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Dutch (Nederlands), sometimes referred to as Netherlandic in
English, is
a Low Germanic language spoken by around 24 million people, mainly in the
Netherlands and Belgium. The dialects of Dutch spoken in Belgium are often
referred to as Flemish and sometimes thought of as a separate language
though seldom by its speakers. In the Netherlands, Dutch is sometimes
colloquially called Hollands by native speakers although this is becoming
less common today.
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The West Germanic dialects can be divided according to tribe (Frisian,
Saxon, Franconian, Bavarian and Swabian), and according to the extent of
their participation in the High German consonant shift (Low Germanic against
High Germanic). The present Dutch standard language is largely derived from
Low Franconian dialects spoken in the Low Countries that must have reached a
separate identity no later than about AD 600.
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A process of standardization started in the Middle ages, especially under
the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels after 1477).
The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this
time. The process of standardization became much stronger in the 16th
century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell
to the Spanish army: many fled to Holland, strongly influencing the urban
dialects of that province. In 1618 a further important step was made towards
a unified language, when the first major Dutch bible translation was created
that people from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used
elements from various (even Low Saxon) dialects, but was mostly based on the
urban dialects from Holland.
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Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West Germanic
language. Since it did not experience the High German consonant shift, it is
sometimes classed as a Low Germanic language, and indeed it is most closely
related to the Low German dialects of Northern Germany. There is in fact a
dialect continuum which blurs any clear boundary between Dutch and Low
German, and
the Low Franconian rural dialects of the Lower Rhine are much closer to
Hollandic than to standard
German.
Dividing the West Germanic languages into low and high in this way, however,
obscures the fact that Dutch is more closely related to modern standard
(high)
German than
to
English.
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In some places,
German and
Dutch are spoken almost interchangeably. Dutch speakers are generally able
to read
German to a
considerable degree, and German speakers (who can read
English)
can generally read Dutch to some extent.
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Dutch still has grammatical cases, but these have become almost limited to
usage in pronouns and set phrases. Technically there is still a distinction
between masculine and feminine, but for most practical purposes in the
standard language the gender system has collapsed into a dual system of
animate (de) and neuter (het). Thus the system of nouns and noun phrases has
been greatly simplified in a manner more akin to
English
than
German.
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Native Dutch vocabulary (as opposed to loan words) is of common West
Germanic stock, and in terms of sound shifts it can be imagined as occupying
a position somewhere between
English and
German.
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Dutch is spoken by most inhabitants of the Netherlands. It is also spoken by
most in the Flemish northern half of Belgium, with the exception of
Brussels, where it is spoken by a minority of the population,
French
being the dominant language. (This minority is typically estimated between
7,5% and 15%.) In the northernmost part of France, Dutch is spoken by a
minority and the language is usually referred to as Vlomsch. On the
Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used but
less so than
Papiamento.
Dutch is spoken in Suriname, and there are some speakers of Dutch in
Indonesia. In South Africa and Namibia a language related to Dutch called
Afrikaans is
spoken.
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Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba,
and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments
coordinate their language activities in the Nederlandse Taalunie ('Dutch
Language Union').
Afrikaans is an
official language in South Africa. Of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 0.7%
say their home language is Dutch (see article on New Zealand). The number of
people coming from the Netherlands though is considerably higher but from
the second generation on most people changed their language in favour of
English.
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Standaardnederlands or Algemeen Nederlands ('Common Dutch', abbreviated to
AN) is the standard language as taught in schools and used by authorities in
the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch
Language Union defines what is AN and what is not, for example in terms of
orthography. Algemeen Nederlands replaced the older name Algemeen Beschaafd
Nederlands ('Common Civilized Dutch', abbreviated to ABN) when it was no
longer considered politically correct, because it implied that people who
didn't speak ABN were not civilized.
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Flemish (Vlaams in Dutch) is the collective term often used for the Dutch
dialects spoken in Belgium. It is not a separate language (though the term
is often also used to distinguish the standard Dutch spoken in Flanders from
that of the Netherlands) nor are the dialects in Belgium more closely
related to each other than to the dialects in The Netherlands. The forms of
Dutch spoken in Flanders and in the Netherlands differ somewhat and are
instantly recognisable. One could draw a parallel with the American and
British
English
differences (spoken form only). The Americans and the English use slightly
divergent vocabularies, though both officially correct. However, while
American
English is
considered a derivative of
English by
some, Dutch in Flanders and Dutch spoken in the Netherlands are historically
equal.
