Dutch.

A linguistic history of Holland and

Belgium

Bruce Donaldson

bron
Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium. Uitgeverij Martinus Nijhoff,
Leiden 1983

Zie voor verantwoording: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/dona001dutc02_01/colofon.php

© 2013 dbnl / Bruce Donaldson

 II

To my mother

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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Preface
There has long been a need for a book in English about the Dutch language that
presents important, interesting information in a form accessible even to those who
know no Dutch and have no immediate intention of learning it. The need for such a
book became all the more obvious to me, when, once employed in a position that
entailed the dissemination of Dutch language and culture in an Anglo-Saxon society,
I was continually amazed by the ignorance that prevails with regard to the Dutch
language, even among colleagues involved in the teaching of other European
languages. How often does one hear that Dutch is a dialect of German, or that
Flemish and Dutch are closely related (but presumably separate) languages? To
my knowledge there has never been a book in English that sets out to clarify such
1.
matters and to present other relevant issues to the general and studying public.
Holland's contributions to European and world history, to art, to shipbuilding,
hydraulic engineering, bulb growing and cheese manufacture for example, are all
aspects of Dutch culture which have attracted the interest of other nations, and
consequently there are numerous books in English and other languages on these
subjects. But the language of the people that achieved so much in all those fields
has been almost completely neglected by other nations, and to a degree even by
the Dutch themselves who have long been admired for their polyglot talents but
whose lack of interest in their own language seems never to have disturbed them.
And so the task of writing a book about Dutch in a language other than Dutch has
fallen to a foreigner, but it is one I'm only too keen to fulfill. I have had close contact
with the Netherlands for over a decade now during which time I have come to cherish
many aspects of Dutch culture, but none so much as the language. This book is the
result of my twelve year old ‘affair’ with the Dutch language.
After English and German, Dutch is the most important Germanic language,
spoken by some twenty million people in Holland and Belgium. Outside the Low
Countries it is little known or studied, although many more universities in the world
teach Dutch than is generally realised. I hope this book will go some way towards
enthusing those readers who do not yet know any Dutch, into reaching for a grammar
and delving further into the language.
There are numerous books in English on the development of French and German
which are intensively used by the English-speaking student of those languages, so
there must be room for at least one on Dutch. There is actually more available in
English on Frisian than there is on Dutch, a fact which seems to have

1. The one exception to this statement is a booklet which appeared while this book was being
prepared: ‘Dutch - the language of twenty million Dutch and Flemish people’, published by
the Stichting Ons Erfdeel, Rekkem, Belgium, 1981.

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been overlooked by Dutch scholars. I expect a common reaction among academics

teaching Dutch to be that their students should be able to consult reputable Dutch
works on the topic and thus have no need of a book such as this. Why then, I ask
such critics, does this argument not apply to French and German in which the tertiary
student has usually had a school background, unlike Dutch, which is nearly always
commenced after leaving school?
The Dutch language sources which I have drawn on for my information are,
generally speaking, now somewhat old, not written in a Dutch that is easy for
foreigners to follow, and most go into far greater detail than is necessary for the
undergraduate student. What is more, the subject matter of the various chapters of
this book is only to be found in numerous Dutch books - no one Dutch language
text covers everything I have here, which makes acquisition of all relevant texts
expensive and difficult, or even impossible.
The originality of this book lies in the synthesis of the material. Most of it is available
only in Dutch, which, quite apart from being inaccessible to the English speaker, is
often unpalatable even to the Dutch speaker because the Dutch texts are so
antiquated or erudite or usually both. This fact has no doubt been partially responsible
for the waning in interest in historical grammar among students of Dutch in Holland
and Belgium that has occurred over the last few years. Much of what I present here
is extremely basic, but precisely because it is so basic, and yet has never been
available in English, it is high time that it appears in a book such as this. The chapter
on historical phonology is an example of a new approach to a well documented
subject: whereas all previous Dutch works on the topic have presumed (formerly
rightly, but increasingly wrongly) that the reader had a knowledge of Gothic and
Common Germanic, and thus they worked forward from the oldest forms of sounds
to what they are in Dutch today, I have reversed the process. Nowadays most people
have not done any Gothic, not even students of Germanic languages - at least this
is the case in the Anglo-Saxon world - and therefore it makes more sense to work
back from the known, i.e. the sounds as they are today, to the unknown, i.e. the
sounds as they were in Common Germanic times. And because people tend to think
in terms of how sounds are written, rather than how they are pronounced, I have
taken the graphemes as the starting point. Continual contrast with English and
German also helps to illustrate what is being explained - after all ohne Vergleichung,
kein Verständnis.
As many of these matters are normally only discussed in Dutch, I was often faced
with the difficulty of how to render certain concepts in English. For example, the
main dialects of Dutch are called in Dutch Hollands, Brabants, Vlaams etc. but how
should one refer to them in English? Vlaams can clearly be translated by the word
Flemish, but Hollands and Brabants? Some writers have called them Hollandic,
Brabantic etc. I find this however rather forced, as indeed is also the word
Netherlandic which does nevertheless seem to enjoy some support, chiefly in
America. I have opted for leaving such Dutch words untranslated, as I have also
done with the words plat, cultuurtaal, beschaafd and Randstad, for example. Thus
such words appear in the text in italics, but they are defined in the glossary.
It is perhaps also necessary to defend my use of the word Holland, as used in
the title for example, where it refers to what is otherwise known as the Netherlands.
I maintain that whatever the feelings of the Dutch may be on the use of Holland and

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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Nederland in Dutch, the attitude of the English speaker is quite different.

Anglo-Saxons think of the country primarily as Holland and to refer to it consistently
as the Netherlands, as I would have done had this book been written in Dutch,
sounds unnatural and even pedantic. If and when the term Holland is used in
reference to the former county of Holland (i.e. the present-day provinces of North
and South Holland), this is made clear in the text. Where the word Hollands has
been left untranslated, it refers to the dialect of those provinces and is not used as
a synonym of Nederlands which is rendered by the word ‘Dutch’.
There has always been an overwhelming emphasis in language departments at
Anglo-Saxon universities on the literature of the languages concerned, which has
not been the case to anything like the same extent in Holland and Belgium. Tertiary
students enrol to do a foreign language and once they have progressed beyond the
basics of the grammar, they find that the language is often subordinate to the
literature. I make a plea with the appearance of this book for Dutch studies at
English-speaking universities not to go or continue to go in the same direction as
French, German and Italian studies; an interest in the language in its own right
should be encouraged, with or without an accompanying study of the literature of
the language in question. Often the study of language history is either brushed off
as too difficult for undergraduates or, alternatively, it is pooh-poohed as being a
waste of time - the latter reaction is always a sad reflection of the ignorance of the
speaker, whereas the ‘difficulty’ of historical language study, particularly of historical
phonology, will, it is hoped, be alleviated by the approach I have employed in this
book.
The interest in the historical study of Dutch I hope to generate with this book will
encourage some readers to want to read more. With this in mind, every chapter is
accompanied by a bibliography of works (including a commentary on the relative
worth, importance, difficulty etc. of the books) on that facet of Dutch studies dealt
with in each chapter. This book can thus be regarded as the Anglo-Saxon student's
first introduction to the interesting world of the Dutch language and can be used as
a stepping stone into the wealth of literature that exists in Dutch on the topic.
The structure of the book warrants a word of explanation at this point. Section 1,
the present, is likely to be of use to people who, at least initially, have no need of
section 2. It is intended primarily for those with no knowledge of the language who
wish to know what the learning of Dutch entails and/or how it differs from, or is similar
to, English and German. Section 2 part A, the external history of the language,
should be of equal use to both those who do and those who don't know any Dutch,
whereas part B, the historical grammar, will probably only be fully appreciated by
those with more advanced knowledge of the language. By incorporating section 1
and 2 in the same book. I am, it is true, trying to kill several birds with the one stone.
I should perhaps point out one apparent inconsistency in the structure of the book.
Whereas the chapters on modern phonology and morphology have parallel chapters
in the historical section, I have not included an historical counterpart to chapter 7,
the chapter on word order. This is in part a reflection of the situation as it is in Holland
and Belgium. There has simply been very little done on the historical syntax of Dutch,
and what has been done, is so rudimentary and unsystematic as to be unsuitable
for incorporation in a book such as this.

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Originally I intended incorporating chapters on Frisian and Afrikaans, but on reflection

I decided against this. Firstly, to have done so would have made the book rather
long and secondly, although Frisian and even Afrikaans could be said to be part of
the ‘linguistic history of Holland and Belgium’, I would not have wanted to imply that
they are not separate languages. In addition, there is already a number of texts in
English on Frisian, as previously mentioned, and although this is certainly not the
case for Afrikaans, the subject really warrants greater treatment than an additional
chapter in this book could have given it. This is not to say, however, that I have not
referred regularly to Afrikaans where the situation there is able to shed light on the
situation in the Netherlands.
Because of the rather large scope of this book and the diversity of people that it
is intended for, I have attempted to make it complete in itself - thus the glossary
which includes an explanation of many terms that may be known to the linguist, but
will be new to many laymen. Similarly a knowledge of the history of the Low Countries
is useful for a thorough understanding of some of the issues covered in this book
but I have not presupposed an acquaintance with Dutch and Belgian history.
Therefore, on occasions, there are quite extensive accounts of historical events that
are integral to an understanding of the linguistic concepts being discussed. An
example of this is the quite detailed chapter on events in Belgium, where, in order
to understand the present, an account of past events is unavoidable; thus the
occurrence of a basically historical chapter in section 1.
Of course I have had to be selective in deciding what to incorporate and what to
exclude. Some people will undoubtedly disagree with aspects of the selection I have
made. My criterion for inclusion of data in this work has been largely what I myself
have found either interesting or important about the Dutch language over the years
of my acquaintance with it. On occasions I even resort to personal impressions and
opinions that may not be shared by others but which are based on my experience
of Holland and Belgium as a native-speaker of English from the ‘colonies’. For
example, some of my comments on upper and lower class usage and attitudes to
Belgium many a Dutch or Belgian academic may be unprepared to put in the same
terms; but as an outsider looking in, I can, I feel, be permitted to convey the
impressions I have received.

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Acknowledgements
My sincere thanks are due in the first instance to Mrs. A. Heineke-Sieuwerts for the
many hours she spent deciphering my untidy hand in the preparation of the
type-written manuscripts. Also the secretary of the Department of Germanic Studies,
Mrs. M. Nogeste, is to be thanked for the assistance she lent in successful completion
of the manuscript. But this book would certainly never have seen the light of day
had my employer, the University of Melbourne, not granted me sabbatical leave in
1980-81 and thus relieved me of teaching and administrative duties. The university
also made generous sums of money available from time to time for typing and the
drawing of the maps, the work of Mr. R. Bartlett of the Geography Department of
the University of Melbourne. I am also indebted to Mr. R. Martens for the compilation
of the index and to Dr. M. Klein from the Catholic University of Nijmegen for his
careful reading of the manuscript and the valuable suggestions he made.
Finally a word of thanks to the Instituut voor Oudgermaanse, Skandinavische en
Friese Taal- en Letterkunde at the State University of Utrecht for making a room
and library facilities available to me during the period of the said study leave.

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Abbreviations and Symbols

acc. - accusative (case)

Afr. - Afrikaans
D. - Dutch
dat. - dative (case)
E. - English
Eng. - English
e.g. - for example
F. - feminine
fem. - feminine
Fris. - Frisian
G. - German
Germ. - German
gen. - genitive (case)
Gmc. - Germanic
IE. - Indo-European
i.e - that is
infl. - inflected
interr. - interrogative
It. - Italian
Lat. - Latin
lit. - literally
M. - masculine
masc. - masculine
ME. - Middle English
MNL. - Middle Dutch (lit.
Middelnederlands)
n. - neuter
NHG. - Modern German
- (lit. New High German)
NNL. - Modern Dutch
- (lit. Nieuwnederlands)
nom. - nominative (case)

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

OWLF. - Old West Low Franconian
(i.e. Old Dutch prior to
1100)
p. - page
part. - participle
pej. - pejorative
pl. - plural
pron. - pronounced

sing. - singular
Wgmc. - West Germanic
ä, ô, û etc. = original long vowel in
Germanic
ā, ō, ū etc. = long vowel of later origin
(usually by lengthening in
open syllable)
ǎ, ǒ, ǔ etc. = short vowel
> = became, changed into
< = is derived from
[] = phonetic transcription
(usual meaning)
* = a reconstructed form
(placed before a word)

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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Section 1 The Present

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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Map 1: The Netherlands and Belgium showing provincial borders and main cities.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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1 What is Dutch?
Dutch is the mother tongue of some 14 million people living in the Kingdom of the
Netherlands (also known as Holland), of some 6 million so-called Flemings living in
Belgium (the remaining 4 million Walloons speak French) and is also spoken by a
chiefly rural population numbering about 150,000 in the north-west of France (French
Flanders). In addition, it is the official language of the Republic of Surinam and of
the Leeward group of islands of the Dutch Antilles (Curaçao, Aruba and Bonaire) -
this is not to say that it is necessarily the mother tongue of these peoples, but it is
spoken by most of the population (250,000 and 264,000 respectively). Although
Indonesia has been independent since 1948, there are still many older people who
were educated under the Dutch in the former Dutch East Indies and who still speak
the language very well. After the war approximately 300,000 Indonesians chose to
move to Holland where all assimilated, at least linguistically, very well. In the years
prior to the granting of independence to Surinam (Dutch Guyana), many of the
Creoles, Indians, Negroes, Javanese and Chinese chose to move to Holland (half
of the population in fact) and these people have also been linguistically assimilated.
Surinamers have, in effect, continued to arrive in Holland since their independence
in November 1975. It should also not be forgotten that hundreds of thousands of
people left the Netherlands, in the 1950's in particular, to settle in Canada, U.S.A.,
Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Many of these have retained their mother
tongue, although many have not preserved it as well as other similar migrant groups
in the countries mentioned.
Afrikaans, which has gradually developed from the Dutch of the first settlers that
arrived in South Africa in the seventeenth century, is spoken by about 5 million
people as mother tongue (2½ million Whites and 2½ million Cape Coloureds) and
is used by millions more of all races as a second or third language. It is reasonably
easily understood by speakers of Dutch, particularly in its written form.
So what might at first glance appear to be one of Europe's minor languages is,
in fact, spoken by a considerable number of people in the world as a whole. When
looked at in an historical perspective there was of course a time when the Dutch
sailed the high seas to every corner of the earth where their influence was felt and
their language used. The few Dutch-speaking areas outside Europe mentioned
above are the meagre remains of that period.
As this book is to deal with many different aspects of the concept Dutch, definition
of a certain number of terms is imperative at this early stage. The terms I will attempt
to define in the following paragraphs can be quite confusing, often having more than
one meaning depending on context and the point of view of the user. They have
also often led to misconceptions which are wide-spread both within Holland and
abroad, not the least in English-speaking countries.

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Dutch

It may have struck the reader as strange that the country should be known as Holland
or the Netherlands and yet the people and their language are designated by the
word ‘Dutch’. Those with a knowledge of German will immediately recognise the
word as being cognate with Deutsch but probably still wonder how this semantic
shift occurred. After all, in Dutch itself the word Duits (formerly spelt Duitsch - see
p. 41) means German too.
It is worth spending a little time on the origin and connotations of these cognate
words as it is both an interesting and an important issue in a book such as this.
1.
Etymologically these forms are all to be traced back to a Germanic word * eoda
(tribe, people) and the adjective pertaining to this word, * eodisk. The word was
first recorded in latinised form in the second half of the eighth century i.e. in the
Carolingian era and area and thus very close to, if not in the Netherlands. The word
occurs in Old High German as diutisk. By this time many of the Germanic peoples
that had moved southwards during the Great Migrations (see p. 85) were becoming
romanised and the term frankisk, for instance, was already ambiguous. An
unambiguous name to denote the Germanic speech of the area, as opposed to the
Vulgar Latin Speech of Gaul as well as the Latin of the Church and the learned, was
theudisk i.e. the language of the people. Subsequently it came to denote all the
German peoples. Further cognate forms are Teutonic, often used as a synonym for
Germanic, and the Italian word tedesco (German).
The Germanic peoples of both the Low Countries and Germany called themselves
Duits(ch)ers/Deutsche and their language Duits(ch)/Deutsch, although from the
seventeenth century on the designation Nederduits (Low German) was commonly
used in Holland, as it was in the north of Germany where the concept it designated
was in fact somewhat different. In Germany the term Niederdeutsch refers to all
those German dialects, most of the which are Saxon based, that did not take part
in the Second German Sound Shift (see p. 123) and which do not form the basis of
the standard written and spoken language known as Hochdeutsch.
According to the Oxford Dictionary entry under ‘Dutch’, Germany was known to
its inhabitants from the 12th and 13th centuries as Deutschland and in the 15th and
16th centuries the word ‘Dutch’ in English meant German, including the Low German
of the Netherlands. When the Netherlands became an independent state in the late
16th century and then emerged in the 17th century as a great seafaring nation, in
which capacity there was much contact with England, the word underwent a
narrowing of meaning in English and came to designate simply the (Low) Dutch of
the Seven United Provinces, otherwise known in English as the Dutch Republic. In
Holland the word retained its original ambiguous meaning until the late 19th century,
2.
although usually in the form Nederduits ; it gradually ceded to the less ambiguous
Nederlands in the early 20th century.
Dutch also knows an Ablaut variant of the word Duits, namely Diets. Seen

1. It is conventional in historical linguistics to place an asterisk beside reconstructed forms to

indicate that they are only hypothetical. The symbol is a former rune which is used to
designate voiceless th.
2. The word is still preserved in the names of two of the Dutch Reformed Churches in South
Africa, die Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk, die Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk.

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historically, the modern word Duits is derived from the Middle Dutch duutsc, the
Hollands form of the word, whereas dietsc was the Flemish form in the Middle Ages.
What were thus originally merely regional variants of the same word are now separate
words. Diets is or has been used in some circles to designate Dutch, particularly
the idea of the whole Dutch-speaking area e.g. Dietsgezind (pro-Diets). The term
Diets was commonly used by the NSB, the Dutch Nazi movement. An interesting
remnant of its former wider use is the expression iemand iets diets maken - to make
something clear to someone (lit. to explain it in the vernacular).

Nederlands

The most common and only official designation for Dutch in the language itself is
Nederlands (formerly Nederlandsch). As was mentioned above, this term fully
replaced Nederduits as the most usual name from the beginning of the twentieth
century although it was commonly used long before that time. Some early English
books refer to Dutch as Low Dutch, a literal translation of Nederduits. Standard
Dutch, which is discussed in more detail on p. 17, is called Algemeen Beschaafd
Nederlands (General Cultivated Dutch) and is often referred to by the abbreviation
ABN. During the last few years there has been a concerted effort in Belgium to
replace the word Vlaams (see below) in all official titles and correspondence by the
word Nederlands, reinforcing the idea that there is in fact no distinction between
Nederlands and Vlaams, e.g. the Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Taal en
Letterkunde in Ghent had its name so changed in the said period. In speech the
term still competes with Vlaams in Belgium and in the Netherlands it competes with
the word Hollands (see below). In linguistic and other learned circles the terms
Noord-en Zuidnederlands are often used when it is necessary to make a distinction
between the Dutch of Holland and that of Belgium. For instance, Van Dale's
dictionary, the one most commonly consulted in both countries for the final word on
language issues, designates peculiarly Belgian words and phrases as
Zuidnederlands, this in keeping with the name Zuidelijke Nederlanden, which is
often used in historical contexts. The term Zuidnederlands can however also refer
to anything south of the rivers (see p. 13); of course usage in Belgium and in the
provinces of Holland south of the rivers is also very often the same.
From time to time there have been attempts to introduce the word Netherlandic
into English to render more adequately the feeling behind the Dutch word Nederlands.
It was felt, and still is by some academics for example, that English people associate
‘Dutch’ only with Holland whereas the word Nederlands, as mentioned above, also
designates the language of northern Belgium, commonly known as Flemish (see
below). Particularly after the publication of C.B. van Haeringen's Netherlandic
Language Research in 1954, the term enjoyed some currency in certain restricted
circles. His aim was to indicate that when studying Dutch language and literature,
one was dealing equally with both Holland and Belgium. Fortunately the word seems
to have died a natural death and I would like to lay a final sod of earth on its grave
3.
in this work. I regard it as one of the tasks of a book such as this

3. Art historians refer to the Flemish and Dutch schools of painting combined as Netherlandish
art. This limited use of such a word in such a limited circle seems to me to be legitimate.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

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to encourage the general use of the word ‘Dutch’ to indicate the language of both
countries. This is in line with official Dutch and Belgian practice and is also in
accordance with the desires of the Internationale Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek
(International Association for Dutch Studies).
It should be added that in certain official titles in English the word ‘Netherlands’
4.
can be used as an adjective e.g. Royal Netherlands Embassy. In Holland and
Belgium it is usual to refer to the study of Dutch language and literature as
neerlandistiek (formerly sometimes nederlandistiek) and one who has graduated in
same is a neerlandicus (plural neerlandici; the feminine form neerlandica has on
the whole ceded to the masculine these days). Neerlandicus competed for some
time with neerlandist but now seems to have won the race. Lacking any suitable
equivalent in English, those in the field usually employ the Dutch words when the
need arises. After all, even Germanists can only call themselves such in initiated
circles in English.

Hollands

It is common over a wide area of the Netherlands, especially in the provinces of

North and South Holland and in Utrecht, to use the word Hollands as a synonym
for Nederlands. The origin of this very common practice is the same as the English
tradition of calling the Netherlands ‘Holland’ i.e. because of the economic might of
these two coastal provinces (with which also Utrecht allied itself culturally and
linguistically) the rest of the country was, and to a certain degree still is,
overshadowed. In English there are no social overtones and in fact to refer
consistently to the country as the Netherlands often sounds pedantic or like translated
Dutch. Many people living outside the provinces mentioned object to the country
being referred to as Holland and the language as Hollands and for this reason the
word is never used in official contexts. In linguistic circles it refers to the dialect of
North and South Holland (see p. 13).

Flemish

Flemish, the English translation of the Dutch word Vlaams, is a word that has often
been used incorrectly in English and has thus been the cause of many
misconceptions. If I begin with the various connotations of the word Vlaams, how
these misconceptions arose in English will become self evident. Vlaams can have
four meanings, depending on the context and who is using the word:
1 First and foremost it designates the Dutch dialects of the two Belgian provinces
West and East Flanders, although dialectologists would see only Westvlaams as

4. It is interesting to note that in bilingual South Africa, where the words Dutch and Dutchman
have long been derogatory terms used by the English to designate Cape Dutch/Afrikaans
and Afrikaners, it is not uncommon to hear the words Nederlands or (Hoog)hollands being
used in English to refer to Dutch. A Dutchman too is nearly always called a Hollander to avoid
the above unfortunate connotation. Most university departments of Afrikaans are entitled
Departement van Afrikaans en Nederlands because of the indivisability of the two in history.

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pure Flemish and Oostvlaams as a mixture of Flemish and Brabants (see p. 17).
The dialect of the north-west of France, the area known as Frans-Vlaanderen, is
also called Flemish. This definition of the meaning of Flemish/Vlaams is one which
would be known only to scholars of Dutch on the whole.
2 In the everyday speech of Dutchmen Vlaams is Dutch as spoken in Belgium
(see p. 33).
3 In the speech of Belgians the word Vlaams designates Dutch as spoken by
them, regardless of which Dutch-speaking province they hail from.
4 Finally, there are many people who live under the misconception that Flemish
is a separate, if related language to Dutch. The idea is extremely wide-spread in
English-speaking countries and many a linguistic publication will classify Flemish
as a separate language in the family of Germanic tongues. Because of Belgium's
separate history since the late sixteenth century, it is not surprising that this
misconception arose and became so wide-spread. I am sure that many a Frenchman
too does not realise that the patois of the hinterland of Dunkirk which he labels as
flamand is in fact but a dialect of the fully accepted ‘cultural language’ he calls
hollandais or néerlandais.
The historical background of this problem will be looked at in greater detail later
in the book (see p. 20). Suffice it to say at this stage that there is no such thing as
written Flemish; it is but one of several Dutch dialects and exists only in speech - a
literate Fleming writes Dutch.

Bibliography

LOCKWOOD, W.B. An informal history of the German language.

André Deutsch, London, 1976.
This book contains lucid chapters on Dutch, Frisian and Afrikaans in addition
to general information on Germanic which is ultimately relevant to the history
of Dutch. It is intended for use by undergraduates and laymen.

VANDEPUTTE, O. (i.a.) Dutch - the language of twenty million Dutch and

Flemish people.
Ons Erfdeel, 1981.
This is an excellent and recent summary of many of the issues dealt with in
this book.

HAERINGEN, B.C. van Netherlandic language research.

Brill, Leiden, 1960.
Although this book does not take into account anything published after 1960,
it is a very good bibliography with commentary on all major works relating to
all aspects of Dutch studies. In addition it contains an explanation of some of
the issues mentioned in this chapter.

There are very few general accounts of Dutch, as mentioned in the preface, and
with the exception of Vandeputte's booklet, there are no monographs devoted entirely
to the topic.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium
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Map 2: Dutch dialects (in detail). Adapted from a map by Jo Daan in the ‘Atlas of the
Netherlands’, plate x-2, 1968.
1 South Hollands
2 Kennemerlands
3 Waterlands
4 Zaans
5 West Frisian - North Holland
6 Utrechts
7 Zeeuws
8 Westhoeks
9 West Flemish and Zeeuws Flemish
10 Dialect of the area between West and East Flemish
11 East Flemish
12 Dialect of the area between East Flemish and Brabants
13 South Gelders
14 North Brabant and North Limburgs
15 Brabants
16 Dialect of the area between Brabants and Limburgs
17 Limburgs
18 Veluws
19 Gelders-Overijssels
20 Twents (former county)
21 Twents
22 Stellingwerfs
23 South Drents
24 Central Drents
25 Kollumerlands
26 Gronings and North Drents
27 Frisian
28 Bildts, Town Frisian, Midlands, Amelands

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

N.B. Very generally speaking, the higher the number, the greater the distance from standard
Dutch.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 9

2 Dialects and Standard Dutch

The previous chapter, which attempted to define the various names by which the
language is called in Dutch and English, already inevitably touched on dialectal
issues. Dialectology is a field which has attracted much attention in Holland and
Belgium since its foundation as a recognized scientific pursuit in the nineteenth
century. Many volumes have been and still are being written on this inexhaustible
aspect of the Dutch language. My aim here is a modest one. I intend simply to define
what is generally regarded to be a dialect in the Netherlands and to comment on
the relative importance and main features of the various dialects.
The Oxford Dictionary's definition of a dialect is a convenient starting point for
discussion of this complicated aspect of Dutch studies: ‘One of the subordinate
forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary,
pronunciation and idiom. In relation to modern languages usually specifically a
variety of speech differing from the standard or literary “language”.... Also in a wider
sense applied to a particular language in its relation to the family of languages to
which it belongs.’ Starting with the latter part of the definition this is what one means
when one talks of Dutch being a ‘Germanic dialect’. If one hears Dutch being referred
to as a German dialect, either the speaker is using the word German as a synonym
for Continental West Germanic, as is sometimes done, or he is mistaken - the
relationship of Dutch to German is fraternal, not filial.
But now to return to the main part of the definition of a dialect. As the dictionary
defines a dialect here in general terms, so this definition applies in specific terms
quite neatly to the situation in Holland and Belgium too, with certain qualifications.
Not every regional variant of Dutch is necessarily considered to be dialect - it usually
depends on the degree to which the various aspects of the language mentioned in
1
the above definition (i.e. vocabulary, pronunciation etc.) diverge from the standard.
It is in fact impossible to draw definite lines between certain dialects and then in turn
between certain dialects and the standard language. One is, in effect, faced with a
continuum of local speech as one travels from region to region. One good example
of this is the continuum that exists between Zeeland, Zeeuws-Flanders and West
Flanders and yet one talks in dialect circles of Zeeuws and West Flemish as seperate
2
entities. For this reason Van den Toorn, in his

1 It is common in Dutch linguistic circles to replace the word dialect with streektaal - regional
language. Any sociologically negative connotations of the word dialect are then avoided and
the term can also have a broader application i.e. it can refer to standard Dutch which contains
just a little local colour, or even Frisian, usually regarded as a separate language, can be
referred to as a streektaal and thus one avoids the argument of whether Frisian is or isn't a
dialect of Dutch.
2 The two most characteristic features of Zeeuws/West Flemish are the confusion of g and h
and the lack of diphthongisation in words containing ij and ui e.g. ies and muus where the
standard language says ijs (ice) and muis (mouse).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 10

Map 3: Dutch dialects (in general). Taken from ‘Dutch: the language of twenty million Dutch
and Flemish people’, Stichting Ons Erfdeel, 1981.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 11

excellent little introduction to Dutch linguistics, maintains that it is safer to talk of the
dialect of Enschede, for instance, or the Drents of Ruinen i.e. of specific towns or
3
villages. By so doing one avoids creating the impression, which so many dialect
maps based on clusters of isoglosses give, that a certain unity and delimitation exist
which in reality are not present.
Dialects don't observe provincial or even national borders. Leaving Frisian aside
because of its somewhat unique status as a separate written language, I shall confine
myself here to the Saxon and Franconian based dialects. Those dialects spoken
along the Dutch-German border are regarded as either Dutch or German dialects
according to which of those two languages the speakers of those dialects regard
as their standard written language or cultuurtaal. The farmers on either side of the
border in any given area speak virtually the same dialect in accordance with tribal
settlement in the Dark Ages (see p. 85), but when they go to read a book or write a
letter, the Dutch farmer will read and write standard Dutch, based on the language
of the west of Holland, whereas the German farmer will read and write standard or
so-called High German, based on the language of central Germany. Were they to
exchange books or letters, they could not understand the other's language and yet
in practice they speak the same dialect.
If one accepts the demarcation of Dutch dialects along the eastern border based
on the above socio-political criterion, the dialects of Dutch can be broadly classified
4
as follows:
a. The Saxon based dialects of Groningen, Drenthe, Overijssel and part of
Friesland and Gelderland. One talks of Gronings, Drents and Stellingwerfs (in
Friesland) but Overijssel and the Saxon-speaking areas of Gelderland are divided
into smaller units and here one talks, for example, of Sallands and Twents in
Overijssel and Achterhoeks and Veluws in Gelderland.
Broadly speaking the river IJssel is the traditional border between the
Saxon-speaking and the Franconian-speaking regions (see map 3), but the Veluwe,
whose dialect is Saxon, lies west of the IJssel and reaches almost to Amersfoort.
b. The sociologically and historically more important Franconian based dialects:
Hollands (with numerous sub-divisions such as Westfries, Amsterdams, Rotterdams
and even Utrechts), Zeeuws, Flemish, Brabants and Limburgs.
Demarcation of Dutch dialects in the south is not as difficult as in the east due to
the clearly defined language border with French that runs through Belgium (see
map 7). Generally speaking it is also impossible to draw lines between the (Zeeuws-)
Flemish, Brabants and Limburgs dialects of the Netherlands and those of the same
name on the Belgian side of the border: the dialects are of course much older than
the separation of Holland and Belgium which occurred in the late sixteenth century
(see p. 24).
It would go beyond the scope of this book to start listing the characteristics of the
various dialects mentioned above. Anyone interested in detailed information on

3 Toorn, M.C. van den, Nederlandse Taalkunde. Spectrum, Utrecht 1973, p. 68.
4 For a very detailed definition of what constitutes a dialect of Dutch, see Goossens, J. Inleiding
tot de Nederlandse Dialectologie. Michiels, Tongeren 1972. pp. 11-30. A definitive classification
of Dutch dialects is impossible because of the difficulty in drawing lines but J. Daan's map
(map 2) gives a reasonably clear picture of the main divisions.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 12

Map 4: The Netherlands and Belgium showing significant rivers, swamps, polders and dykes.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 13

the topic can consult the texts recommended in the bibliography at the end of this
chapter. It is perhaps useful, however, to mention some of the striking regional
differences which are known to, and easily recognised by all Dutchmen.
In the dialect of Groningen there is a certain Frisian substrate (see map 9 for the
historical reasons) which is, for instance, reflected in the frequency of family names
ending in -inga, -stra and -ma, endings that are otherwise regarded as typically
5
Frisian. But Gronings and the other Saxon based dialects are most characterised
by the fact that they consistently pronounce the final -en in the many words that
have this ending in Dutch as a syllabic n (see p. 55); after bilabial consonants the
n is even pronounced as a syllabic m e.g. loopm (<lopen), krabm (<krabben). It is
usual in the Franconian based dialects to drop this final n in natural speech.
Hollands, the basis of the standard language (see p. 17), knows regional varieties
but none of these diverges so much from the standard that it is no longer intelligible
to speakers of ABN. Westfries, the rather confusing name given to the Hollands
dialect spoken in the area north and east of Alkmaar which was formerly enclosed
by the Westfriese omringdijk bears, like Gronings, signs of Frisian substrate (see
map 9). Actually this is the case to a certain extent with all the Hollands dialects.
Well-known characteristics of Hollands include:
1 devoicing of initial v and z - the former is now accepted in ABN but the latter
is not (yet?). e.g. voeten (pron. foete), zeven (pron. seve).
2 a tendency to diphthongise long o and e as in brood (bread) and weten (to
know) to [o.ә] and [ε.i] respectively.
3 in Noordhollands (Westfries) the fricative gutteral in the combination sch- is
pronounced as a stop e.g. school > skool.
4 the ABN diminutive ending -(p/t)je becomes -ie e.g. huisje > huisie, boompje
> boompie.

The dialect of the city of Utrecht, an area that has traditionally been closely identified
with Holland, is particularly noted for its tendency to drop final t's e.g. Utrecht >
Uterech, gepost > gepos (posted).
Although Zeeuws shares certain important features with West Flemish, notably
those mentioned in footnote 2 on page 9, it does not share other typically southern
features and is not generally regarded as a southern dialect. The status of this dialect
is similar to that of the province of Zeeland itself i.e. lying on the coast and having
thus been closely involved with Holland in maritime ventures through the ages,
Zeeland has always been regarded as part of the prosperous north, as has Utrecht.
The social connotations of the Zeeuws dialect are thus different from those of the
true southern dialects.
Daily one hears in Holland the expression ten zuiden van de grote rivieren (south
of the great rivers); a synonym thereof is beneden de Moerdijk (under/south of the
Moer Dyke), that being the dyke that traditionally ran westwards from the confluence
of the Meuse and the Waal to Hollandsch Diep (see map 4). The river complex that
runs east-west through the centre of the Netherlands consists, in

5 -inga (pron. inxa) is an old genitive plural e.g. Kruisinga, Huizinga; -stra, a contraction of sitter
(inhabitant) e.g. Dijkstra, Heemstra, Steegstra formed from the nouns dijk (dyke), heem (home)
and steeg (lane); -ma, formed from a contraction of the genitive ending -a added to a dative
plural place name ending -um e.g. Miedema, Abma.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 14

Map 5: The High German Sound Shift in Limburg. Line 1 - the Uerdinger Line between ABN
ik/ook/-lijk and High German ich/auch/-lich. Line 2 - the Panninger Line between ABN
sl/sm/sn/sp/st/zw and High German schl/schm/schn/schp/scht/schw (NB: according to the
rules of German orthography [ʃp] and [ʃt] are written sp and st). Line 3 - The Benrather Line
between ABN maken and High German machen. Adapted from A. Weijnen, Nederlandse
Dialectkunde, Assen, 1966.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 15

order from north to south, of the Lek (in fact the main bed of the Rhine under another
name), the Waal (an arm of the Rhine that breaks away soon after the river crosses
6
the border into Holland from Germany) and the Meuse, called the Maas in Dutch.
The Meuse forms the border between Dutch and Belgian Limburg for quite a distance
as it flows north from France, but it then turns west and runs parallel with the
Rhine/Lek and the Waal to the important delta south of Rotterdam. These rivers
have played a unique role in the history of Holland, often forming a last line of defence
against attack from the south or, as in the winter of 1944, acting as a barrier to
liberation by the Allies. The rivers form a rough border between the Catholic south
and the Protestant north, although there are notable Catholic enclaves north of the
rivers too. Geographical factors such as mountains, lakes and rivers commonly form
barriers between individual languages or dialects of a particular language - the river
complex of the Netherlands is a classic example of this phenomenon. What is
commonly referred to as southern Dutch (Zuidnederlands) in Holland includes
Brabants and Limburgs. In a broader sense it also includes the Brabants and
Limburgs of Belgium as well as Flemish; however, the average Dutchman, and even
Belgians for that matter, refers to all the dialects on the Belgian side of the border
collectively as Flemish.
Brabants is an historically important dialect which has contributed considerably
to the vocabulary and pronunciation of the standard language (see p. 101). It is
usually immediately evident from his pronunciation whether a speaker hails from
Brabant or Limburg, even though his Dutch may be pure ABN otherwise. There is
7
one sound in particular which betrays a southern origin, namely g (also ch). The
Dutch refer to the southern g as a zachte gee (soft g i.e. more palatal) by which they
mean that the sound resembles that in German ich and thus differs distinctly from
the northern g which is considerably more gutteral than even the sound in German
ach. The uvular pronunciation of r is traditionally somewhat more common in the
south and the trill is often more exaggerated than north of the rivers (see p. 54). The
Dutch even have a verb to describe the sound - they often say of a southerner hij
brouwt zo verschrikkelijk (he trills his throaty r so much).
North of the rivers there is a tendency to devoice initial v and z; this is not the
case in the south. Southerners always clearly distinguish between initial f and v on
the one hand and s and z on the other.
Although the beschaafd southern speaker uses it less, southern dialects are also
typified by a particular form of the diminutive which is so ubiquitous in Dutch. Rather
than adding -(p/t)je to the noun, they use -(s)ke e.g. huiske, boomke, kopske. In
addition, southerners often use gij/ge instead of jij/je as the second person form of
address (see p. 171).
Limburg is one of the few corners of Holland where true dialect is spoken even
by the many town dwellers. There is even a great regional pride in the dialect. The

6 The Land van Maas en Waal, part of the province of Gelderland and the area where the city
of Nijmegen is situated, belongs linguistically and sociologically to the south, unlike the rest
of Gelderland.
7 In some southern dialects the original distinction between g and ch, now both pronounced
unvoiced in ABN, is still preserved i.e. g is pronounced as a voiced and ch as an unvoiced
fricative.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 16

somewhat wider gap than usual between Limburgs and the standard is due largely
to the fact that this dialect shares several features with High German (see map 5
and p. 123). One small corner of Limburg, notably the towns of Kerkrade and Vaals,
even lies south of the Benrather Line (i.e. the maken/machen line) which is generally
8
accepted in linguistic circles as the border between Low and High German. However,
the Uerdinger Line (i.e. the ik/ich line) runs even further north and takes in nearly
9
all of Limburg. Also the transition from High German [ʃ] to Dutch [sX] occurs in
Limburg, most of the province retaining the German sound (see map 5). The overall
effect of these factors is that Limburgs sounds more like German. It is, in fact, a
good example of a border dialect being considered a dialect of Dutch because its
speakers, for socio-political reasons, recognise ABN as their cultuurtaal. Applying
purely linguistic criteria, one could probably more correctly classify it as a dialect of
German (see p. 93).
The everyday speech of the cities, particularly the Randstad, cannot be termed
dialect. It is close to the standard in most respects, the cities always having acted
as linguistic melting pots. In the Randstad it is more common to draw social
distinctions and to call the language of the lower classes volkstaal. The degree to
which one's speech can betray one's position in the social order is quite marked in
10
Holland. What I have called volkstaal here is a classification commonly used by
11
dialectologists to designate what the layman colloquially refers to as plat.
The body that deals with dialect research in Holland is the P.J. Meertens Instituut
voor Dialectologie, Volkskunde en Naamkunde, Keizersgracht 596-571 in Amsterdam.
The Taalatlas van Noord- en Zuidnederland (i.e. for all of Holland and Belgium) is
12
housed here. In Groningen there is also a separate body that deals with the
Taalatlas van Oost-Nederland - the Nedersaksisch Instituut, a department of the
State University of Groningen. The main periodical for articles on dialectological
problems is Taal en Tongval, a Belgian publication with regular contributions from
Holland, which was founded in 1947.
The dialect situation in Belgium is much more complex than in Holland as most
of the Dutch-speaking population learns a dialect at home before progressing to

8 The Benrather Line is regarded as the main line of division because, although it is not the
northernmost extremity of the High German Sound Shift in the west, it is in the east i.e. near
Berlin, which lies just south of the line.
9 In the north of Limburg the Uerdinger Line corresponds with both a provincial and a natural
border, namely De Peel, a large swamp area which formed a barrier in earlier times (see map
4).
10 ‘Everybody can immediately hear a tendency towards the vulgar and prevent it if he has
inherited the tendency from his home environment. The astute observer can easily perceive
the degrees of vulgarity and can hear in a slight slip towards the vulgar - when the speaker
is excited or feels particularly at ease - whether cultivated speech has become second nature
to him in his home environment, or whether he is a parvenu in this respect’. Translated from
Haeringen, C.B. van, ‘Eenheid en nuance in beschaafd-nederlandse uitspraak’, in Schippers,
B.W. Taal en spraak in stad en streek, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1968 pp. 34-5.
11 In German, Platt (or Plattdeutsch) is synonymous with Niederdeutsch i.e. Low German as
spoken in northern Germany; it is a regional designation. In Dutch, however, the word is
loaded with social connotations; Wat spreekt hij plat (he speaks so plat) is a derogatory
statement.
12 In 1981 the atlas received a new name: Taalatlas van het Nederlands en het Fries.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 17

the standard which is also a concept not as easily defined as in Holland. Broadly
speaking there are four main dialects in Belgium which correspond roughly to
provincial divisions: West Flemish, East Flemish, Brabants and Limburgs. It is as
difficult to draw lines between them individually as it is to draw lines between them
collectively and the dialects spoken on the Dutch side of the border. They too form
a continuum. The very real existence of true dialect speech throughout Flanders
has been part cause of the considerable difficulties which Belgium has been
confronted with since the early nineteenth century. But the situation in Belgium is
so complex and so important that it warrants a separate chapter (see p. 20).
The future of dialect speech in both Holland and Belgium is difficult to speculate
on. There is no doubt, particularly in Holland and to an ever increasing degree in
Belgium, that communications, education and the modern media are contributing
to a certain levelling-out in language and that more people are abandoning their
dialect in favour of the standard, often because of social pressure. At the same time
there has been an obvious increase in regional consciousness and regional pride
in Europe during the last decade or so. This is all the more remarkable because of
the simultaneous decrease in national awareness due to the Common Market and
Nato. This curious phenomenon is being reflected in a renewed interest in regional
speech as well as in other aspects of local culture. Articles in dialect in local
newspapers are now common-place in many areas in Holland, for example.
The increased mobility of people, with more people than ever before shifting to
live and work in areas other than those where they were born and bred, as well as
the concept of commuting to work, are also having an effect on the spread of the
13
standard language at the cost of the dialects.
Before looking in detail at what is understood to be standard Dutch, one is
reminded that the dialects as described above are not deviations from the standard
language, as is commonly believed by the layman, but that the standard is in fact
the product of those dialectal variations.

