Dutch (Nederlands (help·info)) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people, mainly in the Netherlands, Belgium and Suriname, but also by smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other West Germanic languages (ie. English, Frisian and German) and (to a lesser degree) the North Germanic languages. Dutch is a descendant of Old Frankish and is the parent language of Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa. Dutch and Afrikaans are to a large extent mutually intelligible, although they have separate spelling standards and dictionaries and have separate language regulators. Standard Dutch (Standaardnederlands) is the standard language of the major Dutch speaking-areas and is regulated by the Nederlandse Taalunie ("Dutch Language Union").
Dutch grammar also shares many traits with German, but has a less complicated morphology caused by deflexion, which puts it closer to English. Dutch has officially three genders, masculine, feminine, and neuter, however, according to some interpretations these are reduced to only two, common and neuter, which is similar to the gender systems of most Continental Scandinavian languages.
The consonant system of Dutch did not undergo the High German consonant shift and has more in common with how English and the Scandinavian languages, especially Swedish and Norwegian, are pronounced. Like most Germanic languages it has a syllable structure that allows fairly complex consonant clusters. Dutch is often noted for the prominent use of velar fricatives (ch and g, pronounced at the back of the mouth), often picked up on as a source of amusement or even satire.
Dutch vocabulary is predominantly Germanic in origin, considerably more so than English. This is to a large part due to the heavy influence of Norman French on English, and to Dutch patterns of word formation, such as the tendency to form long and sometimes very complicated compound nouns, being more similar to those of German and the Scandinavian languages.
One of the major dialect groups of Dutch, Flemish, is spoken in the southwestern Netherlands and the northwestern part of Belgium. The whole of Dutch variants spoken in Belgium is also often called "Flemish" and sometimes claimed to be a separate language, an issue which can be very controversial for the Dutch-speaking population of Belgium. Officially, both Belgium and the Netherlands adhere to Standard Dutch. The difference between Belgian and Netherlandic Dutch is roughly comparable to the difference between American and British English, though only pronunciation-wise as both countries use the same written standard. However, most Belgian Flemings, if asked what their mother-tongue is, will give it as Dutch rather than Flemish.
Names of the Dutch language
Main article: History of Dutch History
Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West Germanic language. Dutch did not experience the High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a Low Franconian language. There was at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low Saxon. In some small areas, there are still dialect continuums, but they are gradually becoming extinct.
Dutch is grammatically similar to German, such as in syntax and verb morphology (for a comparison of verb morphology in English, Dutch and German, see Germanic weak verb and Germanic strong verb).
Dutch has grammatical cases, but these are now mostly limited to pronouns and set phrases. Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter although masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender (de), whilst the neuter (het) remains distinct as before. The inflectional grammar of Dutch, for instance in adjective and noun endings, has been simplified over time.
For many English speakers, basic Dutch, when written, looks recognizable, but the pronunciation may be markedly different. This is true especially of the diphthongs and of the letter <g>, which is pronounced as a velar continuant. The rhotic pronunciation of <r> causes some English-speakers to believe Dutch sounds similar to a West Country accent; this is the reason for Bill Bryson's famous remark that when one hears Dutch one feels one ought to be able to understand it. Dutch pronunciation is, however, difficult to master for English speakers, its diphthongs and gutturals being the greatest obstacles.
Classification
Dutch is spoken by almost all inhabitants of the Netherlands and Flanders (the northern half of Belgium); in Flanders, it is often referred to by the dialect name Vlaams (Flemish). It is also spoken in the bilingual region of Brussels, together with French and other languages. In the northernmost part of France, the Dunkirk arrondissement in the Nord département, Dutch is still spoken as a minority language, also often called Vlaams. On the Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used, but is less common than Papiamento (Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire) and English (Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba). Dutch is spoken as a mother tongue by about 60% of the population in Suriname, most of whom are bilingual with Sranan Tongo or other ethnic languages (2005, Nederlandse Taalunie: [1], in Dutch). There are also some speakers of Dutch in countries with many Dutch and Flemish immigrants, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In South Africa and Namibia the closely-related language Afrikaans is spoken. There are also a number of Dutch speakers in Indonesia.
Geographic distribution
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'). Dutch was an official language in South Africa up until 1961 (it had fallen into disuse after Afrikaans became an official language in 1925). A noticeable minority of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 16,347 (0.4%) are sufficiently fluent in Dutch to carry on an everyday conversation.
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, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch Language Union defines what is AN and what is not.