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In Flanders, there are roughly four dialect groups: West Flemish, East
Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish. They have all incorporated French
loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms
(originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels,
especially, is heavily influenced by French because roughly 85% of the
inhabitants of Brussels speak French. The Limburgish in Belgium is closely
related to Dutch Limburgish. An oddity of West Flemish (and to a lesser
extent, East Flemish) is that the pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the
voiced velar fricative) is almost identical to that of the "h" sound (the
voiced glottal fricative), thus, the words held (hero) and geld (money)
sound nearly the same. Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might
be considered as separate language variants. West Flemish in particular has
sometimes been considered as such. Dialect borders of these dialects do not
correspond to present political boundaries, but reflect older, medieval
divisions. The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much
of the south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West-Flemish is
also spoken in the Dutch province of Zeeland, in a variant called Zeeuws (or
Zealandic, in
English)
and even in a small part near Dunkirk, France, bordering on Belgium.
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The Netherlands also has different dialect regions. In the east there is an
extensive Low German dialect area: the provinces of Groningen (Gronings),
Drenthe and Overijssel are almost exclusively Low Saxon. Zuid-Gelders is a
dialect also spoken in the German land of North Rhine-Westphalia. Brabantian
(Noord-Brabant) fade into the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of
Belgium. Same thing applies to Limburgish (Limburg (Netherlands)), but this
variant also has the status of official Minority Language in the Netherlands
(but not in Belgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the European
Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish is Low Franconian, as
is Dutch, but is so much more distant (it has been influenced by the
Rhinelandic dialects like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch Platt, and has had a
very different development since the late Middle Ages) that it is less and
less classified as being Dutch.
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Zealandic of most of Zeeland is a transitional regional language between
West Flemish and Hollandic, with the exception of the eastern part of
Zealandic Flanders where East Flemish is spoken. In Holland proper,
Hollandic is spoken, though the original forms of this dialect, heavily
influenced by a Frisian substrate, are now relatively rare; the urban
dialects of the Randstad, which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from
standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city
dialects of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam or Utrecht.
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In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still
being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low
German have
been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of
streektaal (regional language) according to the European Charter for
Regional or Minority Languages, which causes some native speakers to
consider them separate languages. Some dialects are unintelligible to some
speakers of Hollandic.
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Dutch dialects are not spoken as often as they used to be. Nowadays in The
Netherlands only older people speak these dialects in the smaller villages,
with the exception of the Low Saxon and Limburgish streektalen, which are
actively promoted by some provinces and still in common use. Most towns and
cities stick to standard Dutch - although many cities have their own city
dialect, which continues to prosper. In Belgium dialects are very much alive
however; many senior citizens there are unable to speak standard Dutch. In
both the Netherlands and Belgium, many larger cities also have several
distinct smaller dialects.
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By many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands,
Afrikaans and
Frisian are often assumed to be very deviant dialects of Dutch. In fact,
they are two different languages,
Afrikaans having
evolved mainly from Dutch. There is no dialect continuum between the Frisian
and adjoining Low Saxon. A Frisian standard language has been developed.
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Until the early 20th century, variants of Dutch were still spoken by some
descendants of Dutch colonies in the United States. New Jersey in particular
had an active Dutch community with a highly divergent dialect that was
spoken as recently as the 1950s.
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The "HTML Bible" download contains the entire Bible with
each chapter as a web page in a single Zipped file. These are plain
ASCII text .htm files, suitable for almost any platform. To use, you
must save and unzip the .zip file using PKUNZIP or Winzip,
of which you can
get an evaluation copy from
www.winzip.com
The "SpeedBible" download contains a single file that does
not have to be unzipped, but requires that you save the file and open
with Internet Explorer 4.0 or better to use. It is in the Microsoft
"HTML Help" format, as used on MSDN. The "SpeedBible" has a
search engine, Index, Table of Contents, and is good for a standalone
PC.
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