds, where the first noun modifies the categorygiven by the second (hondenhok= doghouse). Unlike En-

glish, where newer compounds or combinations of longernouns are often written in open form with separatingspaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) ei-ther uses the closed form without spaces (boomhuis=treehouse) or inserts a hyphen (VVD-coryfee = outstandingmember of the VVD, a political party). Like German,Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longerthey get, the less frequent they tend to be.

The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictio-nary is wapenstilstandsonderhandeling (ceasefire ne-gotiation). Leafing through the articles of associa-tion (Statuten) one may come across a 30-letter

vertegenwoordigingsbevoegdheid(authorisation of repre-sentation). An even longer word cropping up in of-ficial documents is ziektekostenverzekeringsmaatschap-

pij(health insurance company) though the shorter ziek-tekostenverzekeraar(health insurer) is more common.

Notwithstanding official spelling rules, some Dutch peo-ple, like some Scandinavians and Germans, nowadaystend to write the parts of a compound separately, a prac-

tice sometimes dubbed de Engelse ziekte (the Englishdisease).[89]

8 Vocabulary

Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin,with an additional share of loanwords of 20%.[90] Themain foreign influence on Dutch vocabulary since the12th century and culminating in theFrench periodhasbeenFrenchand (northern) French, accounting for anestimated 6.8%, or more than a third of all loanwords.

Latin, that has been spoken for centuries in the south ofthe Low Countries, and has since then for centuries plaida major role as the language of science and religion, fol-lows with 6.1%. High GermanandLow German, influ-ential until the mid of the 19th century, account for 2.7%.FromEnglish, Dutch has taken over words since the mid-dle of the 19th century, as a consequence of the gain-ing power of Britain and the United States. The share ofEnglish loanwords is about 1.5%, but this number is stillon the increase.[91] Conversely, Dutch contributed manyloanwords to English, accounting for 1.3%.[92]

The main Dutch dictionary is theVan Dale groot woor-

denboek der Nederlandse taalcontaining some 268,826headwords.[93] In the field of linguistics, the 45,000-page Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taalis also readilyused. This scholarly endeavor took 147 years to completeand contains all recorded Dutch words from theEarlyMiddle Agesonward, making it the largest dictionary inthe world in print with over 430,000 entries.[94]

9 Spelling and writing system

Main articles:Dutch orthographyandDutch Braille

The official spelling is set by the Wet schrijfwijze Ned-erlandsche taal(Law on the writing of the Dutch lan-guage; Belgium1946, Netherlands1947; based on a 1944spelling revision; both amended in the 1990s after a 1995spelling revision). The Woordenlijst Nederlandse taal,more commonly known as het groene boekje (i.e. thegreen booklet, because of its color), is usually acceptedas an informal explanation of the law.

Dutch is written using theLatin script. Dutch uses oneadditional character beyond the standard alphabet, thedigraph IJ. It has a relatively high proportion of doubledletters, both vowels and consonants, due to the forma-

tion of compound words and also to the spelling devicesfor distinguishing the many vowel sounds in the Dutchlanguage. An example of five consecutive doubled let-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IJ_(digraph)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digraph_(orthography)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_scripthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Braillehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_orthographyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Middle_Ageshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woordenboek_der_Nederlandsche_Taalhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguisticshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headwordhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Dalehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Dalehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Germanhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langues_d%2527o%C3%AFlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_languagehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_periodhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media:Vertegenwoordigingsbevoegdheid.ogghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media:Wapenstilstandsonderhandeling.ogghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Dalehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compound_(linguistics)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limburgishhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflexive_pronounhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosyllable


15/25

15

Dutch uses thedigraph IJas a single letter. Shown is a busroad

marking.

A comparison ofletter frequency between Dutch, English and

German

ters is the word voorraaddoos(food storage container).Thediaeresis (Dutch: trema) is used to mark vowelsthat are pronounced separately when involving a pre- orsuffix. Whereas a hyphenis used when this problemoccurs in compound words. For example; "benvloed(influenced), but zee-eend (sea duck). Generally, otherdiacritical marksonly occur in loanwords, though theacute accentcan also be used for emphasis or to differ-entiate between two forms. Its most common use is todifferentiate between the indefinitearticle 'een' (a, an)and the numeral 'n' (one).

10 See also

Bargoens

Dutch braille

Dutch grammar

Dutch Language Union

Dutch linguistic influence on military terms

Dutch literature

Dutch name

Dutch orthography

Dutch-based creole languages

Flemish

French Flemish

Grand Dictation of the Dutch Language

Indo-European languages

Istvaeones

List of English words of Dutch origin

Low Dietsch

Low Franconian

Meuse-Rhenish

Middle Dutch

Old Frankish

11 Notes

[1] In France, a historical dialect called French Flemishis spoken. There are about 80,000 Dutch speakers inFrance; seeSimpson 2009, p. 307. In French Flanders,only a remnant of between 50,000 to 100,000 Flemish-speakers remain; seeBerdichevsky 2004, p. 90. Flemishis spoken in thenorth-west of Franceb

Documents

Dutch Language