Since efforts to uplift people came to be considered rather presumptuous, the earlier name Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands ('Common Civilized Dutch') and its abbreviation ABN have been replaced with Algemeen Nederlands and thus AN.
Official status
In Flanders, there are 4 main dialect groups: West Flemish (West-Vlaams), East Flemish (Oost-Vlaams), Brabantian (Brabants), which includes several main dialect branches, including Antwerpian, and Limburgish (Limburgs). Some of these dialects, especially West and East Flemish, have incorporated some French loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels is especially 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 Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, when they speak AN, their 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, except that the latter word has a 'y' /j/ sound embedded into the "soft g". When they speak their local dialect, however, their "g" is almost the "h" of the Algemeen Nederlands, and they do not pronounce the "h". Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a distinct variety. 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 part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and even in a small area near Dunkirk, France that borders Belgium.
The Netherlands also have different dialect regions. In the east there is an extensive Low Saxon 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) fades into the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. The same applies to Limburgish (Limburg (Netherlands)), but this variant also has the status of official regional language in the Netherlands (but not in Belgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish has been influenced by the Rhinelandic dialects like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch Platt, and has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.
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 substratum, 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.
In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low Saxon 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.
Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland, where it displaced Frisian in the 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian").
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, however, dialects are very much alive; 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.
Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and Frisian are 'deviant' dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are different languages, though Afrikaans has evolved mainly from Dutch. In fact, a (West) Frisian standard language has been developed.
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. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect. Russia also has some people today who speak Dutch with these dialects.
Dialects
One of the 11 official languages of South Africa, Afrikaans is derived from Dutch and is the mother tongue of about 15% of South Africa's population. It is also spoken or understood by many more. Afrikaans originated from modern Dutch (16th century-present).
Before the United Kingdom took control of South Africa from the Netherlands in 1814, the Afrikaans language (which wasn't called or considered Afrikaans at that time) was exposed to a steady stream of Dutch language influence, and the two languages were therefore almost identical. The differentiation and major changes from Dutch started when the Dutch settlers moved deep inland (Trek Boers). In addition, when the UK seized South Africa, the Dutch language spoken in South Africa was practically cut off from other Dutch-speaking areas, allowing the language to differentiate and evolve further. In 1922 the Afrikaans language was recognized as one of South Africa's official languages, alongside Dutch and English. Dutch was formally derecognized in South Africa only in 1984 (since 1961 it had merited only a mention in the legislation). By that time, however, it had no longer been in everyday official use for a long time.
The distinction of Afrikaans from the Dutch language was perhaps briefly in danger just after the Second World War when a great number of Dutch immigrants chose South Africa as their new homeland. However, the Afrikaans language survived the new influx of Dutch speakers, which might otherwise have turned Afrikaans into a mixed language. Almost all of the Dutch immigrants and their descendants now speak Afrikaans instead of Dutch, be it (in the case of the Dutch-born parents) with a slight accent. A great deal of mutual intelligibility still exists.
Someone who is able to speak Dutch usually can read and understand Afrikaans (especially when the native dialect is Hollandic, Zealandic, Flemish or Brabantic). There are also Dutch-based creole languages.
Derived languages
Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West Germanic language. Dutch did not experience the High German consonant shift (apart from the transition from /θ/ to /d/), and is a Low Franconian language. There was at one time a dialect continuum that blurred the boundary between Dutch and Low Saxon. In some small areas, there are still dialect continuums, but they are gradually becoming extinct.
Dutch is grammatically similar to German, such as in syntax and verb morphology (for a comparison of verb morphology in English, Dutch and German, see Germanic weak verb and Germanic strong verb).
Dutch has grammatical cases, but these are now mostly limited to pronouns and set phrases. Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter although masculine and feminine have merged to form the common gender (de), whilst the neuter (het) remains distinct as before. The inflectional grammar of Dutch, for instance in adjective and noun endings, has been simplified over time.
For many English speakers, basic Dutch, when written, looks recognizable, but the pronunciation may be markedly different. This is true especially of the diphthongs and of the letter <g>, which is pronounced as a velar continuant. The rhotic pronunciation of <r> causes some English-speakers to believe Dutch sounds similar to a West Country accent; this is the reason for Bill Bryson's famous remark that when one hears Dutch one feels one ought to be able to understand it. Dutch pronunciation is, however, difficult to master for English speakers, its diphthongs and gutturals being the greatest obstacles.