Standard Dutch - Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN)

The equivalent of so-called Oxford English or the King's English in the Netherlands
is Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (General Cultured Dutch), usually referred to
by its initials ABN or, particularly in Belgium, simply AN. When talking of such a
concept in either Dutch or English circles, one often feels compelled to add ‘so-called’
because in the case of both languages, it is difficult to define exactly what we mean,
and yet in a general sense we all know what we mean. The term ABN is frequently
used to designate this rather abstract concept; its use is often criticised but its critics
offer no better substitute. In addition, Dutch and Belgian opinions of what is and isn't
ABN often differ. Nevertheless some sort of positive definition must be attempted.
One can say that what the average speaker of Dutch in the Netherlands regards as
ABN is the language of the provinces of North and South

13 A good example of this are the reclaimed areas of the IJsselmeer, the so-called
IJsselmeerpolders; although contiguous with the Saxon-speaking east of the country, they
have been populated chiefly by Hollanders from the west (see map 2).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 18

Holland with Utrecht - in other words the language of the Randstad. The exact
reasons for why the speech of this area emerged as the basis of the standard are
discussed in chapter 12. But although ABN originated in this area, this does not
mean it is spoken by all who live in the region, nor that it is not used outside the said
area. Equally one can speak Dutch with a clearly Brabants or Gronings accent, for
example, without being accused of not speaking ABN. Quite obviously then,
pronunciation in itself is not a determining factor although one could argue that it
14
depends to what degree the accent is Brabants, Gronings etc.
A definition of ABN that was formerly commonly cited but which is clearly invalid
for the reasons given above was: the best Dutch is that which does not betray in
any way the region from which the speaker hails. Van den Toorn offers the following
definition of ABN: ‘One can assert that an ABN speaker is one who generally accepts
the vocabulary of a normal school dictionary as his own and one who actively uses
15
it’. Van den Toorn offers this definition with certain reservations as nearly everyone
does that attempts to define the concept. Koelmans says of ABN (in translation):
‘ABN may one day become an entity but certainly is not that at the moment. Actually
it is an abstract which becomes evident if one attempts to formulate a conclusive
16
definition’. Van Haeringen draws interesting comparisons and contrasts between
the position of standard Dutch in Holland and that of standard English in England
on the one hand, and that of High German in Germany on the other; he concludes,
as the title of the book suggests, that the position of the standard is weaker than in
17
England but stronger than in Germany.
But what is the position of the standard in Belgium? There is no doubt that there
are distinct differences in pronunciation, vocabulary and even syntax between
beschaafd speakers in Holland and Belgium and yet one must concede that a
Flemish professor or lawyer for example speaks ABN. A common name for their
Dutch in linguistic circles is Algemeen Beschaafd Zuidnederlands. Van Dale, the
authoritative dictionary in Holland and Belgium, classifies words used by Belgians
which they consider not to be dialect but AN, as Zuidnederlands. He passes no
further judgement. The reaction of the average Dutchman to such
zuidnederlandismen is often one of disdain. The general adoption of a standard
form of the language by all speakers of Flemish dialects is going on at present. Van
Coetsem describes the language of beschaafd Flemings as ‘oscillating between a
sort of purified dialect and, in a few cases, a Dutch that is to all intents and purposes
18
pure “northern” Dutch’.

14 Dutch also knows a la-di-da pronunciation of ABN, but even this, as Jo Daan points out, is in
fact the accent of a given area within the Randstad, namely The Hague - Leiden. (Daan, J.,
Van Randstad tot landrand, Noordhollandse Uitgeversmij. A'dam 1969. p. 15.)
15 Toorn, M.C. van den, op. cit. p. 64, where he himself falls back on an earlier definition
formulated by Kloeke.
16 Koelmans, L., Inleiding tot de historische taalkunde van het Nederlands. Bohn, Scheltema
en Holkema Utrecht, 1979, p. 36.
17 Haeringen, C.B. van, Nederlands tussen Duits en Engels. Servire, The Hague p. 11.
18 Coetsem, F. van, ‘De rijksgrens tussen Nederland en België als taalgrens in de Algemene
Taal’, in Schippers, B.W., op. cit. p. 103.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 19

Bibliography

TOORN, M.C. van den Nederlandse taalkunde.

Spectrum, Utrecht, 1973. (Aula 499)
This very useful little book, written in simple Dutch, deals with many different
aspects of linguistics in general terms, as well as with reference to Dutch;
dialects and ABN are two such subjects dealt with. It contains good basic
bibliographies with commentary.

KOELMANS, L. Inleiding tot de historische taalkunde van het Nederlands.

Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema, Utrecht 1979.
A clear, total introduction to the topic with a good chapter on ABN and written
in simple Dutch.

WEIJNEN, A.A. Het Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands historisch beschouwd.

Van Gorcum, Assen, 1974.

A reasonably technical, but good account of the topic.

GOOSSENS, J. Inleiding tot de Nederlandse dialectologie.

Michiels, Tongeren, 1972.
(reprinted by Wolters Noordhoff, Groningen, 1977)
An excellent basic handbook on the principles of dialectology in general, as
well as how they apply to Dutch in particular.

ENTJES, H. Dialecten in Nederland.

Knoop & Niemeijer, Haren, 1974.
A simple book written for the layman.

DAAN, J. & BLOK, D.P. Van Randstad tot landrand.

Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Mij, Amsterdam, 1969.
This contains map 2 and elaborates further on that map as well as providing
a small grammophone record.

WEIJNEN, A.A. Nederlandse dialectkunde.

Van Gorcum, Assen, 1958.
The definitive work on Dutch dialects. Only for the specialist.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 20

3 The linguistic situation in Belgium

- the origins of bilingualism in Belgium
- the Flemish Movement
- the situation today
- the differences between Noord- and Zuidnederlands

In the Kingdom of Belgium there is a friction between the two main language groups,
the Flemish and the Walloons, which is scarcely to be matched anywhere else in
Europe. As the Dutch language and the status of its speakers are at the heart of
this controversy, the issue deserves treatment here. What follows is a matter about
which emotions often run high.
It is impossible to understand the situation as it is in the 1980's without a knowledge
of the history of which it is a direct product. Although there are several excellent
books in English on Belgian history (see bibliography), and thus also on the linguistic
situation that is Belgium, the emphasis here will be on those historical events which
are of direct relevance to the position of Dutch in that country. The situation is a very
complex but also a very important one; after all, one in every four native-speakers
of Dutch in the world today is a Belgian, or, as they prefer to call themselves, a
Fleming.
The various connotations of the word Vlaams (Flemish), and thus of the word
Vlaming (Fleming), were explained on p. 6. The name of the French-speaking Walen
(Walloons) is derived from that of a Celtic tribe, the Volcae, which inhabited various
parts of Europe at the beginning of the Christian era. The Germanic peoples adopted
the name Waals[ch] (German: Welsch <* Wallisc) originally to designate Celts and
later, after the romanisation of Gaul, as a name for the Romance peoples. In linguistic
terms Waals was that which one could not understand i.e. French - compare German
Kauderwelsch and Dutch koeterwaals i.e. Double Dutch, nonsense; also in German
Rotwelsch is the word for the secret language of the underworld, usually called
Bargoens in Dutch, which itself is possibly a corruption of Boergondisch (Burgundian)
i.e. also French, the ununderstandable.
In Britain the newly arrived Anglo-Saxons also came into contact with a romanised
Celtic people, as the Franks did in Gaul, whom they called the Welsh, there being
a certain parallel at the time between Welsh and English on the one hand and Waals
and Vlaams on the other. Various cognate forms of the word Walloon have thus
been in circulation for centuries, but the name Wallonia, as a designation for southern,
French-speaking Belgium, has only been current since the 1840's. In the word
Belgium too lies the name of a Celtic tribe which the Romans found inhabiting the
southern Netherlands i.e. the Belgae. The word had been used

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 21

during the humanist period for the whole of the Netherlands but was revived in 1830
when a name had to be found for the newly formed kingdom that was created out
of the Dutch and French-speaking provinces of the southern Netherlands.
This is a convenient point to look at how the Netherlands (i.e. both north and
south) originally emerged as a separate entity in feudal Europe and thus how French
and Dutch speakers ended up within the borders of one country. For the origins of
the language border see chapter nine. Not long after the death of Charlemagne,
during whose reign (768-814) the finishing touches had been put on a united western
Europe stretching form the north of Germany to Rome and the Pyrenees, a three-way
split occurred in this empire. By the Treaty of Verdun in 843 the sons of Louis the
Pious, son of Charlemagne, each took a share. Basically the three parts were France
in the west under Charles the Bald, Germany in the east under Louis the German
and the so-called middle kingdom under Lothar, a strip of territory starting in the
Netherlands in the north and running south through Luxemburg, Alsace-Lorraine
(Lorraine in Dutch and German is Lotharingen < Lothar) and Burgundy to northern
Italy. In the tenth century this three-way division became a two-way one with
Germany, then called the Holy Roman Empire, taking the Dutch and French-speaking
Low Countries, and France taking the rest, including the county of Flanders which
then stretched from the river Scheldt to Normandy (see map 6). The county of
Flanders was predominantly Dutch-speaking and thus the national border between
the kingdom of France and the southern Netherlands divided Dutch speakers, as it
did French speakers. Flanders, however, remained economically and culturally part
of the Netherlands, although the count of Flanders was a vassal of the king of France;
all other nobles in the Netherlands owed allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor.
The relative isolation of the Netherlands from the maelstrom of feudal Europe in the
post-Carolingian period led to the reinforcement of the idea in that region that they
were a separate entity within a greater whole. Their proximity to the sea and their
position at the mouth of the major waterways of Europe was a common denominator
in their economic development which was, and still is, the source of their wealth.
The county of Flanders played a leading role in the economy and culture of the
region at this time. The prosperity that resulted from the flourishing economy of
1.
mediaeval Flanders, based heavily on the cloth industry of Bruges and Ghent,
meant that the beginnings of the Dutch written word were also here. This aspect is
dealt with on p. 95. But Flanders, situated as it was on the language border and
owing allegiance to the king of France, was also an area where Dutch and French
met head-on and where the nobility and many of the up-and-coming middle class
were undoubtedly bilingual. Here then were already the beginnings of a situation
where, as a result of the later cultural and economic dominance of France and thus
a belief that French was socially more acceptable and worthy of mimicry, many

1. It is indicative of the important role that French has played in the region, that Dutch-speaking
towns such as Bruges, Louvain and Malines (Dutch: Brugge, Leuven and Mechelen) are
known in English by their French equivalents where the French names are now regarded as
English too; I have used them here but for lesser known places I have given preference to
the Dutch name with the French equivalent in brackets.

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Map 6: The Burgundian Netherlands (± 1500) showing language areas, the episcopal
principality of Liège (a separate state till the 1790's) and the Rhine/Meuse/Scheldt delta as
it was before reclamation was begun in earnest - compare maps 4 and 9.

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 23

Flemings would feel inclined to abandon Dutch in favour of French. Bruges reached
the zenith of its economic development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
The first open revolt by Flemings against French rule occurred in 1302 at the Battle
of the Golden Spurs (de Giddensporenslag) which is still regarded as a red-letter
day in the history of the Flemish people.
In 1384 there was a union of Flanders, and by 1430 all the other Netherlands
provinces, with Burgundy, whose prince was thus both a vassal of the French king
and of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Burgundian period, which lasted till 1477,
although economically and culturally speaking one of the greatest periods in
Dutch-Belgian history, brought with it certain dangers for the future prosperity of the
Dutch language in the south. The seat of the French-speaking Burgundian rulers in
the Netherlands became Brussels and thus the court and the circles that surrounded
it were French-speaking, but Brussels lay well within the Dutch-speaking part of the
duchy of Brabant. The ramifications of this are still with us today and are the bane
of Belgian political life, as we shall see later.
During the period in question the economic centre of the southern Netherlands,
which was in fact the economic hub of the entire Netherlands at the time, shifted to
Antwerp, particularly as Bruges' access to the sea, the Zwin, had silted up. The
important role that Antwerp plays in the cultural life of Flanders today is ultimately
the result of this shift of economic activity from Flanders to Brabant; but, as we shall
see, Antwerp's fortunes were to oscillate greatly before it would become the cultural
capital of Flanders it is today.
By inheritance, the Burgundian Netherlands passed to the House of Habsburg in
2.
1477 and thus ultimately became part of the great European empire of Charles V.
Although Charles was in fact born in Ghent and educated in Malines and was leader
of the German-speaking Holy Roman Empire, this did little to dislodge the position
of French in Brussels, the city in which he was both sworn in as Lord of the
Netherlands and later abdicated. His court too was French-speaking, as were many
royal courts at the time, and it is he who is reputed to have said ‘I speak Spanish to
God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse’; the word German
could at the time, and undoubtedly did in this case, refer equally to Dutch and
German. Thus we see that in the region where Dutch and French confronted each
other, the southern Netherlands, different social connotations began to be allotted
to each very early in history.
In 1555 Charles V abdicated, dividing his possessions between his brother
Ferdinand, who received the Holy Roman Empire, and his son, Philip II, who received
Spain and the Netherlands. Charles regarded Spain as the real source of wealth in
his empire because by this time Spain and Portugal were spearheading the discovery
of the New World and bringing back fabulous riches from the Americas. The
Netherlands were given to Philip as a useful military outpost against the Habsburgs'
arch-enemy, the king of France. They were also conveniently situated in case of
war with England. In this way the Netherlands were separated in the east for ever
from Germany and also clearly demarcated in the south by the border with

2. It should be noted that the important French-speaking episcopal principality of Liège remained
as a separate independent entity within the southern Netherlands until 1794 when it was
incorporated into the new state (see map 6).

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 24

France. However, the language border still ran through the middle of them and a
situation which favoured French had already been set in motion.
In 1568, after a period of growing discontent among the Netherlanders against
Spanish rule, the Eighty Years' War broke out. It would be this war which would
cause a split in the Netherlands which would remain forever. The split was not,
however, on the basis of language, but rather of geography. At this point the histories
of Holland and Belgium part ways and the linguistic situations in both countries follow
different paths too. After the break with the north, the place that Dutch had as
cultuurtaal in Holland, was occupied by French in the south. The Dutch language
in the south was left as a disunited array of dialects, with no one dialect managing
to rise up over the others to form the basis of a standard language as happened in
the north. Particularly in Brussels, French still stands above the dialect as the
cultuurtaal for some Flemings. Supporters of Dutch language and culture can only
lament that this break between north and south ever occurred, but the resulting
separate developments are as interesting as they are complex, above all in the
south. There are many good works in English on the Eighty Years' War, also known
in English as the Dutch Revolt (see bibliography). Every student of Dutch should
read at least one account of this all important split in the destinies and fortunes of
the northern and southern Netherlands. More than anything else it is the reason for
the many striking differences between Dutch-speaking Belgium and Holland today,
not the least of which is the language. In fact, when George Bernard Shaw said
‘England and America are two countries separated by the same language’, he could
just as easily have been talking of Holland and Belgium.
The Treaty of Münster (1648) concluded the Eighty Years' War and left an area
corresponding approximately to present-day Belgium in Spanish hands, whence
the name the Spanish Netherlands. The War of the Spanish Succession (1702-13)
saw the territory pass to the Austrian Habsburgs and thoughout the eighteenth
century the southern Netherlands were consequently known as the Austrian
Netherlands. The whole period saw further consolidation of French as the more
socially acceptable tongue, as the language of the aristocracy and more and more
also of the wealthy middle class who tried, as elsewhere in Europe, to mimic their
betters. In fact a knowledge of French became a necessity as it was the official
language. It must also be remembered that this was the zenith of the ancien régime
in France and that all Europe was aping French manners and speech; even Holland
was subjected to considerable French influence at the time, but the circumstances
in the Austrian Netherlands made the country even more susceptible to the influence
of its powerful southern neighbour.
The revolutionary period and subsequent Napoleonic occupation that brought an
end to Austrian rule at the end of the eighteenth century, only did more to consolidate
the position of French in the southern Netherlands. Holland did not escape the
effects of the end of the ancien régime in France either, and even there discriminatory
steps against the Dutch language were taken by the French occupiers. But legislation
in favour of French and to the detriment of Dutch in government, the law and
education for example, was simply more practical in the bilingual southern provinces
than in monolingual Holland. One should not forget, however, that the lower classes,
of which the majority were Flemings, were not bilingual. The fact that the lower
classes were never in a position to abandon Dutch

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for French was to be the ultimate salvation of the language in Belgium when more
enlightened times dawned.
There is a certain poetic justice in the fact that the Congress of Vienna, which met
in 1813 to sort out the borders of post-Napoleonic Europe, should decide to reunite
the northern and southern Netherlands under a Dutch king, William I. The union
was short-lived, however, but it was important for the future development of Dutch
in Belgium after the two split again in 1831, because it awakened the flame of what
is now called the Flemish Movement (de Vlaamse Beweging). William was an
enlightened despot who believed that his new unitary state should have one
overriding national language - Dutch. After all, 75% of the population of the Kingdom
of the United Netherlands was Dutch-speaking. Immediately on assuming control
of the south in 1814, William reversed all previous legislation favouring French. He
then set about compiling his language decrees (de Taalbesluiten) which were
announced in September 1819 but were not to be enforced until January 1823 -
there simply were not enough Dutch-speaking bureaucrats and the like to make the
transition immediate. Meanwhile French continued to enjoy a privileged position in
administration, law and education, but at least the frenchification of the Flemish
provinces was brought to an abrupt halt. The decrees demanded that all official
affairs in Flanders were to be conducted in Dutch and of course Dutch became the
language of all national issues where the north was also involved. William also
founded the State University of Ghent for the Flemish people, as well as a university
in Liège for the Walloons. The introduction of Dutch language instruction in Ghent
was slow, however, due to the position of firstly Latin and secondly French in the
world of scholarly learning.
Williams I's taalpolitiek, coming as it did after a long period of heavy French
domination, did not have any long lasting effect. On the foundation of the Kingdom
of Belgium in 1831, the Dutch language there consisted chiefly of a conglomeration
of local patois, with all affairs of substance once again being conducted in French.
It should once again be stated, however, that if a Fleming wrote his native tongue,
he wrote Dutch, as Flemish did not and does not exist as a written alternative to
Dutch. The new constitution made no special commitment to French, but in effect
it was the only language used in the government, law, army and higher education
for the first forty years of the new nation.
To relate the fate of Dutch and the status of its speakers in Belgium after 1831,
is to relate the story of nineteenth and twentieth century Belgian politics, and it is a
story that as yet has no end. Much has been written on the topic, even in English,
and interested readers are referred to the bibliography at the end of the chapter for
further reading. Here we can but look briefly at the main events of the period which
were of immediate importance to the position of the language in the new Belgian
state.
The early leaders of the Flemish Movement, those that gave birth to the concept,
3.
were men of letters : Hendrik Conscience (1812-83) - his book, De Leeuw van

3. In 1788 J.B.C. Verlooy, a politician, published an essay entitled Verhandeling op d'onacht

der moederlijke taal in de Nederlanden (Treatise on the neglect of the mother-tongue in the
Netherlands). This was an appeal to his compatriots in the Austrian Netherlands to take note
of the linguistic injustice and to rectify it. That such feelings could be interpreted as treason
by the Austrian authorities is evidenced by the fact that the essay was written anonymously
and ostensibly published in Maastricht, outside the Austrian Netherlands, although in fact it
was printed in Brussels. For this reason Verlooy is often regarded as the father of the Flemish
Movement and the first true flamingant (Flemish chauvinist).

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Vlaanderen (The Lion of Flanders, 1838) reminded Flemings of their glorious victory
against French domination in 1302 at the Battle of the Golden Spurs. Jan Frans
Willems (1793-1846) was a philologist and ardent supporter of the equality of Dutch
in Belgium; he was an advocate of the Grootnederlandse Gedachte (greater
Netherlands idea) which favoured (also linguistic) unity with Holland. On the other
hand, Guido Gezelle (1830-99), a poet-priest from Bruges was one of the earliest
Flemish particularists who favoured following a separate line in linguistic issues from
Holland.
Only later did the movement gradually become politically and socially oriented
and it was not until World War I with the emergence of Frontism and Activism, that
it assumed a more aggressive face. It is the present-day successor of that movement,
the political party known as the Volksunie, which forced the government to introduce
the language laws of 1962 (i.e. those that fixed the language border) and legislation
dating from the late 1960's to turn Belgium into a federal state.
The Flemings are and always have been in the majority, but the rapid
industrialisation which Belgium underwent in the nineteenth century developed
chiefly in Wallonia and Flanders declined. Flemings flocked south to work and were
gallicised. Belgium was also quick to exploit the potential of the newest form of land
transport, the railway, and soon an extensive railway system was taking Flemish
commuters back and forth from the Dutch-speaking country-side to the
French-speaking cities to work. In towns such as Brussels and Liège the Flemish
worker was under great social pressure to conform linguistically. In the case of
Brussels this is still a problem today, but in the nineteenth century the Fleming had
no political power or social status behind him to resist. Nowadays, however, it is the
industry of Flanders with its natural harbour in Antwerp that is developing at a faster
rate than in Wallonia whose prosperity in the nineteenth century was based largely
on the proximity of coal mines. Antwerp, in addition to regaining much of its former
economic importance, especially since World War II, is at the same time also
assuming more and more the role of cultural capital of Flanders, Brussels being
unsuitable and unworthy. For too long the Flemings had been left without a clear
cultural centre.
One of the problems the Flemish language cause had to face in the late nineteenth
century was a division between the particularists, who favoured a separate written
tradition from Holland based on Flemish usage, and the unitarians who had no
objection to following protestant Holland in linguistic issues, and who saw all the
more hope for their cause by so doing; after all, the Walloons had the backing of
France. It is fortunate for a ‘small’ language like Dutch that the latter course of action
won out in the end. Although there is still hesitation in the minds of some Flemings
to be guided completely by northern usage, this trend is not to be reversed and it is
remarkable how much standardisation, in favour of northern speech, has been
achieved in the relatively short time that has elapsed. One can now say that the
Flemings of Belgium truly do speak Dutch. This has recently been

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 27

reflected in the abolition of the word Vlaams from all official titles e.g. de Koninklijke
Vlaamse Akademie voor Taal- en Letterkunde in Ghent, an important cultural and
literary body, is now called de Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie voor Taal- en
Letterkunde (changed in 1972); het Ministerie van Vlaamse Cultuur has also been
renamed: het Ministerie van Nederlandse Cultuur.
During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, more and more concessions
were made to Dutch in the civil service, the law courts and the schools. Not till 1878
did all administrative decrees and laws have to be published in both languages,
however. But a true quality was to be long in coming and in some senses one can
say that it has still not been completely achieved. During World War I, the injustices
that still existed led to two movements which were to completely change the tone
of the Flemish Movement - Frontism and Activism. Frontism is the name given to a
mood of rebellion among Flemish troops fighting on the Front, who, while being
commanded by French-speaking officers, were being asked to die for a country in
which they were considered second-class citizens; the ‘law of equality’ of 1898 was
not being enforced. Activism, on the other hand, was a movement which was
supported by a considerable number of Flemings during World War I who saw the
German occupation as an opportunity to further their own interests in achieving
equality for themselves and their language. In 1916, for example, the State University
of Ghent, which King William I had founded for the Flemings in 1816, was made
4.
Dutch-speaking by the Germans, only to revert to French after the war.
The ‘collaboration’ was to prove to be a temporary setback for the Flemish
Movement after the war, but the true feelings of the Flemish people had been heard
and there was now to be no turning back. In the period between the wars the
flaminganten began to organise themselves politically and in time their ‘sins’ of the
war years were forgotten. In 1930 the University of Ghent became Dutch-speaking
and was to stay so. The language laws of 1932 also marked the beginning of an
official policy of unilingualism whereby civil servants needed to be proficient in only
one of the two national languages. This was thus the beginning of a ‘linguistic
federalism’, a concept which now in the 1980's is in the process of being applied to
all aspects of Belgian society.
When Belgium fell to Nazi Germany in 1940, once again certain Flemish factions,
now politically organised, fell in with the Germans. It is true that there were certain
Fascist sympathies among some of them, but, as was the case in the First World
War, it was more because there was still a gross inequality of opportunity for Flemings
and thus collaboration was one means of rectifying this. The defeat of Germany in
this war had a similar effect on the Flemish Movement as the same circumstances
had had at the end of the other, although the socialist flaminganten had felt that the
language issue should be shelved for the duration of the war. The movement took
a decade to recover after the war. Its ideals were, however, kept alive by various
small nationalist groups which began to reorganise themselves politically and finally
amalgamated in 1954 to form the Volksunie, a party which was to become quite
influential from the 1960's on.
There were pressing social problems to be solved in the immediate post-war

4. In the 1960's the vervlaamsing (=vernederlandsing) of the Catholic University of Louvain

(Leuven), situated also well within the language border, would also become a burning issue.

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 28

5. 6.
period, such as reconstruction, the ‘royal question’ , and the ‘schools' struggle’ ,
plus the fact that the movement had to keep a low profile until its activities of the
war years were forgotten. But in the 1960's the troubles started again. The increasing
gallicisation of the capital, not helped by the adoption of Brussels as headquarters
of Nato and the E.E.C., as well as the continuing lack of equality of Flemings and
7
Walloons in business, the army and the diplomatic corps , were issues which still
had to be solved. The 1960's also witnessed the economic revival of Flanders and
subsequent decline of Wallonia, thus encouraging the Flemings all the more in their
demands.
A cure for the evergrowing cancer known as Brussels (de Brusselse agglomeratie),
situated as it was in the belly of Flanders, was to become the final and most difficult
task the Flemish Movement had to deal with. Erecting a barrier against further
expansion of Brussels, fixing the language border across the country and the
subsequent creation of a truly federal state became the express aims of the Flemish
Movement in the 60's, 70's and 80's.
Bilingualism in Belgium was to be understood as follows: the two national
languages were to be equal but the jurisdiction of each would be limited to that part
of the country where it is the mother-tongue of the majority, except for bilingual
Brussels where either could be used. The language laws of 1962-3 fixed the border
between Flanders and Wallonia but there were certain difficulties in so doing. For
example, the area known as Komen-Moeskroen (Comines-Mouscron, population
75,000), which is predominantly French-speaking but not contiguous with a
French-speaking province of Belgium (see map 7) was transferred for administrative
purposes to Hainaut, although it is geographically part of West Flanders; the language
rights of the Dutch-speaking minority in the area were to be preserved, however. In
return for this obvious concession to the Walloons, the Voerstreek (Fourons, but
also called Land van Overmaas, population 4,400), situated south of the Dutch
Limburg border, was handed over to the Belgian province of Limburg; here Flemings
are in the majority, although the region is not contiguous with a Dutch-speaking
province but is geographically part of the province of Liège. As in the case of
Komen-Moeskroen, the linguistic rights of the minority, in this case the Walloons,
are preserved. There is, however, continual friction between the two factions due
to the economic dependence of the Flemings in the area on the French cities to the
south.
It should be pointed out that strictly speaking Belgium is a trilingual country with
a sizeable German-speaking minority (60,000) concentrated along its eastern

5. The koningskwestie is the name given to the controversy which arose as a result of many
people feeling that the king, Leopold III, had handed the country over to the Germans too
easily and by residing in comfort in Germany for the duration of the war, he too was felt to
have been guilty of collaboration. Conservative Catholic Flanders demanded the return of the
king from Germany after the war, but progressive Wallonia opposed it. The Flemish vote
outnumbered the Walloon vote and yet the king was forced to abdicate in 1952 in favour of
his son, Baudouin (Boudewijn), the present king.
6. The schoolstrijd was the fight to retain government subsidies for Catholic schools, a Flemish
cause, while at the same time building more non-religious state schools, a Walloon cause. A
solution was found in 1958.
7 The Flemings were demanding only a 50/50 share of posts in the foreign service and of federal
expenditure, which, considering the population splits 60/40 in their favour, seems a very
reasonable demand.

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 29

Map 7: (a) The language border in the west as it is and is believed to have been in former
times. Taken from the Winkler Prins Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, Elsevier, Amsterdam,
1978 (volume 1, p. 81). (b) The language border and the various linguistic communities in
the present-day Kingdom of Belgium. (c) The language border in the east featuring the
Voerstreek (i.e. the area of the Fourons, a small river).

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 30

border in the so-called East Cantons. Belgium already possessed German-speaking

territory prior to World War I but this increased in size after that war as a result of a
decision of the Treaty of Versailles to reward Belgium and punish Germany. This
so-called Eupen-Malmédy area belongs to French-speaking Liège, but the language
rights of the German-speaking minority are guaranteed by the constitution. The
whole north-eastern corner of Belgium is a region where in the course of time French
has made considerable gains at the cost of Germanic speech, whether it be Dutch
or German.
When the language border was fixed in 1962-3, the metropolitan area of Brussels
was also restricted to 19 communes. In addition 6 peripheral communes (see map
8) got taalfaciliteiten for their French-speaking minority; this means, for example,
that French-speaking children, although living in Vlaamstalig Brabant, as it is often
called, can go to French language schools. This is not possible in the rest of Flanders,
nor is the reverse the case in Wallonia. 80% of Brusselaars (Bruxellois) are
French-speaking but many people commute from the towns and villages of Flanders
to work there, switching to French on arrival in their work environment.
Thus the language laws of 1962 were the beginning of the political break-up of
the unitary state of Belgium. This break-up was a direct result of the Flemish pressure
of decades and federalism was and is seen as the only means of preserving any
form of state at all. Central to the whole issue, although not the exclusive cause,
had been the Dutch language in Belgium. Protests over the inequality of the two
languages were numerous in the 1960's after the language border had been fixed.
The seaside resorts along the Flemish coast were (and are) heavily Frenchified in
the summer, due not only to Walloon holiday-makers but also due to many tourists
from France. This coast was thus one of the scenes of protest against the dominance
of French. At the same time there were also repeated demonstrations against the
occasional use of French in some of the churches in the cities of Flanders. The
conservative Catholic church had been one of the bastions of the French language
in Flanders that had to be combatted from the beginning of the Flemish Movement.
The late 1960's witnessed the controversy about the Catholic University of Louvain
(Leuven), the oldest university in the Low Countries dating from 1425. The language
border, as it was drawn in 1962, passed 15 kilometres south of Louvain and yet the
university, due to the Catholic church which manages it, had been allowed to continue
instruction in French. The student discontent, which much of Western Europe
witnessed at this time, found expression in Belgium among nationalist Flemings in
the fight for the vervlaamsing (now vernederlandsing) of Louvain university - Leuven
Vlaams was the slogan of the day. Finally in 1969 the French-speaking faculties
were removed to Wavre near Ottignies, south of the language border. Feelings ran
very high at the time and the split led, for example, to such bizarre situations as the
possessions of the historic university library being split down the middle on the basis
8.
of odd and even catalogue numbers.

8. This ancient library had been world-famous until World War I when it was destroyed. During
World War II many of its possessions were once again lost due to bombardment. This division
of the library's holdings in the late 1960's was regarded by many as the third destruction of
the university library.

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 31

The Belgian dilemma has thus been that it is an artificially created country, founded
a mere 150 years ago but divided in two by a linguistic frontier which has existed
for over 1000 years. Union of the Flemish and Walloon provinces with their northern
and southern neighbours respectively was neither practical nor desirable, nor was
independence from each other. Thus union was the only practical alternative but
that brought inevitable problems with it, which, it is now felt, can only be solved if
the country is organised along federal lines with recognition of three separate regions
- Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels - and three languages: Dutch, French and German.
In the 1980's we are witnessing the application of this solution to the Belgian
predicament, often labelled the communautaire probleem.
The problems of this three-way division of the federal state have caused every
government since 1968 to fall, the main cause usually being Brussels and the
complications its growth is causing. The Flemings, at the head of whose protest
9.
stands the Volksunie , are trying to prevent so-called bilingual Brussels from
assuming a status equal to that of Flanders or Wallonia, in which case they feel their
equality would be lost - there would then be two French-speaking regions to one
Dutch-speaking region, although population-wise the division is 3 to 2 in their favour.
In addition the Brusselaars want complete language rights for all French-speakers
living on the outkirts of Brussels. Since 1978 there has been an impasse between
Flemings and Walloons on the status which Brussels is to have in the new federal
state. Meanwhile the administrative and cultural autonomy of Flanders and Wallonia
is being put into practice, but the Flemings are not prepared to let go of Brussels
which stands well within their territory.
Map 8 shows that any further concessions to the Walloons in the south of Brussels
could very soon led to the city joining up geographically with Wallonia. A good Dutch
sounding place name like Waterloo, situated south of the language border twenty
kilometres from the capital shows, for example, that Dutch has already lost ground
10.
to French in this area in the past.
For the full implementation of a federal state, compromises will have to be found.
It seems that Belgium will remain a united country but linguistic friction will probably
also always be a fact of Belgian life. Although both Flemings and Walloons have
always learnt the other's language at school, in practice it was usually the case that
the Fleming spoke better French than the Walloon spoke Dutch - the result of social
and economic pressure - and thus the need and desire of the Walloon to learn Dutch
properly was minimal. Nowadays, although it is compulsory to study both languages
at school, it is very common for many young people to choose English as their
second language instead of the language of their compatriots. In addition, English
already enjoys a privileged position in Brussels as the main language of the Nato
and E.E.C. This situation is thus leading very

9. It is interesting to note that the success of the stand which the Volksunie took on the issue of
language caused the previously united national parties to split into Flemish and Walloon
branches.
10. When the Flemings reformed the spelling of Dutch in 1946 (see p. 42), they also applied the
new rules to place-names, unlike Holland where it remained optional. Thus Waterloo became
Waterlo and Schaerbeek became Schaarbeek. But these areas had become French-speaking
and the Walloons had nothing to gain by recognising a Dutch spelling reform; thus the Walloons
retained the spelling Waterloo and Schaerbeek while the Flemings write these and other such
names according to the new spelling.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 32

Map 8: The growth of Brussels.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 33

gradually to a situation where in the future Flemings and Walloons may well find it
easier and preferable to converse with each other in English. But this remains
speculation at this stage. There is a long way to go before such a solution becomes
fact.
One final hurdle some Flemings have yet to overcome in their struggle for complete
linguistic equality is a psychological one. Although numbers are on their side, and
although legislation now protects monolingual Flemings inside Flanders, there is
still a lingering feeling among many people that a knowledge of French is necessary
for full social acceptance. And it is indeed a fact that a monolingual Fleming who is
forced to seek work in his capital city would find life difficult.
In addition many Flemings (although an ever decreasing number) are still reared
in a dialect environment and thoughout their schooling, and even their university
education for example, they are continually unsure of the correctness and
acceptability of their Dutch. This insecurity is not aided at all by the attitude of the
Dutch to Belgian language usage. Although Flanders has now clearly opted to follow
northern practice, and thus in time to break down the existing differences between
north and south, the average Dutchman is not at all interested in the Fleming's plight
and regards him, his country and particularly his language as ‘quaint’, to put it mildly.
In the hope of reuniting Flanders and Holland on at least a cultural level, and thus
also on a linguistic one, the Nederlandse Taalunie was founded in September 1980;
its objectives are the integration of Holland and the Dutch-speaking community in
Belgium in the field of language and literature. In May 1981 the Vlaams Cultureel
Centrum was also opened in Amsterdam for cultural exchange between the two
countries.
Nowadays the relationship of the various forms of Flemish to Dutch does not really
differ greatly from that of all other Dutch dialects to standard Dutch. The cultuurtaal
of the majority of Flemings in the church, science, education, literature and journalism
is Dutch, and whatever position French may have in Belgium today, it does not alter
this relationship at all.
But what are some of the characteristics of Belgian Dutch, commonly called
Flemish? In pronunciation it is particularly the soft g, the (often) bilabial w, the
common dropping of h and the pure long vowels and diphtongs that typify it. Only
a minority of people attempt to adopt a northern pronunciation but a certain regional
colour in accent is no impediment to standardisation.
The enormous and inevitable influence of French is evidenced in several ways:
1 Gallicisms in the grammar e.g. telefoneren naar - téléfoner à (in N. Dutch simply
telefoneren).
2 There are many French loanwords that are not used in the north, where words
of French origin are also not uncommon e.g. contacteren (N. Dutch: contact
opnemen met), de lavabo (N. Dutch: de wastafel - wash basin), de chauffage
(N. Dutch: de verwarming - heating), konfijt (N. Dutch: jam, an English
loanword).
3 There is often an avoidance of French loanwords which are commonly used
in Holland e.g. stortbad - douche (shower), aanvaarden - accepteren (to accept),
dagblad - krant (< courant, newspaper).
Such purism is common to many languages that are in competition with others
or where it is seen as integral to the preservation of separate identity e.g.
Afrikaans, Hebrew, Icelandic.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 34

4 French loanwords that are considered indispensable are dutchified to some

extent e.g. statie < station, bureel < bureau, energie (with a Dutch, not a French
g), okkazie < occasion.

The last example is an interesting illustration of the difference in orientation between

Flanders and Holland. The source of most loanwords in Northern Dutch today is
English, whereas in Belgium it is still either French or English which often reaches
Flanders via French. The word occasion (a special offer in a shop) is a loanword of
quite long standing. In Flanders they are only too aware that it is French and thus
attempt to dutchify it. In Holland, however, they assume it is from English and thus
write and pronounce it as an English word. So too the English loanwords flat and
tram are pronounced with an [a] in Belgium, as in French, while in Holland they are
pronounced with an [ε], an attempt to pronounce them as in English (see p. 48).
English words like service and plastic are also pronounced more or less as in English
in Holland, with the stress on the first syllable, whereas in Belgium the stress is on
the last syllable, as in French.
The Dutch of the administration, particularly in Brussels, is often a language of
translation with all the mistakes that this implies. Because dialect speech is still so
prevalent in Belgium, there is a tendency among Flemings to regard the written word
as the prototype of the spoken word, with the result that Belgian Dutch can sound
bookish and unnatural e.g. gehuwd for getrouwd (married), u zijt for u bent (you
are), bekomen for krijgen (to get), zegde for zei (past tense of zeggen, to say).
Many Dutch words in everyday use in Belgium sound archiac to the Dutchman
e.g. gans (heel-whole), gij(jij-you), gaarne(graag-gladly) (see p. 103). Many also
sound humorous to the northerner because of the differences in meaning that often
exist e.g. kuisen (B. to clean, H. to chasten), schoon (B. pretty, H. clean), tas (B.
cup, H. bag), kleed (B. dress, H. rug), merkwaardig (B. remarkable, H. peculiar).
The Belgian, like the southern Dutchman, still knows three genders of the noun:
the historical difference between masculine and feminine nouns, which died out in
the north, was preserved in the south. This has implications for pronominal use e.g.
de vloer > hij, de deur > zij, but in Holland both are referred to as hij (i.e. it). (See p.
61).
Belgian word order can also differ from the northern norm, particularly the order
of verbs at the end of a clause e.g. Hij weet dat het nu moet gedaan worden (he
knows that it must now be done), whereas in Holland the auxiliary verbs are
preferably kept together: Hij weet dat het nu gedaan moet worden/moet worden
gedaan. There is also, for example, an avoidance of tangconstructies (see p. 72)
with separable verbs e.g. Ik heb het hem proberen duidelijk maken but in Holland:
Ik heb het hem duidelijk proberen te maken/Ik heb het hem proberen duidelijk te
maken (I tried to make it clear to him).
In conclusion it should be mentioned that whereas Holland's colonial past led to
the plantation of the Dutch language in areas outside Europe, where it still exists
today, Belgium's colonial activity, although of course not as long-lasting or as
wide-spread as that of its northern neighbour, did nothing at all for the spread of
Dutch language and culture. Belgium had control of the Congo, now Zaïre, from the
1880's to 1960. It is somehow indicative of the situation in Belgium itself during that
period that although the vast majority of colonial administrators in the Congo were
Flemings, there was no place for Dutch in that administration and consequently
Zaïre belongs to francophone Africa.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 35

Bibliography

IRVING, R.E.M. The Flemings and Walloons of Belgium.

Minority Rights Group Report 46, London, 1980.
An excellent, succinct and up to date account of the Belgian problem.

RUYS, M. The Flemings.

Lannoo, Tielt & Utrecht, 1973.
Probably the best account of the Belgian problem available in English. It is also
available in Dutch, German and French.

HUGGETT, F.E. Modern Belgium.

Pall Mall Press, London, 1969.
A good general history of Belgium.

CARSON, P. The fair face of Flanders.

E. Story-Scientia, Ghent, 1969.
A very readable, sympathetic account of Belgian history.

CLERCK, W. DE, Zuidnederlands woordenboek.

Martinus Nijhoff. The Hague, 1981.
A very detailed work on word usage in Belgium, including many words and
expressions that are commonly used in Holland south of the rivers.

DELEU, G. ed. and others Encyclopedie van de Vlaamse beweging, volumes

1 & 2.
Lannoo, Tielt & Utrecht, 1973.
Absolutely the definitive work on the Flemish Movement (ca. 3000 pages).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 36

4 Spelling
Few European languages have such a logical, economic spelling system as Dutch.
Even German, whose spelling is a godsend to the English-speaking student after
his years of hassle with the spelling of his mother-tongue, has cause to envy Dutch
spelling. The spelling of Dutch as we know it today has of course developed over a
long period and controversy about certain aspects of it still has not ceased. Such
issues will be dealt with later in this chapter.
The layman might feel inclined to say Dutch spelling is almost completely phonetic
and to a great extent this comment is not far from the truth. However, if the linguist
looks in detail at how the written symbols of the language relate to the spoken word,
he soon discovers many non-phonetic spellings and recognises too that a fully
phonetic spelling system is not necessarily a desirable thing. For example, Dutch
has in common with German that final b and d are pronounced as p and t respectively
i.e. they are devoiced in Auslaut: to write web and bed as wep and bet would not
be desirable given that the plural of these words, both in writing and in speech, is
webben and bedden. Here the eye, not the ear, seems to demand a consistency of
spelling even though it is at odds with what is actually said.
A truly phonetic spelling system for any given language would be one that had a
separate written symbol for every individual sound. In fact, what one loosely calls
‘phonetic’ spelling is correctly called ‘phonemic’ spelling i.e. one where each
significant difference in pronunciation is reflected in the spelling, not simply every
difference in sound. For example, the different pronunciation of the s in English
‘house’ and ‘houses’ is not a phonemic difference and thus a different spelling for
the two separate sounds is not considered necessary. Similarly, phonetically speaking
the k sound in ‘cat’ is different from the k sound in ‘kit’, as a result of the back and
front vowels following the k in each word, but this difference is not significant to
meaning; it is merely determined by the different phonological environment in the
words concerned.
Yet another reason for avoiding a fully phonetic spelling is homonyms i.e. similar
sounding words with different meanings e.g. calf (of the leg) - calf (young of a cow).
For historical reasons (see p. 145-48) the Dutch can render the diphthong [εi] with
two spellings, ei or ij. Retention of this distinction in spelling from a time in history
when the two were pronounced differently, often helps the eye to distinguish
homonyms e.g. wij (we) - wei (meadow), lijden (to suffer) - leiden (to lead). Similarly
the sound [ɔu] can be written two ways in Dutch for historical reasons i.e. au or ou.
This distinction can also occasionally help distinguish homonyms e.g. gauw (soon)
- gouw (province).
We have thus seen that etymology can often be the reason for various spellings
of the same sound. Having looked at some of the complications of a phonetic spelling

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 37

and the reasons why even a phonemic spelling is not always possible or desirable,
we shall now examine the basic rules of Dutch spelling and come to appreciate its
economy and consistency.
The most striking feature of Dutch spelling is its economy of letters and nowhere
is this better illustrated than in the way it reproduces the vowels of the language. It
is immediately evident whether the vowels in any given word are long or short.
Whether the long vowels are written double or not to indicate length depends on
whether they stand in open or closed syllables (see glossary) e.g. boom (tree) -
bomen (trees): in the singular the long vowel occurs in a closed syllable and thus
the vowel is doubled, whereas in the plural it occurs in an open syllable and a second
1.
o would be a superfluous extra indication of length. Equally the word could not be
pronounced with a short o because a double m would then be used e.g. bom (bomb)
- bommen (bombs). The same rule applies to a, e and u e.g. paal (pole) - palen
(poles), peer (pear) - peren (pears), muur (wall) - muren (walls). Compare kat (cat)
- katten (cats), bed (bed) - bedden (beds) and bus (bus) - bussen (buses). Only i
employs a different system: short i is written as such e.g. pit (seed) - pitten (seeds),
and long i is written ie e.g. mier (ant) - mieren (ants).
This alternation of double and single vowels and consonants to indicate long
vowels, although illustrated above only by contrasting the singular and plural of
2.
nouns, is also found in verbs and adjectives. For example, infinitives all end in -en
and can look as follows: varen (to go by ship), leren (to learn, teach), kopen (to buy)
and huren (to hire). They are conjugated in the present tense as follows:

ik leer wij leren ik koop wij kopen

jij leert jullie leren jij koopt jullie kopen
hij leert zij leren hij koopt zij kopen etc.