Classification
Dutch is spoken by almost all inhabitants of the Netherlands and Flanders (the northern half of Belgium); in Flanders, it is often referred to by the dialect name Vlaams (Flemish). It is also spoken in the bilingual region of Brussels, together with French and other languages. In the northernmost part of France, the Dunkirk arrondissement in the Nord département, Dutch is still spoken as a minority language, also often called Vlaams. On the Caribbean islands of Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used, but is less common than Papiamento (Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire) and English (Sint Maarten, Sint Eustatius, Saba). Dutch is spoken as a mother tongue by about 60% of the population in Suriname, most of whom are bilingual with Sranan Tongo or other ethnic languages (2005, Nederlandse Taalunie: [1], in Dutch). There are also some speakers of Dutch in countries with many Dutch and Flemish immigrants, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. In South Africa and Namibia the closely-related language Afrikaans is spoken. There are also a number of Dutch speakers in Indonesia.
Geographic distribution
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'). Dutch was an official language in South Africa up until 1961 (it had fallen into disuse after Afrikaans became an official language in 1925). A noticeable minority of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 16,347 (0.4%) are sufficiently fluent in Dutch to carry on an everyday conversation.
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, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch Language Union defines what is AN and what is not.
Since efforts to uplift people came to be considered rather presumptuous, the earlier name Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands ('Common Civilized Dutch') and its abbreviation ABN have been replaced with Algemeen Nederlands and thus AN.
Official status
In Flanders, there are 4 main dialect groups: West Flemish (West-Vlaams), East Flemish (Oost-Vlaams), Brabantian (Brabants), which includes several main dialect branches, including Antwerpian, and Limburgish (Limburgs). Some of these dialects, especially West and East Flemish, have incorporated some French loanwords in everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels is especially 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 Flemings (and to a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, when they speak AN, their 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, except that the latter word has a 'y' /j/ sound embedded into the "soft g". When they speak their local dialect, however, their "g" is almost the "h" of the Algemeen Nederlands, and they do not pronounce the "h". Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be considered as separate language variants, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been considered a distinct variety. 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 part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and even in a small area near Dunkirk, France that borders Belgium.
The Netherlands also have different dialect regions. In the east there is an extensive Low Saxon 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) fades into the dialects spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. The same applies to Limburgish (Limburg (Netherlands)), but this variant also has the status of official regional language in the Netherlands (but not in Belgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish has been influenced by the Rhinelandic dialects like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch Platt, and has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.
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 substratum, 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.
In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low Saxon 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.
Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland, where it displaced Frisian in the 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian").
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, however, dialects are very much alive; 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.
Many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands, assume that Afrikaans and Frisian are 'deviant' dialects of Dutch. In fact, they are different languages, though Afrikaans has evolved mainly from Dutch. In fact, a (West) Frisian standard language has been developed.
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. See Jersey Dutch for more on this dialect. Russia also has some people today who speak Dutch with these dialects.
Dialects
One of the 11 official languages of South Africa, Afrikaans is derived from Dutch and is the mother tongue of about 15% of South Africa's population. It is also spoken or understood by many more. Afrikaans originated from modern Dutch (16th century-present).
Before the United Kingdom took control of South Africa from the Netherlands in 1814, the Afrikaans language (which wasn't called or considered Afrikaans at that time) was exposed to a steady stream of Dutch language influence, and the two languages were therefore almost identical. The differentiation and major changes from Dutch started when the Dutch settlers moved deep inland (Trek Boers). In addition, when the UK seized South Africa, the Dutch language spoken in South Africa was practically cut off from other Dutch-speaking areas, allowing the language to differentiate and evolve further. In 1922 the Afrikaans language was recognized as one of South Africa's official languages, alongside Dutch and English. Dutch was formally derecognized in South Africa only in 1984 (since 1961 it had merited only a mention in the legislation). By that time, however, it had no longer been in everyday official use for a long time.
The distinction of Afrikaans from the Dutch language was perhaps briefly in danger just after the Second World War when a great number of Dutch immigrants chose South Africa as their new homeland. However, the Afrikaans language survived the new influx of Dutch speakers, which might otherwise have turned Afrikaans into a mixed language. Almost all of the Dutch immigrants and their descendants now speak Afrikaans instead of Dutch, be it (in the case of the Dutch-born parents) with a slight accent. A great deal of mutual intelligibility still exists.
Someone who is able to speak Dutch usually can read and understand Afrikaans (especially when the native dialect is Hollandic, Zealandic, Flemish or Brabantic). There are also Dutch-based creole languages.
Derived languages
Main article: Dutch phonology Sounds
The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four diphthongs. The vowels /eː/, /øː/, /oː/ are included on the diphthong chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple vowels. [ɐ] (a near-open central vowel) is an allophone of unstressed /a/ and /ɑ/.
Vowels
Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.
Notes:
1) [g] is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed words, like goal.
2) [ʔ] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words after /a/ and /ə/ and often also at the beginning of a word.
3) In some dialects, notably that of Amsterdam, the voiced fricatives have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and /v/ is usually realized as [f], /z/ is usually realized as [s], and /ɣ/ is usually realized as [x].
4) [ʃ] and [ʒ] are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in borrowed words, like show and bagage (baggage). And even then they are usually realized as [s].
5) The realization of the /r/ phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect. In "standard" Dutch, /r/ is realized as [r]. In many dialects it is realized as the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or even as the uvular trill [ʀ].
6) The realization of the /ʋ/ varies considerably from the Northern to the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. In the South, including Belgium, it is sometimes realized as [w]. Some, mainly Hollandic, dialects nearly pronounce it like [v].
Consonants
Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate in the second Germanic (High German) Sound Shift - compare German machen /-x-/ Dutch maken, English make, German Pfanne /pf-/, Dutch pan, English pan, German zwei /ts-/, Dutch twee, English two.
Dutch underwent a few changes of its own. For example, words in -old or -olt lost the l in favor of a diphthong as a result of vocalisation. Compare English old, German alt, Dutch oud.
Germanic */uː/ turned into /y/ through palatalization, which sound in turn became a diphthong /œy/, spelt 〈ui〉. Long */iː/ also diphthongized to /ɛi/, spelt 〈ij〉.
The phoneme /ɡ/ became a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, or a voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ (in the South: Flanders, Limburg).
Historical sound changes
Main article: Dutch grammar
Like all other continental West Germanic languages, Dutch has a word order that is markedly different from English, which presents a problem for some Anglophones learning Dutch. A simple example often used in Dutch language classes and text books is "Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is" which word-for-word translates to "I can my pen not find because it much too dark is" but actually translates to "I can't find my pen because it's much too dark". This can be explained by saying that the first (main) verb goes at the beginning of the sentence while all the remaining verbs go to the end. It must also be noted that Dutch (like German) often splits larger sentences into smaller ones, each of which can have distinctly different grammatical rules depending on what is actually being said and where the emphasis is placed.
The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ik (I), mij, me (me), mijn (my), wie (who), wiens (whose: masculine or feminine singular), wier (whose: masculine or feminine plural). Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except for the genitive of proper nouns (names): -'s or -'). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had already gradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (probably the 15th century) as in all continental West Germanic dialects.
Inflection of adjectives is a little more complicated: nothing with indefinite neuter nouns in singular and -e in all other cases:
een mooi huis (a beautiful house)
het mooie huis (the beautiful house)
mooie huizen (beautiful houses)
de mooie huizen (the beautiful houses)
een mooie vrouw (a beautiful woman)
More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like de heer des huizes (literally, the man of the house), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. Der Herr des Hauses) and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. in het jaar des Heren (Anno Domini), where "-en" is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Also in this case, German retains this feature.
Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -je for singular diminutive and -jes for plural diminutive. Between these suffixes and the radical can come extra letters depending on the ending of the word:
boom (tree) - boompje
ring (ring) - ringetje
koning (king) - koninkje
tien (ten) - tientje (a ten euro note)
Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: hondenhok (doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either uses the closed form without spaces, for example: boomhuis (Eng. tree house) or hyphenated: VVD-coryfee (outstanding member of the VVD, a political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be. The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is wapenstilstandsonderhandeling (ceasefire negotiation). Sometimes hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsterreinen (hottentot soldiers tents exhibition terrains) is jocularly quoted as the longest Dutch word (note the four times consecutive ten), but outside this usage it actually never occurs. Notwithstanding official spelling rules, many Dutch people nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately, which is sometimes dubbed "the English disease".
Grammar
The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four diphthongs. The vowels /eː/, /øː/, /oː/ are included on the diphthong chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple vowels. [ɐ] (a near-open central vowel) is an allophone of unstressed /a/ and /ɑ/.
Vowels
Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.
Notes:
1) [g] is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed words, like goal.
2) [ʔ] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before vowel-initial syllables within words after /a/ and /ə/ and often also at the beginning of a word.