The same alternation of a/aa, e/ee etc. also occurs in adjectives when inflected
e.g. kaal (bald) - kale, geel (yellow) - gele etc.
Double consonants always indicate that the preceding vowel is short e.g. laf
(cowardly) - laffe, spatten (to splash) - ik spat, potten (pots) - pot. It is impossible to
have a double consonant (i.e. the same consonant) at the end of a Dutch word. For
example, the second and third persons of the verb in the present tense normally
take a -t ending but a verb like zitten (to sit), whose stem already ends in t, forgoes
the ending e.g. ik zit, jij zit, hij zit. A second t would be superfluous to indicate the
correct pronunciation.
At this point we touch on a spelling problem which has tormented Dutch

1. Two notable exceptions to this otherwise hard and fast rule are waarom (why), a compound
of two separate words, and tweede (second), where the dropping of an e could obscure its
relationship to twee (two).
2. The diminutive forms of café and auto (car) are interesting examples of Dutch spelling: cafeetje,
autootje i.e. long vowels in closed syllables must be indicated by doubling. Also the plural of
foreign words ending in a, o and u illustrates an interesting variant i.e. firma's, auto's and
paraplu's, replacing *firmaas, *autoos and *parapluus where once again the doubling of the
vowel in such obviously foreign words, although in accordance with the spelling rules of Dutch,
would disturb the eye too much. The apostrophe thus literally stands in place of a letter which
has dropped out.

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 38

school-children, and many adults as well, for a long time. Because final d is
pronounced as t, confusion often arises as to which letter is required. Nowhere is
the problem greater, however, than in the spelling of verbs. Whereas zitten, as
illustrated above, does not require a second t in the second and third persons
singular, a verb such as verbranden (to burn, trans.) does require t because the
sight of dt at the end of a word does not disturb the Dutch eye i.e. ik verbrand, jij
verbrandt, hij verbrandt, wij verbranden. The dt cluster sounds, however, like a single
t. The issue is further complicated by the past participle i.e. verbrand (see p. 63).
There are simple rules for knowing the correct spelling of t, dt or d but nevertheless
the Dutch make many mistakes in this regard. It is one of the few instances where
the spelling is not phonemic but partially determined by grammar.
Another consistency between the spoken word and spelling is the way in which
3.
a final f or s following a long vowel or diphthong become v and z when an e follows
in other forms of the word i.e. f and s are then voiced in intervocalic position and
their voiced equivalent in the alphabet replaces them e.g. duif (dove) - duiven (doves),
vies (dirty) - vieze (inflected form), ik reis (I travel) - wij reizen (we travel). As the
examples illustrate, this spelling change also occurs, as do the a/aa etc. changes,
in nouns, adjectives and verbs and consequently pervades the whole of Dutch. In
effect, as far as the f/v and s/z alternation is concerned, the Dutch are simply
expressing in writing something which we also say in English but do not always
attempt to reflect in the spelling: compare the pronunciation of ‘house’ and ‘houses’,
‘roof - rooves’.
The above summary of the logic behind the spelling of Dutch is similar to what
one would find in any basic grammar of the language for foreigners. There are,
however, several more peculiarities and even some inconsistencies which are usually
left unexplained, but which are both interesting and important.
4.
The ij : this ligature, along with the double vowels, is the most distinctive feature
of written Dutch and enables a novice to recognise a printed page immediately as
being Dutch. Although the Dutch for historical reasons have two spellings for the
diphthong [εi], namely ei and ij, the latter spelling, because of its origin in long i and
5.
also because of the way it is formed in handwriting , has become totally confused
with the letter y which to all intents and purposes hardly exists in Dutch except in
very few foreign words e.g. baby, typisch (pron. i).
The new diphthong ij has been present in Dutch since the end of the Middle Ages,
but the spelling ij, to indicate the length of the original long i has been present since
the Middle Dutch period i.e. 1100-1500 (see p. 93). In the course of time speakers
of Dutch, or one should say writers of Dutch, have come to regard the ligature as

3. This spelling change is also often found after certain consonants e.g. wolf - wolven (wolf -
wolves), vers - verzen (verse - verses), gans - ganzen (goose - geese) but kers - kersen
(cherry - cherries) and mens - mensen (person - people).
4. This is called lange [εi], a reference to the length of the j in writing, to distinguish it from ei.
5. For the history of the ij spelling for the diphthong [εi] see p. 40. The letter j, which the Romans
did not know, was originally a scribal variant of the letter i in much the same way as we used
to have a long and a short s even in English e.g. beʃt and was. Thus the ligature ij goes back
to a double i, the tradition we still employ with a, e and u in Dutch today.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 39

one letter, pronounced [εi], This attitude is already evident in Middle Dutch
manuscripts and the earliest printed texts (latter half of the fifteenth century) as is
the habit of leaving the dots off, thus writing a y instead. Consequently, when saying
the alphabet most Dutch people pronounce the letter y as [εi], although the letter y
is strictly speaking called i grec or ypsilon. An important ramification of this alternative
way of regarding the ligature ij (which by the way is a separate key on a Dutch
typewriter and when used in a situation where capitalisation is necessary both the
I and the J are capitalised or else a capital Y is used) is that library catalogues,
encyclopaedias and telephone books arrange all words containing ij alphabetically
6.
under y ; this is not the case in Belgium, however. Such inconsistency can often be
confusing, even to the Dutch. Whatever attempts have been made to insist that ij
is not y, the practice continues and seems to be here to stay, even though dictionaries
7.
now all place ij under i. I recall having seen the French loan word bijouterie (jewellery
counter) in various stores spelt byouterie and yet this is an instance where the
pronunciation is definitely i + j i.e. [i.ʒ]. For years there has been debate as to whether
th
ij belongs under i, under y or should be regarded as a 27 letter, occurring even
after z in the alphabet. Swedish and Spanish, to name but two notable examples,
know similar problems with additional letters and have found various solutions to
them.
Finally a word about several other minor peculiarities of Dutch spelling. There are
two spellings for the gutteral fricative [X], namely ch and g. The distinction in spelling
is a remnant of a time when the latter was a voiced fricative, as is still the case in
southern dialects, but in the north both are now pronounced as voiceless fricatives.
The falling together of those two sounds is one of the factors which has given rise
to the commonly heard comment ‘Dutch is such a gutteral language, isn't it?’ (see
chapter on pronunciation p. 51).
Dutch also knows the grave and acute accents in its spelling, and not only in
French loan words. The acute accent in particular is often used to show emphasis,
where an English text may underline or use bold type; it is also used to distinguish
homonyms where confusion can arise e.g. een -a, één - one; voor - for, vóór - in
front of/before.
Dutch makes extensive use of the diaeresis. The Dutch name, deelteken (lit. part
sign, also called trema), explains its function. When two vowel signs representing
two separate syllables may lead the reader to pronounce them as one sound (whether
as a long vowel or a diphthong), the vowel of the second syllable bears a diaeresis
to indicate this e.g. zoëven, financiën, tweeëntwintig. It is sometimes used on o's
as well, but will usually only be found on e's.
Syllabification in Dutch also differs from English. Whereas English splits words
according to the semantics of the component parts e.g. regist-er, Dutch splits entirely
according to sound, e.g. har-ten (hearts), mees-ter (master), lo-pen (to walk). The
rule is simply that the break-away syllable(s) must always begin with a consonant;
where double consonants are concerned, one stays behind and the

6. Afrikaans knows only the y spelling and places it under ij in the alphabet.
7. Van Dale's Dutch dictionary, generally accepted as the ‘Oxford’ of Holland, has a note at the
point between the lemmas i-grec and ij to the effect that it is incorrect to regard ij as y in
alphabetical lists.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 40

other precedes the break-away syllable on the new line e.g. belet-ten (to prevent),
kat-ten (cats).
Compound nouns are usually always written as one word. In certain specific
instances hyphens may occasionally be used e.g. auto-ongeluk (to avoid a
cumber-some double oo), West-Duitsland (a geographic name, although the
corresponding adjective is written Westduits). There is, however, and I feel I should
add unfortunately, an ever growing tendency to write compound nouns as separate
words, even when medial sounds are used to complete the compound e.g. klanten
service, bibliotheeks uren, stads vernieuwingsgebied. Whether this is simply due to
carelessness, influence of English or a genuine belief that there is nothing wrong
with such spellings, I have been unable to ascertain. The practice is not just limited
to informal writings by simple individuals. The example bibliotheeks uren was taken
from an official sign on the door of the university library in Utrecht. Whether compound
nouns are written as one word, two words or hyphenated is indeed a problem for
all in English; the Dutch had an ideal solution but seem to be heading into the same
confusion we find ourselves in. The practice should not be copied.

The recent history of Dutch spelling

The Spelling De Vries en Te Winkel (1860-1934)

From the 1860's through to 1934, the official spelling system of Dutch which had
received government backing, was that of Matthijs de Vries and Lammert Allard te
Winkel. The former was a professor of Dutch in Groningen and later in Leiden while
the latter was a teacher at a Leiden gymnasium. They were working on a definitive
dictionary of Dutch for both the northern and southern Netherlands. Such a task
was only feasible if there was agreement on spelling and thus in 1863 De Vries and
Te Winkel produced Grondbeginselen der Nederlandsche spelling. Both men had
a thorough knowledge of philology and thus although they did not break completely
with the spelling traditions of their predecessors, they did apply certain historical
principles which had hitherto often been ignored or not thoroughly understood. Some
of these are still present in the spelling today.
It has already been mentioned that the diphthong [εi] can be spelt either ei or ij,
depending on the origin of the word. This distinction was originally a recommendation
of De Vries en Te Winkel. They argued that any word containing an [εi] that was
derived from an original long i, should be written ij e.g. wijn < wîn, karwij from French
carvi (a plant). The ei spelling, they maintained, should represent the [εi] diphthong
in all words where the origin was either an original Germanic diphthong or of any
origin other than long i e.g. bereid -compare Gothic raidjan, vallei from French vallée.
De Vries and Te Winkel were also guided by etymology when they laid down the
rules for e/ee, o/oo and sch. Because in certain dialects, notably Rotterdams and
Zeeuws, long e and o were and are pronounced differently according to whether
they were derived from an original diphthong or were simply long vowels, this was
reflected in the spelling. By comparing the following Dutch words with cognate forms
in German, one can see what spelling was required: heeten, beenen, weezen versus
heißen, Beine, Waisen but deken, gele, bede versus Decke, gelbe, Bitte;

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 41

droomen, boomen, koopen versus träumen, Bäume, kaufen but boter, zonen versus
Butter, Söhne. Similarly, that ruischen was written sch and bruisen was written s
(also Nederlandsch, mensch etc.) was also to be traced back to etymology; here
again comparison with German clarifies the situation somewhat i.e. rauschen but
brausen.
There were, however, many instances where the origin of words was not clear
but the main objection was that the common man had no idea of etymology anyway.
And as far as the e/ee and o/oo issue was concerned, it was based on a distinction
in pronunciation that only a minority of speakers applied; in the ABN of most of the
country the two sounds had fallen together long ago.
De Vries and Te Winkel were also guided by historical principles when they, like
generations before them, insisted on case endings still being used with articles and
adjectives; this was also an artificial distinction which had long since disappeared
from the spoken language and which thus caused great difficulty e.g. Ik heb haren
vader met zijnen hond in het park gezien.
De Vries and Te Winkel also allotted a masculine or feminine gender to all common
gender nouns, once again basing their rules on historical principles which the
common man had no knowledge of or natural feeling for. With few exceptions (see
p. 62) all common gender nouns had come to be regarded as masculine when they
needed to be replaced by pronouns i.e. hij/hem were used in such cases, seldom
8.
zij/haar.
It is obvious from the above summary of the basics of the De Vries and Te Winkel
spelling that there must have been a great deal of opposition. Nevertheless it received
government approval and managed to maintain its authoritative position for some
seventy years. Opposition in the nineteenth century culminated in the foundation of
the Vereniging tot vereenvoudiging van onze schrijftaal by R.A. Kollewijn in 1893.
He cast aside most historical principles and based his spelling on general cultivated
speech. This became known as the Spelling Kollewijn. Kollewijn had many followers
9
but his spelling did not gain government approval.
Little official notice was taken of the newer simplified spelling until 1934, and even
then only in Holland, not in Belgium. This was during the period of office of the
minister of education H.P. Marchant. The so-called Spelling Marchant, which was
adopted by royal decree in 1936, did not go quite as far as Kollewijn had
recommended. The difficulties of e/ee, o/oo and s/sch were removed and case n's
were only to be written where they are heard in ABN i.e. in standard expressions
such as op den duur, goedenavond etc. There was, however, one annoying exception
to this which was not abolished till 1947: articles and adjectives standing before
words designating singular masculine beings or the names of animals which
designate only the male of the species, still required an n in oblique cases e.g. bij
den

8. Virtually all pre-war books are printed in the spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel but apart from
looking somewhat antiquated, their spelling is no bar to understanding the text for a modern
reader.
9 When Afrikaans replaced Dutch as one of the two official languages of South Africa in 1925,
the simplified spelling of Kollewijn was adopted immediately; South Africa is still far ahead of
the Netherlands in the degree to which its spelling is phonetic, particularly with regard to
foreign words, a problem which still exists in Dutch.

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 42

man but op de stoel (formerly also op den stoel), van den aap (masculine) but van
de muis (feminine).
10.
This final remnant of the etymologically based spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel
was eradicated in Holland by the so-called Spellingwet of 1947 and in Belgium by
the Spellingbesluit of 1946. In 1947 a committee comprising both Belgians and
Dutchmen was given the task of compiling an official spelling list which appeared
in 1954 under the title Woordenlijst der Nederlandse Taal. Ever since that book has
been the ‘Bible’ of Dutch spelling in Holland and Belgium; it is known colloquially as
het Groene Boekje as all editions thereof since 1954 have appeared in the same
green hardback cover. Although this is the spelling used by all government and
educational establishments, it is not uncommon for older people educated prior to
the war still to write in the spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel.

The voorkeurspelling versus the nieuwe spelling

The spelling which the Groene Boekje recommended did not adequately solve the
problem of how to spell foreign loan words, known generally in Dutch as
bastaardwoorden. Typical entries in the Woordenlijst for foreign words are:
konvokatie; zie convocatie.
convocatie: ook konvokatie.
tekst (but text is not given as a possibility)
textiel (but tekstiel is not given as a possibility)

However examen or eksamen are both permitted.

To leave the choice to the user was a mistake and the fact that the Woordenlijst
was not prepared to give the seal of approval to one spelling or the other has been
a continual source of confusion and inconsistency ever since. It was clear that the
intention was for foreign words to be gradually dutchified, but the compilers were
afraid to push people too quickly.
Eventually a Dutch-Belgian commission was appointed to look into the issue
further and its suggestions were published in 1967: Rapport van de
Nederlands-Belgische commissie van spelling van de bastaardwoorden. Its
Eindvoorstellen (final suggestions) were published in 1969. These recommendations
formed the basis of the so-called nieuwe spelling whereupon the spelling as it
appears in the Woordenlijst, still the only spelling with government approval, became
known as the voorkeurspelling (preferred spelling). To exemplify the sort of
suggestions made in this report, let the following suffice:
a. intervocalic s should be written z e.g. prezident, filozofie
b. th should become t e.g. tee, biblioteek
c. total replacement of c by k e.g. aktueel, kollege or by s e.g. sent, sijfer, sukses(<
succes)
The last recommendation was supported, for example, by the fact that foreign
words no longer necessarily regarded as such were spelt like that e.g. sigaret,
prinses, porselein.
d. oe should replace ou e.g. doeane, goeverneur but not in words such as douche
and journalist where other foreign sounds that cannot be dutchified are still
present.

10. This statement is not completely true because the ei/ij and au/ou distinctions which still exist
and which also have certain opponents are also etymologically based.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium
 43

The commission's report concludes by expressing the hope that a revised edition
of the Woordenlijst will appear at some time in the future in which all its
11.
recommendations will be adopted. So far this has not happened. However, looking
at spelling tendencies in the Netherlands today, there is a definite trend, whether
sanctioned by government and educational bodies or not, towards many of the
commission's suggestions.
The student of Dutch, whether native born or not, is well advised to follow the
Groene Boekje to the letter until such time as it is revised and the many varying
alternative spellings that one meets daily in Holland and Belgium are given official
recognition. Many avant-garde publications, such as student newspapers, often use
the nieuwe spelling, employing spellings such as kado (< cadeau), logies (< logisch)
and sometimes go even further than the commission suggested e.g. tejater (<
theater), sosjeteit (< sociëteit).
The ongoing controversy about the spelling of Dutch is not, however, restricted
to the spelling of loan words. There are those, and the commission touched on this
too, who also wish to introduce radical changes into the spelling of indigenous words
e.g. abolition of the historical distinction between au and ou (gauw - soon, gouw -
province) and ei and ij (hei - heath, hij - he), as well as writing the unstressed endings
12.
-lijk and -rijk as -lik and -rik (lelijk - ugly, belangrijk - important). There is also the
perennial problem of final d and dt (particularly in verbal conjugations), both being
pronounced t and thus a recommendation that they be written t. Official adoption of
such radical changes would seem, however, to be even more remote than adoption
of the Dutch-Belgian commission's recommendations for the spelling of the
bastaardwoorden.

Bibliography

KEUKEN, G.J. van der De nieuwe spelling.

Thieme, Zutphen.
A good brief account of the rules of Dutch spelling as decided in 1947.

Woordenlijst van de Nederlandse Taal

Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, The Hague, 1954.
The official spelling list of the Dutch language (see p. 42). On page 42 updates
of this list with regard to the spelling of foreign words are also mentioned.

11. Interesting examples of negative reactions to the commission's recommendations can be

found in L. Craeybeckx Sluipmoord op de spelling (1972), which, in addition to Craeybeckx'
own opinion, incorporates numerous letters from well-known academies and writers of the
day.
12. It is interesting to note that in the more radical spelling of Afrikaans au and ou are both written
as ou, -lijk and -rijk are also written with a simple i, but the ei/ij distinction has been preserved,
the ij being written as y, however.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 44

This leesplank (reading board), which was introduced into all schools in Holland in 1909,
was only gradually phased out during the 1960's. The words that appear on it contain all the
cardinal sounds of Dutch. It is known colloquially and affectionately as aap-noot-mies.
The distinction between ó (closed) in bok and ò (open) in hok is not made by all speakers
of Dutch (see p. 48) (The words Mies, Wim, Jet, Teun and Gijs are proper nouns.)

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 45

5 The sounds of Dutch (phonology)

When beginning a new language one inevitably starts with pronunciation. In the
case of Dutch, the beginner is immediately struck by how ‘hard’ it is to pronounce.
In this section I shall attempt to look in some detail and in more specific terms at
what constitutes the difficulty of Dutch pronunciation for English speakers. The
average Dutchman is aware that foreigners find his language difficult to pronounce
but he usually thinks no further than the pronunciation of g/ch, which even Germans
pronounce too softly; a common shibboleth they often ask foreigners to repeat is
the name Scheveningen, a town near The Hague. In my opinion, it is in fact more
the vowels, in particular the diphthongs, which form the main barrier in attaining a
good Dutch pronunciation.
1.
The articulation basis of Dutch is considerably further back and lower in the
mouth than in both English and German. Dutch vowels are, on the whole, not as
palatal. The chapter on historical phonology looks in greater depth at the general
absence of Umlaut of long vowels in Dutch; this lack of Umlaut, which is simply
another name for the fronting of vowels, is a good example of the articulation basis
of the language being considerably further back in the mouth than is the case in
English and German. Both these languages have undergone extensive umlauting
- compare kaas v. cheese/Käse (here English has even palatalised the initial
consonant), groeten v. greetings/Grüsse.

The Vowels

Checked vowels:

Checked vowels only occur in closed syllables and are thus always followed by a
consonant e.g. pan (pan), pet (cap), pit (seed), pot (pot), put (well); pannen (pans),
petten (caps) etc. Such double consonants (see Spelling, p. 37) only indicate a
preceding short vowel and are not pronounced double.
The phonetic symbols used here do not all adequatly reflect some of the subleties
of these vowels. For instance, the a in Dutch man is obviously pronounced lower in
the mouth than in English ‘man’, where the vowel is [æ], but it is even somewhat
lower than in German Mann. To the English ear it often tends to sound a little like
[ɔ].
The situation with e is rather complex for the English speaker because although

1. An example of this is the way English speakers often pronounce Dutch ee and oo, which often
sound like Dutch ie and oe to Dutch ears i.e. higher vowels.

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 46

The vowels
The three diphthongs on the opposite page are the short diphthongs of Dutch. In certain
words, however, vowels combine to give the following additional long diphthongs, sometimes
called double vowels:
[a.i] e.g. haai (shark), haaien (sharks)
[o.i] e.g. mooi (pretty), mooie (inflected)
[ui] e.g. boei (buoy), boeien (buoys)
[ui] e.g. nieuw (new), nieuwe (inflected) N.B. pron. [niuwә]
[yu] e.g. schuw (shy), schuwe (inflected) N.B. pron. [sXywә]
[e.u] e.g. leeuw (lion), leeuwen (lions) N.B. pron. [le.uwәn]

In the first three examples the i > j when followed by ә and in the last three examples u > w
in that position.
The colourless vowel ә, called schwa, is common in Dutch in unstressed syllables and can
be written as e, i or ij e.g. beloven (to promise), gelukkig (happy), lelijk (ugly). Schwa is also
sometimes heard as a svarabhakti vowel after l or r plus a consonant particularly in plat
speech e.g. melk (milk) - [mεlәκ], film - [fIәm].

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

1. In Dutch one talks of gedekte and ongedekte or vrije klinkers. The vowels ie, uu and oe,
although now pronounced short except before r, are regarded historically as long vowels, as
their spelling suggests. This has led to the common use of the term long and short instead
of checked and unchecked.
2. These sounds are written with one letter in open syllables (see Spelling, p. 37).
3. Full length and half length are usually indicated as follows [i:] [i.] etc.
4. See the explanation of this symbol on p. 48.
5. Some people would possibly give preference to the symbol [au] to represent this Dutch sound.
I too have used it on p. 148.

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 48

[ε] is used on page 46 as the phonetic transcription, in reality the Dutch sound is a
little lower than English [ε], i.e. it approximates [æ]. English, however, knows two
separate phonemes: [ε], written e, and [æ], written a e.g. ‘bed’ and ‘bad’. In Dutch
these are perceived as allophones of the same phoneme, [ε], This is best illustrated
in the way the Dutch treat English loan words containing an a; for example the loan
2.
word tram is also pronounced in Dutch as [træm] but is somewhat shorter than in
English. But this is the normal pronunciation of e in Dutch and consequently some
people now write he word as trem, such a spelling would be pronounced [trεm] in
English. In other words, Dutch e, like Dutch a, are pronounced lower in the mouth
than the corresponding sounds in English (see footnote 1). This is the result of the
difference in articulation basis between the two languages.
Depending on the phonetic environment, some speakers of Dutch distinguish
between an open and a more closed pronunciation of o (i.e. hòk and bók, see
leesplank p. 44, but north of the rivers, at any rate, there is an ever growing tendency
in favour of the more open vowel as the difference is not phonemic. Thus a falling
3.
together of once distinctly separate sounds has occurred among some speakers.
This is fortunate for the English-speaking student of Dutch, particularly as the more
open variant is closer to the short o in English.
[ɔ] is occasionally heard as a long vowel in certain foreign words e.g. loge (theatre
box), roze (pink).
The pronunciation of the checked vowel u usually causes foreigners some trouble
at first. Even its phonetic transcription is not always the same; some academies use
[y] or [ʌ], I have opted for [ü] as this clearly shows it is a high rounded sound. It can
be described as a rounded [ә] for it is pronounced very short.

Unchecked vowels

Unchecked vowels can occur in both closed and open syllables, unlike checked
vowels e.g. closed syllables- dier (animal), wij laadden (we loaded), groot (big), wij
vergrootten (we enlarged); open syllables- dieren (animals), wij laden (we load), wij
vergroten (we enlarge), ik zie (I see), na (after).
The terms long and half long on the chart on p. 46 refer to the pronunciation of
the sounds aa, ee, eu and oo before r (or in Auslaut) and other consonants
respectively. They are not as long as the corresponding sounds in German where
the spelling often uses an h to show length e.g.fahren (to travel), Sohn (son). The
sound r, which has had a variety of effects on the phonology of Dutch (see p. 159)
causes these vowels to be pronounced very long when it follows: e.g. schaar
(scissors), beer (bear), deur (door), boor (drill) with [a:], [e:], [ø:] and [o:]. Even the
4.
otherwise short unchecked vowels ie , oe and uu are pronounced long before r e.g.
Piet (Pete), boek (book), minuut (minute) with [i], [u] and [y] but mier (ant), boer
(farmer), duur (expensive) with [i:], [u:] and [y:].

2. There are many loan words from English with this sound e.g.flat, jam, plannen (to plan) and
a Dutch creation tanken (to fill up with petrol). Belgians pronounce these words as they are
written i.e. as [a], because some, if not all, have reached them via the medium of French
where they had already undergone assimilation. Sometimes this pronunciation is also heard
in Holland but then it is usually simply a spelling pronunciation.
3. The historical distinction between the two is discussed on p. 136.
4. In some words of Greek origin, this sound is written as y e.g. typisch (typical), type.

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 49

The long vowel ee and the diphthong ei/ij cause different problems in different parts
of the English speaking world. Once again the cause of the difficulty is that the
difference between the two is phonemic in Dutch whereas English knows the two
sounds simply as allophones of the one phoneme. An Englishman, for example, will
have difficulty in separating kreeg (got) and krijg (get) and is likely to apply the
pronunciation of the former to both; an Australian, on the other hand, will also tend
to pronounce the two in the same way but will diphthongise both - compare the
pronunciation of ‘today’ in British and Australian English. As the above minimal pair
illustrates, it is imperative to keep the two sounds separate in Dutch.
There is, to make matters even more complex, a strong tendency in plat Hollands
to diphthongise ee too much. Although speakers of ABN regard their ee as a pure
(half) long vowel, phonetically speaking there is a certain diphthongisation present
even in their pronunciation. It is this tendency which is taken further in plat Hollands
e.g. ik weet (I know) > ik weejt. As the vowel then encroaches into the territory of
the diphthong ei/ij, this latter sound then shifts somewhat in plat speech towards [ai]
5.
to avoid a falling together.
The unchecked vowel oo is in a similar position to ee i.e. Dutch speakers generally
regard it as a pure (half) long vowel but it is in fact somewhat diphthongised in ABN,
6.
a tendency which becomes stronger in plat speech. South of the rivers both ee
and oo are pronounced considerably ‘purer’. But a tendency to diphthongise long
vowels is nothing new to speakers of English. For further comment on the
pronunciation of ee and oo see footnote one on page 45.
The sound represented in writing by eu - the spelling is French in origin. see p.
141 - resembles ee and oo in that if too is considered by ABN speakers to be a pure
(half) long vowel that tends in reality to be diphthongised a little in the ABN of the
west of Holland. It is more open than German ö (i.e. as in Vögel) in western ABN,
but in the south and the east of the Netherlands it is pronounced purer and higher;
it is thus closer to the corresponding sound in German.
Dutch uu is a difficult sound for English speakers but will not be difficult for those
who have done French or German as it corresponds exactly in quality, if not always
in quantity, to French u i.e. pur (pure) and für (for).
[u] is written as oe for historical reasons (see p. 140).

Diphthongs:

The two spellings of the diphthong [εi] are the result of two historically separate
sounds having fallen together (see p. 145). This has led to homonyms e.g. leiden
(to lead) - lijden (to suffer), hei (heath) - hij (he), zei (said) - zij (she). This is quite
an open sound, although a too open pronunciation can sound somewhat plat (see
ee above). English speakers tend to pronounce ei/ij as [ai], firstly because this exact
sound does not exist in English but also because the Dutch words containing ij

5. Such shifts are common in language to avoid homonyms, which can lead to misunderstanding.
6. See p. 137 and p. 139 where the origin of these two sounds is discussed; both were in fact
originally diphthongs. Afrikaans, which bears many plat Hollands traits in pronunciation, breaks
ee and oo very strongly e.g. weet (know) - [ve.әt], brood (bread) - [bro.әt].

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 50

often have cognate forms in English (and German) with [ai] e.g. mijn - mine/mein,
ijs - ice/Eis.
The two spellings of the diphthong [ɔu] are also the result of separate origins (see
p. 148). In certain words, for etymological reasons, they can be followed by a w in
spelling which does not affect pronunciation, however, e.g. ik hou (I hold) but houwen
(to hew), blauw (blue). This sound is similar to the corresponding sound in English
and does not normally present any difficulty to speakers of English.
The diphthong ui is one of the most difficult sounds in Dutch. It is often found in
words whose cognate forms in English contain ou, e.g. huis - house, and thus the
tendency for English speakers is to substitute ou for ui, but Dutch also knows a
diphthong ou, as described above, so this must be avoided.
Vocalisation of d: it is a curious characteristic of Dutch that an intervovalic d,
according to the vowel preceding it, can drop out and generate a semi-vowel in its
stead. After long a in words such as raden (to guess) and laden (to load), the
pronunciation [a.i] is commonly heard i.e. raaien, laaien (see long diphthongs on p.
47). It is particularly colloquial and is considered in some words as plat.
After oe in the word goede (inflected form of goed, good), one will nearly always
7.
hear d pronounced as the semi-vowel j i.e. goeje or goeie; to pronounce the d in
this word sounds most unnatural.
This i/j quality of intervocalic d is also often heard, but never written, after long e
e.g. geleden (ago) - geleje, beneden - (beneath) - beneje. When d follows ei/ij it is
8.
virtually always dropped except in careful, deliberate speech e.g. rijden (to ride)
(drive), snijden (to cut); ik rij(d), snij(d) je.
After ou, d very commonly becomes the semi-vowel w. This phenomenon is not
limited to any particular words, nor is it necessarily unnatural to pronounce d as d
7.
in such words e.g. houden (to hold) > houwe.
With the exception of d after long a, there is not generally speaking any particular
social connotation associated with the vocalisation of d. It can be said, however,
9.
that the lower classes in the west of the country tend to apply it consistently, whereas
the upper classes are not so consistent in their application.
See p. 155 for the vocalisation of d in words where the original form with d has
become obsolete.

7. As a general rule it is advisable not to write these spellings although the words goede and
oude are commonly spelt goeie and ouwe, but houden, for example, would never be written
as houwen. However, ik hou(d), like ik rij, is possible and usually is written without d.
8. Leiden, in the dialect of the area, is pronounced Leie by the lower classes but in addition the
pronunciation Leie/Leienaar (inhabitant of Leiden) is regarded in certain upper class circles,
notably the studentenkorps of Leiden University, as particularly posh. A similar sociological
phenomenon is reflected in the lower classes pronouncing hypercorrect d's e.g. partijen
(parties) > partijden.
7. As a general rule it is advisable not to write these spellings although the words goede and
oude are commonly spelt goeie and ouwe, but houden, for example, would never be written
as houwen. However, ik hou(d), like ik rij, is possible and usually is written without d.
9. In those regions in the north and east of Holland where final -en is pronounced as a syllabic
n (see p. 13), d is no longer intervocalic and is thus not vocalised.

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 51

The Consonants

b: [b] but [p] in Auslaut.

c: [s] or [k] - only in words of
10.
foreign origin.
d: [d] but [t] in Auslaut.
f: [f]
g: [X] or [ɣ] - also rendered [ǥ]
h: [h]
j: [j]
k: [k]
l: [l]
m: [m]
n: [n]
p: [p]
q: [k] only in words of foreign
origin.
r: [r] or [R]
s: [s]
t: [t]
v: [Ѣ] or [f]
w: [v] i.e. labiodental but bilabial
after u and au/ou.
x: [ks] only in words of foreign
origin.
z: [z]

The stops:

The voiceless stops p, t and k are not aspirated at all in Dutch and consequently p
and t without aspiration often sound somewhat like b and d to the English speaker,
who like the German, strongly aspirates these sounds. The corresponding voiced
11.
stops b and d - g is a fricative in Dutch - are also unaspirated; in fact the Dutchman
often hears p and t when the English speaker attempts to pronounce Dutch b and
d, which can lead to confusing homonyns e.g. pet (cap) and bed (bed). Aspiration

10. The fricative pronunciation is heard before e, i, ij and y e.g. cent, citroen (lemon), cijfer
(number), cynisch (cynical).
11. The voiced stop [g] occurs only incidentally in Dutch where k is assimilated to a following
voiced consonant (see p. 55).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

is a prominent characteristic of an English or German accent in Dutch and is one
of the most difficult to overcome.
B and d are devoiced at the end of a word, as in German. See p. 50 for the
vocalisation of d in intervocalic positions.

The fricatives:

The fricatives g and ch are usually phonetically transcribed as [ɣ] and [X], i.e. as
voiced and unvoiced respectively. However, nowadays in the north this represents

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 52

more what was, than what is the case; they are now usually both voiceless, but this
point will be discussed a little later. It is undoubtedly the common occurrence of [X]
12.
which leads the layman to label Dutch a ‘gutteral’ language. It is true that the way
g/ch are pronounced in the west of the country, they do nothing to enhance the
sound of the language although there is perhaps nowadays a tendency afoot towards
a somewhat softer pronunciation of [X], even in the Randstad. But some people
have a particularly hard pronunciation. When Holland, and particularly Amsterdam,
had a larger Jewish community than it does now - the result of World War II - it was
commonly claimed that the Jews of the Randstad had an especially hard [X], as a
result of the frequent occurrence of that pronunciation in both Yiddish and Hebrew.
The so-called soft g (zachte gee) of the south (see p. 15) is a more palatal sound,
somewhat like the sound in German ich, but is heard before and after vowels of all
qualities. However, in areas where soft g is used, it is also commonly voiced.
Dutch v is pronounced somewhere between English v and f and is a sound that
can cause the English speaker some difficulty. North of the rivers, however, initial
v has been largely devoiced and can be safely pronounced as an f; certainly an f
pronounciation of Dutch v in Anlaut is preferable to an English v, a role filled by the
letter w in Dutch. Intervocalically, in more deliberate speech and south of the rivers,
v is pronounced voiced.
Dutch z is pronounced as in English. In the west of the country the local dialects
have devoiced initial z to s and as the standard language is largely based on these
dialects, initial z is often somewhat devoiced by ABN speakers of the Randstad.
Nevertheless this is a tendency which should be avoided as it is considered plat if
it is done too clearly and consistently.
It is useful to bring the following three fricative couplets together to compare what
has happened or is happening to them in Dutch:

voiced unvoiced
g > ch : now usually
devoiced in all
positions in
northern ABN
although a
degree of
voicing can still
occur
intervocalically;
it is considered
regional to give
g a voiced
pronunciation
consistently.
v > f : may be, and
usually is
devoiced in
initial position
north of the

12. In English circles one often hears the same of German but the gutterals are not as hard nor
as frequent as in Dutch; after all, g is a stop in German. In addition, German has several other
very palatal sounds which Dutch does not.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 rivers, but not
intervocalically.
z > s : cannot be
devoiced
anywhere in a
word without
being
considered
socially inferior.
This does not
include
devoicing of z
under the
influence of
assimilation
however (see
p. 55).

This is an interesting sociolinguistic facet of the development of the voiced fricatives

in the ABN of the Randstad. But south of the rivers the distinction between voiced
and unvoiced fricatives is still clearly made. For the foreign student of

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 53

Dutch, the above development can be seen as a simplification, particularly as Dutch

g and v are sounds that English does not know.
Dutch f is pronounced as in English and often falls together with Dutch v in Anlaut.
In Auslaut v is never written, always f e.g. leven (to live) - ik leef (I live). This latter
rule also applies to z e.g. reizen (to travel) - ik reis (I travel). It is not the case for g,
however, as both g and ch occur in Auslaut, although ch never occurs in Anlaut
except in foreign words e.g. vragen (to ask) - ik vraag (I ask), lachen (to laugh) - ik
lach (I laugh), chaos.
To summarise what has been said about consonants so far, the following may
help:

stops fricatives
voiceless: ptk f s ch
voiced: bd-
13.
vzg
voiced and voiceless: contrast do not contrast
phonemically phonemically
14.

Dutch s is similar to English s. The palatal sound [ʃ], which is so common in English
and German, is not at all common in Dutch. English and German words that start
with [ʃ] begin with [sX] in Dutch, and those that end in that sound in English and
15.
German, end in s in Dutch. One may be led initially to assume that Dutch does
not know [ʃ] at all but it does occur by accident when nouns ending in s are
diminutised e.g. huisje pron. [hœyʃә] but it never occurs in Anlaut or Auslaut in
indigenous words. Consequently, when foreign words that contain [ʃ] are borrowed
into Dutch, the sound is often shifted to [s], the closest voiceless fricative, to facilitate
pronunciation e.g. Chinees (Chinese), douche (shower). In the French loan words
sju (gravy, < jus), sjek (cheque) and sjaal (scarf, shawl), [ʃ] is usually said, as reflected
in the spelling which resorts to s + j to approximate the sound.
A similar thing occurs with English loan words containing ch; in indigenous words
this sound also occurs only ‘by accident’ in Dutch diminutives e.g. katje (kitten),
where the pronunciation is, however, truly [t] + [j] and thus not identical to English
[tʃ].
So sjek (< French cheque) contrasts with checken (< Eng. to check).
The voiced equivalent of English sh, [ʒ], occurs in French loan words e.g. garage
[Xara.ʒә], In some words that have been assimilated, former French [ʒ] is now
pronounced [X] e.g. intelligent.
The grapheme w in Anlaut represents the English v sound i.e. a labiodental

13. See footnote 11.

14. It is possible to find minimal pairs where f/v and s/z would seem to contrast phonemically, but
in practice the two usually fall together in those areas where v and z in Anlaut are not voiced
e.g. Finnen (Finns) - vinnen (fins), cent (cent) - zend (send).
15. The current spellings historisch (historical), logisch (logical) etc. and the former spellings
Nederlandsch (Dutch), mensch (person) - now spelt Nederlands and mens - are remnants of
an earlier period in Dutch when they were possibly pronounced [sX], as is still the case with
schip (ship), school etc.; sch was dropped in spelling from the end of indigenous words after
1934.

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 54

sound. South of the rivers, and particularly in Belgium, ie is commonly pronounced

as a bilabial sound i.e. as English w. It also receives a bilabial pronunciation, even
in the north, after u and ou e.g. ruwe (rough, inflected), brouwen (to brew), as well
as in the combinations -auw, -eeuw, -ieuw and -ouw when followed by a vowel e.g.
blauwe (blue), leeuwin (lioness), nieuwe (new), mouwen (sleeves).

The trills and laterals

Dutch r is very interesting, as indeed r is in many European languages. Historically

too it has had various curious effects on its environment (see p. 159). There are two
accepted pronunciations of r in Dutch, and as both are quite different from English
r and as all r's must be heard in Dutch - even at the end of words, as in vader and
moeder - this sound is one of the larger stumbling blocks on the road towards a
good Dutch accent for English speakers.
16.
The original Dutch r is [r] i.e. a slightly trilied dental sound. When the uvular or
velar r, [R], spread all over Europe from France, particularly in the eighteenth century,
it did not miss the Netherlands and Belgium. For a long time it was considered typical
of upper class Haags and of Dutch as spoken south of the rivers. Even today r in
the latter area is a particularly ‘throaty’ sound - the Dutch call it brouwen i.e. to speak
with a throaty r. This uvular r has, however, been making ever increasing inroads
into the north and is now more common there, particularly in the cities and among
younger people, than the original dental r which Van Haeringen maintains is on the
17
way to becoming a provincialism, as is already the case in Denmark and France.
It is paradoxical that uvular r, which originally started to replace dental r because
it was considered socially more acceptable at a time when French manners, dress
and speech swept across Europe, should now have become the norm and that
18
dental r is now considered by many to be chic and ‘more correct’; elocution and
singing teachers, for example, recommend the dental sound as ‘nicer’ and ‘clearer’.
Clarity of speech is in fact affected by the close phonetic relationship of the velar
sounds [R] and [X], In many mouths the two sounds have almost fallen together
producing homonyms e.g. erwt (pea, where w is silent) and echt (real). In the
combinations schr and gr only one continuous velar sound is often heard e.g.
schrijven (to write), pron. [sRεivәn] and grot (cave), pron. [Xɔt] or [ɣɔt].
Historically l is also an interesting sound and it is dealt with in the chapter on
historical phonology on p. 157. The phoneme [1] has two allophones in Dutch, a
so-called thick l and a somewhat thinner variant: the former occurs in Auslaut and
in Inlaut after back vowels e.g. wel (well) and vallen (to fall), whereas the latter is
heard in Anlaut and after front vowels e.g. lopen (to walk) and vellen (to fall). To

16. An overtrilled dental r is often termed een Indische r because it is considered to be one of the
prominent characteristics of Dutch as spoken in the East Indies.
17 C.B. van Haeringen, ‘Eenheid en nuance in beschaafd-Nederlandse uitspraak’, in Schippers,
B.W., Taal en spraak in stad en streek, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1968.
18 Increase in the use of [R] and the somewhat softer g in the north are, however, phenomena
which are too recent for sociological values to have been allotted to them.

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 55

the English and German ear, however, all Dutch l's sound particularly ‘thick’ and
‘dark’ and can be difficult to master.
See page 47 for comments on a svarabhakti vowel after l.