3) In some dialects, notably that of Amsterdam, the voiced fricatives have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and /v/ is usually realized as [f], /z/ is usually realized as [s], and /ɣ/ is usually realized as [x].
4) [ʃ] and [ʒ] are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in borrowed words, like show and bagage (baggage). And even then they are usually realized as [s].
5) The realization of the /r/ phoneme varies considerably from dialect to dialect. In "standard" Dutch, /r/ is realized as [r]. In many dialects it is realized as the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or even as the uvular trill [ʀ].
6) The realization of the /ʋ/ varies considerably from the Northern to the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. In the South, including Belgium, it is sometimes realized as [w]. Some, mainly Hollandic, dialects nearly pronounce it like [v].
Consonants
Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate in the second Germanic (High German) Sound Shift - compare German machen /-x-/ Dutch maken, English make, German Pfanne /pf-/, Dutch pan, English pan, German zwei /ts-/, Dutch twee, English two.
Dutch underwent a few changes of its own. For example, words in -old or -olt lost the l in favor of a diphthong as a result of vocalisation. Compare English old, German alt, Dutch oud.
Germanic */uː/ turned into /y/ through palatalization, which sound in turn became a diphthong /œy/, spelt 〈ui〉. Long */iː/ also diphthongized to /ɛi/, spelt 〈ij〉.
The phoneme /ɡ/ became a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, or a voiced palatal fricative /ʝ/ (in the South: Flanders, Limburg).
Historical sound changes
Main article: Dutch grammar
Like all other continental West Germanic languages, Dutch has a word order that is markedly different from English, which presents a problem for some Anglophones learning Dutch. A simple example often used in Dutch language classes and text books is "Ik kan mijn pen niet vinden omdat het veel te donker is" which word-for-word translates to "I can my pen not find because it much too dark is" but actually translates to "I can't find my pen because it's much too dark". This can be explained by saying that the first (main) verb goes at the beginning of the sentence while all the remaining verbs go to the end. It must also be noted that Dutch (like German) often splits larger sentences into smaller ones, each of which can have distinctly different grammatical rules depending on what is actually being said and where the emphasis is placed.
The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ik (I), mij, me (me), mijn (my), wie (who), wiens (whose: masculine or feminine singular), wier (whose: masculine or feminine plural). Nouns and adjectives are not case inflected (except for the genitive of proper nouns (names): -'s or -'). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had already gradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (probably the 15th century) as in all continental West Germanic dialects.
Inflection of adjectives is a little more complicated: nothing with indefinite neuter nouns in singular and -e in all other cases:
een mooi huis (a beautiful house)
het mooie huis (the beautiful house)
mooie huizen (beautiful houses)
de mooie huizen (the beautiful houses)
een mooie vrouw (a beautiful woman)
More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized expressions like de heer des huizes (literally, the man of the house), etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the genitive case which is still used in German, cf. Der Herr des Hauses) and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found too, e.g. in het jaar des Heren (Anno Domini), where "-en" is actually the genitive ending of the weak noun. Also in this case, German retains this feature.
Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -je for singular diminutive and -jes for plural diminutive. Between these suffixes and the radical can come extra letters depending on the ending of the word:
boom (tree) - boompje
ring (ring) - ringetje
koning (king) - koninkje
tien (ten) - tientje (a ten euro note)
Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example: hondenhok (doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either uses the closed form without spaces, for example: boomhuis (Eng. tree house) or hyphenated: VVD-coryfee (outstanding member of the VVD, a political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds, but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be. The longest serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is wapenstilstandsonderhandeling (ceasefire negotiation). Sometimes hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsterreinen (hottentot soldiers tents exhibition terrains) is jocularly quoted as the longest Dutch word (note the four times consecutive ten), but outside this usage it actually never occurs. Notwithstanding official spelling rules, many Dutch people nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately, which is sometimes dubbed "the English disease".
Grammar
Main articles: Wiktionary:Category:Dutch language, Wiktionary:Category:Dutch derivations, and List of Romanic words in the Dutch language with a Germanic alternative Vocabulary
Main articles: Dutch alphabet and Dutch orthography Writing system
The number of non-native speakers of Dutch who voluntarily learn the language is small. This is partly because Dutch is not geographically widespread and because in its home countries the Netherlands and Belgium most of its speakers are proficient in other European languages. In the Netherlands German is spoken with varying levels of proficiency (especially in the regions bordering Germany) and the language is part of the core curriculum in schools for 2-5 years. In Belgium, German is less widely spoken, and not always required, but is still spoken by a considerable number of people.