Some idiosyncrasies of Dutch pronunciation

1 It is normal practice in ABN to ‘drop one's n's’. There is a large number of words
- infinitives, plural nouns and strong past participles, for example - that end in
-en but which leave the n unpronounced in normal fluent speech.
2 The indefinite article een is always pronounced [әn] but the numeral ‘one’ is
pronounced [e.n].
3 The word het - neuter singular definite article and pronoun ‘it’ - is always
pronounced [әt] except in the most deliberate speech (see p. 163 for the
historical reasons). It is also often written 't.
4 The possessives mijn (my) and zijn (his, its), unless stressed, are pronounced
[mәn] and [zәn] and are sometimes written m'n and z'n.
5 Generally speaking, the articulation of Dutch is laxer - the Dutch say slapper -
than that of German. This can apply to individual sounds, such as l for example,
but also to the overall sound of the language: syllables run over into each other
and one word often flows on into the next much more than in German (see
Assimilation below). For example: Dutch koeien (cows), pron. [kujәn] and
German Kühe, pron. [ky:ә]; Dutch herinnneren (to remind) pron. [hεrInәrәn]
and German erinnern pron. [εr'Inәrn] where ['] stands for a glottal stop.

Assimilation

The student of French is always drilled in the application of liaison i.e. the gliding
together of the sound at the end of one word with the first sound of the next. In Dutch
there is a similar although somewhat different phenomenon which is best called
simply assimilation. Assimilation can be either progressive or regressive i.e. a sound
can affect either the one which follows it or the one which precedes it. It can occur
both within a word and between words. It is the voiced and unvoiced stops and
fricatives which are affected e.g. postzegel (postage stamp) > pos(t)segel
(progressive assimilation), uitbreiden (to expand) > uidbreiden (regressive
assimilation); wat zit erin (what's in it) wat sit erin (progressive assimilation), ik ben
ziek > ig ben ziek (regressive assimilation).
It is curious that through assimilation of k with a following voiced sound, a g sound
(i.e. a stop, as in English) occurs which is a sound that Dutch does not otherwise
know e.g. zakdoek (handkerchief) > zagdoek, vlak naast ons (right next to us) >
vlag naast ons.
As mentioned previously, initial z should not be devoiced in ABN, unlike v where
either voiced or voiceless variants are permissible, but in situations where z is
devoiced by assimilation with preceding voiceless consonants, it is permissible to
do so.
Certain words also know a proleptic assimilation where the preceding devoicing

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 56

factor is no longer evident e.g. zestig (sixty) - pron. sestig, vijftig (fifty) - pron. fijftig,
langzaam (slow) - pron. lanksaam < older lankzaam.

Stress

Being a Germanic language, Dutch usually stresses the first syllable of a word,
except when that syllable is a recognised unstressed prefix such as be-, ge-, out-
etc.; this it has in common with all other Germanic languages e.g. lístening, but
begínning. Loan words often behave differently in this regard, but so they do in other
Germanic languages too e.g. opposítie (opposition), faillíet (bankrupt), pick-úp
(record-player). However, even in Dutch words the stress can vary in certain
19.
compounds and in this respect Dutch stands alone. Even German, where word
formation is very similar to that of Dutch, does not let the accent shift from the first
syllable when compounds are formed e.g. lópen/láufen (to run) but voorlópig/vórläufig
(temporary), hogeschóol/Hóchschule (university), stadhúis/Ráthaus (town hall),
burgeméester/Bürgermeister (mayor).
This shifting stress can be very confusing to the student of Dutch as hard and fast
rules are difficult to formulate but there is a certain reasoning behind the
phenomenon. As heavy stress on the first syllable of a word can lead to a reduction
in the quality and quantity of the vowels in following syllables, it seems likely that
certain (particularly adjectival) endings pulled the stress towards them to help
preserve the full value of the vowels in all syllables e.g. misdádig (criminal, adj.) <
mísdaad (crime), onuitpúttelijk (inexhaustible) < uítputten (to exhaust).
The stress is often placed on the final syllable of certain Dutch place names e.g.
Amsterdám, Edám, Maastrícht (but Útrecht), Bredá (but Góuda).

Bibliography

Those interested in hearing some spoken Dutch to improve their pronunciation are
advised to consult any of the following recorded courses (ie. first four items)
Cursus Nederlands.
Linguaphone, London.
Now rather dated but still useful and financially within most people's reach.

HULSTIJN, J. & SCHELLART, M. Makkelijk praten.

Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1978.
Not intended for the absolute beginner. The greatest advantage of this course
is that it is modern, affordable and comes with a cassette tape.

Levend Nederlands.
Cambridge University Press, 1975.
By far the best, most up to date audio(-visual) course available. The Vrije
Universiteit in Amsterdam has since published a supplement for students
teaching themselves.

19. Shifting stress is of course also very characteristic of English e.g. to procéed and próceeds,
but such shifts are peculiar to the words of Norman or Latin origin.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 57

LAGERWIJ, W. Speak Dutch.

Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1968.
Not quite as vibrant as Levend Nederlands but nevertheless still a good aid.

CONINCK, R.H.B. de Groot uitspraakwoordenboek van de Nederlandse taal.

Nederlandsche Boekhandel, Antwerp, 1970.

The only pronunciation dictionary currently available.

BLANCQUAERT, E. Praktische uitspraakleer van de Nederlandse taal.

De Sikkel, Antwerp, 1969.
A good detailed account of Dutch pronunciation intended for native-speakers.
It deals at times with issues that are only relevant in Belgium. It is particularly
good on Dutch stress patterns.

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 58

6 The grammar of Dutch (morphology)

Articles, gender and nouns

Dutch nouns are of one of two genders - common gender or neuter. Common gender
incorporates what were formerly masculine and feminine nouns, a distinction which
is now only sometimes made in pronominal substition (see p. 61).
The definite article is as follows:

common gender neuter plural (both

genders)
the de het de

As with so many other European languages, gender generally has to be learnt

parrot fashion with every new noun; there are few water-tight rules for determining
gender. Exceptions to this are certain nominal endings which always indicate one
or other gender e.g. the diminutive ending -je is neuter and the abstract endings-heid
(Eng. -hood, -ness) and -ing, for example, are always common gender. Compound
nouns, as in German, always take the gender of the last element e.g. de stad (town)
+ het huis (house) > het stadhuis (town hall).
The indefinite article, een (pron. 'n), is the same for both genders but the
demonstratives require separate forms for either gender:

common gender neuter plural (both

genders)
that, those: die dat die
this, these: deze dit deze

Possession

Possession is usually expressed by means of the preposition van e.g. het huis van
mijn vriend (my friend's house); the so-called Anglo-Saxon genitive with s is
sometimes used in Dutch with normal nouns e.g. mijn vaders hoed (my father's hat)
but is frequently used with proper nouns e.g. Piets dochter (Piet's daughter). In
spoken Dutch a further variant is commonly heard where the unstressed form of the
possessive is inserted between the possessor and the thing possessed e.g. mijn
hond z'n poot (my dog's leg, lit. my dog his leg), zijn moeder d'r tante (his mother's
aunt, lit. his mother her aunt).
Although the masculine and neuter genitive singular of the definite article, 's (<
des), is found only in standard expressions e.g. 's morgens (in the morning), the
feminine genitive singular and the genitive plural, der, is still productive in written
1.
language e.g. de geheimen der taal (the secrets of the language), de koningin der
Nederlanden (the queen of the Netherlands).

1. Here taal is still felt to be a feminine noun (see p. 62).

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Case

With the exception of the above and a host of standard expressions, case is no
longer indicated, with the result that the situation is now very similar to English.
Compare:
Engsilh: The woman gave the apple to the child.
Dutch: De vrouw gaf de appel aan het kind.
r an: Die Frait gab dem Kind den Apfel.
Gem

Plural of nouns

Plural formation in Dutch, although not quite as easy as in English, is infinitely simpler
than in German. Generally speaking, the former weak noun plural ending -en has
taken over throughout in Dutch (see p. 166), in much the same way as the plural in
-s has in English, but a considerable number of nouns with particular endings also
2.
take an -s in the plural in Dutch , notably nouns ending in -el, -em, en and -er e.g.
tafels (tables), bezems (brooms), dekens (blanckets), vaders (fathers). Diminutives,
which end in -je, also take -s e.g. huisjes (houses).

Diminutives

Many languages know a diminutive ending e.g. German -chen or -lein, Italian
-ino/-ina, but there is to my knowledge no language which uses its diminutive ending
on nouns more than does Dutch. Although the function of a diminutive ending is
basically to make small or endear, in Dutch it does this and much more - it is but
one aspect of what the Dutch call gezelligheid. Someone with a knowledge of German
may make light of the translation of gezelligheid by equating it with Gemütlichkeit;
gezelligheid does cover the field of meaning of Gemütlichkeit plus much more. The
Dutchman will be heard to use the word gezellig (cosy, chummy, pleasant) for many
situations for which gemütlich is inappropriate.
The much more frequent use of the diminutive in Dutch is an example of this. The
diminutive can also be used, and frequently is, to convey cynicism or humour; for
example, someone who has bought a million dollar mansion can be said to have
acquired een mooi huisje, for which ‘a nice little house’ is a poor translation. Similarly,
a language one doesn't understand can be called een raar taaltje (a peculiar lingo).
Wijf is a derogatory term for a woman, but the form wijfje refers to the female of any
species of animal. And so the potential of the diminutive ending on nouns in Dutch
goes on. It is, without doubt, a unique feature of the language.
Amazingly, however, the diminutive ending is not limited to nouns. Pronouns,
numerals and even adverbs can take a diminutive ending to convey an extra air of
gezelligheid e.g. onder-onsje (tête-à-tête); met z'n tweetjes (the two of us) - a more
gezellig form of met z'n tweeën, wacht eventjes (wait just a minute), zachtjes (quietly).

2. The frequency of -en and -s plurals in Dutch is in a sense the reverse of the situation in English
where -en plurals are still found, but only rarely e.g. oxen, children, brethren. The -s plural is,
however, much more common in Dutch than the -en plural is in English.

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Adjectives

Adjectival inflection still exists in Dutch, as it does in German, but it has been greatly
simplified in modern Dutch. The attributive adjective (i.e. before the noun) takes an
-e ending in definite contexts before nouns of both genders, both singular and plural,
and also before singular common gender nouns in indefinite contexts, but before
singular neuter nouns in indefinite contexts it is left uninflected e.g. de/die/mijn grote
auto (the/that/my large car), het/dit/zijn nieuwe huis (the/this/his new house);
een/geen/iedere grote auto (a/no/every large car), een/geen/ieder nieuw huis
(a/no/every new house).
The comparative and superlative of the adjective are formed by the addition of
-er and -st, as in English. However, in English it is usual for adjectives of more than
two syllables, and even some bisyllabic adjectives, to form their comparative and
superlative periphrastically by using ‘more’ and ‘most’ in lieu of the endings -er and
-st. Although Dutch meer and meest are occasionally used in a similar way in a few
special cases, in general all Dutch adjectives, regardless of length, can take these
endings e.g. klein - kleiner (small - smaller), interessant - interessanter (interesting
- more interesting). There are also, as in English, a few adjectives with an irregular
comparative and superlative form e.g. goed - beter - best (good - better - best),
kwaad - erger - ergst (bad, evil - worse - worst).

Adverbs

There is no formal difference in Dutch between the predicative adjective and the
adverb; in other words there is no equivalent of the English -ly ending e.g. Haar
stem is erg mooi (Her voice is very nice), Zij zingt erg mooi (She sings very nicely).
The ending -lijk, etymologically related to -ly, is found on both adjectives and adverbs
alike e.g. vrolijk (merry/merrily), mogelijk (possible/possibly).

Numerals

The cardinal numerals show certain similarities to German in that the ‘four-and-twenty’
system is applied from 21 on and the copula ‘and’ is usually omitted in numerals
over 100: een (1), twee (2), drie (3), vier (4), vijf (5), zes (6), zeven (7), acht (8),
negen (9), tien (10), elf (11), twaalf (12), dertien (13), veertien (14), vijftien (15) etc.,
3.
twintig (20), eenentwintig (21), tweeëntwintig (22) etc., dertig (30), veertig (40),
vijftig (50), zestig (60), zeventig (70), tachtig (80), negentig (90), honderd (100),
honderd een (101), tweehonderd drieënvijftig (253), duizend (1000).
Een doubles up as both the indefinite article and the numeral, although there is
a difference in pronunciation between the two (see p. 55); where ambiguity in writing
can arise, the numeral is written één.
Drie/dertien/dertig show the same metathesis of r that is present in English, but
lacking in German - compare drei/dreizehn/dreissig.

3. See p. 39 for an explanation of the diaeresis.

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 61

The change in spelling and pronunciation in vier/veertien/veertig and the enigmatic

t of tachtig are explained on p. 170.
The ordinal numerals are as follows:
eerste (1st), tweede (2nd), derde (3rd), vierde (4th), vijfde (5th), zesde (6th),
zevende (7th), achtste (8th), negende (9th), tiende (10th), elfde (11th), twaalfde
(12th), dertiende (13th), veertiende (14th), twintigste (20th), eenentwintigste (21st)
etc.

Pronouns

Personal pronouns:

singular
subject: ik jij (je) u hij zij (ze) het
object: mij (me) jou (je) u hem haar het
possessive: mijn jouw (je) uw zijn haar zijn
plural
subject: wij (we) jullie (je) u zij (ze)
object: ons jullie (je) u hen/hun (ze)
possessive: ons/onze jullie (je) uw hun

As in English, there is but one object form of the pronoun because the accusative
and the dative have fallen together; only the third person plural still preserves a
separate dative form, hun (see p. 172).
A unique feature of some of the personal pronouns of Dutch is the fact that several
have unemphatic forms that are actually written i.e. the bracketed forms above. The
alternation of stressed and unstressed forms of the pronoun is shared by English
too (e.g. you - ya) but such forms are not written. Most of the other pronouns given
above also know unemphatic forms in the spoken language e.g. haar (d'r), het ('t),
hij (ie).
U is used for polite address in both the singular and the plural, although it always
takes a singular form of the verb i.e. either the second or third person ending which
are the same for most verbs anyway.
See p. 68 for the pronominal use of er.

Pronominal substitution

Although the distinction between masculine and feminine nouns has become virtually
extinct for non-animate things, it sometimes returns when such nouns are substituted
by pronouns. The issue of pronominal substitution in Dutch is not easy for speakers
of English. For example, although de deur (the door) is historically a feminine noun
and de vloer (the floor) is a masculine noun, both are nowadays substituted by hij
which then translates English ‘it’, as does het, of course, with reference to neuter

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

nouns i.e. Ik doe de deur dicht. Hij is dicht (I shut the door. It is closed). Even a cow
or a mother cat will usually be referred to as hij, although zij is

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 62

possible in such cases. However, certain abstract nouns which have recognisably
(formerly) feminine endings can be, and usually are in elevated speech and writing,
substituted by zij and the corresponding object and possessive form haar e.g.
regering (government), muziek (music), liefdadigheid (charity) or even non-compound
abstract nouns such as wereld (world) and wet (law).

Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns before the noun no longer inflect except for ons, which
becomes onze before singular common gender nouns and plural nouns e.g. onze
vader (our father), onze kinderen (our child). All independent possessives take an-e
ending, however e.g. Dat is zijn stoel maar dit is de mijne (That is his chair, but this
is mine).

Relative pronouns

The demonstrative pronouns die/dat also act as relative pronouns in Dutch in much
the same way as ‘that’ can function in English e.g. De man die hier woont, is mijn
oom (The man who lives here is my uncle). As for the demonstrative pronouns, die
is used to refer back to singular common gender nouns and plural nouns of both
genders, whereas dat is used after singular neuter antecedents e.g. Het huis dat ik
gekocht heb, was erg goedkoop (The house that/ - / which I bought, was very cheap).
When a relative pronoun which refers to a person is preceded by a preposition,
wie, which is also the interrogative pronoun ‘who’, is used instead of die e.g. De
vrouw aan wie ik het geld gaf ... (The lady to whom I gave the money ...). This
construction is almost identical to English. When the antecedent is non-personal,
however, waar + preposition is used e.g. De tafel waarop de krant ligt, is erg hoog
(The table on which - lit. whereon - the newspaper is lying, is very high). But
constructions of this sort are usually split in speech in the following way: De tafel
waar de krant op ligt, is erg hoog (see p. 72) - compare: The table which the
newspaper is lying on, is very high.

Verbs
4.
With the exception of six monosyllabic verbs , Dutch infinitives always end in -en.
The infinitive can also be used as a neuter noun, as in German e.g. het roken
(smoking), het koken (cooking) etc. Present participles are not as commonly used
as in English; they are formed by adding either -d or -de to the infinitive e.g. huilend
(crying), al lezende (while reading).

Present tense

4. The six are: doen (to do), gaan (to go), slaan (to hit), staan (to stand), zien (to see), zijn (to
be).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

With the usual exceptions of ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ there are no irregular verbs in the
present tense in Dutch. A verb is conjugated in the present indicative as follows:

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 63

wonen (to live, dwell)

ik woon wij wonen
jij/u woont jullie wonen
hij, zij, het woont zij wonen

When the second person singular (i.e. only jij, not u) inverts, the -t ending is
dropped for phonetic reasons e.g. woon jij? (do you live?) Historically the second
person plural took a -t ending but nowadays it is usual to use -en throughout the
plural.

Imperative
5.
The imperative is the same as the stem of the verb for all persons, singular or plural
i.e. woon (live).

Imperfect tense of weak verbs

Consistent with all other Germanic languages, the imperfect of weak verbs is formed
by the addition of a dental suffix i.e. either -de/-den or -te/-ten, depending on whether
the stem of the verb to which the suffix is added, ends in a voiced or an unvoiced
6.
sound e.g. ik woonde/wij woonden (I lived/we lived) but ik stopte/wij stopten (I
stopped/we stopped). Because of the tendency not to pronounce the final n in such
words (see p. 55), in practice the singular and the plural fall together in speech.

Past participle of weak verbs

The past participle is formed, as in German, by the prefixing of ge- and the suffixing
of -d or -t, according to the rule above, to the stem of the verb e.g. gewoond (lived),
gestopt (stopped). In practice, however, both d and t in this position are pronounced
as t.

Imperfect tense and past participle of strong verbs

Strong verbs, which are commonly called irregular verbs - but this is a term I prefer
to avoid for reasons that will soon become clear - only emerge as different from
7.
weak verbs in the past tenses. As in all Germanic languages, they form their
imperfect and past participle not by the addition of a dental suffix, but by the
5. The stem of the verb is that part which remains when the -en of the infinitive is removed; this
often causes certain spelling changes (see p. 37).
6. The explanation given here is in fact a slight oversimplification - compare blaffen (to bark) -
blafte and geloven (to believe) - geloofde; kussen (to kiss) - kuste and reizen (to travel) -
reisde.
7. The reason for the rather strange terminology weak and strong is explained on p. 173.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

alternation of various vowels in the stem syllable e.g. zingen (to sing)/zong
(sang)/gezongen (sung). There are seven basic patterns of vowel alternation and
consequently strong verbs can be grouped according to which pattern they employ.
The class to which a given verb belongs was determined in history by the sounds
in the word e.g. drinken/dronk/gedronken (to drink), zwemmen/zwom/gezwommen
(to swim) - compare English sing/sang/sung, drink/drank/drunk and swim/swam/

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 64

swum where a set pattern is adhered to because the verbs in this particular group
all share a common phonetic feature i.e. a nasal plus a consonant. The seven groups
in Dutch are as follows:

1 bijten beet/beten
8.
gebeten (to bite)
2 schieten schoot/schoten geschoten (to shoot)
sluiten sloot/sloten gesloten (to shut)
3 binden bond/bonden gebonden (to tie, bind)
4 breken brak/braken gebroken (to break)
5 eten at/aten gegeten (to eat)
6 dragen droeg/droegen gedragen (to wear)
7 slapen sliep/sliepen geslapen (to sleep)
hangen hing/hingen gehangen (to hang)

In the imperfect there is one form for all persons of the singular and one for the
plural. In groups 4 and 5 there is a distinction between the singular and the plural
in the vowel of the stem, unlike in German where analogy of the singular to the plural
has taken place - compare aβ/aβen (ate) where both forms contain a long vowel.
German also has a separate second person singular and plural ending in the
imperfect giving five different endings in all compared with only two in Dutch e.g.

Dutch: ik bond wij bonden German: ich band wir banden

jij bond jullie bonden du bandst ihr bandet
hij bond zij bonden er band sie banden

The past participle of strong verbs always ends in -en; compare English stolen,
ridden, eaten, taken etc.

Irregular verbs

Irregular are all those verbs that, for a variety of reasons, are not regular and yet do
not follow any of the above seven patterns of the strong verb. There are (1)
monosyllabic verbs e.g. staan/stond/gestaan (to stand); (2) mixed verbs i.e. verbs
that were formerly strong but now have a weak imperfect e.g. bakken - bakte -
gebakken (to bake, fry); (3) verbs analogous to English brought, thought etc. e.g.
brengen/bracht/gebracht (to bring), denken/dacht/gedacht (to think),
zoeken/zocht/gezocht (to seek).
The verb ‘to be’:
As in all European languages, the verb ‘to be’ is totally irregular:

present: ik ben wij zijn

jij/u bent jullie zijn
8. The two forms are the singular and the plural forms respectively where the usual spelling
rules have been applied.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 hij is zij zijn

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 65

imperfect: was/waren
past participle: geweest i.e. a weak past part. whereas
German opted for a strong one,
gewesen.
imperative: wees

It is also interesting to note that the verb ‘to be’ has two infinitives in Dutch i.e.
zijn and wezen.

Modal auxiliary verbs

Dutch knows the following modal verbs, which, although also known to both English
and German, often have quite different meanings from the cognate forms in those
languages:

infinitive: kunnen (to be able) mogen (to be moeten (to have to)
allowed to)
present: kan/kunnen mag/mogen moet/moeten
imperfect: kon/konden mocht/mochten moest/moesten
past part.: gekund gemogen gemoeten

infinitive: willen (to want to) zullen (will)

present: wil/willen zal/zullen
imperfect: wou, wilde/wilden zou/zouden
past part.: gewild gezuld

The often peculiar constituent parts of these verbs in both English and Dutch only
really make sense when their history is known (see p. 180). Actually the verbs are
significantly more regular in Dutch than in English. Zullen, etymologically the same
word as English ‘shall’, translates English ‘will’ whereas Dutch willen corresponds
to English ‘want’. Consequently zou corresponds to English ‘would’ and wou to
‘wanted’. Similarly, Dutch mocht is a cognate of English ‘might’ (originally the past
tense of ‘may’) but in meaning mocht and ‘might’ now have nothing at all in common.
The past participles of modal verbs are seldom used because of the so-called
double infinitive rule i.e. when a modal verb in the perfect tense is followed by an
infinitive - and by virtue of modals being auxiliary verbs, this is nearly always the
case - the infinitive of the modal is used rather than its past participle e.g. Ik heb
haar kunnen zien - not gekund zien (I have been able to see her). This rule is known
to German too but it is applied more frequently in Dutch because several other
common auxiliary verbs that are not modals also require it e.g. Ik heb hem leren
zwemmen (I have taught him to swim) - compare Ich habe ihn schwimmen gelernt.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Use of imperfect and perfect tenses

A part from the complexity of continuous tenses in English i.e. I am writing, he has
been reading etc. which are unknown in Dutch as in other European languages,
Dutch is also not as rigid in the use of its past tenses as is English. The English
sentence ‘He bought a new house yesterday’ can only be expressed in the imperfect
because of the presence of the adverb of time; otherwise ‘He has bought a new
house’ would be correct. In Dutch such a distinction is unknown: the first example

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 66

could be expressed in either the imperfect or the perfect tense but the latter would
be more common in speech e.g. Hij kocht gisteren een nieuw huis, Hij heeft gisteren
een nieuw huis gekocht. The second English example would also have to be
expressed in the perfect in Dutch, however. In other words: English imperfect =
Dutch imperfect or perfect, English perfect = Dutch perfect.
The tendency to speak and write in the perfect tense, which is also common in
9.
German, French and Italian , accounts for the frequent occurrence of the double
infinitive construction mentioned above.

Use of ‘to have’ and ‘to be’ as auxiliaries in the perfect tense

Dutch, like so many European languages, also uses either hebben (to have) or zijn
(to be) plus the past participle to form the perfect tense of verbs, a distinction which
is commonly seen as an almost insurmountable hurdle by native-speakers of English.
The criteria for whether to use hebben or zijn with a Dutch verb are similar, but not
identical to those in other European languages and are even somewhat different
from German. What Dutch has in common with several other languages in this
regard is that only intransitive verbs are conjugated with ‘to be’, but this is not to say
that all intransitive verbs use zijn; all transitive verbs do, however, use ‘to have’ e.g.

ik ben gegaan (I have gone) - intrans.

ik heb gelachen (I have laughed) - intrans.
ik heb het gezien (I have seen it) - trans.

The usual rules of verbs of motion, those indicating a change of state etc. can be
cited for Dutch too for those intransitive verbs that take zijn, but in addition Dutch
knows another category that is peculiar to it alone. There is a group of verbs
indicating motion, which, when indicating motion towards a certain place, always
take zijn, but when the destination is not mentioned, they always take hebben e.g.
rijden (to drive): ik ben vandaag naar Amsterdam gereden (I drove to Amsterdam
today) ik heb vandaag veel gereden (I have driven a lot today).

Reflexive verbs

Dutch, like all other European languages, knows reflexive verbs, some of which are
or can be used reflexively in English, but most of which are foreign to English. The
concept in Dutch is, however, identical to that in German e.g. to wash (oneself) -
(zich) wassen, to remember - zich herinneren. A reflexive verb is conjugated like
any other verb but the pronouns that accompany it are as follows:

ik was me wij wassen ons

jij wast je jullie wassen je
u wast u/zich

9. Germanic languages do not know the distinction between the imperfect on the one hand and
the past historic/perfect on the other that is so integral to Latin languages.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

hij/zij/het wast zich zij wassen zich

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 67

The third person reflexive zich is a German loan word (see p. 172). Thepolite form
of address can take either a second or a third person pronoun (see p. 171).
The compound reflexive pronoun in -zelf e.g. mezelf, zichzelf etc., is only used
for extra emphasis e.g. Ik kleed eerst de kinderen aan en dan kleed ik mezelf aan
(I first dress the children and then I dress myself).

Passive voice

The passive voice uses two auxiliary verbs, worden (to become) and zijn (to be),
whereas German uses only the former and English only the latter. In Dutch, worden
is used for the present and imperfect passive whereas zijn is used for perfect
passives e.g.

pres.: het wordt gebracht - it is being brought } with worden

imp.: het werd gebracht - it was brought
perf.: het is gebracht - it has been
brought
plup.: het was gebracht - it had been } with zijn
brought
fut. perf.: het zal gebracht zijn - it will have been
brought

The perfect passives above contrast with the English equivalents where the past
participle ‘been’ must be used and with the German equivalents below where the
past participle worden (with loss of ge-) must be used e.g.
es ist gebracht worden
es war gebracht worden
es wird gebracht worden sein

The rather simple construction in the perfect passive in Dutch has two interesting
side effects: (a) the subtle difference between the two English sentences ‘The door
is shut’ and ‘The door has been shut’ cannot be expressed in Dutch; both are
translated as De deur is gesloten, where the distinction between the state and the
action can only be brought out by mentioning the agent i.e. de deur is door hem
10.
gesloten - the door has been/was shut by him; (b) because the passive voice is,
by definition, a construction where the object of the active becomes the subject i.e.
‘I read the book’ (active) - ‘The book is read by me’ (passive), only transitive verbs
can be used in the passive. Therefore, the perfect passive of a transitive verbs ends
up identical in form but not in meaning to the perfect active of an intransitive verb
that is conjugated with zijn e.g. Hij is gezien (He has been/was seen), Hij is gekomen
(He has come/came).

Subjunctive

10. Notice that even in the passive it is usual to use the perfect tense in Dutch (see p. 65) where
in English we would normally use the imperfect.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

There is no longer an active subjunctive mood in Dutch; in this regard the language
has undergone the same simplification as English, but in German it is still very much
alive. In Dutch the present subjunctive has fallen together with the present indicative
and the same has happened in the imperfect - compare:

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 68

English: If I ate that, I would get sick.

Dutch: Als ik dat at, zou ik ziek worden.
German: Wenn ich das äβe, würde ich krank werden.

and
English: I ate it
Dutch: Ik at het
German: Ich aβ es.

But Dutch does have in common with German a periphrastic construction which
replaces the imperfect subjunctive when it is considered necessary to express some
doubt, although in German it is merely a modern alternative to the above e.g.
Als ik dat zou eten, zou ik ziek worden.
Wenn ich das essen würde, würde ich krank werden.
The closest equivalent in English is:
If I were to eat that I would get sick.
Otherwise subjunctives are only found in isolated expressions e.g. lang leve de
koningin (long live the queen - pres. subj.), als het ware (as it were - past subj.).

Conjunctions

Dutch, like German, distinguishes between subordinating and coordinating

conjunctions where the former send the finite verb of the clause to the end but the
latter have no effect on word order e.g.
Ik weet dat hij morgen komt (I know he's coming tomorrow),
Ik blijf hier maar hij gaat naar huis (I'm staying here but he's going home).

Er

The word er is one of the most ubiquitous and essential little words in the Dutch
language but is also one of the most enigmatic for the foreign student. The complexity
of how to use it stems from its various functions; it has four in all:
1 repletive
2 locative
3 pronominal
4 partitive

Functions 1, 2 and 3 corresponds to English ‘there’, although the third function is

now antiquated English e.g.
1 Er wonen veel mensen hier (There are many people living here)
2 Ik ben er nooit geweest (I have never been there)
3 Ik schreef de brief ermee (I wrote the letter therewith/with it)

Partitive er functions in a similar way to French en and means something like ‘of
it/of them’ e.g.
Ik heb er tien - I have ten (of them).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 69

Ik heb er geen gezien - I didn't see any (of them).

It is thus closely related to pronominal er.

Bibliography

The following is a list of the most recent aids to learning Dutch apart from the
audio-lingual aids mentioned in the bibliography to chapter 5.
SHETTER, W. Introduction to Dutch.
Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1981.
In my opinion this is still the most palatable introduction to the Dutch language
that has yet appeared in any language. It has gone through four editions since
1958 and a fifth, fully revised edition is in preparation. It contains self-correcting
exercises and an excellent basic vocabulary.

SMIT, J & MEIJER, R. Dutch grammar and reader.

Stanley Thornes. Cheltenham, 1976.
This book has in fact also been around since 1958, when it was first published
by the Melbourne University Press. As a grammar it is rather dry, but useful;
its greatest strength lies in the excellent graded reading passages and the
many passages for translation into Dutch are also very useful.

WILLIAMS, G.K. A Dutch reader.

Stanley Thornes, Cheltenham, 1981.
A delightful recent publication that finally offers a sequel to the passages in
Smit and Meijer.

SCHOENMAKERS, A. Praatpaal.
Stanley Thornes, Cheltenham, 1981.
A pleasant, up to date course that has opted more for the direct
approach,avoiding formal grammar as much as possible.

KOOLHOVEN, H. Teach yourself Dutch.

EUP, London, 1941.
Because this series is so well known and so readily available, many people
are tempted to begin with this book. In my opinion it has had its day, but it does
have the advantage of offering answers to the exercises.

DONALDSON, B.C. Dutch reference grammar.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1981.
The only formal grammar book that can act as a sequel to any of the above.
Also useful for those who are beginners but wish to dispense with exercises,
reading passages etc.

DONALDSON, B.C. A Dutch vocabulary.

Australasian Educa Press, Melbourne, 1983.
Some 3,000 basic Dutch words with which to expand one's active vocabulary
which are grouped under broad subject headings and further divided into groups
of ± 10 words for easy learning.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

For dictionaries see the bibliography to chapter 8.

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 70

7 Word Order
Word order is probably the most difficult aspect of grammar to explain simply and
concisely, but in a work such as this it is fortunately not necessary to go into great
detail about the syntax of the language. I will confine myself to the main differences
from English on the one hand and German on the other, with which language Dutch
has much in common syntactically but also several quite striking differences.
The most crucial aspect of word order in Dutch is the place of the verb(s) in a
sentence. As in German, the golden rule is that the finite verb usually stands in
second position (i.e. is always the second idea in the sentence) e.g.

1 2 1 2
He went to school Hij ging vandaag
today naar school.

Compare:

1 2 3 1 2 3
Today he went to school Vandaag ging hij naar
school.

Of course in questions the finite verb is always in first position e.g. Did he go to
1.
school today? Ging hij vandaag naar school? But in subordinate and relative clauses
the finite verb stands at the end, as in German e.g. I know that he is going to school
2.
today - Ik weet dat hij vandaag naar school gaat.
Also as in German, when a compound sentence begins with a subordinate clause,
the subject and verb of the main clause are inverted so as to keep the finite verb in
that clause in second position in the sentence as a whole e.g.

1. As in English, this word order is also possible in the following rather literary sounding (formerly)
subjunctive constructions: Mocht het regenen, dan zullen we thuis blijven Should it rain, we'll
stay at home; Komt hij wat later, dan kan hij niet meedoen Should he come a bit later, he
won't be able to take part.
2. There is one notable exception to the rules for placing verbs at the end of clauses: it is common
in somewhat longer clauses containing adverbial expressions, to put these adjuncts after the
verb, provided they begin with a preposition i.e. prepositional adjuncts. In such cases the verb
is not last, but it is also not in the position it is in either English or German e.g. I know he was
very interested in music - Ik weet dat hij erg veel belangstelling had voor muziek, but also: Ik
weet dat hij erg veel belangstelling voor muziek had; I then rang him up in the hospital - Ik
heb hem toen opgebeld in het ziekenhuis, but also: Ik heb hem toen in het ziekenhuis opgebeld.
In short, this addition of extra information after the verb in instances where it ‘should’ be last,
is quite possible in writing as well as speech and is often preferred. It gives the speaker a
somewhat greater freedom of word order than is the case in German.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 71

12
Ik blijf thuis als hij naar school gaat - I stay at home when he goes to school,
but

1 2
Als hij naar school gaat, blijf ik thuis.

When there are two or more verbs in a main clause i.e. a finite verb plus a past
participle or one or more infinitives, all but the finite verb go to the end of the clause
(see example 2 in footnote 2 for an exception) e.g. He wants to go to school today
- Hij wil vandaag naar school gaan; He has gone to school today - Hij is vandaag
naar school gegaan.
When there are two or more infinitives in addition to the finite verb which must
stand at the end of the clause, the sequence follows English practice, not German
i.e.

1 2 3 1 2 3
He will have to do it. Hij zal het moeten doen.
Compare German: 1 3 2
Er wird es machen müssen.

When one of the verbs that follow the finite verb is a past participle a certain choice
is possible, unlike in German e.g.

1 2 3 1 2 3
He must have built the house Hij moet het huis hebben gebouwd.

or 1 3 2
Hij moet het huis gebouwd hebben.

Compare German: 1 3 2
Er muβ das Haus gebaut haben.

Separable verbs can behave quite differently in Dutch than in German for once
again there is a greater freedom of word order in Dutch e.g. He does not know that
3.
I telephoned him yesterday -

Hij weet niet dat ik hem gisteren heb opgebeld

opgebeld heb
op heb gebeld.

3. English imperfects are often rendered by perfect tenses in Dutch (see p. 65).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 3.
He said that he also wanted to go along -

Hij zei dat hij ook heeft willen meegaan.

mee heeft willen gaan.

3. English imperfects are often rendered by perfect tenses in Dutch (see p. 65).

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 72

The last example in both the above instances is the most common in spoken Dutch,
although all three forms are permissible and common in both speech and writing.
The splitting up of forms that logically belong together is a characteristic of Dutch,
particularly when compared with German; Dutch grammarians have a term for it,
tangconstructies (tang = tongs).
Tangconstructies are most frequent with er+ prepositions (i.e. lit. there + preposition
as in thereon, therein etc.) and waar + preposition (i.e. lit. where + preposition as in
whereon, wherein etc.). Such split constructions are also common in English, but
not in standard German, although they are used in the spoken language in certain
areas of Germany e.g.

1 I put my money in it- Ik stopte mijn geld erin (lit.

therein)
but more common is: Ik stopte er mijn geld in.
Compare German: Ich steckte mein Geld
darin.

2 The table (which) I put the book on is very high - De

tafel waarop ik het boek legde, is erg hoog (lit.
whereon)
but more common is: De tafel waar ik het boek op
legde, is erg hoog.
Compare German: Der Tisch, auf dem (or worauf) ich
4.
das Buch legte, ist sehr hoch.

After the difficulty of placing the verbs in their correct position comes the problem
of where adverbs and adverbial phrases should stand, particularly in relation to each
other. Dutch, like German, knows the TMP rule (i.e. Time, Manner, Place) which,
although not always adhered to in the case of smaller, very frequent adverbs such
as daar or er (there) and hier (here), is a good rule of thumb; English usually employs
the reverse order.

e.g. She goes to school by train - PMT

every day
Zij gaat iedere dag met de - TMP
trein naar school

As in English, it is possible to start a sentence with an adverb of time i.e. Iedere

dag gaat zij met de trein naar school. This is possible in Dutch because time is still
mentioned before manner and place.
Adjectival adjuncts are possible in Dutch and are quite often found in journalese,
but they are not at all common in speech nor as common in writing as in German,
relative clauses being preferred in Dutch e.g. de vijfenvijftigjarige in Haarlem geboren
minister van financiën but more common is the following: de vijfenvijftigjarige minister
van financiën die in Haarlem geboren is - the fifty-five year old minister of finance
who was born in Haarlem.
4. In certain areas in Germany the following construction, which resembles the Dutch, is also
heard: Der Tisch, wo das Buch 'rauf liegt, ist sehr hoch.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 The loss of case (see p. 59) in Dutch has, as in English, led to a more fixed word
order than is the case in German. For example, whereas the German sentence Der
Hund beiβt den Mann can be inverted for emphasis i.e. Den Mann beiβt der Hund
without the basic meaning changing, this is rarely done in Dutch, and never in
English, as the word order is the only remaining indicator of the relationship of the
nouns to each other e.g. The dog bites the man / De hond bijt de man. A more fixed

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 73

word order has thus been one of the consequences of the loss of case in Dutch and
English, as well as in French, Italian etc. compared with Latin. The speaker of English
is often inclined to see case as an unnecessary complication, but here is at least
one concrete example of the advantages of preserving case.
In the English sentence ‘I showed the boy the group’, it is only the position of boy
before group that indicates what is direct and what is indirect object. We know
intuitively that it is the group which is being shown to the boy and not vice versa.
Exactly the same situation exists in Dutch. Ik heb de jongen de groep laten zien. If
one wanted to reverse the order, the preposition to/aan would be required in both
English and Dutch e.g. I showed the group to the boy Ik liet de groep aan de jongen
zien; a more frequent use of prepositions is also a consequence of the loss of case.

Bibliography

There are few studies of syntax but none which would be of any assistance to the
non-native-speaker. The index of the author's reference grammar (see p. 69) refers
readers to all sections of that book that deal with word order.

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 74

8 Vocabulary and word formation

Vocabulary

An English-speaking person embarking on a study of Dutch, because he is

confronted, by necessity, with only simple vocabulary to begin with, is likely to be
struck by great similarities between the vocabulary of Dutch and that of his mother
tongue e.g. hond, kat, pan, pot, school, tafel, tien. Such an observation is of course
not entirely unfounded - Dutch and English still share a great deal of basic vocabulary
as a result of their common Germanic origins. German does too but there the Second
German Sound Shift (see p. 123) has modified the form of words somewhat e.g.
Katze, Pfanne, Pfeffer, zehn. English and Dutch, both Low German languages, did
not undergo such changes.
This similarity in vocabulary between English and Dutch does not, however, in
the long run prove to be of any great assistance in learning Dutch. The vocabulary
of English has been subjected too much for too long to non-Germanic influence for
it to have remained as close to Dutch as it was in the Old English period prior to the
Norman invasion. Dutch has not been affected to anything like the same extent by
outside influences as English; its vocabulary, like that of German, is still
overwhelmingly Germanic in origin. Anyone with a knowlegde of German will
immediately recognise a great number Dutch words, although there are inevitably
many apparent similarities which conceal subtle, and sometimes not so subtle
differences in meaning e.g. aardig (nice) - artig (well-behaved); aandacht (attention)
- Andacht (respect); verzoeken (to request) - versuchen (to try); durven (to dare) -
dürfen (to be allowed to).
But although there has never been an event in Dutch history comparable to the
Norman invasion of England, this is not to say that Dutch vocabulary has not been
affected, even greatly, by outside influences. No language has ever managed to
live in complete isolation from others and it is in the nature of every language to
borrow from others to increase its vocabulary if the need arises. Dutch has
nevertheless been more susceptible to absorbing foreign words than has German,
for example. At various times in history there have been attempts to purify the
vocabulary of the language, for example as a result of anti-French sentiments during
and after the Napoleonic period and of anti-German feelings after World War II, but
such conscious artificial efforts to change the vocabulary of a language seldom meet
with any lasting success. Only the people as a whole ultimately decide which words
are, and are not to survive. It may thus be in the polyglot nature of the Dutch, the
result of no other nationality ever bothering to learn their language - nor have the
Dutch ever expected others to - that Dutch has been able to absorb such a large
amount of French, English and German vocabulary, to the extent that so many

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 75

loan words are now no longer regarded as foreign and are now absolutely
indispensable, often being more common and natural sounding than indigenous
synonyms e.g. apart (separate) instead of afzonderlijk; proberen (to try) instead of
pogen or trachten; feliciteren (to congratulate) instead of gelukwensen.

Influence of French

Although there is a certain amount of vocabulary of Greek or Latin or Amerindian

origin in Dutch which we can best call international vocabulary - e.g. fysiologie,
visum, tomaat - it is inevitably the languages of Holland's immediate neighbours
which Dutch has drawn on most for loans, but none has had such a far-reaching
1. 2.
effect as French. French has influenced Dutch in a variety of ways :
1 loan words are by far the most common form of influence e.g. avontuur
(adventure), consequent (consistent), logé (staying guest), royaal (generous).
2 loan translations e.g. schoonvader (father-in-law, < beau-père), kleinzoon
(grandson, < petit fils), het hof maken (to court, < faire la cour).
3 addition of French endings already occurring in loan words to indigenous Dutch
words e.g. echtgenote (female spouse) in imitation of studente, typiste etc.;
lerares (female teacher) in imitation of prinses, barones etc.; bakkerij (bakery),
schilderij (painting) in imitation of patisserie, boulangerie etc. Both the -es and
the -ij endings still bear the French stress on the final syllable in Dutch. By
analogy with this, the indigenous feminising ending -in now also takes the
stress, unlike German e.g. vriendin (female friend), leeuwin (lioness). The
ending -(en)ier, designating a profession, is also commonly found in Dutch
words of Dutch origin e.g. kruidenier (grocer), tuinier (gardener), as is the verbal
ending -eren, although it is more commonly found in verbs borrowed from
French e.g. halveren (to halve), waarderen (to appreciate) by analogy with
adopteren, studeren etc. Very often words of the latter sort alternate with
indigenous words with the same or a similar meaning e.g. arriveren/aankomen,
rapporteren/berichten, respecteren/eerbiedigen.

An interesting sub-category of French loan words are those which the Germans so
aptly call Rücklehnwörter or words of Germanic (usually Franconian) origin, which,
once borrowed and assimilated into French, have returned at a later date to Dutch
or German in French garb to stand side by side the cognate forms from which they
3.
are descended, without the speaker being aware of their common origin e.g. fauteuil
(armchair) <* faldi-stôl (Dutch vouwstoel, folding chair), galopperen (to gallop) <
*wola hlaupan (Dutch *wel lopen, to run well), graveren (to engrave) < graven (to
dig), mannequin < manneken (little man).

1. The standard work on the subject is J.J. Salverda de Grave, L'influence de la langue française
en Hollande, Paris, 1913.
2. See p. 33 for influences unique to Belgium.
3. J.H. Huisman's Germaanse repatrianten in de Nederlandse woordenschat is an interesting
account of such words (see bibliography).

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Influence of German

Although the eastern borders of the Netherlands must have been open to the
immigration of foreign words for as long as the southern borders have been, German
loan words are not as evident for two reasons. Firstly, prior to the late eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, it was always France, and not Germany, which
disseminated culture to the rest of Europe; Germany was usually also on the receiving
end along with the Netherlands. Secondly, because Dutch is as closely related to
German as it is, it has been able to absorb words from its eastern neighbour and
dress them up in Dutch garb more easily than is the case with French loans; no
Dutchman regards overigens (moreover), rugzak (rucksack), tijdschrift (magazine)
or warenhuis (departmental store) as foreign words.
There are, however, quite a number of loan words from German which do still
bear obvious signs of their origin but which are nevertheless now regarded as
indispensable Dutch words e.g. gletscher (glacier), lawine (avalanche), heimwee
(home sickness), kitscherig (German kitschig), in zwang (in fashion), unheimisch
(uncanny, incorrectly borrowed from German unheimlich), überhaupt (generally, at
all).

Influence of English

English, although its influence has not been of such long standing duration as that
of French, forms without doubt the most common source of foreign loan words in
Dutch today. This is, of course, a world-wide phenomenon because of the overriding
influence of Anglo-American culture in contemporary society. However, probably
few languages have adopted English words and made them their own with as little
effort as Dutch has; in fact the borrowing is not limited to words but extends to whole
phrases and sayings that are now common even in the mouths of those (increasingly
fewer) Dutch who speak little or no English e.g. last not least, fifty-fifty, ups and
downs, good will, up to date, self made man, big boss. Of course many English
words in Dutch are from the world of business, computers, entertainment etc. but
there are also many English loans for everyday concepts e.g. tram, jam, flat, cake,
pocket(-boek). As with loan words from French, many English words now behave
like Dutch words e.g. gehandicapt (handicapped), babysitten (to babysit), claimen
(to claim on insurance), gezinsplanning (family planning); but in liften (to hitch-hike)
and tanken (to fill up with petrol), we see two verbs formed from English nouns i.e.
English words which don't exist in the same sense in English. The same phenomenon
is to be found in English loan words that have reached Dutch via French where they
were imperfectly borrowed e.g. parking (parking area), camping (camping ground).
Many bisyllabic compound nouns like pick-up have come into Dutch, presumably
via French, and thus retain the stress on the final syllable, a stress pattern which is
foreign to both the language of origin and the new host language e.g. black-óut,
close-úp, lay-oút, all-ín.
As is the case with loans from French, English words have sometimes been
translated and have thus been totally assimilated e.g. luidspreker (loud speaker),
rolschaats (roller skate), voetbal (football), vrijmetselaar (freemason).

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As quick perusal of any Dutch newspaper or ladies' magazine will substantiate, the
number of English loans into Dutch is legion and there seems to be no
counter-movement at all. Undoubtedly not all will stand the test of time, but as a
knowledge of English becomes more and more second nature to up and coming
generations of Dutch people, for such seems to be the case, holus-bolus adoption
of words, expressions and even syntax from English will certainly continue and
possibly accelerate. Many nationalities baulk at such prospects but the Dutch are
either indifferent to, or proud of their ability to colour their Dutch with as many English
words as possible.
That Dutch has been influenced by the languages of its three great neighbours
is only to be expected, and here one could expect the tale of foreign influences on
Dutch to end. There are, however, two other languages which have contributed in
a small, but significant way to the vocabulary of Dutch and both reflect interesting
by-gone phases in the history of Holland. I am referring here to Yiddish and
4.
Indonesian or, strictly speaking, Hebrew and Malay .

Influence of Yiddish

Although Amsterdam's Jewish community, which was virtually decimated during

World War II, was Sephardic in origin i.e. it consisted in the late sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries chiefly of refugees from Spain and Portugal who were escaping
the Inquisition, it absorbed many Ashkenazic Jews from the eighteenth century on,
and with these Eastern European Jews came the Yiddish language, a blend of
medieval High German and Hebrew plus various Slavonic features. With the decline
of Yiddish among the Jews of Western Europe, a result of their emancipation and
assimilation which started during the Enlightenment, only isolated Yiddish words
remained in the speech of Amsterdam in particular, a city which had one of Western
Europe's largest Jewish communities prior to World War II. Quite a number of Yiddish
words, especially those of Hebrew origin, were adopted by Amsterdammers, above
all by the lower classes, and from here many have passed into standard Dutch. In
the borrowing process, however, these Yiddish-Hebrew words often underwent a
downgrading in meaning, reflecting the low social status of those who first borrowed
them from Yiddish e.g. kalle (prostitute, < Hebrew for bride), bajes (prison, < Hebrew
for house), jatten (to steal, < Hebrew for hand); in feeling, these words are akin to
English slut, clink and nick respectively. Some words, such as kalle/temeijer
(prostitute) and joetje (10 guilders) are still restricted to the colloquial speech of
Amsterdam, but many others are now regarded as general, even if usually somewhat
colloquial Dutch e.g. roddelen (to gossip), tof (great, fantastic), mesjogge (crazy),
gein (fun).

4. What we now call Indonesian (Bahasa Indonesia) is the new national language of the Republic
of Indonesia based on Malay.

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Influence of Malay

The many Malay words that are used in Dutch also fall into two categories; there
are those which were or are only commonly used by people who formerly lived in
the Indies, called Oud-Indischgasten in Dutch, and there are those which are known
to, and used by all Dutchmen. To the former category belong words such as barang
(one's things, junk), kassian (what a shame) and slendang (bag) and to the latter
belong soesa (bother, worry), toko (shop, and nowadays also one's business or field
of expertise) and soebatten (to beseech). The latter category includes many words
which, unlike the examples already given, can be called cultural loan words and in
this context they are indispensable e.g. baboe (nanny), betjah (rickshaw), goeling
(Dutch wife), klamboe (mosquito net), moesson (monsoon), sawah (rice field). Many
Asian foodstuffs are known to the Dutch by their Indonesian name, for example
several of the exotic spices such as ketoembar (coriander) and asem (tamarind) as
well as ketjap (soya sauce), klappernoot (coconut), kroepoek (prawn crackers), nasi
(fried rice), bami and taugé (bean shoots); the last two are actually Chinese words.

There have been various attempts from time to time throughout the history of Dutch
to rid the language of ‘impurities’ such as those discussed in this chapter. Even
Jacob van Maerlant, writing in the thirteenth century, advocated wat walsch (= Welsh
i.e. French) is, valsch is in warning against excessive borrowing from French.
However, the Dutch have never been as obsessive as the Germans about keeping
their language free of foreign words, a fact which is clearly reflected in the
vocabularies of the two languages - compare, for instance, Bürgersteig - trottoir
(footpath), Bahnhof - station, Fernsehen - televisie, Fernsprecher - telefoon, Abteil
- coupé (compartment), Zug - trein. Nevertheless Dutch vocabulary is surprisingly
puristic on occasions; for example, grammatical terminology and fields of science,
referred to in nearly all languages by their Greek of Latin names, are usually
expressed in Dutch by indigenous words e.g. voornaamwoord (pronoun), voorzetsel
5.
(preposition) , werkwoord (verb), scheikunde (chemistry), natuurkunde (physics),
geneeskunde (medicine), aardrijkskunde (geography).
The loan words and expressions from French, English and German, called
gallicisms, anglicisms and germanisms respectively, or sometimes barbarisms
collectively, have become an unavoidable and often indispensable feature of Dutch.
Many have come and gone through the ages but many have also stayed and been
assimilated to a greater or lesser extent. Doubtless the process will continue, in
particular borrowing from English as that language has now unequivocably assumed
the role of the international language.

Word formation

Word formation in Dutch is very similar to that in German. There are basically two

5. Such words are, of course, translated from the Latin.

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sorts of word formation, compound words and derivatives, the latter formed by the
addition of prefixes and suffixes. Historically the division is not always so clear cut,
nor is the division between word groups and compound words.
By compound words one usually thinks primarily of compound nouns but of course
verbs (stofzuigen - to vacuum clean) and adjectives (splinternieuw - brand new) can
also be compounds. The potential that German has to make seemingly never-ending
compound nouns exists in Dutch too e.g. afvalwaterzuiveringsinstallatie (waste water
purification installation) but it seldom goes to such extremes; even compound
numerals are not written as one word as they are in German e.g. driehonderd
vijfentwintig (325).
In English compound nouns are formed simply by the bringing together of two
words without changing them in any way; the only problem we face is whether to
join, hyphenate or write them separately. Dutch on the other hand, is both simpler
and more difficult than English - simpler because compound ideas are always written
as one word, and more difficult because often medial sounds are required between
the constituent parts. Which medial sound to use, if any, is often very difficult for the
non-native-speaker to know, and even the Dutch sometimes have trouble. Sometimes
an (originally) genitive s is required e.g. broekspijp (trouser leg), stadsmuur (city
6.
wall) but sometimes it is a gliding e e.g. geitehaar (goat hair), pereboom (pear tree) ;
if plurality is implied in the first part of the compound, an en is required e.g.
7.
boekenplank (book shelf), klerenkast (wardrobe, lit. clothes cupboard).
The assortment of prefixes and suffixes at one's disposal for addition to nouns,
adjectives, adverbs and verbs for the creation of new words and for forming new
parts of speech is as diverse as in English.
Abstract nouns can be formed by the addition of -heid (-ness, lit. -hood), -dom or
-schap (-ship) to existing nouns or adjectives e.g. viendelijkheid (friendliness),
jodendom (Jewry), vriendschap (friendship). Masculine agents are commonly formed
by the addition of -er or -aar to the stems of verbs e.g. schrijven (to write) > schrijver
(writer, author), wandelen (to hike) > wandelaar (hiker). The suffix -ing joined to
verbal stems also forms related nouns e.g. regeren (to govern) > regering
(government), uitdrukken (to express) > uitdrukking (expression), wandelen (to hike,
walk) > wandeling (walk).
The nominal ending -th which is added to adjectives in English has an etymological
equivalent in Dutch (-te) where it is more widely used than in English e.g. breed
(wide) - breedte (width), hoog (high) - hoogte (height), lang (long) - lengte (length);
groen (green) - groente (vegetables), vlak (flat) - vlakte (plain), ziek (sick) - ziekte
(sickness, disease).
Verbs, on the other hand, can be formed by the addition of the infinitive ending
to nouns e.g .fiets (bicycle) > fietsen (to cycle), bel (bell) > bellen (to ring), stof

6. Compare the names of the following meats: rundvlees (beef) < rund (cattle) + vlees (meat),
varkensvlees (pork) < varken (pig) + vlees, schapevlees (mutton) < schaap (sheep) + vlees.
7. As final en is usually pronounced as e in Dutch, compounds with e or en are indistinguishable
in speech and are thus often written incorrectly e.g. kippepoot (chicken leg, i.e. the leg of one
chicken), kippenhok (chicken pen i.e. the pen of several chickens).

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(dust) > stoffen (to dust). A countless number of verbs can also be generated by
the addition of the unstressed prefixes be-, ge-, her-, ont and ver- to existing verbs
or nouns and adjectives. Although each of these prefixes has one or more basic
meanings or functions, these are not obvious in all such derived verbs e.g. staan
(to stand) - bestaan (to exist), ontstaan (to originate), verstaan (to understand); gaan
(to go) - begaan (to commit), ontgaan (to elude), vergaan (to pass); groot (big) -
vergroten (to enlarge). These prefixes are of course also found in nouns derived
from such verbs e.g. zeker (sure) > verzekeren (to insure), herverzekeren (to
reinsure) > verzekering (insurance); kopen (to buy) > verkopen (to sell) > verkoopster
(female shop assistant).
In Dutch, English verbs such as ‘to ring up’, ‘to pull out’ and ‘to trade in’ express
the preposition as a stressed prefix in the infinitive and the past participle i.e. they
are compound verbs e.g. opbellen, uittrekken, inruilen. For syntactical reasons (see
p. 71) such verbs are termed separable and those beginning with the unstressed
prefixes mentioned above are called inseparable verbs.
There is a vast number of adjectival suffixes, many with cognate forms in English.
Among the most common suffixes are -baar (-able) > draagbaar (portable), -ig (-y)
> gelukkig (lucky), -lijk (-ly) > vriendelijk (friendly), -loos (-less) > nutteloos (useless),
-s (< sch) > Zweeds (Swedish), -vol (-ful) > succesvol (successful).
Adjectival prefixes are not as common as suffixes, nor are they in English, but
on- (Eng. un-), which negates, occurs as regularly as in English, e.g. onzeker
(uncertain), ondankbaar (ungrateful); the adjectival prefix on- is never stressed,
unlike German. Some loan words are negated with in- as in English e.g. inconsequent
(inconsistent), intolerant.
English is rich in adjectival similes of the sort ‘as clear as a bell’. These are not
unknown to Dutch but compound adjectives are more common e.g. morsdood (as
dead as a doornail), apetrots (as proud as a peacock).
It is not uncommon for an adjective, sometimes an inflected adjective, to have
joined the following noun to form a compound word; the consequent loss in literal
meaning is often reflected in the stress, which has shifted to the nominal part of the
compound e.g. hoogléraar (professor), plattelánd (countryside), rodekóol (red
cabbage) (see Stress p. 56).
Although adjectives and adverbs are often the same in Dutch, as described on
p. 60, there are nevertheless certain typically adverbial endings e.g. -s > vergeefs
(in vain), -halve (for the sake of) > gemakshalve (for convenience's sake), -lings >
blindelings (blindly), -waarts (ward) > voorwaarts (forward).
The diminutive ending, a very important aspect of word formation in Dutch which
is not limited to nouns, unlike all other languages that use it, is discussed on p. 59.
Generally speaking it is impossible to prescribe all the principles of word formation
in Dutch. Word formation is, perhaps more than any other aspect of language
learning, one of those things one ultimately learns by feeling after prolonged exposure
to the language, rather than by rules. Van Loey's Schönfeld's Historische grammatica
van het Nederlands gives an excellent detailed account of the history behind
compound and derived words (see bibliography).

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Bibliography

Section A contains a list of the best and most readily available dictionaries for the
non-native-speaker, while section B contains the Dutch-Dutch dictionaries and works
on loan words.
A. RENIER, F.G. Dutch-English, English-Dutch dictionary.
Routledge & Kegan Paul, London 1961.
The best of the smaller inexpensive dictionaries.

KING, P. & M. Concise Dutch and English dictionary.

EUP, London, 1971.
Quite good for the price and readily available. Also contains a synopsis of the
grammar.

BRUGGENCATE, K. ten Engels Woordenboek (2 volumes)

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1974.
By far the best dictionary, but it is unfortunately intended for Dutch people
learning English and thus omits genders; non-native-speakers are advised to
use it in combination with the Woordenlijst (see p. 42)

PRICK VAN WELY, F.P.W. Cassell's English-Dutch, Dutch-English dictionary.

Cassell, London, 1951.

This dictionary, a compact version of which appeared in 1955, is also published
in Holland by Van Goor. It does not contain quite as much information as Ten
Bruggencate, but it does give the gender of nouns and is often more readily
obtainable in English-speaking countries than that dictionary.

B. KRUYSKAMP, C. Van Dale's groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1976.
This dictionary, which has also appeared in various abbreviated versions for
school use etc., is the ‘Shorter Oxford’ of Holland.

VRIES, J. de Nederlands etymologisch woordenboek.

Brill, Leiden, 1971.
The best in etymological dictionaries. An abbreviated form of it appeared in an
Aula Pocket in 1970 (Spectrum, Utrecht/Antwerpen).

WIJK, N van Francks etymologisch woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1912 (reprinted in 1976).
This was the etymological dictionary till De Vries' appeared.

SALVERDA DE GRAVE, G. L'influence de la langue française en Hollande.

Edouard Champion, Paris, 1913.
The definitive work on French loan words in Dutch. Also available in Dutch.

VOOYS, C.G.N. de Nedersaksische en Hoogduitse invloeden op de

Nederlandse woordvoorraad.
Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Mij, Amsterdam, 1936.

VOOYS, C.G.N. de Duitse invloed op de Nederlandse woordvoorraad.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Mij, Amsterdam, 1946.

BEEM, H. Uit Mokum en mediene.

Van Gorcum, Assen, 1974.
An interesting little book written in easy Dutch on the influence of
Yiddish/Hebrew on the language
It includes a list of such loan words - handy for reference.

ENDT, E. Bargoens woordenboek.

Erven Thomas Rap, Amsterdam, 1974.
A dictionary of volkstaal (lower class speech) which includes many words of
Yiddish origin.

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Section 2 The Past

A. External history of the language

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Map 9: Tribal settlement in the Netherlands in the early Middle Ages. The map illustrates
the situation by ± 800, the time of Charlemagne. Compare map 6 to see how much land
was lost to the sea during the later Middle Ages.

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9 The effect of the Great Migrations on the Netherlands

A study of the history of the Dutch language is, in effect, a study of the language of
the Franks as it was and is spoken along the Lower Rhine i.e. a study of Low
Franconian. But the Franks were not the only Germanic tribe to take up residence
within the borders of the Low Countries as we know them today; both Frisians and
Saxons inhabit areas of the country as well. A knowledge of who the Franks, Frisians
and Saxons were, and of when and where these peoples settled in this area, is
essential to an understanding of the origins of the Dutch language. This chapter
attempts to give a summary of the main historical events that ultimately led to the
establishment of Franconian, Frisian and Saxon speech communities in the
Netherlands in the early Middle Ages.
1. 2.
The origins of the Franks , like the origins of most of the Barbarians , are obscure.
They did not become a political entity until the end of the fifth century. Whether the
3. 3.
Tubantes in the eastern Netherlands, the Canninefates in North and South Holland
3.
and the Batavians in the central Netherlands - all Germanic tribes which the Romans
4.
inform us were occupying this area when they arrived there in ± 55 B.C. - were
what we later come to know as Franks, is not at all certain, but it does seem likely.
The same applies to the Chatti (Hessians), the Thuringians and the Chamavi of
Germany for instance. It is, however, certain that these peoples were ultimately
absorbed by the Franks when the latter took over the Netherlands and central
Germany. The Frisians, whom the Romans also found living along the coast of the
Netherlands on their arrival there, were definitely a separate Barbarian tribe and
were then, as now, speaking a dialect closely related to Franconian. Many of the
features that now distinguish Frisian from Dutch have in fact developed since the
time of the Franconian conquest.
The Franconian homeland prior to their expansion into Roman Gaul was most
probably between the middle and the lower Rhine between Cologne and Xanten
and possibly stretching northwards into the east of the Netherlands between the

1. The origin of the term Frank is uncertain but it is possible it meant ‘bold, brave’.
2. The word Barbarian was first used by the Greeks to designate any non-Hellene. It has since
been commonly used to refer to the Germanic peoples whom the Romans considered their
cultural inferiors. The word is often used in English to render the Dutch/German word
Germanen which I also use here as a synonym for Barbarian.
3. These names are preserved in the following geographic regions: Twente, Kennemerland, de
Betuwe.
3. These names are preserved in the following geographic regions: Twente, Kennemerland, de
Betuwe.
3. These names are preserved in the following geographic regions: Twente, Kennemerland, de
Betuwe.
4. We owe much of our information about these peoples to the Roman Tacitus whose Germania
appeared in 98 A.D. He, who had never himself ventured into Germania but who describes
the way of life of the Germanen and gives a summary of the tribes, used the Bella Germana
of Plinius (= Pliny ± 79 A.D.) as a source of information.

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Primitive Germanic tribes

The three-way division of the West Germanic tribes into Ingvaeones, Istvaeones and
Herminones stems from the Roman historian Tacitus who was undoubtedly applying cultural
or even simply geographic criteria but certainly not linguistic criteria. The reference to the
Weser-Rhine and Elbe rivers relates to the possible original location of these peoples at the
time of Tacitus (i.e. ± 100 A.D.) prior to their migration southwards in subsequent centuries.

Adapted from W. Walker Chambers and J.R. Wilkie, A Short History of the German Language,
Methuen, London 1974, page 19.

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5.
Rhine and the river IJssel. The mouths of the Rhine and the Meuse may also have
been in their hands at that time or this may have been a region of Frisian dominance.
6. 7
The Franks first entered recorded history when they crossed the limes in 256
A.D. and entered northern Gaul i.e. Belgium. From this time it seems the Romans
abandoned the linear limes north of Xanten, replaced it with scattered castella along
the rivers and withdrew to the interior, protecting in particular the all important road
that ran from Cologne via Maastricht, Tongeren and Bavai to Boulogne. It is possible
that the area north of this road i.e. Dutch-speaking Belgium and the Netherlands
8
south of the Rhine was virtually evacuated by the Romans. By the middle of the
fourth century the Franks had occupied a sizeable area within the limes with the
consent of the Romans with whom they lived in close contact and in relative peace
until the turmoil of the fifth century. They served in the armies of Rome, notably the
Batavians among others, and their culture underwent a high degree of romanisation.
They were after all occupying an area, and were soon to take over an even greater
area of land, which had been previously populated by Celtic people who had been
heavily romanised and are thus better called Gallo-Roman after their absorption by
Rome. Celtic speech was destined to disappear under Roman influence, but on
both sides of the Rhine Germanic speech was to maintain itself, not however without
adopting a great deal of new vocabulary from the Gallo-Roman substrate it found
in the territories it conquered. The kinds of

5. Historians have traditionally divided the Franks into Salian and Ripuarian Franks. The distinction
is first made in eighth century sources, Salian referring to the coastal Franks (= salt, and thus
those that occupied the southern Netherlands). The derivation of the term Ripuarian is uncertain
(ripa = bank of the Rhine?), but the name refers in any case to the inland Franks along the
Rhine. It is however now doubted whether such a division really existed. Nevertheless it is
the so-called Salian Franks who emerge as the leaders in the fourth and fifth centuries,
spearheading the invasion of Gaul: they had lived in closer proximity to the Romans for longer
and the Ripuarians had remained hostile to Rome.
6. It must be remembered that we are dealing with a relatively ‘dark’ period in European history,
as far as the Germanen are concerned, because of their lack of literacy. For some centuries,
in fact until they were gradually converted to christianity from circa 500 A.D. on, we are entirely
dependent on the literate Romans for information, and they only mention movements of
Germanic peoples as and when these movements are of relevance to, or are known to them.
Even then we are dependent of course on Roman interpretations of events and classifications
of peoples. Once the Romans withdrew from the area, we had to wait for the arrival of
christianity to provide us with written texts. It is a tragedy of history that Rome itself was only
converting to christianity (Emperor Constantine's conversion ± 330 A.D.) at the time when it
was being forced to withdraw from the Lower Rhine. Had Roman influence been felt a little
longer, and thus the influence of a christian Rome, the Germanen of the area would possibly
have been converted sooner and thus become literate sooner. The veil that now shrouds the
movements of the Germanen in the fifth century might then never have existed.
7 The limes was the border of the Roman Empire which corresponded more or less with a line
running from east to west along the Danube and then from south to north up the Rhine to its
former mouth near Katwijk in Holland.
8 The Roman road mentioned here corresponds very closely to the original border between
Germanic and Latin speech which is still preserved today, although with certain concessions
to the latter, in the language border that runs through Belgium from the German border near
Aachen to the coast of France near Dunkirk (see map 7).

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words the Franks borrowed from the Romans clearly reflect the Roman legacy in
Germanic culture, e.g. ezel (donkey), keizer (emperor), keuken (kitchen), kool
(cabbage), molen (mill), muur (wall), straat (street), tegel (tile).
The Franks become of interest to general European history from the time of the
Merovingians (i.e. after the migrations, which reach their peak during the fifth century
after the Romans have withdrawn from Germania). The Merovingian dynasty of the
Franks is named after its semi-legendary founder Merovech. It is followed in the
mid-eighth century by the Carolingian dynasty which is named after its greatest
leader, Charles the Great (Charlemagne). The grave of the son of Merovech,
Childerich (± 457-482), was found near Tournai in Belgium in 1653. The period is
still ‘dark’, however, till the time of Childerich's son, Clovis (456-511). We have a
continuous history of the Franks from this time on. We are dependent for much of
our early information on Gregory of Tours (538-594) who, writing in Latin, is the
chronicler of the Merovingian Franks, but even Gregory, writing as close to the actual
time of the events as he was, is not very clear about the origins of the Franks.
All three kings so far mentioned ruled over only part of the people history later,
from the eighth century, came to know as the Franks. Clovis, the first whose
achievements are well documented, ascended the throne in 481 and during his
reign the Franks pushed on into Gaul, Rome's influence in the area having been
gradually whittled away during the fifth century by Barbarian tribes that began
crossing the limes in great numbers in 406. As Clovis proceeded deeper into Gaul
- there are no precise dates available for the Franconian take-over of Gaul - he
conquered all other Germanic kings and subjugated the Gallo-Roman population
to Franconian overlordship. The date of his conversion to christianity is the subject
of much controversy, it being either 496, 499 or even as late as 506. In any event,
with his conversion and the conversion of his subjects to the faith, came literacy. It
was a Latin literacy of course, but for centuries literacy was to be limited to the
clergy. Texts in the vernacular were firstly non-existent and even then quite rare for
some time. Only in Carolingian times, in fact, were there sufficient texts in Germanic
dialects for history to manage to preserve anything. The importance of the spread
of christianity to the development of a written literature in the various dialects of
West Germanic cannot be overemphasised.
By 508 Clovis was king of all the Franks, a Barbarian people that had by this time
lived for centuries in close proximity to the highly civilised Gallo-Romans and which,
during that time, had developed a culture which was a synthesis of both worlds. On
the soil of Gaul the empire of the Franks developed a distinctive culture we can now
call Franconian. For the time prior to that only archeological evidence is available
and it is often difficult to distinguish between the Franks and other Germanic peoples,
as we have seen. From a linguistic point of view, however, we are ‘in the dark’ for
some time to come.
Having conquered Gaul south to the river Loire, and having founded his capital
in Paris, Clovis embarked on a campaign to the east into central and southern
9.
Germany (including Switzerland and Austria) and south into Gothic Gaul. Franc-

9. Although the Goths had been christian for longer than the Franks, having converted in the
latter part of the fourth century while residing in the Balkans, they had adopted Arian christianity
which Catholic christians such as the Franks considered to be a heresy. Thus Clovis' attacks
on the Goths were also regarded as a religious crusade.

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onian expansion in these two directions was to be continued by successive rulers

of the Merovingian dynasty. And from the time of Clovis' conversion to christianity,
Franconian expansion took on more and more the air of a crusade. By the end of
the sixth century, in the area north of the Alps, only the Frisians and the Saxons
retained their independence from the Franks, and both these peoples occupied
sizeable portions of the Netherlands.
The seventh century, the period of Franconian occupation of the western and
central Netherlands, is the ‘darkest’ period in Dutch history. Dagobert I, king of all
the Franks from 629-639, took on the conquest of the river mouths. What he began
in the early seventh century would be completed in the late eighth century by the
Carolingians. Under Dagobert the church took root in the Netherlands, chiefly in the
present-day Belgian territories and Dutch Limburg, with St. Amandus being the main
missionary of the southern provinces. Both the nobility and the church forced a
gradual expansion northwards to the Old Rhine (see map 4); Dagobert built a church
for a mission to the Frisians in Utrecht in 625. North of the Old Rhine, however, the
Frisians undoubtedly occurred in greater numbers and expansion beyond that line
was slow and had to be achieved by warfare. Any other tribes in the area that were
not Frisian were, we can assume, either themselves branches of the Franks or were
absorbed by the invading Franks from the south. It was particularly the coastal
region, possibly even Zeeland, that the Frisians had settled. Even today the top of
North Holland is still called West Friesland, (see p. 13)
There were continual rebuffs of Franconian expansion into the area by the Frisians
and objections to the introduction of christianity in particular. The Anglo-Saxon
mission to the Frisians began in 678. It is possible that the Franks commissioned
Anglo-Saxon clerics, who had already played an important role in converting the
Franks themselves and their newly conquered territories in central and southern
Germany, to lead the Frisian mission because of their linguistic affinity to the Frisians.
Both English and Frisian being Ingwaeonic dialects of Germanic (see p. 128), it is
possible that the two were still mutually intelligible at that time or that the missionaries
could at least learn Frisian with little difficulty.
Under Charles Martel (i.e. Charles the Hammer, 688-741), the last of the
Merovingian dynasty, definite advances were made north of the Rhine against the
Frisians under King Redbad (or Radboud) who died in 719. From that time on, the
history of the northern Netherlands is dealt with in Franconian annals. The spread
of christianity through these territories that accompanied the Franconian take-over
also helped to clarify the situation somewhat. Under Charles Martel, Holland up as
far as the Lauwers in Friesland in the west, and up to the river IJssel in the east,
came under the Franks; there is no doubt that Friesland up to the Lauwers was
definitely in their hands after the Battle of the Boorne in 734.
Willibrord (died 739), to whom there is a monument on the Janskerkhof in the
centre of Utrecht, is regarded as the true father of the Anglo-Saxon mission to the
Frisians. In 695 he arrived in Utrecht at the request of Charles Martel and was to
be followed in turn by two other great names in this mission (later extended to the
Saxons), namely Boniface (or Bonifatius, died 754) and Liudger (died 809), himself
a Frisian educated at York. All three were to be active in Germany as well.
The conversion of Friesland up to the Lauwers was to be the work of Boniface
and it would ultimately cost him his life. He had begun his work in the Netherlands

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in 716 and then went on to Germany where he became bishop of Mainz. He returned
to the Netherlands later in life to continue the Frisian mission.
There are many Latin manuscripts from this time on, many still preserved in the
archives of the monastery at Echternach in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, a
monastery that Willibrord founded and where he died in 739. Utrecht is also quite
well provided with manuscripts from the period for it is the oldest centre of
Anglo-Saxon missionary activity on the Continent.
The conquest and conversion of Friesland east of the Lauwers - i.e. the
present-day province of Groningen and the north of Germany - belongs to the history
of Charlemagne and his struggle against the Saxons. Till his reign (768-814), the
Lauwers and the IJssel had been the borders of the Franconian empire in the
Netherlands. Beyond those limits lived the Saxons, a third linguistically closely
related Germanic people who still occupy the territories today that they did at the
time of Charlemagne. We know them to have been present there from at least 350
A.D., perhaps taking over areas in the east of the Netherlands left vacant by the
Franks when they first moved over the limes into Belgium and Gaul. Once again,
as with the Franks earlier in history, we do not know for sure what form of federation
they had. The Saxons who inhabited the north of Germany were also approached
on another front, namely from central Germany (Thuringia and Hesse), which the
Franks had occupied during the Merovingian period. By the time of Charlemagne's
campaigns against the Saxons, the last front to be fought in his holy wars of
expansion, the whole western and southern periphery of Lower Saxony had been
converted to christianity by Willibrord and Boniface. The Saxons were continually
in revolt but their king Widukind was finally defeated in 785 and converted to
christianity. Northern Germany to the Elbe was then subjected to Franconian rule.
The missionary Liudger, a Frisian, was appointed to the area to convert the Saxons.

Bibliography

BLOK, D.P. De Franken.

Van Dishoeck, Bussum, 1968.

This is the only book I know of in any language that deals lucidly and succinctly with
the Franks and their effect on the Netherlands. There are various books in English
that deal with the Franks in general, or the migrations in general, with passing
references to the Netherlands:
WALLACE-HADRILL, J.M. The Barbarian West 400 - 1000.
Hutchinson, London, 1967.
DIXON, P. Barbarian Europe.
Elsevier/Phaidon, Oxford, 1976.

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1.
10 Sources of written Dutch prior to 1100
The arrival of the church in the Netherlands, and the establishment of monasteries
and nunneries that accompanied it, brought literacy back to the area for the first
time since the departure of the Romans. But this does not, unfortunately, mean that
there are texts in the vernacular surviving from this time. Although it is highly likely
that texts were written in Low Franconian during the so-called Carolingian
2.
renaissance, none have come down to us from this early period. They can never
have been great in number because of the predominance of Latin, and those that
did exist would most likely have been in the possession of religious centres, the
bastions of literacy. One can assume that psalms and prayers, biblical passages
and possibly even some secular literature were written down in the Low Franconian
dialects of the Netherlands; we know that this was definitely the case in other parts
of the Franconian empire, namely France and Germany, where some texts have
been preserved. It is quite likely that the accessability of the monasteries of the
Netherlands by water made them easy and attractive prey for the heathen Vikings
who continually plundered the Dutch coast for a period of two hundred years (circa
800-1000), stealing from the monasteries and even razing them to the ground. This
is the very period from which the earliest High German texts date - monasteries in
the south of Germany were safe from Viking attack.
The lack of any Low Franconian texts from the earliest period has meant that
3.
historical linguists have had to make do with Dutch names and glosses in the Latin
texts that have been preserved from this period. In this regard G. Mansion's
Oud-Gentsche Naamkunde, a study of Low Franconian names in Latin documents
from Ghent in the ninth and tenth centuries, has become an indispensable source
of information on the earliest Dutch. Germanic words denoting typically Germanic
concepts in Latin texts such as the Lex Salica, for example, are another source of
information. Often Germanic glosses, i.e. translations written between the lines or
in the margin of Latin manuscripts for better understanding of the text, have been
preserved and offer some compensation for the lack of running texts in the
vernacular; part of the Wachtendonk Psalms, an Old East Low Franconian text

1. It is customary to refer to Dutch during this period as Old West Low Franconian.
2. Charlemagne's biographer, Einhard (died 840), mentions that Charles ‘directed that the age-old
narrative poems... in which were celebrated the warlike deeds of the kings of ancient times,
should be written out and so preserved. He also began a grammar of his native tongue’.
(Einhard and Notker the Stammerer: Two Lives of Charlemagne, Penguin, London 1969, p.
82)
3. The study of peoples's names and place names, a popular academic pursuit in the Netherlands,
is called onomastics.

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from the German Rhineland, has come down to us in this form. There have been
several attempts by philologists to compile a grammar of Old Dutch based on these
meagre remains. The student of Old English or Old High German is much more
fortunate in this respect.

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
The best known and most readable account of the external history of the Dutch
language. Regarded as a standard work. Chapter 1 deals with the sources of
written Dutch prior to 1200.

GIJSSELING, M. Corpus van Middelnederlandse teksten (tot en met het jaar

1300).
The Hague, 1976.
This momentous work is a collection of every Dutch text, whether a literary or
lay document, that has been preserved from prior to 1300.

LOEY, A. van ‘Altniederländisch und Mittelniederländisch’, in Kurzer Grundriβ

der gerntanischen Philologie bis 1500, Band I. L.E. Schmitt (ed.)
De Gruyter, Berlin, 1970.

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 93

11 The Middle Dutch Period: 1100-1500

The written sources of mediaeval Dutch that have been preserved from the ravages
of time tell us much, but they also present many problems for the historical linguist.
Firstly, whereas the student of English or German has texts available in those
languages from as early as the eighth century, i.e. from soon after the conversion
to Christianity and thus the introduction of writing, the oldest preserved running text
emanating from the Low Countries dates from the hand of the Limburger Hendrik
van Veldeke. But precisely because his native tongue was Limburgs, that being a
transitional dialect between Low and High Franconian (i.e. between Dutch and
German), and because so much of his work has come down to us in ‘germanised’
form, there has always been a tug-o'-war between neerlandici and Germanists as
to whether he belongs to Dutch or German linguistic and literary history. Be that as
it may, from the end of the twelfth century a number of texts have been preserved
which are recognised in Dutch linguistic circles as the oldest examples of writing in
Dutch i.e. which can be termed Middle Dutch for the sake of convenience and thus
texts which are considerably younger than the earliest preserved sources of English
and German.
From ± 1200 more and more texts have survived, although these can only be a
small proportion of what must have been written at the time. Of course this was a
period in time before printing and the wide-spread use of paper - every document
had to be painstakingly written out by hand on expensive parchment. It was also a
time when few could write and when writing was a prerogative of the clergy on the
whole.
The sources of Middle Dutch are of two kinds - official documents and literary
texts. Both have their uses, but also their limitations for the historical linguist. Firstly
the official documents, although not quite as old as the oldest literary sources
because of the early (and even later) mediaeval practive of using Latin for such
purposes, are usually dated and the place of origin is usually known. One can then,
with much more certainty than is the case with literary texts, ascertain what the
Dutch of a particular place at a particular point in time was like. On the other hand
a considerable handicap in such research can be the unnaturalness of the language
due to conservative written style or even documentary jargon such as is still often
employed today in official writings. There are also various other factors which can
affect the reliability of those sources: the scribe is seldom known, the scribe and
dictator of a particular document are not necessarily one and the same person and
thus an unnatural mixture of linguistic forms can occur. The difficulties the
non-standardised spelling present are valid for the literary texts too.
On the other hand, the original version of the literary text is seldom preserved.
Usually what has come down to us is a copy, or a copy of a copy (of a copy) where

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The importance of the invention of the printing press to the standardisation of Dutch is
discussed on p. 96. The Plantin Museum in Antwerp is devoted to the history of printing in
the Netherlands.
Taken from J. and C. Luiken, 100 Ambachten, Amsterdam, 1694.

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 95

such copies are often much younger and often contain inconsistencies in language
due to the differences in dialect between the writer of the original and the copyist(s).
It is also often impossible to determine the precise date and place of compilation
and even the author is commonly anonymous. The rhyme in such texts can, however,
be a reasonably reliable guide to how certain sounds were pronounced at the time
i.e. words that rhymed then but don't now or vice versa. The word order is not
generally as reliable a guide to the natural word order of the time as it is in the official
documents due to the contraints of rhyme.
Although the earliest literary texts are Limburgs in origin, the Limburgs dialect is
of less importance for the later development of ABN than the other two southern
dialects, Flemish and Brabants. As far as the recorded written word is concerned,
the Middle Dutch Period is represented overwhelmingly by texts of southern (i.e.
Flemish and Brabants) origin. From the thirteenth century it is texts of predominantly
Flemish origin which have come down to us, from the fourteenth a combination of
Flemish and Brabants texts, whereas by the fifteenth century a clearly Brabants
hegemony can be ascertained. This situation corresponds with the economic properity
of the areas concerned, with the predominance of Flemish texts occurring
simultaneously with the hey-day of Bruges and Ghent, while the increased frequency
of Brabants from the mid-fourteenth century corresponds with the shift in economic
fortune from the cities of Flanders to those of Brabant, Brussels and Antwerp in
particular. This is one of the many examples of the indivisability of Belgium and
Holland when it comes to historical issues. The fortunes of the county of Holland
also began to improve in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, due to increased trade,
and this too is reflected in the frequency of texts in the dialect of Holland.
The difficulties the spelling of Middle Dutch presents are the difficulties that all
languages experience when one attempts to put down in writing the sounds of one
language with the alphabet of another. In other words, the beginnings of the written
word in the Low Countries, as in the rest of western and northern Europe, were an
attempt to record a Germanic language with the letters of the Latin alphabet which
was one of the most important legacies of the Roman Catholic church. Both the
consonants and particularly the vowels presented difficulties for the scribes as there
were originally only 23 letters in the Latin alphabet at their disposal. Thus the following
letters alternate in Middle Dutch for example: c/k/ck, i/j, u/v, s/z; [u], spelt oe in
modern Dutch, could be written as u/oe/ue while [ø], spelt eu in modern Dutch,
appeared as ue/oe/eu.
Trading links between the cities of the northern and southern Netherlands and
between these and the Hansa cities of the north of Germany and the Baltic must
already have contributed in the Middle Ages to exchange of vocabulary and to a
certain standardisation in language, at least in the towns. The creation of a truly
standardised Dutch was still a long way off, however.
The development of the towns, based on trade, and consequently the ever
increasing role of the bourgeoisie, was of utmost importance to the cultivation of the
vernacular as a written, as well as a spoken language for official transactions. Latin,
the language of the church and thus of education, had been employed in
administration too because it had already enjoyed the status of a written language
for many centuries. But a knowledge of Latin was a prerogative of the clergy chiefly

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and also to a lesser extent of the aristocracy. But with the growth of the towns and
the wealth, and consequently the importance, of the third estate, this class too
needed to master the skills of reading and writing for the recording of business
transactions etc. Not having a knowledge of Latin at their disposal, however, the
bourgeoisie was compelled to conduct its affairs in the vernacular. Having learnt to
read and write, the burghers were in a position to desire and require texts on every
possible topic in their mother tongue, thus giving rise to a supply and demand
situation which would become common place from the end of the fifteenth century
after the invention of the printing press. With Dutch, or Diets as it was commonly
called at that time (see p. 4), having attained the status of an administrative and
business language, non-literary, lay documents became even more frequent from
about 1250. Latin was not completely replaced in this regard for a long time to come,
however. In the south, French also began to compete with Dutch in this capacity as
Latin was gradually abandoned in favour of the vernacular (see p. 21).
Even in the religious sphere Dutch began to be used to a degree for the benefit
of the bourgeoisie although on the whole the church and the universities were to
remain the last bastions of Latin in Europe. The writings of Erasmus of Rotterdam,
the well-known Dutch humanist who lived from 1469 to 1536, were entirely in Latin.
The long written tradition of Latin was also reflected in the written style of the
vernacular in that Latin constructions were often employed and otherwise extinct
case forms in Dutch were retained in imitation of Latin. This phenomenon is found
to a greater extent in Renaissance writings and is one of several reasons why those
texts are often less intelligible to the modern reader than many Middle Dutch texts
written centuries earlier.
Throughout the above descriptions of the development of Dutch as well as
throughout what follows, it should be remembered that at any given time in history
the majority of Dutch speakers were the peasants, living on the land and often
isolated from developments taking place in the cities. A spread in the skills of writing
and reading, the adoption of foreign loan words due to international contacts, attempts
to standardise the language etc., all passed the peasant by. As the majority of the
people were not literate until the late nineteenth and early twentieth century and
were thus unable to record their thoughts and speech, the linguistic historian, like
the socio-political historian until recently, often tends to ignore them. But this attitude
is determined by what is available in writing.
The first lay schools where writing in the vernacular was taught, but even then
only to very few privileged middle class children, appeared in the late thirteenth
century as a result of the demand emanating from the newly important position of
that class. The education was undoubtedly very basic - the position of schoolmeester
was regarded as a trade. Meanwhile, however, Latin schools which were run by the
church, continued to flourish and out of these the first universities would emerge in
the humanist period, the first being the Catholic University of Louvain which was
founded in 1425.
The importance of the printing press to the development of the vernacular as a
fully fledged tool of cultural expression and the role printing played in the
standardisation of the written word cannot be overestimated. Whether it was
Johannes Gutenberg of Mainz or Laurens Coster of Haarlem who first developed
a printing press with movable letters, is a long-standing debate that is of little

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concern here. It is certain, however, that the Netherlands were well to the fore at a
very early date in exploiting the potential of the new invention. Particularly the cities
of the north, such as Delft, Utrecht, Leiden and Haarlem, were quick off the mark.
In the south the main centres were Leuven and above all Antwerp.
The role which the printers played in standardisation was as follows. No longer
was a text painstakingly copied by a scribe for the exclusive use of the person who
commissioned the work and thus books had been beyond the financial means of
most. With the arrival of the printing press, many copies of a given book could be
produced and reproduced and circulation over large areas was possible. This was
not only important for the spread of knowledge, but if a book was now to be read in
areas as far apart as Antwerp, Amsterdam and Zwolle, there was a practical need
to attempt to standardise the language and of course the spelling. Such
standardisation was often applied by the printer to a work another had written. As
Brabant, particularly Antwerp, gradually emerged as the capital of printing in the
Low Countries after 1500, Brabants forms became so commonplace in printed texts
that many are still with us today and are regarded as so-called schrijftaal (see p.
103). The earliest books are either Brabants or Brabants-Hollands. Amsterdam soon
began to take over as the most important centre of printing in the north; even in the
east of the country, i.e. by the printers of Zwolle and Deventer, attempts were made
to follow the west in the printed word. This meant that the Saxon dialects of the east
were never to enjoy a written status, unlike Frisian in the north. Antwerp, boasting
names like Plantin and Mercator in the sixteenth century, was to remain Europe's
capital of printing until its fortunes declined during the Eighty Years' War and much
of its importance in this, as well as in many other fields, shifted to the north. Even
today there is a disproportionate number of important international publishing houses
based in Holland e.g. Martinus Nijhoff, Brill, Mouton.
The printed book, above all that in the vernacular, brought a knowledge and
enjoyment of the written word within reach of everyone - and demand created supply.
Herewith a new age in the development of all the vernaculars of Europe had dawned.