French is also taught for 2-6 years in the Netherlands, but it is not as widely spoken. In Flanders (Belgium) French is required from age 10 to 18 (from 8 to 18 for Dutch-language schools in bilingual Brussels) and is quite widely spoken, not so strange when one considers that the southern half of Belgium is Francophone. But on the other hand, Francophone Belgians are far less proficient in Dutch; recently, Walloon schools (but not French-language schools in Brussels) were allowed to choose to teach English as first foreign language, instead of Dutch.
In the Netherlands, English is taught in schools from a young age - starting in the second highest grade in elementary school from age 10 or 11, and in Flanders from the age of 12 or 13, but typically until the completion of secondary education. Most universities in the two countries, recognizing the importance of the English language in the modern world, continue to teach the language to those students who need to improve their skills. As a result English is spoken throughout the Netherlands and Belgium with members of the younger generation sometimes being fluent or near fluent speakers. The majority of the population of both countries speaks some English.
Some non-native residents of the Netherlands and of Belgium have never learnt to speak Dutch, probably because of a perception of its difficulties. Moreover, and especially in Belgium, the difference between the standard language and the language people speak (their local dialect or, more often, a version of the standard language heavily influenced by it) can be very important and cause difficulties. In addition, native Dutch speakers themselves are often so linguistically proficient that they will try to help a struggling Dutch learner by replying in his or her own (second) language – usually English, or in Belgium also French.
Pronunciation can be a challenge as many of the Dutch vowel sounds are difficult for non native speakers. Diphthongs such as the "ui" sound in such words as "zuid" (south) or "huis" (house), the "eu" in "keuze" (choice) or "sleutel" (key), and the "ij" sound in words like "mijt" (mite) or "wijn" (wine) present difficulties and even though some of these words are superficially like their English equivalents the correct sound is very different.
Another issue with pronunciation is the "ch"-sound, which Dutch native speakers pronounce as /x/. It has no counterpart in English. Anglo-saxons sometimes make fun of this feature of the Dutch language, and even speakers of Dutch who are well aware of this phonological speciality sometimes ironise it — for example Tom Meyer, a radio commentator, used to say on air that "Dutch isn't a language; it's a disease of the throat." There is a well-known Second World War anecdote in which the name of Dutch town Scheveningen was used as a Shibboleth by the Dutch Resistance, as there is also no counterpart in German. Therefore native German speakers will pronounce the sch in Scheveningen as /ʃ/ (as in the English word short), while Dutch native speakers will pronounce it as /sx/. This linguistic difference provided a good mechanism to uncover German spies in the ranks of the Dutch resistance.
Its cohesiveness sometimes also produces words that might baffle speakers of other languages due to the high amount of consecutive consonants, such as the word "angstschreeuw" (help·info) (ɑŋstsxre:ɥ) (scream in fear), which has grand total of eight in a row (ngstschr) (although the ng and ch are digraphs). It has to be noted though that the pronunciation of a word can differ greatly from its written form. In this case, "angstschreeuw" actually features 6 consonants (ng-s-t-s-ch-r) originating from two distinct compounded words ("angst" and "schreeuw"), which is reduced further in everyday pronunciation by blending consecutive consonants into one sound - e.g. "ch" and "r".
Native speakers of German usually have the biggest advantage of all people when learning Dutch from a grammar and vocabulary point of view but almost always struggle with the pronunciation. However, those residents or visitors who do learn some Dutch will be rewarded, not only by the extra fillip this gives to their understanding of Dutch history and culture, but also because it will enable them to converse with people in areas away from the big cities where other languages are less commonly spoken and experience other Dutch culture.
Dutch as a foreign language
Examples
Popular misconceptions
Further information: Flanders, Flemish (linguistics)
Dutch is the language of government, education, and daily life in both the Netherlands and the Flemish Region, the northern part of Belgium. There is no officially recognized language called Flemish, and both the Dutch and Belgian governments adhere to the standard Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands) defined by the Nederlandse Taalunie ("Dutch Language Union").
The actual differences between the spoken standard language of Dutch and Belgian speakers are comparable to the differences between American and British English. Some of these differences are recognized by the Taalunie and major dictionaries as being interchangeably valid, although some dictionaries and grammars may mark them as being more prevalent in one region or the other.
The use of the word Vlaams ("Flemish") to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in the Flemish Region and used there, is common in the Netherlands and Belgium. Flemish is also a collective term used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium.