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
Chapter 2 of this book deals with the Middle Dutch period.

KOELMANS, L. ‘Middelnederlands’. In Inleiding tot de historische taalkunde

van het Nederlands (chapter 10).
Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema, Utrecht, 1979.

KETTERIJ, C. van de Grammaticale interpretatie van Middelnederlandse

teksten.
Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1980.
A good, practical guide to the reading of Middle Dutch texts. It has appeared
in two parts, the first containing a grammar and the other containing passages
for translation with word lists. A cheap, modern, constructive approach to the
subject.

LOEY, A. van ‘Altniederländisch und Mittelniederländisch’, in Kurzer Grundriss

der Germanischen Philologie bis 1500, Band I. L.E. Schmitt (ed.)

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

De Gruyter, Berlin, 1970.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 98

LE ROUX, T.H. & J.J. Middelnederlandse grammatica.

Van Schaik, Pretoria, 1967.
Although written in Afrikaans, that causes little impediment. This book contains
just the right amount of detail for the newcomer to Middle Dutch.

LOEY, A. van Middelnederlandse spraakkunst (2 vols.)

Wolters, Groningen, 1966.
An excellent treatment of the subject. Volume one is devoted to morphology
and volume two to phonology. Regarded as a standard textbook in Holland
and Belgium.

BOUMAN, A.C. Middelnederlandse bloemlezing.

Thieme, Zutphen, 1948.
Although this is predominantly an anthology of Middle Dutch literature, it contains
a very good simple synopsis of the grammar as well.

VERDAM, J. Middelnederlandsch handwoordenboek.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1932 (reprinted 1956).
This is the abbreviated version of the larger dictionary by Verdam and Verwijs
(see below). It is to Middle Dutch what the Shorter Oxford is to Modern English.

VOORT VAN DER KLEIJ, J.J. VAN DER, Verdam Middelnederlandsch

Handwoordenboek. Supplement.
Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden/Antwerpen, 1983.

VERWIJS, E. & VERDAM, J. Middelnederlandsch woordenboek.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1885 - 1941. (Volumes I-XI). (reprinted in 1969)

This is the standard complete dictionary of Middle Dutch.

MEIJER, R.P. Literature of the Low Countries.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1978.
Those interested in reading a palatable synopsis of Middle Dutch literature in
English are referred to chapters 1-3 in this book.

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12 The sixteenth century - a period of transition

As mentioned previously, a combination of linguistic and socio-political factors enable
us to see the close of the fifteenth century as the end of the Middle Dutch period
and the end of the Middle Ages. The century ahead was to be one of enormous
social upheaval in Europe in general, but in the Netherlands in particular. The
Reformaton, the so-called Renaissance in European throught, as well as the Eighty
Years' War, were all to contribute to revolutionary changes in the economics and
society of the Low Countries. Several of these changes were reflected in the language
in various ways and thus make sixteenth century Dutch a worthy yet often neglected
object of study.
Just as the sixteenth century is a period of transition in society, a period in which,
certainly in the Netherlands, economic prosperity and thus political power shifted
once and for all from the first and second estates to the third, to the bourgeoisie, so
it can also be regarded linguistically as a period of transition. For obvious reasons,
the division one traditionally makes between Middle and Modern Dutch in 1500 is
in fact an artificial one invented by scholars of a later age. In reality there was a
continuum and many of the characteristics of Modern Dutch were not commonplace
until well into the sixteenth century.
The Reformation, sparked off by the publication of Martin Luther's 95 theses in
Wittemberg in 1517, soon made itself felt in the Netherlands. With the new faith
came a desire to have a new Bible in the vernacular, tailored to the needs of the
Protestants. The 1520's already saw the first Bible translations, chiefly the New
Testament, into Dutch. Such translations, of which the best known is the Van
Liesveldt Bible (1526-42) from Antwerp, inevitably drew on their Latin and Luther's
German predecessors. However, the advent of Calvinism in the Low Countries
necessitated a new translation, preferably side-stepping the Lutheran precedents
and going back to the original languages. This was not to be the case until the
Statenvertaling was compiled in the seventeenth century, however. The Calvinist
Bible was ultimately a revised version of the Van Liesveldt Bible. This Bible remained
the most popular translation in the Protestant northern Netherlands until the
completion of the Statenvertaling in the 1630's. The Catholics of Brabant had their
own translation, the Bible of Louvain (1548).
At this time there were attempts by Protestant groups, for example the Mennonites,
to reconcile eastern Dutch and Low German in religious publications in order to
increase the area of influence. There was, for instance, a Low German translation
of Luther's Bible which could be better understood in the east of Holland than those
in Dutch. But eastern linguistic forms were not acceptable to western printers and
readers; ultimately the overwhelming influence of Brabant and later Holland was
not to be halted.

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Leeraar, now spelt leraar and meaning (secondary) teacher, formerly meant preacher, as it
still does in Afrikaans. In 17th-century Holland many preachers were southern émigrés who
were thus in a position to contribute further to the influence Brabants was having on urban
Hollands (see p. 101).
Taken from J. and C. Luiken, 100 Ambachten, Amsterdam, 1694.

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Not only the Dutch of the scriptures but also that of the predikanten exerted an
influence on the language of the people at large. Once the Eighty Year's War began
in 1568 and more and more emigrants began to leave the southern Netherlands for
the north, a disproportionate number of southerners were to be found in the pulpits
and schoolrooms of the north where their Brabants dialect was revered and
considered worthy of imitation.
Also the chambers of rhetoric, although known in the closing stages of the Middle
Ages, had their hey-day in the sixteenth century. These chambers were in effect
societies of usually well-to-do people who regularly held gatherings at which they
put on plays or recited and sang their latest literary creations; cultivation of the
vernacular as a worthy instrument of cultural expression was encouraged. The
chambers, called rederijkerskamers in Dutch, originated in the south and when the
idea took hold in the north, there was inevitably a linguistic legacy to the south here
also which was strengthened by the ever increasing number of Flemings and
Brabanders that arrived in the northern Netherlands after 1568. By this time Flemish
had already lost the battle to Brabants as the dialect on which emergent standard
Dutch seemed as if it was going to be based.
One should remember at this point that by the middle of the sixteenth century,
Antwerp had developed into the most important city in Europe north of the Alps. As
part of the Habsburg Empire, which included Spain and her colonies and also
included Portugal after 1580, Antwerp formed the economic hub of a world-wide
trading empire with contacts stretching from the Baltic and the Mediterranean to the
Americas and the Far East. The merchants and bankers of Antwerp were the financial
backers of both Spanish and Portuguese mercantile ventures in the New World.
When Antwerp finally fell to the Spaniards in 1585 and the mouth of the river
Scheldt, on which all of Antwerp's good fortune hinged, was blocked, the bell had
tolled for the trend-setting dialect of Brabant. A mass emigration of wealthy,
respectable burghers, many of them Protestants or Jews, left the southern
Netherlands for the cities of the north, above all Amsterdam. From this time on, the
position which Brabants had enjoyed in the Netherlands prior to 1585 was assumed
by the dialect of the province of Holland. The number of southern immigrants, and
above all the influence which the southerners continued to exert in the north after
1585, meant however that Hollands now underwent considerable brabantisation.
The fact that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the cities of the north became
melting pots for Netherlanders from all over the Low Countries, due to the prosperity
which accompanied Holland's mercantile enterprise, is undoubtedly one of the most
important reasons why the language of that region was to form the perfect basis for
the standard language. London had already fulfilled a similar function in England
prior to this time, as had Paris in France.
The southerners in the cities of the north, occupying as they did many important

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 102

Education in the 17th century was still quite rudimentary on the whole (see p. 96), but here
too the contribution of the southern Netherlands to northern culture was considerable (see
p. 101).
Taken from J. and C. Luiken, 100 Ambachten, Amsterdam, 1694.

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 103

positions in trading circles, government, education, the army and the church, enjoyed
an elite status. Although of course never in the majority, they formed nevertheless
a sizeable minority of the population - in 1622, 30% of the population of Amsterdam
were immigrants. But the influence they exerted, not least in linguistic issues, was
1.
enormous. It is believed, for instance, that the shifts of î > ij and ŷ > ui which
occurred in the post Middle Dutch period and are now part of ABN, were new
fashionable pronunciations introduced into the north by the Brabanders in whose
dialect the sounds had already shifted some time before; this in turn can account
for ŷ (also û) having been retained in rural areas outside the province of Holland
where the influence of the urban southerners was less felt (see map 10). Equally
many of the words nowadays often labelled as schrijftaal, i.e. words that are seldom
used in the everyday spoken Dutch north of the rivers, are in fact words of Brabants
origin which are still common in southern speech, while their equivalents in natural
speech are the indigenous Hollands forms e.g. gans - heel (whole), gaarne - graag
(gladly), thans - nu (now), lieden - lui (people), wenen - huilen (to cry), gij - jij (you),
reeds - al (already), schoon - mooi (beautiful), werpen - gooien (to throw), zeer -
heel/erg (very), zenden - sturen (to send). The ‘reverence’ with which such words
are now regarded is reminiscent of the status Brabants must have enjoyed in the
late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.
One of the most important sources of sixteenth century Dutch is the Dictionarium
(1574), known after the reprint of 1599 as the Etymologicum, by Kiliaen who worked
with Plantin in Antwerp. This book stands at the beginning of a long tradition of
lexicography in the Netherlands. In the dictionary all Dutch words are accompanied
by their equivalents in Latin, as well as attempts to classify the words as Flemish,
Hollands, Frisian etc. The etymologies are often unreliable, however. This important
sixteenth century book remained a standard reference work for centuries, particularly
before the appearance of Verdam's Middelnederlands Woordenboek. In addition, it
was frequently used in the north as a Latin-Dutch dictionary, a Dutch that was
distinctly Brabants in flavour.
The sixteenth century also saw the first serious attempts to standardise spelling,
in imitation of Latin and French. Spelling was to be of greater importance to many
language reformers in the centuries ahead than grammar. On the other hand, there
were to be writers who delighted in the very fact that the spelling could be varied.
Most attempts to standardise, however, were based on a particular dialect.
The first important work that attempted to evolve a national spelling that stood
above the individual dialects was Pontus de Heuiter's Nederduitse Orthographie
(1581). De Heuiter, a cleric who was born in Delft but who had travelled widely
throughout the northern and southern Netherlands, was far ahead of his time in, for
example, recommendations to write single e and o in open syllables (see p. 40) and
to abolish superfluous letters in common combinations such as gh (Ghent - now
Gent), ck (ick - now ik).
But attempts to standardise language that are not based on real circimstances
are seldom successful. However H.L. Spieghel's Tweespraack van de Nederduitsche
Letterkunst (1584), probably the best known of all early books on the Dutch language,
was based on the language of Amsterdam. This meant it was, in effect, just as
parochial as the other works of the time, but Amsterdam was moving economically
and thus socially more and more into a position to be able to dictate,
1. The letter y is used in this book to indicate the high rounded vowel which is written as u/uu
in Dutch e.g. muren/muur - a value it has in the International Phonetic Alphabet. In German
and in other texts the symbol ü is sometimes used to render this sound but that is avoided
here because I have attributed a different value to it (see p. 48). Map 10 does, however, use
ü for the sound which I reproduce here with y.

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also in linguistic issues, to the rest of the country. This book is an important source
of information on the sounds of the dialect of Amsterdam in the late sixteenth century;
for example, Spieghel mentions that ij and ui were still pronounced as î and ŷ and
were thus not yet pronounced as they are now. But Spieghel discusses grammar
too. He, like many after him, felt that certain simplifications which spoken Dutch had
undergone by that time amounted to an impoverishment of the language. For
example, he advocated reviving the distinction between the nominative and the
acusative, but then in a way that had never existed even at the time before the two
had fallen together - namely both masculine and feminine nouns could, according
to Spieghel, take den in the accusative; he also recommended genitive forms such
as des vrouws, in imitation of the masculine and neuter. In prescribing such artificial
forms, he represented the current Renaissance philosophy that it was the task of
grammarians to cultivate the vernacular, regardless of what the practice in everyday
speech was. Spieghel's language was that of the upper circles of Amsterdam society
with the addition of learned distinctions that had either disappeared from, or never
existed in the language. This attitude to the written language was to remain for a
long time to come, in fact till the truly scientific approach to language study in the
nineteenth century.
The Renaissance encouraged nationalism and with nationalism came a greater
interest in the vernaculars of Europe. Thus the above attempts to standardise the
spelling and grammar of Dutch, but this philosophy was also reflected in growing
purism, above all in moves to purify the language of French loan words. It was
common at this time, however, to resort to German words in an attempt to rid Dutch
of French influence, the division between Dutch and German not being felt to be as
strong in the sixteenth century as it is now. (See the term Nederduits p.4). An
important name in the context of purism is that of the mathematician Simon Stevin,
a Fleming who migrated to the north. He preferred Hollands to his native Flemish
and many of his purisms in the language of mathematics are still with us today e.g.
driehoek (triangle), aftrekken (to substract), delen (to divide), wortel (root).

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
Chapter 3 of this book deals with the sixteenth century.

DIBBETS, G.R.W. ‘Grammaticale geschriften uit de zestiende eeuw’. Chapter

2 in Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taalkunde by D.M. Bakker (ed.) and
G.R.W. Dibbets (ed.).
Malmberg, Den Bosch, 1977.
Further detail on the contributions of sixteenth century grammarians to the
study of Dutch.

MEIJER, R.P. Literature of the Low Countries.

Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1978.
Chapter 4 of this book gives a synopsis of the literature of the sixteenth century.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

The following books are good, non-specialist texts on the general history of the
Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries which are highly
recommended as background.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 105

MURRAY, G.G. Antwerp in the age of Plantin and Brueghel.

David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1972.

MURRAY, G.G. Amsterdam in the age of Rembrandt.

David & Charles, Newton Abbot, 1972.

WILSON, C. The Dutch Republic.

World University Library, London, 1968.

PRICE, J.L. Culture and society in the Dutch Republic.

Batsford, London, 1974.

HALEY, K.H.D. The Dutch in the seventeenth century.

Thames and Hudson, London, 1972.

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 106

13 The seventeenth century - the birth of ABN

The seventeenth century is the period in which the language of the mediaeval county
of Holland, together with Utrecht, found itself in an unchallenged position to take
the lead and assert itself as the basis for the standard. There is by this time no
shortage of texts in the Hollands dialect. Even something of the language of the
lower echalons of society, particularly in Amsterdam, is known thanks to the popular
farces which were produced in public for the entertainment of the common people.
Many of these farces, which attempted to capture the colour of local speech, were
written by the great pens of the day.
In upper circles the seventeenth century was a period in which southern and
northern elements, but particularly the latter, combined to form the basis of what we
will come to know as ABN. For a long time, however, the Brabanders and Flemings
lived in specific areas and tended to marry also within the émigré community.
In the Spaanse Brabander, one of the best known comedies of the age, which
was written by the northern playwright G.A. Bredero, some of the humour is derived
from ridiculing the exaggeratedly Antwerp speech of the main character, above all
the excessive number of French loan words. However, this is but one reflection of
the attitudes to language in the literature of seventeenth century Holland.
From this time on in particular, the gap between the language of the cities of
Holland with their large immigrant populations, and that of the surrounding
countryside must have begun to widen. The east and even the south could no longer
compete with the cities of Holland in the formation of a standard Dutch. Beschaafd
was the language of the upper urban circles, where a certain blend of northern and
southern forms had occurred, whereas plat was the language of the common people,
where the differences from the language of the adjacent platteland were minimal.
This is similar to the situation today where the speech of the lower classes of
Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht, for example, is not what one can call ABN,
although those dialects are readily intelligible to speakers of western ABN. In time
the language of the upper classes of the cities of Holland was to grow together, but
for a long time the strong particularism of the various regions of the Netherlands,
still evident today, acted as a brake on such developments.
Dutch vocabulary underwent enormous expansion at this time due to advances
in all aspects of science and learning and as a result of contact with an ever widening
world. From the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch were no longer functioning
merely as middlemen but were themselves actively trading in the Far East and the
Americas. This is also the time in which French established itself unequivocally as
the language of diplomacy and international dealings. Thus the influence of French
also came via channels other than the often bilingual southern émigrés who were

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resident in the north. Although French loan words were more common in the language
of the upper circles, a certain number were to percolate down to the lowest levels
on the social ladder in the course of time, sometimes to the extent that even there
such loans were able to displace indigenous Dutch words e.g. abuis (mistaken),
chagrijnig (cantankerous), lerares (female teacher, where the French ending -es
has replaced the indigenous ending -in), proberen (to try - the Dutch words pogen
en trachten now belong to more elevated style).
From the middle of the sixteenth century, but particularly after the Revocation of
the Edict of Nantes in 1685, many French Huguenots, who, like the Brabants-Flemish
refugees of a century before, were wealthy, upper class people, began to arrive in
the northern Netherlands in search of religious tolerance - more than 100,000 after
1685. They formed yet another element that favoured the position of French as an
upper class language and thus worthy of imitation and borrowing. A final echo of
their arrival in the Netherlands, and the respect they and their language enjoyed, is
1.
to be found in the presence of a Waalse Kerk (where Waals = French) in all the
larger towns; attendance at the French language services in these churches still
seems to have a certain snob value.
The citizens of the Dutch Republic, the beginnings of which had been the Union
of Utrecht in 1579, realized very early that racial and religious tolerance was more
profitable than the alternative which was the norm in most other countries. The
religious tolerance that reigned in seventeenth century Holland was of course only
a relative tolerance i.e. relative to the situation in Spain and France at the time for
example, for only Calvinists could occupy public office. The resulting influx of
immigrants that began in the late sixteenth century and continued on through the
seventeenth century attracting southern Netherlanders, Huguenots and Iberian Jews
to Holland brought unprecedented prosperity to the country. The presence of such
large minority groups, and the international contacts they brought with them,
contributed to the development of an ABN based on the language of the cities of
Holland and consequently the common assertion that Hollands is Nederlands and
Holland is the Netherlands (see p. 6). The great men of letters of the day, for this
was the Golden Age in literature too, were of various backgrounds typical of the
times: Constantijn Huygens, whose mother was from Antwerp and whose paternal
relatives were originally from Breda, was brought up in The Hague; G.A. Bredero
was a Hollander through and through who reacted against the Brabants dialect in
his writings; P.C. Hooft was an Amsterdammer and leader of the influential circle of
writers known as the Muiderkring; J. Cats, although a Zeelander, was educated at
Leiden University and spent most of his life in South Holland; J. van den Vondel,
the son of Brabanders, lived and wrote in the Brabants-Flemish community of
Amsterdam but even he shows a clear preference for northern forms in his later
works. Such people, in cultivating a standard written Dutch, often advocated forms
for the written language which had either never existed or no longer existed in the
spoken language. They played an important role in the development of a grammar
of standard Dutch and their literary work would be revered for generations to come
as the classical period in Dutch letters. Many of the archaisms which

1. Simply French-speaking congregations of the Nederlands Hervormde Kerk.

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became part and parcel of written Dutch at this time were to burden the language
right up to the present century.
Of course the written word always lags behind the spoken word in all languages,
preserving certain traditions that are no longer current in speech, but in the case of
Dutch this was particularly so because of the reintroduction of archaic distinctions
in gender and case inflections that had ceased to be functional during the
development of mediaeval Dutch into a more analytical language. For example, one
such artificial distinction that still exists in written style today is that between hen
(accusative) and hun (dative) when in effect the former is simply a phonetically
unrounded variant of the latter.
At the Synod of Dordrecht, which took place in 1618-19 at the end ofa long period
of internal political conflict between orthodox and liberal Calvinists which saw the
former victoring, it was decided that a new standard Bible, translated directly from
the original Greek and Hebrew of the scriptures, was required for the Republic of
the Seven United Provinces. The language of all existing Bibles up to that time was
heavily southern. A committee of translators from all over the Netherlands was
commissioned by the States General, the government of the Republic, to translate
both the New and the Old Testaments into a modern Dutch which would not favour
the dialect of one area over that of another. Thus concessions were made on and
off to Flemish, Brabants, Hollands and Frisian. Of the various forms ofa word that
often existed, a choice was made and many standard ABN forms we now know are
the result of these often arbitrary decisions e.g. for the past tense of beginnen (to
begin) a choice had to be made between begon, begost, begonst and began - begon
2.
was chosen and is now ABN . Similarly du was not given official recognition but
was replaced by gij (see p. 171). After years of debate and revision the so-called
Statenvertaling (State Translation) appeared in 1637; because of its predecessors
it was however still quite southern in flavour. The role that it played in the
establishment of the standard language is as important to the history of Dutch as
Luther's Bible to the history of German, although appearing more than one hundred
years later than Luther's (1522), it was not as innovative as that Bible. The influence
of the Church, and thus of the language of the church, was still considerable. Now
that a knowledge of reading was more wide-spread, one text that was read by all,
regardless of standing and place of abode, was the State Translation of the Bible.
This seventeenth century translation was to remain the authoritative Dutch Bible
right up to the mid-20th century. In this sense it can be compared with the King
James' version of the English Bible.
From what has been discussed so far, it can be seen why there was such a legacy
to the southern dialects in the emergent ABN of the north, a legacy which was not
contested until the literary revival of the late nineteenth century known as the
Beweging van Tachtig and the linguistic consciousness that accompanied it.
Nevertheless the Brabants contribution to ABN, especially in the written language,
has survived and cannot be missed (see p. 103).

2. Such attempts to standardise a language remind one that the standard forms of all the
languages of Europe and their relationship to their dialects is as follows: dialects are not
deviations from the norm but the norm is itself the product of a combination of these variations.

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The seventeenth century still saw no Dutch-Dutch dictionary. For the time being, as
in the sixteenth century, dictionaries were seen as a means of learning foreign
languages, primarily French and Latin. Holland would have to wait fora long time
before a dictionary would appear whose aim it was to record and enrich the mother
tongue.
Grammars too had to date been aimed at an elite public, the authors and scholars
of the day. Not till the nineteenth century would there be an attempt to prescribe
grammatical forms in texts intended for the general public and the developing schools
system. Such attempts would be based, however, on the ‘classical’ language of the
writers of the Golden Age.

The influence of Dutch outside the Netherlands at the time of the

Republic

The influence of the Dutch language was felt even beyond the borders of the Republic
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the north of Germany, particularly
in East Friesland, Dutch was the language used in the churches of the non-Lutheran
protestant groups right into the eighteenth century. Through trade with the cities of
the Hanseatic League, and thus contact with the Baltic, the Dutch language was
3.
well known in the mercantile centres of the region. Many Dutch-Low German words
that have to do with sea-faring as well as with mercantile activity made their way at
this time into High German, the Scandinavian languages and Russian - Czar Peter
the Great himself spent some time in Zaandam learning the basics of Dutch
4.
ship-building. Nor did English escape influence from Dutch in the seventeenth
century; nautical vocabulary was adopted into English from Dutch, e.g. boom, skipper,
yacht. Leiden University attracted many a student from England but particularly
co-religionists from Scotland. The bitter rivalry between the English and the Dutch
that began under Cromwell from the mid-1600's also led to negative expressions in
English incorporating the word ‘Dutch’ e.g. Dutch wife, Dutch courage, Double Dutch.
The influence of Dutch on the sea-faring vocabulary of England was less in the
eighteenth century when the English themselves began to replace the Dutch as the
maritime nation of Europe.
The Dutch, unlike the Spanish, Portuguese, French and above all the English,
seldom actually colonised the areas they actively traded in overseas. Their
settlements in South America, West Africa, India, Taiwan and Japan were in most
cases little more than trading posts, or factories as they were called. Thus the
influence of the Dutch language in these areas was minimal and is difficult or
impossible to trace nowadays. The only exceptions to this are South Africa, New
Netherlands,

3. The distinction as this stage can still be artificial at times - remember the Dutch themselves
commonly called their language Nederduits even in the nineteenth century.
4. The following are examples of the Dutch words Czar Peter introduced into Russian in the
early eighteenth century: каnυтан (kapitein, captain); матрос (matroos, sailor); мачта (mast);
стюрборт (stuurboord, starboard); бакборт (bakboord, port); ахтерстевень (achtersteven,
stern); вортевень (voorsteven, bow); треѡкот (trekschuit, tow-boat); сель (zeil, sail); фоκсель
(fokzeil, foresail); ѕротсель (grootzeil, main sail).

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the Antilles and the East Indies. Even South Africa, the largest linguistic legacy left
by Holland's overseas empire, became a colony against the express wishes and
intentions of the East India Company that founded the Cape settlement. In New
Amsterdam (now New York) and the adjacent mainland (then called New
Netherlands), which were in Dutch hands from 1624-1664, a considerable number
of colonists settled who remained when the English took control of the territory;
names such as Roosevelt and Vanderbilt, descendents of the first Dutch colonists,
have become legendary names in the U.S.A.; old maps of New Amsterdam show
that present-day Wall Street, Broadway and Long Island, for example, are translations
of the original Dutch names Wolstraat, Breede Weg and 't Lange Eiland; also the
names Brooklyn, Harlem, Flushing and Staten Island preserve a lasting reminder
of the origins of New York. The Dutch formed an elite in New York society right into
the eighteenth century and Dutch was spoken by the majority of the population until
the middle of that century. The town of Albany on the Hudson river, formerly called
Beverwijk, has documents in Dutch in the municipal archives from as late as the
late eighteenth century.
In the Dutch Antilles, Dutch was retained as the official language (see p. 3),
whereas in Surinam (Dutch Guyana), which the Dutch got from the English in return
for New York, it has been subsequently introduced and is now the official language
although the original creole languages of the country are English-based
(Sranantongo, Taki-Taki), the result of English activity in the area prior to the Dutch
take-over in 1666; nowadays of course many Dutch words have made their way
into these languages as they have into Papiamento, the creole of the Antilles.
When in 1612 the Danes arrived in the Virgin Islands (St. Thomas, St. John and
St. Croix), islands which they later gave to the U.S.A., they found a group of Dutch
colonists, mainly from Zeeland and Flanders, and a native slave population speaking
a pidgin Dutch now called Negerhollands. This language, now unfortunately virtually
extinct, shares many of the simplifications that Dutch in South Africa also underwent.
Emigration of actual colonists to the East Indies belongs more to nineteenth
century history when the Dutch first began to assume control of the entire Indonesian
archipelago.
The considerable influence the Dutch language has had on Malay (Bahasa
Indonesia) is thus also of later date, as is a great deal of the influence of Malay on
Dutch (see p. 78), although undoubtedly Malay words for new concepts such as
kapok, for instance, must have been known in Holland from the time of the first
contacts.

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
Chapter 4 of this book deals with the seventeenth century.

KOELMANS, L. Inleiding tot het lezen van zeventiende-eeuws Nederlands.

Bohn, Scheltema & Holkema, Utrecht, 1978.
This is a good, practical little book which emphasises the differences in the
pronunciation, spelling, grammar etc. of seventeenth century Dutch compared
with the modern language. Intended for use by students.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 111

HERMKENS, H.M. & KETTERIJ, C. van de, Grammaticale interpretatie van

zeventiende-eeuwse teksten.
Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1980.
A good, practical guide to the reading of seventeenth century Dutch texts. Part
one isa grammar and part two consists of passages for translation with a
vocabulary. Van de Ketterij has produced something similar for Middle Dutch
as well (see p. 97).

DIBBETS, G.R.W., ‘Grammaticale geschriften uit de zeventiende eeuw’. Chapter

3 in D.M. Bakker & G.R.W. Dibbets, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse
Taalkunde.
Malmberg, Den Bosch, 1977.
This deals in some detail with aspects of seventeenth century Dutch grammar
and the writings of grammarians of the period.

General history books with background information on the Netherlands in the

seventeenth century are recommended on p. 104. Chapter 5 of Meijer's Literature
of the Low Countries, details of which are also given on p. 104. deals with the
seventeenth century in some detail.

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14 The eighteenth century - a period of stagnation

The eighteenth century, a century of general stagnation in the history of Holland,
saw a much more conscious effort to standardise the language than had ever been
the case before, and the Dutch of the classical writers of the seventeenth century,
particularly that of Hooft and Vondel, was greatly revered. A similar situation existed
in France at the time too where the language of Corneille and Racine enjoyed great
respect. This century was to see a considerable number of publications on the
subject of language reglementation. Only the most important are dealt with here.
Throughout the eighteenth century Europe was to witness the dominance of
French language, letters and manners - the Dutch refer to it as the pruikentijd (the
era of wigs). This was to have an inevitable effect on the frequency of gallicisms in
Dutch, particularly in the language of the upper classes. Many of the writings of the
period show an exaggerated use of French vocabulary. There is also ample evidence
that the feeling for gender and case was being kept alive only artificially - there are,
for instance, gross inconsistencies in the application of the accusative and dative n
endings to articles and adjectives.
The most important Dutch grammarian of the century was the Amsterdammer
Balthasar Huydecoper (1695-1778). He was the first to make a thorough study of
Middle Dutch; he believed that one should look to the past to find guidance for the
future in linguistic issues. His book, Proeve van Taal- en Dicht-kunde (1730), was
regarded as a standard work throughout the century. Huydecoper took as his basis
the language of Vondel, but he proceeded to point out where Vondel's grammar
had digressed from the rules. The language of one of Holland's greatest seventeenth
century authors, tidied up to fit in with the traditional categories of grammar, however
artificial and obsolete these may have been by the eighteenth century, was
considered an ideal worthy of imitation. At least it provided the people of the time
with a basis for a standard written form of the Dutch language. Huydecoper was not
the only grammarian to take this approach; David van Hoogstraten (1700) and Arnold
Moonen (1706) had had the same idea.
Throughout the nineteenth century, as in the century before, Latin still enjoyed a
privileged position in scholarly and legal circles. To a considerable degree it was
the knowledge of Latin (and Greek) and the admiration for the standardised formal
grammar of that language that lay behind the desire to impose rigid grammatical
rules on the vernacular, although they were often at odds with the natural spoken
language of the day. It was considered a means of displaying scholarship.
After Huydecoper, the other great grammarian of this period was Lambert ten
Kate (1674-1731) who was ahead of his time in so many ways; for example, his
study of phonetics, Klankkunde (1699), was not typical of the eighteenth century.

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He saw beyond spelling, realising that it is but an arbitrary convention for rendering
the sounds of a language in writing and that these sounds are themselves worthy
of scientific analysis. It was also Ten Kate who first studied the similarities between
Gothic and Dutch (1710) and in so doing pre-empted the scientific study of the
history of Dutch in its Germanic context that was to blossom in the nineteenth century.
In his opposition to the prescription of archaic grammatical rules that bore little
relation to everyday speech, he was also a radical; he maintained that cultivated
speech should be a suitable medium for writing. His main work was the momentous
1500-paged Aanleiding tol de kennisse van het verhevene deel der Nederduitse
sprake (1723). This is one of the most important works ever written on the Dutch
language.
Of Ten Kate and Huydecoper, the former was more important from the point of
view of modern scholarship, although he too looked back to Dutch as it had been
written in former times when questions of doubt arose, and even he did not advocate
complete abolition of grammatical inflection. But in the eighteenth century it was
Huydecoper who enjoyed the greater reputation.
Adriaan Kluit (1735-1807), an historian from Leiden, was a scholar in the tradition
of Huydecoper whose 1777 treatise, which attempted to standardise spelling and
determine genders for Dutch nouns, was to be taken by Professor Siegenbeek early
in the next century as the basis for the so-called Spelling Siegenbeek which was to
be regarded as the official spelling of Dutch until it too was revised by De Vries and
Te Winkel in the 1850's.
Towards the end of the century, by which time Europe was in the grip of the
Enlightenment, there was an ever increasing repudiation of the stiff, unnatural mode
of written expression that had burdened the language to date. Although some archaic
forms would be maintained in the written language for a long time to come - the last
were only abolished once and for all in 1947 - a conscious attempt to bring the
written and spoken languages closer together in favour of the latter, had begun by
this time and was to continue. Also by this time, the influence of German and English
philosophy and literature, and thus ultimately the borrowing of words from those
languages, had begun and was soon to rival and finally overtake the influence of
French. This was a period of tremendous philosophical and political upheaval in
Europe, culminating in the American and French revolutions; such drastic changes
in society inevitably brought new vocabulary with them to all the languages of Europe.

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
Chapter 5 deals with the eighteenth century.

KNOL, J. ‘De Nederlandse taalkunde in de achttiende eeuw’. Chapter 4 in D.M.

Bakker & G.R.W. Dibbets Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taalkunde.
Malmberg, Den Bosch, 1977.
A good account of eighteenth century attitudes to the Dutch language.

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15 The nineteenth century - birth of the modern age

By the time the Batavian Republic was declared in 1795, an immediate effect of
revolutionary events in France, the Dutch nation was in possession ofa reasonably
standard written form of its vernacular, based predominantly on the dialect of the
former county of Holland; a standard form of the spoken language, however, was
still far off and has, in some ways, still not been attained.
In 1797 the University of Leiden created, for the first time in history, a chair of
Dutch. The foundation professor was the Reverend Matthijs Siegenbeek (1774-1854).
The creation of such a post for authoritative reglementation of linguistic issues was
important at this point in history because this was also the dawn of general education
for the masses. Siegenbeek was commissioned to draw up proposals for a standard
spelling of the Dutch language; his Verhandeling over de spelling der Nederduitse
taal ter bevordering van eenparigheid in dezelve (Treatise on the spelling of the
Dutch - lit. Low German - language for the furtherance of standardisation) appeared
in 1804. Siegenbeek was of course a product of the eighteenth century and this was
evident in his approach to his subject, but nevertheless he favoured a thorough
revision of the principles of orthography, a philosophy current in Germany where
the science of philology was being born at this time. However, Siegenbeek based
his proposals on the suggestions which Kluit had made in 1777; for example, on
the spelling of long vowels, he advocated that aa should not be written as ae and
that a and u should not be doubled in open syllables but that e and ee, o and oo
should alternate in open syllables in accordance with the etymology of the words
concerned (see p. 40). This distinction in spelling, which was dependent on a
distinction in pronunciation made in only a few dialects, found great opposition and
was a constant handicap in the writing of Dutch until it was finally abolished in 1947.
Simultaneous with Siegenbeek's commission to draw up proposals for a standard
orthography was the directive to the Reverend Petrus Weiland of Rotterdam to write
a grammar of standard usage. This was duly completed in 1805 but was very
eighteenth century in approach, still prescribing many antiquated forms.
One of Siegenbeek's and Weiland's greatest critics was the poet Willem Bilderdijk
(1756-1831) who, in advocating ‘spell as you speak’ and not the reverse as was
often practised by teachers and ministers of religion at the time, represented the
modern view i.e. that the sounds of a language are primary and the symbols with
which one commits these sounds to paper are secondary; he also opposed the view
that Latin should serve as a model for Dutch grammar. His was a nineteenth-twentieth
century approach, theirs was an eighteenth century one. Bilderdijk too, however,
had opponents as well as supporters - his poetic works were well known for their
frequent borrowings from other languages and creation of new derivatives. In this
too he set an example for later generations.

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The long period of excessive exposure to the influence of French, starting with the
foundation of the Batavian Republic, a French inspired creation, and culminating in
Napoleon's incorporation of Holland into his empire, sparked off numerous reactions
to the ‘bastardisation’ of the Dutch language which had occurred in the period
1795-1813.
The nineteenth century also saw an ever increasing influence of German on the
vocabulary of Dutch due to the important role Germany was playing in various
scientific fields at the time. Many of these German loan words, now dressed in Dutch
garb, have become part and parcel of Dutch and are no longer recognised as German
in origin (see p. 76). The growing influence of German also had its critics.
Siegenbeek, for instance, compiled a Lijst van woorden en uitdrukkingen niet het
Nederlands taaleigen strijdende (List of words and expressions incompatible with
Dutch idiom) in which he concentrated on loans from German.
In the nineteenth century an enormous amount of new vocabulary made its way
into the language, either in the form of loan words or new compounds of indigenous
words, to cover the wide range of new social, political and scientific developments
- the French revolution had sparked off irreversible changes in the social and political
organisation of Europe and the industrial revolution had also dawned bringing about
tremendous advances in communications and manufacturing.
The brief period of unification with Belgium under King William I and that king's
valiant efforts to promote the Dutch language are discussed on p. 25.
By the mid-nineteenth century, as a reaction to romanticism, a literary movement
that had favoured the revival of archaisms, came the period of realism. One of the
consequences of this development was the frequent attempt to record natural speech,
and even dialect, in novels which gives some insight into the spoken language of
the day. How great the gap was at various times in history between what people
actually spoke and what was written, and thus preserved, is usually impossible to
know, but the realistic literature of the nineteenth century goes some way towards
enlightening us on this point. One example of the sort of difference that still existed
between written and spoken Dutch was the use of gij/u and jij/jou respectively. Only
after 1840 did the written language begin to move closer to the spoken language,
thanks to the efforts of popular authors such as Nicolaas Beets, alias Hildebrand
(1814-1903). He, for instance, maintained of the language used in his famous
Camera Obscura that he had stripped it of its ‘Sunday dress’. However, the greatest
milestone in this regard was the novel Max Havelaar (1860) by Eduard Douwes
Dekker, alias Multatuli (1820-1887).
The truly scientific study of Dutch commenced at this time too. The first chairs of
Dutch at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht and Groningen, manned by products of
eighteenth century scholarship as they were, were concerned more with issues of
written expression and style than with language history. That science did not develop
until the early nineteenth century, and even then it first saw the light of day in
Germany. The first linguistic periodicals were soon founded, inviting contributions
on all aspects of the Dutch language, including dialects. In fact, right from the
beginning there was great interest shown in Holland for dialectology.
Two scholars who were involved in the serious study of Dutch from the birth of
the new science were Matthias de Vries (1802-1892) and Lammert Allard te Winkel
(1806-1868). The former, professor of Dutch in Leiden from 1853, is regarded as

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the father of the scientific study of Dutch. He had made a thorough study of Middle
Dutch and was to devote his life to the compilation of an authoritative Dutch
1.
dictionary, something the nation had never really had. He harboured a respect for
both the classical written language of the past and the living language as it was
spoken by his contemporaries.
In 1851 De Vries published his Ontwerp van een Nederlandsch woordenboek.
Te Winkel joined him in helping to realise this dream, but first a standard spelling
had to be agreed upon and the contributions these two scholars made in this arena
are discussed on p. 40. The first, extremely detailed section of the Nederlandsch
Woordenboek finally appeared in 1864 but not till 1882 did the first volume of this
monumental work appear. De Vries took as the starting point of this dictionary, which
he saw as a sort of museum of the Dutch language, the year 1637, the date of the
State Translation of the Bible. After his death his work was continued by others who
then limited the scope of the dictionary somewhat. Work on it continues to the present
day and meanwhile supplements have also appeared - the language has inevitably
changed, even drastically in some ways, since the 1860's. In addition, Dutch spelling
has since been reformed but all new sections of the dictionary published today must,
by necessity, be printed in the spelling used by De Vries.
De Vries' attitudes to grammatical inflection, still very conservative, were hotly
opposed by the oriëntalist Taco Roorda. The ruling opinion, as in the previous
century, was still that simplification of the inflectional system would result in
impoverishment of the language. Roorda, like so many others before him, was ahead
of his time in what he advocated.
Roorda's ideas on written expression were to become the norm in the 1880's
when the literary movement known as the Beweging van Tachtig began. The writers
who constituted this movement, the birth of the modern Dutch literary tradition, broke
radically with past conventions in linguistic issues. Realism, and now also naturalism,
demanded of the nineteenth century novelists an absolutely natural rendition of the
normal spoken word in writing, whatever the subject matter. Thus, from this time
dates written Dutch more or less as we know it today, although a lapse back into
the written style of former times is still commonly found in letters, legal documents
and government proclamations.

Bibliography

VOOYS, C.G.N. de, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1970.
Chapters 6-10 deal with various aspects of the history of Dutch in the nineteenth
and twentieth centuries, including the differing or parallel developments and
attitudes in Holland and Belgium.

BAKKER, D.M. ‘De grammatica in de negentiende eeuw’.

Chapter 5 in D.M. Bakker & G.R.W. Dibbets, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse
Taalkunde.
Malmberg, Den Bosch, 1977.
Quite a detailed account of nineteenth century linguists' attitudes to Dutch.

1. One previous attempt at compilation of a comprehensive Dutch dictionary deserves mention

here, Petrus Weiland's Taalkundig Woordenboek (1799-1811), but this work relied heavily
on the corpus of older dictionaries.

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Section 2 The Past

B. Historical grammar

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16 Dutch as a Germanic language

1.
Within the branch of Indo-European languages known as Germanic, Dutch occupies
an important but often neglected position. In terms of number of speakers, it is the
third largest Germanic language after English and German. Popularly speaking, one
can say that its relationship to the other West Germanic languages is fraternal,
whereas its relationship to the North Germanic or Scandinavian languages is more
that of a cousin. The study of the historical grammar of Dutch sheds much light on
identical or related developments in the other Germanic languages, particularly the
other West Germanic languages. It is intended here to look at the phonological and
morphological development of the language from the time of the break-up of
Germanic into its present constituent parts. Only once this early historical
development has been traced can one fully understand how and why Dutch emerged
as a separate entity within the West Germanic branch. Of course socio-linguistic
factors have also played a role in the emergence of Dutch as a separate language
and these are dealt with in chapters 9-15.
Firstly, however, it is important to know what distinguishes a language as being
Germanic i.e. what characteristics does Dutch share with the other members of the
Germanic branch, both West and North, which the Romance, Celtic, Slavic and
other divisions of Indo-European do not contain. The following phenomena are
characteristic of all Germanic languages:
1 They have taken part in the First (German) Sound Shift.
2 With the exception2. of certain prefixes and many foreign loan words, the stress
3.
has been fixed on the first syllable of a word.
3 The imperfect indicative and the past participle of weak verbs are formed by
the addition of a dental suffix (i.e. t or d).