German dialect
Dutch does have a relatively close genetic relationship to the descendants of Middle English (such as English and Scots), since both belong to the West Germanic languages and both lack most or all of the High German consonant shift that characterizes the descendants of Middle High German (such as German and Yiddish).
Frisian, however, is even more closely related to the Middle English descendants than Dutch. Languages and dialects sharing some features found in English and Frisian are referred to as Anglo-Frisian languages or, occasionally, Ingvaeonic languages.
Relation to English
Pennsylvania Dutch, a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, is not a form of Dutch. The word "Dutch" has historically been used for all speakers of continental West Germanic languages, including, the Dutch people, Flemish, Austrians, Germans, and the German-speaking Swiss. It is cognate with the Dutch archaism Diets, meaning "Dutch", and the German self-designation Deutsch. The use of the term "Dutch" exclusively for the language of Belgium, or for the inhabitants of the Netherlands or some of its former colonies, dates from the early 16th century.
Pennsylvania Dutch
English speakers do not have any problem in distinguishing between the words Dutch and 'Deutsch'. The former being the English word for the language known to its native speakers as 'Nederlands' and the latter the word given by its native speakers to the language known in English as German, which encompasses both High German and Low German as spoken in Germany. The word "Dutch" derived from the Middle Dutch word of the 16th century 'Dietsch' or 'Duitsch' which was the native word of the time for the Dutch language. Over time this word has become the modern Dutch word 'Duits' meaning the German language (Deutsch).
See also
(Dutch) Nederlandse Taalunie & Taalunieversum (Dutch Language Union)
Genootschap Onze Taal
Linguasphere on dialects of the Dutch language and other languages
History of the Dutch Language
Ethnologue report for Dutch
Euromosaic - Dutch in France - The status of Dutch in France
Sampa for Dutch
Free Dutch Tutorial
Dutch 101 - Basic information on the Dutch language as well as translations and videos.
Dutch and Afrikaans with Japanese translation incl.sound files
The number of non-native speakers of Dutch who voluntarily learn the language is small. This is partly because Dutch is not geographically widespread and because in its home countries the Netherlands and Belgium most of its speakers are proficient in other European languages. In the Netherlands German is spoken with varying levels of proficiency (especially in the regions bordering Germany) and the language is part of the core curriculum in schools for 2-5 years. In Belgium, German is less widely spoken, and not always required, but is still spoken by a considerable number of people.
French is also taught for 2-6 years in the Netherlands, but it is not as widely spoken. In Flanders (Belgium) French is required from age 10 to 18 (from 8 to 18 for Dutch-language schools in bilingual Brussels) and is quite widely spoken, not so strange when one considers that the southern half of Belgium is Francophone. But on the other hand, Francophone Belgians are far less proficient in Dutch; recently, Walloon schools (but not French-language schools in Brussels) were allowed to choose to teach English as first foreign language, instead of Dutch.
In the Netherlands, English is taught in schools from a young age - starting in the second highest grade in elementary school from age 10 or 11, and in Flanders from the age of 12 or 13, but typically until the completion of secondary education. Most universities in the two countries, recognizing the importance of the English language in the modern world, continue to teach the language to those students who need to improve their skills. As a result English is spoken throughout the Netherlands and Belgium with members of the younger generation sometimes being fluent or near fluent speakers. The majority of the population of both countries speaks some English.
Some non-native residents of the Netherlands and of Belgium have never learnt to speak Dutch, probably because of a perception of its difficulties. Moreover, and especially in Belgium, the difference between the standard language and the language people speak (their local dialect or, more often, a version of the standard language heavily influenced by it) can be very important and cause difficulties. In addition, native Dutch speakers themselves are often so linguistically proficient that they will try to help a struggling Dutch learner by replying in his or her own (second) language – usually English, or in Belgium also French.
Pronunciation can be a challenge as many of the Dutch vowel sounds are difficult for non native speakers. Diphthongs such as the "ui" sound in such words as "zuid" (south) or "huis" (house), the "eu" in "keuze" (choice) or "sleutel" (key), and the "ij" sound in words like "mijt" (mite) or "wijn" (wine) present difficulties and even though some of these words are superficially like their English equivalents the correct sound is very different.