The similarities with each other and the differences from other Indo-European
languages do not stop here, but these three criteria are universal within Germanic
and exclusive to it.

1. A synonym for Indo-European is Indo-Germanic. It is commonly used in (often older) Dutch

and German literature. It too derives its name from the geographic extremities where these
languages are spoken i.e. India (Hindi) and Iceland (Icelandic, a Germanic language).
2. Peculiar to Dutch is a shifting of stress away from the first syllable in certain compound and
derived words (see p. 56).
3. Initial stress in Germanic languages nowadays contrasts with the stress on the final syllable
in French and the penultimate syllable in Italian, whereas in Russian it is still free as in
Indo-European.

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We will look here firstly at the Sound Shift, as it is only after the completion of this
shift that we can talk of Germanic at all. The fixing of the stress on the first syllable
is indirectly connected to the Sound Shift and will also be dealt with here before
proceding to an analysis of the historical phonology of Dutch. The dental suffix of
weak imperfects and past participles is discussed in the chapter on historical
morphotogy (see p. 175).
Before looking at the details of the so-called First German Sound Shift, also known
as Grimm's Law as Jakob Grimm was the first to formalise and logically describe
what had occurred, it is perhaps useful to look briefly at what the possible causes
of such sound shifts are. Historical phonology is based on the observation that over
a certain period of time and/or geographical distance, the sounds of a given language
or dialect are likely to change. Such changes may occur spontaneously but usually
there are outside influences playing a role. The shifting of the point(s) of articulation
can lead to the shifting of another sound in order to avoid a falling together of sounds,
4.
which can give rise to homonyms and disturb mutual understanding. It is probably
in this light that we should see the First Sound Shift.
When the Indo-European peoples began arriving (from the Caucasus?) on the
European subcontinent from ± 2000 B.C., inevitably a proportion of them made their
way into the Baltic basin, occupying the south of Sweden, Norway, Denmark and
the southern Baltic coast. Others settled further south, covering all of Europe including
the British Isles. Archeology tells us, however, that these regions were inhabited
5.
long before this wave of immigrants arrived - the Basques, the Finns together with
the Estonians and the Lapps, for example, could well be, at least as far as their
languages are concerned, remnants of the pre-Indo-European aborigines of Europe.
The original inhabitants of the western and southern Baltic basin, whether they were
predecessors of the Lapps, the Finns or of other peoples that have since been wiped
out or absorbed, adopted Indo-European speech, and in so doing, caused certain
sounds, which were unknown or different in their language(s), to shift. It is the stops
or plosives which were affected and which set off the chain reaction illustrated below.
However the process occurred - one can only rely on hypotheses when discussing
such prehistoric changes - the consonantal shift that had occurred in Indo-European
speech in the Baltic region by ±500 B.C., occurred only there and enables us to
lable that speech with its shifted consonants as Germanic.

4. An interesting modern example of this penomenon is the shifting of initial g to h in Flemish

dialects (also in Zeeuws): thus the word geel (yellow) is pronounced heel (very, whole) and
could lead to confusion, but in the dialects concerned initial h has been dropped, so heel
(geel) contrasts with eel (very, whole).
5. Finno-Ugristik is the name given to the study of Finnish and Hungarian, the two main
non-Indo-European languages of Europe; the Magyars of Hungary did not take up residence
in Europe until the ninth century, however. Finnish has attracted the interest of Germanists
because of its early contact with Germanic speech in the Baltic at a time before the fixing of
stress on the first syllable and thus a time when the endings of words were better p̀reserved
in Germanic. Finnish, also having no fixed stress on the first syllable, has often preserved
these early loan words in a more original state than the Germanic languages themselves e.g.
koning (king) - Finnish kuningas.

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1 The First German Sound Shift or Grimm's Law

The stops (plosives) of Indo-European were:

labial dental velar labio-velar

p t k kw
b d g gw
6. 6. 6. 6.
bh dh gh gwh

7.
These stops became the following sounds in Primitive Germanic :

f þ
8.
h
9.
hw
p t k kw
b d g

The shift of these sounds from Indo-European to Germanic can be schematically

represented as follows:

1 Gmc. f þ h hw
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
2 IE. p t k kw
Gmc. ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
3 IE. b d g gw
Gmc. ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
4 IE. bh dh gh gwh

Most of line 1 has, in fact, since shifted again in Dutch, a shift which occurred
some time prior to 1100:

v d h w
↑ ↑ (unchanged) ↑
f þ h ← hw

Together with the shift of f> v, s also shifted to z in Dutch; in other words, a voicing
10.
occurred e.g. voet (foot), denken (think), hond (hound), wat (what) , zeep (soap).
6. The h here represents aspiration which was phonemic in IE.
6. The h here represents aspiration which was phonemic in IE.
6. The h here represents aspiration which was phonemic in IE.
6. The h here represents aspiration which was phonemic in IE.
7. Also called Common Germanic or Oergermaans/Urgermanisch; it is the hypothetical language
from which all Germanic dialects are descended cf. Indo-European.
9. Depending on the position in a word, this h can render either [h] or the voiceless fricative [X]
i.e. hond but acht.
8. This runic symbol, called thorn, is used to render unvoiced th.
10. Here English shows a metathesis of the original hwat, still sometimes heard in hypercorrect
pronunciation in England.

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In German in Anlaut v is often written, but is pronounced [f], whereas s is written,
but is pronounced [z] e.g. Vater (father), Seife (soap).
It is line 2, the new p/t/k from IE. b/d/g, which later took part in the Second German
Sound Shift (see p. 123).
What the above paradigm represents is the following: IE. p shifted to f. This left
the position formerly filled by the phoneme p vacant. Consequently a further shift
occurred where b moved in to fill the gap left by p i.e. it became a p in Germanic in

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 122

all words where in IE. b was/is found. That, in turn, meant that the aspiration of bh,
formerly of phonemic importance to distinguish it from b, could be dropped and bh
could shift to b without any danger of homonyms occurring. And so the process was
repeated simultaneously with the dentals and velars.
To give a few examples, the shift of p > f is illustrated when one compares the
following Latin words with their cognates in any of the Germanic languages: piscis
- fish (vis, Fisch), pater - father (vader, Vater), per - for (voor, für) etc. The shift of t
> þ: tu - thou (du), tres - three (drie, drei), tenuis - thin (dun, dünn). The shift of k >
h: octo - eight (acht), casa - house (huis, Haus), canis - hound (hond, Hund) etc.
Such comparisons with cognate forms in other Indo-European groups are not always
satisfactory as often changes have occurred within those groups which, in turn, are
the reasons for those groups being recognisable as such e.g. five/vijf/fünf can't be
compared with Latin quinque, where an internal change has taken place, but can
be compared with Greek pente to reveal that here too is a case of IE. p > Gmc. f.
When the Germanic peoples began to move south away from the Baltic from
about the time of Christ, they took with them this particular form of Indo-European
speech to which we have given the name Germanic. Not all the Germanic peoples
left the Baltic region in the period concerned and consequently those that stayed
behind were to become the ancestors of the present-day North Germanic peoples,
the Scandinavians. These migrations, which are discussed in detail in chapter 9,
account for the occurrence of Germanic speech in Holland.
The fixing of stress on the first or main syllable of a word in Germanic is a
development which occurred later than the above sound shift, as Verner's Law
proves. Verner's Law is a complicated but important explanation of what seemed
to be a discrepancy in the sound shift as the latter had been formalised by Jakob
Grimm. Karl Verner, a Dane, postulated that IE. p/t/k did not shift to the voiceless
fricatives f/þ/X, as Grimm's Law suggests, but rather to the corresponding voiced
fricatives Ѣ/␢/ǥ (now found as v/d/g in Dutch) when the stress in the word did not
11.
immediately precede the sound in question, but followed in a later syllable. For
example:

IE. *bhrā́ter - Goth. brṓþar

IE. *pәtḗr - Goth. fáder (pron. ␢)

Although the Dutch cognates of the these two words both now contain d (broeder,
vader), the different origin, the result of Verner's Law, is still to be seen in German
(Bruder, Vater). A further example to help clarify this difficult concept is the word
oog(eye - Germ. Auge). The Latin cognate, oculus, still contains the original IE.k
sound, which, according to Grimm's Law, one would expect to find as h or X in
Germanic; if the stress followed the plosive, however, one would find ǥ, not X, as
12.
is the case in Dutch and German.
The alternation of voiced and unvoiced consonants in related words which is the
result of Verner's Law is termed ‘grammatical change’. It explains the alternation of
s and r, for example, where r has evolved via a process called rhotacism from a

11. Vocabulary of non-Germanic origin in English often preserves the floating stress of
Indo-European e.g. éxercise/exért, absólve/ábsolute, contróversy or cóntroversy/controvérsial.
12. The fact that the g of Dutch oog is now voiceless and that it became a stop in German are
secondary developments.

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former z i.e. voiced s e.g. was/waren (was/were), verliezen/verloren (to lose/lost -

compare forlorn).

The Second or High German Sound Shift

The Second or High German Sound Shift, which only affected the dialects of central
and southern Germany (plus Austria and Switzerland) does not, it may seem at first
glance, warrant discussion in a book on the history of Dutch, but an understanding
of what took place there helps to clarify how and why Dutch and German have
evolved as separate languages, as well as to clearly identify certain German loan
words in Dutch; in addition it can be used as a means of dating the borrowing of
loan words from Greek and Latin into Dutch.
Germanic p/t/k, which, in accordance with Grimm's Law, had evolved from
Indo-European b/d/g, underwent a further shift in central and southern Germany;
depending on their position in a word, they shifted either fully to ff, ss, ch (i.e.
13.
fricatives) or only partially to pf, ts , kch (i.e. affricates) - compare Pfeffer (pepper
- Dutch peper), essen (eat - Dutch eten), setzen (set - Dutch zetten), machen (make
- Dutch maken). The affricate kch (e.g. Kchind - child, Dutch kind) is only found in
the dialects of the far south and is not extant in standard German. This shift started
in the fifth or sixth centuries in the extreme south of the German-speaking area and
gradually made its way northwards, having less and less effect as it progressed.
The shift of k > ch was the last to peter out. It is possible to draw a line across
Continental Germania dividing the area where k shifted from that where it remained
unchanged. Because the shift started in the mountainous south and left its mark
clearer there, those dialects which contain shifted p/t/k are called High German.
Later, because standard German would be based on those shifted dialects, High
German or Hochdeutsch would become synonymous with standard German and
people would put a sociological interpretation on the word ‘high’, where in origin it
was but geographical.
But if the dialects of central and southern Germany are known as High German,
then those of the north are called Low German i.e. of the low-lying plains and coastal
belt where p/t/k were retained. Philologically speaking therefore, all the unshifted
Germanic dialects of the north can be termed Low German i.e. also English, Dutch
and the Scandinavian languages although the latter, being North Germanic dialects,
have by definition not been in a position to be affected by the Second German Sound
Shift.
The ultimate border between Low and High German is usually taken to be the
Benrather Line (i.e. the maken/machen line) which is named after the small town
near Düsseldorf where it crosses the Rhine. Only Kerkrade and Vaals in the far
south-east of the Dutch province of Limburg lie south of this line and can thus formally
be classified as High German. But although the Benrather Line marks the northern
most extent of the Sound Shift in the east of Germany (i.e. near Berlin) and is
regarded by the Germans to all intents and purposes as the border between

13. Modern German orthography uses the letter z to designate the affricate e.g. zehn (ten - Dutch
tien).

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Low and High German, in the west the Uerdinger Line (named after the town of
Uerdingen on the Rhine north of Krefeld) crosses into Holland near Venlo and most
of Dutch and Belgian Limburg lies south of it; this is the line that divides ik/ook/-lijk
forms from ich/auch/-lich. Thus, although one does not normally regard the dialects
of Limburg as High German, the province does share some important phonological
(and morphological) features with its eastern neighbour (see p. 16).
The following words, which are no longer regarded by speakers of Dutch as
foreign, betray High German origins because they bear evidence of having taken
part in the Second Sound Shift e.g. verschaffen (to procure), spies (spit), pech (bad
luck), zich (himself), beitsen (to stain). Equally, the lack of the Sound Shift in some
standard German words indicates a Low German or Dutch origin e.g. Flotte (fleet -
Dutch vloot), Treppe (stairs - Dutch trap), Wappen (emblem - lit. weapon, Dutch
wapen).
As mentioned previously, the High German Sound Shift also enables us to narrow
down the time of borrowing into Dutch of particular Latin or Greek words which
contain a p, t or k. Because, for example, German words such as Bischof (bishop -
Dutch bisschop), Ziegel (tile - Dutch tegel) and Kelch (chalice - Dutch kelk), which
are all loan words from Latin, contain shifted sounds, they must have been borrowed
by German prior to the sixth century and therefore must also have been borrowed
at that early time by Dutch. On the other hand, German loans from Latin such as
Pilger (pilgrim - Dutch pelgrim) and Palast (palace - Dutch paleis), for example,
indicate that they were borrowed after the Sound Shift had taken place in German
and therefore they were undoubtedly borrowed at that later date by Dutch too.
Because both bisschop and paleis still contain a p in Dutch, without resort to
comparison with the shifted and unshifted forms respectively in High German, it
would be impossible to determine the time of borrowing.
Also as a result of the High German Sound Shift, vowels in root syllables were
often locked into closed syllables in German and could not lengthen when short
vowels in open syllables were lengthened in the late MHG period. This lengthening
which took place prior to the Middle Dutch period in Holland, was not impeded by
such double consonants e.g. wapen (weapon) - Waffe, geroken (smelt) - gerochen,
beten (bit) - bissen.

3 The importance of Gothic to the study of Germanic languages

A knowledge of Gothic is actually essential for the serious student of the historical
grammar of any Germanic language. At Dutch universities all students of Dutch are
required to follow a course in Gothic in their first year. Consequently all Dutch text
books on the historical development of Dutch refer copiously to Gothic. A knowledge
of Gothic is not as common at Anglo-Saxon universities and thus a word of
explanation about its importance is perhaps wise at this point.
One can say that Gothic is to the student of Germanic languages what Latin is to
the student of Romance languages, with one essential difference: whereas the
student of French, for example, can regard Latin as being the legitimate predecessor
of French, and thus the language from which French evolved via the Vulgar

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 125

Latin of northern Gaul, the student of Dutch (or German or English) cannot draw
such direct comparisons. Gothic merely represents the earliest recorded Germanic
language that has come down to us, but as such it is several hundred years closer
to Common or Proto-Germanic as spoken by all Germanen prior to their migration
southwards; relative to the other Germanic languages it is consequently very
conservative in its phonology and morphology and thus ideal for comparative study.
Who were the Goths? The Goths, whose original homeland was possibly in
southern Sweden, were already living, however, on the southern Baltic coast before
the time of Christ. By the middle of the second century they were moving in a
south-easterly direction down the great rivers of eastern Europe to the Black Sea,
thus forming the spearhead of the Great Migrations that were to reach their peak in
the fifth century. By the beginning of the third century they had created a great Gothic
empire on either side of the Dnjestr and a division had occurred into Ostro- and
14.
Visigoths.
In 375 this empire was disturbed by the invading Huns and the Goths migrated
further via the Balkans into Italy (Ostrogoths) and southern France and Spain
(Visigoths). In Italy they were defeated and absorbed by the Eastern Roman Empire
in 555 and in Spain, where they had lived since the middle of the fifth century, in
711 by the invading Moors.
At the time the Visigoths were in the Balkans, under the influence of
Constantinople, they were converted to christianity and their bishop, Wulfila
(311-382?), based in Moesia (present-day Serbia/Bulgaria), translated the Bible
from Greek into his native Gothic for his mission. This Bible translation, of which
only a very small amount of the Old Testament and not all the New Testament are
preserved in manuscripts of somewhat more recent origin, forms the basis of our
knowledge of the Gothic language. There are several other minor sources as well,
however.
Philologists have been able to compile a reasonably complete grammar of Gothic
on the basis of these sources and this grammar forms the basis of all comparative
studies of the phonology and morphology of Germanic languages. Thus extensive
reference is made to Gothic in standard Dutch works such as Van Loey's Schönfeld's
Historische Grammatica van het Nederlands and De Vries' Nederlands Etymologisch
Woordenboek. The following reservation must be kept in mind, however, when
drawing comparisons with Gothic: it is not the language from which all other Germanic
dialects are derived, which is the case with Latin and its offspring. In addition, the
Gothic we have access to is also far enough removed in time and location from
Common Germanic to have undergone certain changes and simplifications which
can be misleading or unhelpful to the comparativist. Despite this handicap, however,
Gothic remains invaluable to the student of Dutch and, although no thorough
knowledge of it is presupposed in the following chapters on historical grammar,
Gothic examples will occasionally be used to illustrate changes which have occurred
within Dutch.

14. Ostrogoths = Eastern Goths; Visigoths, whose etymology is not clear, are commonly called
Western Goths as this corresponds roughly to their geographic location at the time of the split
and during later migrations.

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 126

4 Periodisation of Dutch

It is traditional to regard the development of Germanic languages as falling into three

distinct periods, or strictly speaking four if one includes the initial period common to
all. The first period is that from the time that the First Sound Shift had occurred (±
500 B.C.) to the end of the Great Migrations (± 500 A.D.) - this is the period of
Common Germanic, a prehistoric era in linguistic terms as there are no texts available
15.
in any West Germanic language from that time. Reconstruction of original forms
has indicated also that, with the possible exception of some slight dialectal
differentiation, all forms of Germanic were still similar enough to be grouped together
under the name Common or Proto-Germanic. Such reconstructed Common Germanic
forms are often given for comparison in linguistic works, but are always, as are
reconstructed Indo-European forms, accompanied by an asterisk to indicate that
they are merely hypothetical forms.
By ± 500 A.D. the Germanic peoples had taken up residence more or less in the
areas they occupy today (see p. 85 for details of Holland), the Second or High
German Sound Shift (see p. 123) had taken place and the second stage in the
periodisation had dawned. This is known as the ‘old’ period, the time of Old High
German, Old English (also called Anglo-Saxon) and Old Dutch, known more
16.
specifically as Old West Low Franconian. 1100 is traditionally regarded as the end
of the old period as Dutch, German and English all share a phonological development
which seems to have been completed by this date, namely the weakening of full
vowels in unstressed syllables. In the case of Dutch, both this development as well
as other classic Middle Dutch characteristics are present by 1100. Due to the definite
fixing of stress on the first or main syllable of a word, the full a, e, i, o or u of
(preceding or) following syllables were weakened to a schwa (ә), usually written e.
This was to have tremendous implications in later stages of the development of
these languages, because it was in the various vowels of the endings that case and
stem classification of nouns and person and class of verbs were indicated; this would
ultimately be the cause of a simplified morphology in all three languages - in fact in
all modern Germanic languages except Icelandic - which is not evident in Gothic.
There are several other phonological developments in the Old West Low
Franconian period which are complete by 1100 and are thus characteristic of the
following period, the Middle Dutch period:
(a) The Germanic þ and ␢ have become d, as occurred in all the continental
Germanic languages (thus not in English and Icelandic) e.g. doorn (thorn),
vader (father). This development, which started in the south of Germany and
Austria first, took several centuries to reach the Netherlands and only conquered
this area very late in the old period. Simultaneously initial s and f became voiced
and are thus now written as z and v.
(b) Due to the ‘thick’ pronunciation of l after a and o, the combination a + l +

15. Several brief runic inscriptions that predate the handwritten texts of early Christian Europe
have been found, however.
16. Old East Low Franconian, the language of the Wachtendonk Psalms, is the Low Franconian
on German soil i.e. the area around Cleves.

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 127

dental or o + /+ dental developed into ou + dental during the old period and is
thus the only form found in Middle Dutch e.g. Germ. alt/Dutch oud, Germ.
Gold/Dutch goud. A similar development is found in French too e.g. chaud (hot
-It. caldo).
(c) Original (i.e. Germanic) ô had been raised to û, but was and is usually still
written oe; original û had been spontaneously palatalised to ŷ.
(d) Finally the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables, a very important
development which took place in High German only gradually during the middle
period, was already complete in Dutch by the end of the old period; whereas
the change from þ > > d had started at an early date in the south of continental
Germania, the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables started in the north.

The student of English is fortunate enough to have texts in Old English dating from
the late seventh century; German texts begin about the middle of the eighth century
and texts in both languages become more and more frequent towards the end of
the old period. In Dutch we are not so fortunate. With the exception of isolated Old
West Low Franconian glosses in Latin texts, and quite a sizeable number of names
17.
in Latin documents , the only remnant of Dutch prior to 1170 - the approximate
date of the first Middle Dutch literary text - which has been preserved, is an eleventh
century sentence in West Flemish which was found in an English manuscript in the
Bodleian Library at Oxford in 1932. It reads: Hebban olla vogala nestas bigunnan
18. 19.
hinase hi[c] (e)nda thu... . De Vooys renders this into Middle Dutch to illustrate
the essential differences between Old and Middle Dutch which have been discussed
above: Hebben alle vogele neste begonnen het en si ic ende du. Full vowels in
20.
unstressed syllables have all become e and th has become d.
Note: M. Gysseling has produced, in the series Corpus van Middelnederlandse
Teksten, a volume in which every tracé of Old Dutch, from runic inscriptions through
glosses and the Wachtendonk Psalms to the closely related Old Saxon Heliand,
has been collected. This collection of fragments includes every available text up to
1300 (see bibliography).
The period 1100-1500 is the period of Middle Dutch, Middle High German and
Middle English. It is a term of convenience used by philologists but the unity of form
the term may suggest is not present at all. There is no standard Dutch as such at
this time and, what's more, certain characteristics of even a given Middle Dutch
dialect may have been quite different in 1400 from what they had been in 1200. But
nevertheless the term has gained a certain currency and is useful if this reservation
is kept in mind.
The earliest Middle Dutch texts that have been preserved are written in Limburgs.
By far the majority of the corpus is, however, in Flemish and Brabants. The division
between the middle and the modern period, 1500, is based on a combination of
factors, both linguistic and otherwise. The non-linguistic factors, such as

17. G. Mansion's Oud-Gentsche Naamkunde attempts to shed light on the earliest period of Dutch
by analysing Low Franconian names in Latin documents from Ghent (see p. 91).
18. Literal translation: Have all birds begun nests except I and thou.
19. Vooys, C.G.N. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1970,
p. 25.
20. The weakening of those full vowels was already well underway in the old period.

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 128

increasing standardisation due to the invention of printing, are discussed in chapter

12. The linguistic criteria for this division are the following: at the end of the Middle
Ages, which are also regarded as having come to an end at round about 1500, a
shift occurred almost simultaneously in Dutch, German and English in the long î and
ŷ. In Dutch, î shifted to ij and ŷ to ui, although both modern spellings are already
found in Middle Dutch texts; the present-day spelling of ij and ui is in fact a remnant
of mediaeval tradition of writing an i (for j is merely a scribal variant of i) after a vowel
to indicate it is long. The Middle Dutch text known as the Beatrijs should thus be
read, strictly speaking, as Beatries, as it predates this diphthongisation which is so
typical of Modern Dutch (called Nieuwnederlands in Dutch).
There are also certain morphological differences between Middle Dutch and
Modern Dutch. As a result of the vowels in unstressed syllables having weakened
to e, or even having dropped off by this stage, there was a great deal of falling
together of forms. The distinction between masculine and feminine nouns had already
broken down to a great extent and case was no longer applied as strictly as it had
been earlier in the Middle Dutch period, also a result of the falling together or loss
of endings.

Summary: prior to 500 Common Germanic

500 - 1100 Old West Low Franconian
1100 - 1500 Middle Dutch
1500 → Modern Dutch

5 Ingwaeonisms

The word Ingwaeonic, borrowed from Pliny and Tacitus who used it to designate
the Germanic tribes of the coast from the Rhine to the Weser (see p. 86), is now
employed by modern dialectologists with a linguistic connotation in which case it is
synonymous with North Sea Germanic. It is a somewhat vague, but nevertheless
convenient label for certain linguistic phenomena, which, although not necessarily
found exclusively in the North Sea Germanic languages par excellence, i.e. English
and Frisian, are more frequent in the coastal dialects of Continental Germania and
are not found at all in High German. Although it is a term which only really has
currency in a West Germanic context, several of the characteristics are also found
in the Scandinavian languages.
The following are generally considered to be Ingwaeonic or North Sea Germanic
sound changes:
(1) The unrounding of û (i.e. < Old Gmc. û + Umlaut) to i or e - compare Engl.
fill/Dutch vullen, Engl. thin/Dutch dun.
(2) Old Gmc. ai, which usually became ê in Dutch (occasionally ei, see p. 146) is
found as â in some Ingwaeonic forms e.g. ladder, klaver (clover).
(3) ie for ui (< uu) - compare Flem. Diets/Holl. Duits (see p. 4), lieden/lui (people).
(4) Palatal j instead of g - compare Dutch jegens (towards) and German gegen.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

(5) Compensatory lengthening21. (Ersatzdehnung) of a short vowel after the
disappearance

21. Not all compensatory lengthening is Ingwaeonic; in certain instances even Gothic shows signs
of this sound change e.g. þāhta (< þagkjan, where g had a nasal pronunciation) = Eng.
thought/Dutch dacht.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 129

of a following n before fricatives - compare Eng. mouth, Dutch *muid (in place
names such as Muiden)/Dutch mond, Germ. Mund; also Dutch vijf. Eng.
five/Germ. fünf.

There are also certain morphological phenomena which are considered to be

Ingwaeonic:
(1) The general simplification of forms, particularly the falling together of masculine
and feminine gender and a reduction in the number of personal endings in
verbal conjugations.
(2) Plurals in s, derived from the former masculine a-stems. One such form is even
present in that West Flemish sentence which is generally considered to be the
only remnant of Old West Low Franconian (see p. 127) - nestas, nowadays
nesten in ABN.
(3) Personal pronouns beginning with h - compare Germ. er/ihn/ihr/ihnen with
Dutch hij/hem/haar/hun and Eng. he/him/her.
(4) Jij/jou (Eng. you) versus Germ. du/dich.
In addition there are various other items of vocabulary and word formation
which can be considered Ingwaeonic.

Dutch cannot be called a North Sea Germanic language but it does contain some
of the characteristics of same, more so at the level of dialect, however, than at that
of the standard language. The same applies to the Low German of Niedersachsen
and Schleswig-Holstein.

Bibliography

LOCKWOOD, W.B. An informal history of the German language.

Andre Deutsch, London, 1976.
Chapter 4 is a terse treatment of the High German Sound Shift.

LOCKWOOD, W.B. A panorama of Indo-European languages.

Hutchinson, London, 1972.
Chapter 7 contains a good, simple account of Germanic in general as well as
a few paragraphs on each Germanic language in particular.

LOCKWOOD, W.B. Indo-European philology.

Hutchinson, London, 1969.
Chapter 8 contains quite a detailed synopsis of the phonology and morphology
of Germanic.

BREE, C. van Leerboek voor de historische grammatica van het Nederlands.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1977.

This is an extremely detailed book on all aspects of Dutch historical grammar.
Chapters 4-14 are a summary of Gothic grammar for neerlandici whereas
chapter 15 deals with Dutch as a Germanic language, the periodisation and
written sources.

WRIGHT, G. Grammar of the Gothic language.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Oxford University Press, London, 1968.
Although a very detailed book, it is a standard text for the English-speaking
world. There are several authoritative Gothic grammars in German too, but
none so lucid as this one in English.

VRIES, J. de Elementair Gotisch.

Coutinho, Muiderberg, 1982.
This simple little Gothic grammar is a welcome recent addition to texts on the
subject. It contains little more that the basic paradigms with a short text plus
word list, but often that is all one requires.

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 130

17 Historical phonology
The field of science known as historical phonology is based on the observation that
the sounds of a given language, or dialect of that language, have changed somewhat
over a given period of time or over a given geographic distance and/or through
contact with other languages or dialects. What follows is a diachronie analysis of
the main sound changes in Dutch, or lack thereof, which often explain the differences
between Dutch on the one hand and English and German on the other. Because
both German and English, but most especially the latter, are progressive languages
phonologically speaking, and Dutch has a particularly conservative sound system,
comparison with Dutch can often be quite rewarding for people studying the historical
developments of those other Germanic languages. For example, the First Germanic
Sound Shift, as described above, can be found reasonably intact in Dutch, and all
other Low German and Scandinavian languages for that matter, but in German a
further shift of p/t/k occurred which momentarily obscures the origin of some sounds
(see p. 123).
In the following discussion of the development of the sounds of Dutch I have
decided to work back from the sounds as they are today, and thus as they have
been discussed in chapter five, rather than to work forward from the sound system
of Common Germanic as it has been reconstructed by philologists on the basis of
comparative linguistics. My approach differs from that of all the standard works on
the topic, which all employ the latter method. To work forward, rather than back, is,
I must admit, a very tidy method of approach, but it presupposes that the reader
has a thorough knowledge of Gothic, as indeed all neerlandici and Germanists in
Holland do. As this is not normally the case in Anglo-Saxon countries, it seemed to
me that the utility of this book would be better served by working out from that which
is known, the sounds as they are now, but inevitably I have on occasion had to draw
on Gothic examples to illustrate certain points. The standard works mentioned above
also draw heavily on examples from dialects, older forms, or place names; I have
endeavoured to illustrate the concepts purely with modern, everyday words that the
non-Dutch reader may be acquainted with.
It is usual and advisable for the sake of clarity in such studies to separate the
vowel system from that of the consonants, although this should not imply that there
is no mutual influence; more often than not vowel changes, for example, are the
direct result of the consonantal environment those vowels find themselves in;
consonants too can change under influence of preceding or following vowels,
sometimes to the point of becoming vowels themselves. Generally speaking,
however, and in this Dutch is no exception, it is the vowels of a language which
undergo more changes in the course of time than the consonants; compare, for
example, British and American English where the consonants are virtually identical
but the

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 131

vowels have diverged considerably in the four hundred years of separation. It is

undoubtedly the nature of the articulation of vowels which makes them more prone
to shift - slight shifts in the shape of the mouth lead to vowel changes whereas
consonantal changes usually involve more active employment of the organs of
speech (i.e. teeth, lips, tongue etc.) and thus do not occur as easily.
When discussing vowels, one has to do with two aspects: quality (i.e. whether an
1.
a, e, i, o or u) and quantity , (i.e. whether short, half long or long). The symbol ˇ is
commonly used by philologists to indicate short vowels, and either ^ or ˉ indicate
long vowels. In Dutch philological works a distinction is made between â and ā, for
example, where ^ is written above vowels which have always been long or were
formerly diphthongs (i.e. in Common Germanic) and ˉ is written above those which
for one of any number of reasons (see below) have become long i.e. so-called
lengthened vowels. This convention has been preserved here.
Although most of the linguistic phenomena one meets in the study of sound
changes are described in the glossary, there are several other concepts which will
occur repeatedly in the analysis of the sound changes of Dutch; they are looked at
in general terms here first.

(a) Monophthongisation

A process of vowel assimilation whereby the two elements of a diphthong blend to

form one sound, a monophthong, which is always a long vowel e.g. au>ô.

(b) Diphthongisation

A process whereby the speaker glides the articulation of one vowel into the
articulation of a following vowel to form one long vowel sound consisting of two
elements, a diphthong e.g. î > ij (pron. [εi]).

(c) Lengthening of short vowels in open syllables

When comparing the quantity of Dutch vowels with the quantity of those in cognate
words in Gothic or even Old High German, one will often find that Dutch has long
vowels where the languages mentioned have short ones. This is usually the result
of the lengthening of short vowels in open syllables (see p. 127) which occurred
much earlier in Dutch than in German. It is also often the explanation for apparently
exceptional forms e.g. pad (path) but paden (paths); dag (day) > vandaag (today)
< van dage (+ dative e ending).

(d) The falling together of sounds

1. The spelling system of Dutch, as described in chapter 4, is much more efficient than is that
of German or English in indicating the length of vowels. In this sense the all important historical
distinction between short and long vowels is conveniently preserved in the modern written
word in Dutch.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Sometimes two (or more) historically different sounds fall together through the later
shifting in articulation of one to coincide with the other. e.g. Germanic d and Germanic
þ are both found as d in Dutch as þ > d at the end of the OLWF period.

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 132

(e) Contracted forms - syncope/apocope

Intervocalic consonants can be assimilated to the point where they disappear, a

process known as syncope, whereas the dropping off of a final sound, whether a
vowel or a consonant, is known as apocope e.g. zeil < zegel (sail), vrouw < vrouwe
(woman). Another form of contraction is the syncope of a vowel in a preceding
unstressed syllable e.g. kroon < corona (crown), bril < beril (spectacles).

2.
(f) Umlaut

Umlaut, or as it is sometimes called in English, vowel mutation, is a very important

phenomenon in the historical phonology of Germanic languages. It is a process
whereby the quality of a stressed vowel is pulled in the direction of a following
unstressed vowel; it is in other words a form of vowel assimilation. The Umlautsfaktor
in the following syllable can be an a, a u or an i/j but the most common form of
Umlaut is i-Umlaut. The following simple vowel chart will help to clarify the process:

The umlauted form of u is y, of o is ö (a lower variant being ø) and of a is ä i.e. all

are drawn towards the high front vowel i.
i-Umlaut, which is present in all Germanic languages except Gothic, is restricted
on the whole in Dutch to short vowels; there is virtually no Umlaut of long vowels in
Dutch, which contrasts strongly with German and English e.g. D. kaas - E. cheese,
G. Käse < Lat. caseus; D. horen - E. hear, G. hören. The absence of umlauted long
vowels and the lack of the Second German Sound Shift in Dutch are the main
3.
reasons for being able to call the phonology of that language conservative. Umlaut
of short vowels is, however, very common, although a knowledge of Gothic and/or
Latin is often necessary to be able to see that umlauting has occurred e.g. Gothic
badi - D. bed, Lat. asinus - D. ezel (+ lengthening of the short

2. It is common for the layman with a knowledge of German to regard the ˝ on German back
vowels as an Umlaut. Words containing ˝ in their spelling have indeed been umlauted and
this sound change is indicated by ˝ (derived from thee in Gothic hand writing u, i.e a = a). It
is however the changed sound, from a back to a front vowel, which is the Umlaut and not the
symbol ˝. Thus Dutch and English words also contain Umlauts but other orthographical means
are employed to indicate them e.e. cheese (comp. Käse).
3. As i-Umlaut is a form of fronting (palatalisation) it is consistent with the articulation basis of
Dutch that it occurred less there than in English and German which are noted for their more
palatal pronunciation (see p. 45).

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 133

vowel in an open syllable). The Umlautsfactor has usually been reduced to e (see
p. 126), or been apocopated in Auslaut. Whereas German ü is the result of umlauting,
the same sound in Dutch (written u/uu and pronounced [y]) is the result of a
spontaneous palatisation of Germanic û without any Umlautsfaktor ever having
followed.

(g) Analogy

The role that analogy has played in both phonological and morphological change
is not to be underestimated. Very often it is the explanation for apparent exceptions
to various sound change laws e.g. the imperfect of binden (to tie) in Middle Dutch
is bant (sing.)/ bonden (pl.) but in Modern Dutch it is bond/bonden.
Note: in reading the following analysis of the sounds of Dutch, these points should
be kept in mind:
(a) Where there are several origins of a particular sound, these are numbered;
generally speaking, the lower the number, the more numerous are the words
in that category. In addition, for the sake of clarity, the list of possible origins
of a given sound is not always complete but it does include the vast majority
of words.
(b) a, o, or u + i/j means that the new sound is the result of an Umlaut where either
i or j or both have been the Umlautsfaktoren.
(c) The change from a monophthong to a diphthong or vice versa has often passed
through more medial stages than the examples may suggest.

1 Short Vowels

Grapheme a

(1) < Gmc. ă which was also ă in Indo-European

(2) < Gmc. ă which was ŏ in Indo-European
(3) < Gmc. ŭ + r + dental
(4) < Gmc. â which was in turn the result of compensatory lengthening.

Examples and notes:

4.
(1) akker (field - acre ), arm (arm), dag (day), tand (tooth). The vowel in German
Tag, also in kam and nahm (compare Dutch dag, kwam, nam) has been lengthened
as a result of analogy with the plural form where lengthening of short vowels in open
syllables has taken place in both Dutch and German i.e. dagen/Tage,
kwamen/kamen, namen/nahmen.
(2) acht (eight), gast (guest), nacht (night), lang (long), wat (what). The cognate
forms of these words in Latin preserve the original short o of Indo-European - octo,
hostis, nox, longus, quod. The English cognates of the first three words all contain
more palatal or fronted vowels; German, however, is the same as Dutch in this case
but the plurals of Gast and Nacht, for instance, also show fronting i.e. Gäste, Nächte.

4. In such cases the first word is the translation of the Dutch word in question and the second
is the cognate form in English if it happens to be different from the literal translation.

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 134

(3) hart (heart - Germ. Herz), smart (pain - Germ. Schmerz).

This change of short e before r + dental is not very common but it is found on
occasions in ABN and is quite frequent in the dialect of Holland - thus its occurrence
in ABN.
(4) bracht (brought), dacht (thought), zacht (soft).
The Gothic forms brāhta and dāhta show a long vowel which is the result of
compensatory lengthening, Ersatzdehnung i.e. the vowel has been lengthened to
compensate for the loss of a nasal. In Dutch and German the -cht cluster has then
caused a shortening of the long vowel. English ‘thought’ and ‘brought’ still retain a
long vowel sound. Compare Dutch zacht and German sanft, where the nasal has
been preserved (see p. 154 for the change of -ft > - cht). In English a before n often
changed to o, which is not uncommon in Dutch dialects (docht, brocht) and Frisian.

Grapheme e

(1) < Gmc. ĕ

(2) < Gmc. ă + i/j
(3) < Gmc. ă + r + consonant
(4) e in unstressed prefixes and suffixes has various origins

Examples and notes:

Historically and even today in the mouths of some speakers the vowels e and i,
which are phonetically closely related, often alternate, depending on the consonantal
environment: compare Dutch brengen - Eng. bring/Germ. bringen / Afr. bring, Dutch
hem - Eng. him, Dutch gisteren - Eng. yesterday / Germ. gestern; also Dutch recht
(right) and the verb richten (to direct, lit. righten).
(1) geld (money), helpen (to help), nest (nest), zes (six-Greek hex). Gmc. ĕ is
found as ĭ in Gothic except before r, h and hv where it is written aí e.g. hilpan (to
help), saíhs (six). Many other short e's and i's in Gothic have ended up as long e in
Dutch as a result of lengthening in open syllables e.g. Gothic itan > eten (to eat),
Gothic stilan > stelen (to steal).
(2) bed (bed), hen (hen), mens (person); dekken (to cover), denken to think),
kennen (to know), leggen (to lay), zetten (to put).
As Gothic does not know i-Umlaut, all cognate forms of the examples given still
contain an a in that language e.g. badi (bed), mannisks (mens, adj.), satjan (zetten).
This Umlaut is very common in verbs which formerly belonged to a class of weak
verbs whose infinitive ended in -jan and thus contained an Umlautsfaktor. Compare
the umlauted and unumlauted forms within Dutch itself: dak (roof) - dekken (to cover),
hals (neck) - omhelzen (to embrace), lang (long) - verlengen (to lengthen); the last
English example also shows Umlaut.
(3) erg (terrible - Germ. arg), merk (brand - mark), scherp (sharp), sterk (strong -
Germ. stark), verf (colour - Germ. Farbe), zwerm (swarm).
ă + r + consonant often led to a palatalisation of the a to e. Such an e is often
heard in Dutch dialects where ABN has retained an a e.g. Ernhem (= Arnhem),
standerd (= standaard), perd (= paard, horse; see p. 137 for long a from short a in
ABN).
Dutch er often occurs as ir in German e.g. berk - Birke (birch), hert - Hirt (deer),
kerk - Kirche (church), werken - wirken (to work).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 (4) The origin of e (pron. ә) in unstressed syllables is also discussed on p. 126.
The

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 135

prefixes be- and ge- and the suffix -en are found in Gothic as bi-, ga- and -an i.e.
with full vowels; even the prefix ver- is derived from unstressed voor (for). In some
instances the prefix has been unstressed to the extent that there has been a
contraction with the following syllable e.g. buiten < bi-uiten (outside), gunnen <
ge-unnen (to grant); compare also Dutch geloven and Germ. glauben (to believe).
Other examples of such contractions are bril < beril (spectacles), klant < calant
5.
(customer), krant < courant (newspaper).

Grapheme i

(1) < Gmc. ĭ which was also ĭ in Indo-European

(2) < Gmc. ĭ which was derived from IE. ĕ + n + consonant or IE. ĕ + i/j
(3) < Gmc. ĭ with shortening before the cluster -cht

Examples and notes:

For the interchange of ĭ and ĕ see p. 134.
(1) dis (dish - Lat. discus), pil (pill), vis (fish - Lat. piscus).
(2) a - binden (to tie), drinken (to drink), kind (child - Lat. gens), twintig (twenty).
b - is (is - Lat. est < * esti), midden (middle - Lat. medius), nicht (niece, cousin -
Lat. neptis).
c - gillen (to yell), gist (yeast), gisteren (yesterday).
The change of IE. ĕ > ĭ before a nasal + consonant (group a), but not in other
positions, accounts for the division in group 3 of the strong verbs i.e. vinden (to find),
zinken (to sink) but helpen (to help), sterven (to die) (see p. 178).
Group b gives examples where the Latin cognates still show the Umlautsfaktor.
Group c contains examples of the change of ĕ > ĭ before -st and -ll which occurred
in a few instances.
6.
(3) licht (light - Germ. leicht, Gothic leihts ).
This change occurs rarely. Note that the unstressed ending -ig, which contains
an original short i, has undergone the same fate as the ending -lijk, which contains
an original long i - both have been weakened to schwa; it is pronounced [әX],
whereas in English the g was palatalised under influence of the preceding i to produce
the ending -y. Similarly Dutch -lijk = Eng. -ly.

Grapheme o

(1) < Gmc. ŏ

(2) < Gmc. ŭ
(3) < Gmc. ô with shortening before the cluster -cht

Examples and notes:

Just as ĕ and ĭ have alternated historically, and still do in dialects, so have and
do o and ŭ. Many Dutch words containing o will be found to have u in their cognate

5. It is interesting to note that the reverse is sometimes the case in Germanic loan words in
French e.g. canif (pocket knife) < knif, hanap (goblet) < hnap; the insertion of such a vowel
glide is known as anaptyxis or svarabhakti, a Sanskrit term.
6. Note that the spelling ei in Gothic stands for long i.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

forms in German and English e.g. borstel - Bürste (brush), dorst - Durst (thirst),
mond - Mund (mouth), ons - uns (us), worm - Wurm (worm).