Another issue with pronunciation is the "ch"-sound, which Dutch native speakers pronounce as /x/. It has no counterpart in English. Anglo-saxons sometimes make fun of this feature of the Dutch language, and even speakers of Dutch who are well aware of this phonological speciality sometimes ironise it — for example Tom Meyer, a radio commentator, used to say on air that "Dutch isn't a language; it's a disease of the throat." There is a well-known Second World War anecdote in which the name of Dutch town Scheveningen was used as a Shibboleth by the Dutch Resistance, as there is also no counterpart in German. Therefore native German speakers will pronounce the sch in Scheveningen as /ʃ/ (as in the English word short), while Dutch native speakers will pronounce it as /sx/. This linguistic difference provided a good mechanism to uncover German spies in the ranks of the Dutch resistance.
Its cohesiveness sometimes also produces words that might baffle speakers of other languages due to the high amount of consecutive consonants, such as the word "angstschreeuw" (help·info) (ɑŋstsxre:ɥ) (scream in fear), which has grand total of eight in a row (ngstschr) (although the ng and ch are digraphs). It has to be noted though that the pronunciation of a word can differ greatly from its written form. In this case, "angstschreeuw" actually features 6 consonants (ng-s-t-s-ch-r) originating from two distinct compounded words ("angst" and "schreeuw"), which is reduced further in everyday pronunciation by blending consecutive consonants into one sound - e.g. "ch" and "r".
Native speakers of German usually have the biggest advantage of all people when learning Dutch from a grammar and vocabulary point of view but almost always struggle with the pronunciation. However, those residents or visitors who do learn some Dutch will be rewarded, not only by the extra fillip this gives to their understanding of Dutch history and culture, but also because it will enable them to converse with people in areas away from the big cities where other languages are less commonly spoken and experience other Dutch culture.
Dutch as a foreign language
Examples
Popular misconceptions
Further information: Flanders, Flemish (linguistics)
Dutch is the language of government, education, and daily life in both the Netherlands and the Flemish Region, the northern part of Belgium. There is no officially recognized language called Flemish, and both the Dutch and Belgian governments adhere to the standard Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands) defined by the Nederlandse Taalunie ("Dutch Language Union").
The actual differences between the spoken standard language of Dutch and Belgian speakers are comparable to the differences between American and British English. Some of these differences are recognized by the Taalunie and major dictionaries as being interchangeably valid, although some dictionaries and grammars may mark them as being more prevalent in one region or the other.
The use of the word Vlaams ("Flemish") to describe Standard Dutch for the variations prevalent in the Flemish Region and used there, is common in the Netherlands and Belgium. Flemish is also a collective term used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium.
German dialect
Dutch does have a relatively close genetic relationship to the descendants of Middle English (such as English and Scots), since both belong to the West Germanic languages and both lack most or all of the High German consonant shift that characterizes the descendants of Middle High German (such as German and Yiddish).
Frisian, however, is even more closely related to the Middle English descendants than Dutch. Languages and dialects sharing some features found in English and Frisian are referred to as Anglo-Frisian languages or, occasionally, Ingvaeonic languages.
Relation to English
Pennsylvania Dutch, a West Central German variety called Deitsch by its speakers, is not a form of Dutch. The word "Dutch" has historically been used for all speakers of continental West Germanic languages, including, the Dutch people, Flemish, Austrians, Germans, and the German-speaking Swiss. It is cognate with the Dutch archaism Diets, meaning "Dutch", and the German self-designation Deutsch. The use of the term "Dutch" exclusively for the language of Belgium, or for the inhabitants of the Netherlands or some of its former colonies, dates from the early 16th century.
Pennsylvania DutchEnglish speakers do not have any problem in distinguishing between the words Dutch and 'Deutsch'. The former being the English word for the language known to its native speakers as 'Nederlands' and the latter the word given by its native speakers to the language known in English as German, which encompasses both High German and Low German as spoken in Germany. The word "Dutch" derived from the Middle Dutch word of the 16th century 'Dietsch' or 'Duitsch' which was the native word of the time for the Dutch language. Over time this word has become the modern Dutch word 'Duits' meaning the German language (Deutsch).
See also
(Dutch) Nederlandse Taalunie & Taalunieversum (Dutch Language Union)
Genootschap Onze Taal
Linguasphere on dialects of the Dutch language and other languages
History of the Dutch Language
Ethnologue report for Dutch
Euromosaic - Dutch in France - The status of Dutch in France
Sampa for Dutch
Free Dutch Tutorial
Dutch 101 - Basic information on the Dutch language as well as translations and videos.
Dutch and Afrikaans with Japanese translation incl.sound files