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 136

The two pronunciations of o in the Dutch of many speakers are discussed on p. 48.
The difference, which is partially due to different origins of o (i.e. from o or u), but
in some instances is the result of the phonetic environment, is not usually phonemic
and is thus usually ignored in ABN; certain dialects, particularly Zuidhollands, do
not distinguish between the two either. The more closed ó (i.e. < ŭ) is always heard
before nasals, regardless of origin; preceding labial consonants also tend to favour
the more closed sound e.g. bók (goat), wólf (wolf), vós (fox) - compare klòk (clock),
dòl (mad).
(1) dochter (daughter - Germ. Tochter), hok (kennel - hutch), kok (cook - Germ.
Koch), pond (pound - Germ. Pfund), pot (pot), rond (round - Germ. rund).
(2) dom (dumb - Germ. dumm), gordel (belt - girdle, Germ. Gürtel), hond (dog -
hound, Germ. Hund), jong (young - Germ. jung), pols (pulse - Germ. Puls), pop (doll
- Germ. Puppe), wolf (wolf - Germ. Wolf)
The German examples show that there has not been the same degree of falling
together in that language as in Dutch, as indeed do the English translations, although,
as is so often the case, the spelling of the English words is not a very reliable indicator
of the pronunciation. Pairs such as druppel/droppen (drop/to drip), vullen/vol (to
fill/full) and nut/genot (use/enjoyment) show o as the usual development of ŭ in
Dutch; however, it became u (pron. ü) when the original ŭ underwent umlauting.
(3) zocht (past tense of zoeken, to seek), ochtend (morning - Gothic ûchtwo).
There are a few instances of an original long o which has undergone shortening
before the consonant cluster -cht - compare bracht and dacht p. 134.

Grampheme u

(1) < Gmc. ŭ + i/j

(2) < Gmc. -wi-

Examples and notes:

There is no short u as such in Dutch as all Germanic ŭ's changed to ŏ (see ŏ);
the grapheme u in Dutch usually represents ŭ's which have undergone umlauting.
(1) bus (box - Germ. Büchse), dun (thin Germ. dünn), hulp (help - Germ. Hilfe),
mug (midge - Germ. Mücke), put (well - Germ. Pfütze).
The German forms all show Umlaut also. English ‘thin’ and ‘midge’ show
unrounding of umlauted u, as does Germ. Hilfe.
Sometimes in dialect, and thus in Afrikaans, this u appears as o e.g. konst (kunst
- art), mos (mus - sparrow).
(2) tussen (between - betwixt, Germ. zwischen), zulk (such -Goth. swaleiks),
zuster (sister - Germ. Schwester).

2 Long Vowels
7.
Grapheme a/aa (also written ae in older texts; this is still the case in
some proper nouns)

7. The long vowels a, e, o and u also know an allograph aa, ee, oo and uu. (see p. 37)

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 137

(1) < Gmc. â (but æ̂ in West Germanic8.)

(2) < Gmc. ă with lengthening in open syllables
(3) < Gmc. ă or ĕ + r dental

Examples and notes:

(1) daad (deed), jaar (year), laten (to let), schaap (sheep), slapen (to sleep).
The falling together of 1 and 2 in ABN is not reflected in all dialects; some preserve
a long e (< Westgmc. æ̂), as do English and Frisian. This more palatal vowel can
thus be regarded as an Ingwaeonism (see p. 128). Hypercorrect Hèègs (i.e. Haags,
p. 18, footnote 14) accentuates this palatal pronunciation of long a and attempts to
elevate it out of the realm of dialect speech.
(2) dagen (< sing. dag, day), kamer (room), maken (to make), vader (father), water
(water).
Forms like Germ. machen and Wasser retain a short vowel because of the double
consonant in them which is the result of the Second German Sound Shift (see p.
123); the double consonant locked the vowel into a closed syllable and thus
lengthening could not occur. Also Germ. Tag (with a long a) is by analogy with the
plural (Tage) where lengthening in an open syllable has occurred; Dutch, however,
9.
preserves the original short vowel in the singular. This is a further example of the
phonological conservatism of Dutch as opposed to German.
(3) aarde (earth - Germ. Erde), aarts- (arch - Germ. Erz-), baard (beard - Germ.
Bart), paard (horse - Germ. Pferd).

Grapheme e/ee

(1) < Gmc. ai

(2) < Gmc. ĕ or ĭ with lengthening in open syllables
(3) < Gmc. î + r + dental
(4) < Gmc. ă + i/j with lengthening in open syllables

Examples and notes:

(1)een (one - Germ. eins), lenen (to lend, loan - Germ. leihen), steen (stone -
Germ. Stein), teen (toe - Germ. Zehe), twee (two - Germ. zwei).
The monophthongisation of Gmc. ai > ê did not take place equally in all words in
all dialects of Dutch. Even in ABN one finds the diphthong ei (see p. 146) where
one would expect ê e.g. bereid (prepared, ready) beside gereed (finished, ready),
eik (oak) beside eekhoorn (squirrel). Afrikaans has taken teiken (target - token) and
vleis (meat - flesh) from Dutch dialects whereas ABN has teken (sign) and vlees in
these instances.
In the dialects of the west of Holland (N. and S. Holland and Utrecht), there is a
tendency to give ê a diphthongal pronunciation. It could thus be said that a complete
monophthongisation of ai never took place in these regions (see p. 13). This is even
heard somewhat in the ABN of the west, but to a lesser extent. The

8. This sound is found as long e in Gothic and is called e1. (see p. 138, footnote 12)
9. Similarly in the fourth and fifth Ablaut series Dutch nam/namen (< nemen, to take, group 4)
and lag/lagen (< liggen, to lie, group 5) contrast with Germ. nahm/nahmen and lag/lagen
where the vowels in both are long because analogy with the plural has taken place in the
singular.

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 138

distinction in pronunciation between ê < ai and other long e's, which is known to
some dialects (e.g. Zeeuws), was the reason behind the following distinction in the
10.
spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel i.e. beenen (legs,ê < ai), eten (to eat, ē < ĕ)
(see p. 40).
In Frisian and Saxon the change from ai > ê was complete, unlike in Dutch,
whereas in German ai remained a diphthong (now spelt ei) and was usually only
monophthongised before final h, r, w and in Auslaut e.g. Ehre (honour), See (sea),
Zehe (toe).
Cognate forms in English usually show o (sometimes spelt oa) as Gmc. ai was
monophthongised to â in Old English and changed to ô in Middle English (see above
examples). In a few Dutch words and place names Gmc. ai appearsas â,as in Old
English e.g. klaver (clover - Germ. Klee), ladder (ladder - Germ. Leiter), Haamstede
(haam = heem, home); these forms are regarded as Ingwaeonisms.
(2) From ĕ: breken (to break), eten (to eat), zeven (seven).
From ĭ: hemel (heaven), schepen (ships, plural of schip). In open syllables Gmc.
ĕ and ĭ fell together, as did ŏ and ŭ in that position (see p. 140).
(3) veertien (fourteen), veertig (forty) - compare vier (four).
This change is not common.
(4) beter (better - Gothic bătiza), rede (speech - Gothic răþjo).
This is also the result of lengthening in open syllables and is not common; most
cases of Gmc. ă + i/j are found as short e in Dutch (see p. 134).

11.
Compound grapheme ie (also written'ij in the Middle Ages. see p. 38)

(1) < Gmc. eu

(2) < Gmc. î before r
(3) < Gmc. ê (so-called e2)12.
(4) In contractions
(5) In French words borrowed after the Middle Dutch period

Examples and notes:

(1) bieden (to offer - Gothic biudan), dief (thief - Gothic þiufs), diep (deep - Gothic
diups), gieten (to pour - Gothic giutan), ziek (sick - Gothic siuks).
The Old Germanic diphthong eu, which occurs in Gothic as iu, developed in two
ways in Dutch; there were already two variants in Proto-West Germanic. In Middle
Dutch it is found as two separate monophthongs, î and ŷ. Those with ŷ diphthongised
in Modern Dutch to ui (see p. 142) and those with î in Middle Dutch still have î today;
the falling together with words with original long i, which is present in Middle Dutch,
has been avoided in Modern Dutch by the diphthongisation of original î to ij (see p.
142). In Flemish, Zeeuws and Brabants î alone was preserved

10. A similar distinction in spelling existed for long o (see p. 140).

11. Of all the long vowels in Dutch only ie, eu and oe are written the same whether they occur in
open or closed syllables. These sounds are all rendered by compound graphemes in Dutch.
Their equivalents in German orthography are ie, ö and u respectively. NB: an alternative for
ö in German is oe.
12. In Gothic, Westgmc. aê (â in Dutch) and ê (ie in Dutch) fell together as ê; to distinguish
between the two, philologists gave them the names e1 and e2 respectively.

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 139

and thus one sometimes finds double forms in ABN where those with ie (< eu) are
13.
southern forms and those with ui or ŷ (< eu) are northern forms e.g. Diets/Duits
(see p. 4), dierbaar/duur (dear), lieden/luiden (people), rieken/ruiken (to smell).
The two-way development of the original Germanic diphthong accounts for the
two sorts of verbs in Ablaut series two (see p. 64) e.g. schieten (to shoot), buigen
(to bend).
(2) gier (vulture), mier (ant), spier (muscle), wierook (incense). Gmc. î, which was
diphthongised to ij in early Modern Dutch (see p. 142), remained a monophthong
before r (see footnote 13); wierook thus contrasts with the cognate form wijden (to
consecrate) which contains a hypercorrect d (see p. 156) - compare Middle Dutch
wien (= wijden).
(3) - Fries (Frisian), Grieks (Greek), hier (here).
a
b - biet (beet), brief (letter), riem (belt), spiegel (mirror).
c - hield (held), liet (let - past tense)

Old West Germanic ê (i.e. e2), which was not very common, developed into a new
monophthong in Dutch and German, probably via a series of diphthongs - compare
the development of Gmc. ô > û, p. 141. This ie has fallen together with ie < eu but
not with Gmc. î which has shifted to ij. The words in group b. are early Latin loan
words where Latin had ŭ or ê and those in group c. are preterites of some formerly
reduplicating verbs in Ablaut series seven (see p. 180).
(4) tien (ten - Gothic taíhun), zien (to see - Gothic saihvan). A few Dutch words
with ie are the result of a contraction having occurred in bisyllabic words; there are
many more such contracttons in Middle Dutch e.g. bevrien (to liberate - Dutch
14. 14.
bevrijden ), gescien (to happen - Dutch geschieden ), tien (to pull - Gothic tiuhan).
(5) kritiek (critical), petieterig (tiny), romantiek (romance), trampolien (trampoline).
Words of French origin containing long i which were borrowed in the Middle Ages
underwent the shift of î > ij (see p. 142). French loan words of younger origin retain
the French vowel and have usually been adapted to the spelling rules of Dutch. In
addition, French words ending in -tion/-sion occurin Dutch with -tie e.g. oppositie
(opposition), relatie (relation) etc.

15.
Grapheme o/oo (also written oe or oi in Middle Dutch texts )

(1) < Gmc. au

(2) < Gmc. ŏ or ŭ with lengthening in open syllables
(3) < Gmc. ŏ + r + dental

Examples and notes:

13. ŷ did not diphthongise to ui before r (see p. 142).

14. Bevrijden and geschieden contain a hypercorrect d - compare Germ. befreien and geschehen
(see p. 156).
14. Bevrijden and geschieden contain a hypercorrect d - compare Germ. befreien and geschehen
(see p. 156).
15. The spelling oe is often ambiguous in Middle Dutch; it can designate either long o or long u
whereas these days it stands only for the latter. The alternative spelling oi, which is not quite
as common, is preserved today in certain place names and a few archiac words e.g. Oirschot,
Oisterwijk (compare Germ. Voigtländer), oir (descendants - a legal term). Some Dutch people
are misled by the spelling into pronouncing such words oy instead of ō.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 (1) boom (tree - beam, Germ. Baum), kopen (to buy - Germ. kaufen), oog (eye -
Germ. Auge), oor (ear - Germ. Ohr).

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 140

The monophthongisation of Gmc. au > ô runs parallel with that of ai > ê except that
16.
in this instance the shift was complete in Dutch , unlike ai > ê (see p. 137).
In German, as with ai > ê, the diphthong was preserved, except before h and
dental consonants e.g. Auge (eye - Dutch oog), Haupt (head - Dutch hoofd), laufen
17.
(to run - leap, Dutch lopen) but hoch (high - Dutch hoog), hören (to hear - Dutch
horen), tot (dead - Dutch dood). As with long e in Dutch, long o also has a somewhat
diphthongal pronunciation in the plat speech of the Randstad and even its
pronunciation in ABN is not, phonetically speaking, an absolutely pure monophthong;
this applies equally to the words with long o < ŏ or < ŭ. This long o is heard as eu
(i.e. ö) in quite a number of dialects - compare Afrikaans deur (= door, through) and
seun (= zoon, son) (see p. 141). Long o < au and long o < ŏ/ŭ are pronounced
differently in some dialects (e.g. Zeeuws) i.e. they have not fallen together; this is
also the case with ê < ai and ĕ < ĕ/ĭ in those dialects. The distinction was still made
in Hollands too until the seventeenth century. The two spellings of long o in open
syllables in the spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel was based on the different origin
of the two sounds and the distinction made between them by some speakers i.e.
boomen (trees) but boter (butter) (see p. 40). In English Gmc. au > ea e.g. bread
(Dutch brood), dead (Dutch dood), lead (Dutch lood) etc.
In a few Dutch words and place names au is found as â e.g. baken (beacon),
Kaag (= koog, polderland); these forms are regarded as Ingwaeonisms since Gmc.
au developed regularly into â in Old Frisian, for example; it has since diphthongised
again in Modern Frisian beaken.
(2) boter (butter), koning (king), noot (nut), zoon (son, Gothic sunus), vogel
(birdfowl, Gothic fugls).
As with ĕ and ĭ, ŏ and ŭ fell together when lengthened in open syllables; the long
vowel in monosyllabic noot and zoon, both closed syllables, is the result of analogy
with the lengthened vowel in other cases forms and/or the plural where the addition
of a syllable placed the vowel in the root of the word in an open position (see p. 37).
(3) doorn (thora), noord (north), oord (place), poort (gate - portal), soort (sort).
Lengthening of o before r + dental also occurred with ă and ĕ and is a typically
Dutch phenomenon.

Compound grapheme oe (also written oo, ue and ou in Middle Dutch

18.
texts) (1) < Gmc. ô

Examples and notes:

(1) bloem (flower - bloom, Gothic blôma), broeder (brother - Gothic brôþar), boek
(book - Gothic bôka). The German cognates all also have û, written u i.e. Blume,
Bruder, Buch.

16. There is one minor exception, however: before w a diphthong was preserved e.g. houwen
(to hew), beschouwen (to regard).
17. In German, original au as illustrated here, fell together with au < û (ui in Dutch) e.g. faul (lazy
- Dutch vuil), Raum (room - Dutch ruim). Dutch thus preserves an important historical distinction
here. The same is the case with German ei > ai and ei > î e.g. Stein (stone - Dutch steen),
Eis (ice - Dutch ijs). As the examples show, English also preserves the distinction.
18. Even today recent loan words from French can be written with ou or oe e.g. tourist/toerist,
bouquet/boeket.

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 141

Germanic ô was able to develop into û in Dutch because Gmc. û had undergone
spontaneous palatalisation to [y] (later > ui, see p. 142). Words such as groen (green
- Germ. grün), zoet (sweet - Germ. süβ), moe (tired - Germ. müde) show Umlaut in
German, and Umlaut plus unrounding in English; Dutch consistently shows no
Umlaut of long vowels.
The change from ô to û in Dutch was already complete by the tenth century i.e.
prior to the Middle Dutch period. In German the same change occurred via various
diphthongal forms which are clearly given in Middle High German texts (spelt oa,
au, uo) and can still be heard in southern German dialects today. A change via such
intermediary stages may also have been the case in Dutch, or else this change, and
also ê > î (see p. 139), may have been direct in coastal areas. Possible evidence
of this is the spelling oo for û in Holland until quite late(± 1500). The present-day
spelling oe may be a remnant of an intermediary stage orelse a remnant from the
time when long o (as well as long a) were indicated by placing an e (also an i) after
the vowel rather than doubling it as is done today. A considerable amount has been
written on the so-called oe-relicten i.e. words and place names (mainly in North
Holland) containing oe < û in areas where Gmc. û > ŷ or ui. ABN words with oe < û
must have been borrowed from the dialects (mainly the east of the country, see map
10) where û was not palatalised to [y] e.g. boer (farmer) versus buur (neighbour),
poes (puss), schroef (screw), smoel (mug i.e. face), snoet (snout); Souburg (pron.
û, a place name).

Compound grapheme eu (adopted from French orthography since the

end of the Middle Ages and also found as ue in Middle Dutch texts and
thus easily confused with oe and uu)

(1) < Gmc. ŭ + i/j with lengthening in open syllables

(2) < Gmc. ŏ [+ i/j] with lengthening in open syllables
(3) < Gmc. ĕ with lengthening in open syllables + rounding
(4) In French loan words

Examples and notes:

(1) euvel (evil - Germ. übel), heuvel (hill - Germ. Hügel), keuken (kitchen - Germ.
Küche), sleutel (key - Germ. Schlüssel).
Forms such as breuk (a break) versus breken (to break), keur (choice) versus
kiezen (to choose), sleutel (key) versus sluiten (to lock) show eu in Ablaut variation
with other sounds.
(2) zeug (sow), veulen (foal).
Generally speaking oo forms (unumlauted) often vary with eu forms (umlauted)
from dialect to dialect, with a preference for the latter in the coastal areas, sometimes
even without the presence of an Umlautsfaktor e.g. deur (= door, through), veugel
(= vogel, bird). The eu forms are not common in ABN where the Brabants forms
with oo have won out - zeug and veulen are exceptions in this regard. Afrikaans
sometimes has the eu forms e.g. deur (through), seun (son).
(3) leunen (to lean), reus (giant), steunen (to support), zeuven (seven).
Gmc. ĕ in open syllables was usually lengthened to ē (see p. 137); however, in
quite a number of dialects this e was rounded to eu and as this phenomenon is not
uncommon in Hollands, some words with eu < ē(< ĕ) have made their way into ABN.

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 142

A rounded pronunciation of zeven is common throughout the country now when

saying telephone numbers etc. (Compare Germ. zwo/zwei), Similarly speulen (=
spelen, to play) and veule (= vele, many) are dialectal in origin but commonly heard
(never written, however).
(4) fleur (bloom, hey-day), kleur (colour, < couleur), directeur (director).
The original French spelling and pronunciation with eu is preserved in loanwords
of French origin. Greek words with eu, however, are pronounced ui in Holland e.g.
fysiotherapeut, eunuch.

Grapheme u/uu

Examples and notes:

(1) duur (dear), duwen (to push), muur (wall), nu (now), puur (pure), u (you).
Germanic û was spontaneously palatalised to [y] in Low Franconian in the
pre-literary period. As the same occurred in the Vulgar Latin of Gaul (compare French
mur, pur) it has been suggested that this sound in Dutch may be the result of Celtic
substrate, all the more so as it is not evident in the Saxon-based dialects of the east
where there is also less archeological evidence of Celtic presence (see map 10).
Forms such as huus/tuus/muus (house/louse/mouse) are the norm in Middle Dutch
but the diphthongisation of this ŷ to ui (see ui), except before r, w and in Auslaut,
accounts for the relative scarcity of the sound in Dutch today. The diphthongisation
of î > ij, which was concurrent with ŷ > ui, also did not occur before r (see p. 139).
In Hollands ŷ in Auslaut and before vowels is often heard as ou e.g. douwen (to
push), nou (now); also the form jou (you, obj.). The first two forms are very common
in the spoken ABN of the Randstad, and the third is of course both spoken and
written ABN. In the spoken language one often hears duvel (= duivel, devil), duzend
(= duizend, thousand) and buten (= buiten e.g. een boertje van buten, a yokel), but
these are forms borrowed for euphemistic or humorous effect from dialects that did
not diphthongise.

3 Diphthongs

Because of certain parallels in the development of the diphthongs ui and ij, it is

advisable to look at this important development in the phonology of Dutch in general
terms before looking at the two sounds individually. Certain sociolinguistic factors
have played a role and there are also interesting parallel and contemporaneous
developments in English and German.
It is difficult to date precisely when ŷ and î diphthongised to ui and ij respectively,
not simply because we only have the written word to go by, but also because the
spellings ui and ij had been used throughout the Middle Ages to indicate long y and
i; i was often used as a lengthening symbol in the same way as e was, and j was
considered simply a scribal variant of i. (Compare long ʃ and s at the end of words
in older English, Dutch and German texts.) It is, however, generally regarded as a
post Middle Dutch/early Modern Dutch development and can thus be said to have
been gathering ground during the sixteenth century. It is believed to have begun in
Brabant and that its spread in the north, and thus its ultimate incorporation into

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ABN, is possibly the result of the immigration of the Brabanders into the cities of the
north during the Eigthy Years' War. The diphthongisation undoubtedly took root in
the urban areas of Holland first, where the Brabanders formed a large influential
proportion of the population, a group worthy of emulation (see p. 101). It did not
reach all parts of the country, nor do the ij isoglosses completely overlap with those
of ui (see maps 10 and 11). Generally speaking however, it is possible to say that
ŷ and î diphthongised at much the same time over much the same area starting in
the south in the sixteenth century and becoming the norm in both the north and
south (urban areas) during the seventeenth century. It was complete among the
upper classes by the beginning of the eighteenth century. West Flanders and Zeeland
(as well as Friesland) are the best known, most cited cases of areas where this
diphthongisation did not occur.
One of the most interesting and yet puzzling aspects of this diphthongisation is
that the same sounds were affected in English and German at more or less the
same time and in the same way i.e. in English mûs/hûs/lûs > mouse/house/louse;
îs/wîf/pîp > ice/wife/pipe and in German mûs/hûs/lûs > Maus/Haus/Laus; îs/wîb/pfîfe
> Eis/Weib/Pfeife. In England and Germany too, the development started in the
south and spread rapidly over large areas but certain important areas were
unaffected, notably Scotland in the case of English, and the Low German area and
Switzerland in the case of German. It seems unlikely that such a change could occur
over such a large area affecting three related but separate languages without there
being some connection, but the precise course of events is unknown. The connection
is probably to be found in sociolinguistic factors, if at all.

Compound Grapheme ui

(1) < Gmc. û (via ŷ in Middle Dutch)

(2) < Gmc. eu + i/j (via ŷ in Middle Dutch)
(3) < Gmc. ŭ + n + þ (only in place names)
(4) A small group of words that have always contained a diphthong

Examples and notes:

(1) bruin (brown), huis (house - Goth. hûs), muilezel (mule - Lat. mūlus), ruim
(room - Goth. rûms), vuil (dirty - foul, Goth. fûls).
Gmc. û, which underwent spontaneous palatalisation in Dutch in the pre-literary
period, was diphthongised in the west and south to ui (pron. oey) shortly after the
end of the Middle Dutch period. The spellings u/uu/ue/ui are all found in Middle
Dutch texts for the monophthongal predecessor of the modern ui. The exceptions
to this shift are dealt with under long u on page 142.
The new diphthong is heard clearest in Auslaut e.g. lui (people); in Inlaut it is not
as open and is closer to a monophthong.
In German and English, Old Germanic û remained û, i.e. it was not spontaneously
palatalised as in Dutch, and thus shifted directly to au (written ou or ow in English)
at the end of the middle period.
(2) Duits (German), duivel (devil), kruipen (to creep, crawl), lui[den] (people),
ruiken (to smell), sluiten (to close).
In class 2 of the strong verbs there is a two-way division into those with ie (see
p. 64) and those with ui. Both are derived from Germanic eu and occur in Gothic
with

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Map 10: The ui isogloss, as in the word muis (mouse), showing the areas unaffected by the
diphthongisation of [y:] to [œy] where several monophthongal variants still exist. Taken from
A. Weijnen, Nederlandse Dialectkunde, Assen, 1966.

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 145

19.
iu. Those followed by the Umlautsfaktoren i/j were monophthongised to ŷ (written
20.
u) in OWLF, whereas the others were monophthongised to ie. This division is not
limited to verbs of this class but applies to all words e.g. ziek (Goth. suiks), Middle
Dutch Duutsc (< Gmc. * þiudisk) etc. The distinction is also found in German as
eu/ie.
With the diphthongisation ŷ > ui words in this group shifted together with those in
group 1. There is thus a falling together in Dutch of ui < û and ui < eu which is not
present in German - compare ruim/Duits, Raum/Deutsch, huis/buit (booty),
Haus/Beute. German saugen/saufen (Dutch zuigen/zuipen) prove that the ui in these
two verbs developed from û and not from eu.
(3) Arnemuiden, IJsselmuiden, Muiden, Plymuiden (Plymouth), zuiden (south).
Place names in Holland and Zeeland in particular with varieties of the word muid
(mouth, Dutch mond) preserve a compensatory lengthening of Gmc. ŭ, an Ingwaeonic
feature - compare Gothic munþs, Old English mūþ, Modern English mouth (with
diphthongisation). This means that toponymically a form muud existed alongside
mond in Middle Dutch and these forms too diphthongised to ui. Dialectically in coastal
regions uus/uis is also found for ons - compare Old English ūs, Modern English ‘us’.
A non-Ingwaeonic example, because it also occurs in German, is zuid(en) < *sunþ
(Germ. Süd).
(4) bui (storm), fluit (flute), fruit (fruit), lui (lazy), ruilen (to exchange).
These words (list not complete) have always contained a diphthong, even in the
Middle Dutch period before the dipthongisation of ŷ > ui; Middle Dutch texts show
a great variety of spellings for this sound: oi/oy/oei/oey/eui/euy/eu. Some, like fruit
and fluit for example, are early borrowings from French.

Compound grapheme ij (for the history of the symbol ij see p. 38)

(1) < Gmc. î

(2) < Gmc. ĭ in Auslaut
(3) < Gmc. ĭ + n + f

Examples and notes:

(1) bij (by - Germ. bei), ijs (ice - Germ. Eis), prijs (price - Germ. Preis), slijm (slime
- Germ. Schleim), tijd (time - Germ. Zeit); Berlijn (Berlin), Parijs (Paris).
21.
The post Middle Dutch diphthongisation of i > ij (except before r, see p. 139 )
caused a falling together with ei, an original dipthong, but the written word
22.
distinguishes between the two. In German the new diphthong (written ei) < î fell
together with ei < ai (in Dutch ai > ê); Dutch did not experience a falling together of
these two important sounds and comparison with Dutch cognate forms can thus be
a quick method of determining the origin of ei in German e.g. Eis/Stein,

19. Proto-West Germanic must also have known this division: eu > iu + i/j(> û) and eu > io (> ie).
20. There are a few verbs in group 2 that contained a monophthong û even in Gothic and which
thus occur in Middle Dutch with [y:] e.g. luiken (to shut - Goth. lûken), zuigen (to suck), zuipen
(to booze).
21. In German î > ei in all positions e.g. gier/Geier (vulture), wierook/Weihrauch (incense).
22. In Middle Dutch there were two long i's: î < Gmc. eu or < e2 (now ie) and î < Gmc. ;(now ij).
They must have been pronounced differently, however, because the former did not undergo
diphthongisation.

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23.
ijs/steen. In English the two did not fall together either e.g. ice/stone. Note the
English tradition of putting an -e at the end of the word to indicate the long vowel.
The fact that habijt (nun's habh), patrijs (partridge), appetijt (appetite) and other
such French loan words contain the new diphthong indicates that they were current
in Dutch before the diphthongisation of î > ij took place; likewise with the place
names Berlijn and Parijs. French loan words of more recent origin preserve the long
24.
î of the original language e.g. paniek (panic), sjiek (chic), statistiek (statistics).
The adjectival-adverbial ending -lijk (pron. -lәk) contains an etymologically long
vowel (Goth. -leiks = body) and thus the present spelling, although the ending is
now pronounced short due to the lack of stress - compate gelíjk (pron. εi) and iets
dérgelijks (pron. ә).
(2) hij (he), mij (me), zij (she).
The stressed pronominal forms with final ij underwent lengthening of ĭ > î in Old
Dutch and were thus later also diphthongised (see p. 61).
(3) vijf (five), vijftien (fifteen), vijftig (fifty).
The word vijf and its compounds is the only example of an ij < î which is the result
of an (Ingwaeonic) compensatory lengthening - compare: Eng. five/Fris. fiif and
Germ. fünf/Goth. fimf.

Compound grapheme ei

(1) < Gmc. ai [+ i/j]

(2) < Gmc. ăgi (via the umlauted form ĕgi)

Examples and notes:

(1) - bereid (ready), eik (oak), geit (goat), -heid (-hood), klein (small), scheiden (to
a separate).
b - dreigen (to threaten), eigen (own), heilig (holy), leiden (to lead).

Germanic ai monophthongised to ê; before i/j, however, a diphthong was preserved

(group b above) but other words without an Umlautsfaktor also show ei (group a
above - see p. 137).
In ABN there has been a falling together in speech of the old diphthong ei and
the new diphthong ij (see p. 145) but Lambert ten Kate, writing on Dutch ± 1700
(see p. 112), maintained that the two sounds were then still separate except in
Amsterdam (and thus now in ABN) and plat Brabants. In Amsterdams the fall was
towards [εi] and in plat Brabants towards [ai], still one of the characteristics of the
25.
dialect of Antwerp today.
(2) meid (maid - German Magd/Mädchen), peil (level - pail, Germ. Pegel), steil
(steep), zeil (sail - Germ. Segel), zei[de] (said).
In a few words the diphthong ei is the result of a contraction of ĕ + g + i (< ăgi)
26.
where the g has been palatalised after Umlaut and syncopated. English ‘rain’
23. Similarly the diphthongisation of û > au in German caused a falling together with the original
diphthong air, in both Dutch and English this did not occur - compare Haus/Baum, huis/boom,
house/beam.
24. Sound shifts can be a useful means of dating borrowings; see p. 124 for the importance of
the Second German Sound Shift in this regard.
25. Compare the pronunciation of ‘to die’ and ‘today’ in Australian English; here both also tend
towards [ai].
26. See p. 153 for the palatalisation of g in coastal areas.

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Map 11: The ij isogloss, as in the word ijs (ice), showing the areas unaffected by the
diphthongisation of [i:] to [εi]. Taken from A. Weijnen, Nederlandse Dialectkunde, Assen,
1966.

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 148

(regen) and ‘hail’ (hagel) show a similar development. Meisje (girl) < meid (milk-maid)
< maagd (virgin), and zei < zegde < *zegide. In plat speech hij zeit (he says) and
hij leit (= hij ligt/legt, he lies/lays) are commonly heard; such forms can be regarded
as Ingwaeonisms.

Compound graphemes ou(w)/au(w)

(1) < Gmc. al or ol + t/d

(2) In a few Dutch words with peculiar etymologies
(3) In foreign words

Examples and notes:

The diphthong [au] is more commonly represented by ou than au in Dutch spelling;
there are very few indigenous words with the au spelling.
(1) goud (gold), houden (to hold), hout (wood - holt), koud (cold), oud (old), vouwen
(to fold).
Already in the pre-literary period al and ol must have fallen together (e.g. mout -
malt, goud - gold) - the pronunciation of the English examples gives evidence of a
similar development in that language. Also prior to the first texts, l after o before t
and d was vocalised to produce a new diphthong ou, which did not fall together with
original Germanic au, as this had changed to ô (see p. 139). Thus the above Dutch
examples contrast with the following German cognates: alt, falten, halten, kalt, Gold,
Holz. French shows a similar alternation of u and l e.g. beau/belle, veau/veal (Norman
French), chaud/Ital. caldo.
(2) beschouwen (to view), houwen (to hew); gouw (province - Germ. Gau); blauw
(blue), klauw (claw), wenkbrauw (eyebrow); gauw (soon); jou (you, obj.), nou (now).
Those few Dutch words with ou which are not derived from ol + t/d show either
27.
ou or au in spelling and are of various origins. Beschouwen and houwen, for
example, retain an original au which did not change to ô before w; gouw is a
contraction of -awi (Goth. gawi); the diphthong in blauw, klauw, brauw is the result
of â + w and gauw (< MNL gâ) is by analogy with such words; for jou and colloquial
nou see p. 142.
(3) auteur (author), auto (car), automatisch (automatic).
Such words are usually pronounced [au] but some people still preserve the French
pronunciation [o:].

4 Double Vowels

Peculiar to Dutch are the double vowels which are different in origin and pronunciation
from the true diphthongs since they are formed from two phonemes. They have
various etymological histories.

27. The difference in spelling reflects a difference in pronunciation in Zeeland and the islands of
South Holland - the different origin of each is obviously still felt by those speakers. The
distinction was also preserved in ABN until the beginning of the nineteenth century.

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 149

Compound grapheme aai

(1) < Gmc. â + j (especially in verbs)

(2) < âd- in open syllables (only in speech)

Examples and notes:

(1) draaien (to turn - Germ. drehen), kraaien (to crow - Germ. krähen), maaien
(to mow - Germ. mähen), zaaien (to sow Germ. sähen). Also in related nouns: draai
(a turn), kraai (a crow) etc.
(2) The double vowel aai is heard in such words as raden (to guess - pron. raaien),
laden (to load - pron. laaien), kwade (evil - pron. kwaaie) where d is vocalised - see
p. 155). This is not reflected in the standard written language.

Compound grapheme ooi

(1) < Gmc. au + j

(2) < ôd- in open syllables

Examples and notes:

(1) dooien (to thaw), hooi (hay), kooi (cage), strooien (to strew).
There are etymological connections between these words and those with ouw
(see p. 148, group 2).
(2) dooier (yolk - Germ. Dotter), ooievaar (stork, < MNL ôdevâre), rooie (red, <
rode), rooien (to clear forest, < MNL rôden).
Unlike aai < âd- (see above), ooi < ôd- has made its way into written ABN in certain
words; rooie, a colloquial pronunciation of the adjective rood + inflectional ending,
is seldom written however.

Compound grapheme oei

(1) < ô +j
(2) < oed- in open syllables (only in speech)

Examples and notes:

(1) bloeien (to bloom), gloeien (to glow), groeien (to grow), roeien (to row).
Such words show a regular development of ô to oe; German cognates show
regular umlauting due to j - blühen, glühen.
(2) goeie (good, < goede), poeier (powder, < poeder).
Occasionally in speech, d after oe in an open syllable is vocalised to i, or more
correctly the semi-vowel j.

Compound grapheme eeuw

(1) < Gmc. ai + w

(2) < Gmc. ê + w

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Examples and notes:
In OWLF intervocalic w developed into an u and gave rise to this double vowel
(see also the diphthong ou(w)/au(w) and the long vowel u).
(1) eeuw (century), Zeeuw (Zeelander, < zee), sneeuw (snow- Goth. snáiws),
meeuw (seagull).
(2) leeuw (lion - Lat. leo), geeuwen (to yawn).

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5 Consonants

The consonantal system of Dutch has remained unchanged since the beginning of
the Middle Dutch period with the phonemically insignificant exceptions of the
pronunciation of r and w, as well as the devoicing of voiced spirants in certain
positions (see g in all positions, v and z in Anlaut). There is, however, more uniformity
in spelling now than in the Middle Dutch period - for example, the devoicing of voiced
stops in Auslaut was often reflected in the spelling in Middle Dutch texts (lanc <
lang, hep < heb, hant < hand) but nowadays the ‘rule of uniformity’ (regel van
gelijkvormigheid) is adhered to. But it is not applied in the case of spirants e.g. ik
geef (< geven), ik reis (< reizen).
The consonants are best dealt with not alphabetically but in groups of graphemes
that alternate historically for various reasons.

Grapheme b

Dutch b is the product of a complicated pre-history in Old Germanic times involving

the First German Sound Shift (see p. 121). Final b was devoiced, as in German,
and thus often appears as p in Middle Dutch texts (see above).

Graphemes v and f

Dutch v in Anlaut corresponds to English f and German f or v (pron. f). It is derived

from Germanic f which in turn is derived from Indo-European p via the First German
Sound Shift e.g. vader - Eng. father, Germ. Vater but Lat. pater, voet - Eng. foot,
28.
Germ. Fuβ but Lat. ped. In the pre-literary period, the f in Anlaut and Inlaut became
voiced e.g. vogel (bird - fowl, Goth. fugls), wolf/wolven (wolf/wolves). The famous
West Flemish sentence from the Old West Low Franconian period (see p. 127) also
has uogala (where u = v).
Nowadays in the ABN of the Randstad initial v is usually devoiced to f, possibly
due ultimately to’ Frisian substrate in Holland. The dialects of this region have thus
probably never voiced it. The same applies to z (see p. 13).
Grammatical change (see p. 122) often accounts for the occurrence of a v
intervocalically (Goth. ) where German has b e.g. geven (to give, Germ. geben),
sterven (to die - starve, Germ. sterben). In such words v alternates with f in Auslaut
e.g. ik geef (I give); also lief (dear, Germ. lieb) but liever (dearer, Germ. lieber).
Compare also Dutch zeven (seven, Germ. sieben), zilver (silver, Germ. Silber),
doof/dove (deaf, Germ. taub/taube).
Otherwise f is only found in the following cases:
(1) gemination: heffen (to lift, Goth. hafjan), laffe (cowardly, < laf, a checked vowel).
(2) very occasionally before t: bruiloft (wedding), vijftig (fifty) (see p. 154).
(3) in words of foreign (often Frisian) origin: folteren (to torture, Germ. foltern),
forel (trout, Germ. Forelle), frank < (< French franc), fris (fresh, compare Dutch vers),
Fries (Frisian, compare the surname De Vries); in older texts Friesland and
28. When such comparisons are made with Latin or Greek, the layman often believes this to
mean that the Germanic word has been derived from that Latin or Greek cognate form. This
is not the case, as Latin and Greek, belonging to different sub-divisions of IE., have simply
preserved related words which the shifts that have taken place in Germanic have not affected.

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Frankrijk often appear with the truly Low Franconian spelling Vriesland and Vrankrijk
- they are often pronounced that way today too.
(4) in a few indigenous words of obscure origin: fiets (bicycle), foei (an
exclamation). This f may have something to do with accentuation in pronunciation.
Even in areas where initial v is normally pronounced as v and not as f (i.e. south
of the rivers), v is often devoiced when a voiceless consonant precedes i.e.
assimilation: hij ziet veel - pron. hij ziet feel.
There are parallels between the alternation of f/v and s/z where the phonetic
similarity is also one of voiceless versus voiced spirant.

Graphemes z and s

As with f, Germanic s in Anlaut and Inlaut was voiced in the pre-literary period, as
it was somewhat later in German too; it is still written as s in German, however, as
it was in Middle Dutch. This accounts for the many words beginning with the letter
z in Dutch. S did not become voiced in Auslaut e.g. huis (house), reis (joumey),
gans (goose), vers (verse) - compare the plural forms huizen, reizen, ganzen (see
sch below), verzen. S also did not become voiced in the combinations sch (<sk), sl,
sm, sn, sp and st e.g. schoen, slapen, smijten, snijden, spelen, steen. In the
combination sw, s did become voiced e.g. zweren (to swear), zwemmen (to swim).
Here German shows no deviation from the other combinations - all underwent
palatalisation in early New High German e.g. Schuh, schlafen, schmeiβen, schneiden,
spielen, Stein; schwören, schwimmen (see sj for the situation in Limburg).
Otherwise the exceptions to Germanic s > Dutch z are similar to those for Germanic
f > Dutch v:
(1) in words of foreign origin e.g. suiker (sugar), soep (soup)
(2) before a syllable with a short vowel followed by gemination e.g. beseffen (to
realise), sommige (some), sukkelen (to be ailing, < ziek).
(3) in positions where it is assimilated to neighbouring unvoiced consonants e.g.
ik heb ze - pron. ik heb se, 's zondags - pron. sondags, samen (together < tezamen).
Final s in Dutch is often the product of an assimilation of Germanic -hs (pron. Xs).
This assimilation is unique to Dutch as English, High German and Frisian all preserve
-ks e.g. Dutch bus, vos, was, zes versus English/German box/Büchse, fox/Fuchs,
wax/Wachs, six/sechs. The Dutch island Texel (occasionally spelt Tessel) is
pronounced in two ways - Teksel (Frisian pronunciation) or Tessel (Low Franconian
pronunciation). Any other occurrence of the combination ks in ABN must also be
due to foreign influence e.g. boksen (< Eng. to box), heks (witch, < Germ. Hexe),
tekst (< Latin).
See p. 122 for Dutch z in verliezen/vriezen versus r in German verlieren/frieren.

Compound grapheme sch

The shift of Germanic sk to OWLF sch (pron. sX) was a partial assimilation of the
stop k to the preceding fricative s. This shift only occurred at the beginning of stressed
syllables (e.g. schoen - shoe, schip - ship, landschap - landscape) and sch was
otherwise assimilated completely to s. In North Holland, probably due to Frisian
substrate, sk has been preserved (see p. 13).

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The increasing frequency of the uvular pronunciation of r (see p. 54) has brought

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with it an assimilation of the gutteral fricative in the combinations gr and sehr e.g.
schrijven (to write, pron. sRεivan).
That words such as mens (person), vers (fresh) and ruisen (to rustle) retain s
29.
when a vowel follows , is also to be attributed to the fact that these words did not
originally end in s but in sch; they were probably still pronounced as sk or sX in the
pre-literary period. This spelling, which appears as sc in Middle Dutch, was retained
right up till 1936 (see p. 41) but was not reflected in pronunciation e.g. menschen,
30.
versclie, visch - vischen, ik wasch - wasschen.
Hypercorrect spellings such as langsch (< langs, along) and lansch (< lands, gen.
of land) in Middle Dutch texts prove that the final ch had already been assimilated
to s.
In English and German, Germanic sk was palatalised to sh in the pre-literary
period. Early English orthography still often used the compound grapheme sc,
however, and German now uses sch were English uses sh e.g. Dutch schip (pron.
sXIp), Eng. ship (pron. ʃIp) and German Schiff (pron. ʃlf).

Compound grapheme sj

As the above development of sch in Dutch illustrates, the sound [ʃ] is generally
speaking foreign to Dutch and typical of its more palatal relatives, English and
31.
German. The compound grapheme sj is used, however, in foreign loanwords
(sometimes of Frisian origin) where the spelling of the host language has been
abandoned for a ‘Dutch’ spelling: sjaal (shawl), sjoelbak (a Frisian game), sjouwer
(doek-hand). It also occurs incidentally in the diminutive of nouns ending in s e.g.
huisje, reisje.
32. 32.
It is interesting to note at this point that the shift of initial sl, sm, sn, sp , st and
33.
sw to schl, schm etc. in early New High German also partly affected the Dutch
and Belgian provinces of Limburg (see the Panninger Line on map 5); initial [ʃ], in
lieu of Dutch [sX], is found over an even larger area of Limburg.

Grapheme g

Dutch g is identical in origin to g in the other Germanic languages as it too is the

product of the complicated pre-history involving the First German Sound Shift (see
p. 121).
Historically the graphemes ch and g alternate, as do s/z and f/v, to indicate the
voiceless and voiced gutteral fricatives respectively. As mentioned on p. 51, both
ch and g are now pronounced voiceless in ABN, a pronunciation which is
29. Compare gans (goose) - ganzen, vies (dirty) - vieze, verhuizen (to shift house).
30. As Germanic -ks > i and -sch > s in Dutch, the following words fell together: wasschen (Eng.
to wash, Germ. waschen) > wassen and wassen (< *waksen, Eng. to wax/ grow, Germ.
wachsen).
31. This sound followed by another consonant (as in Spiel, Stadt etc.) causes Dutchmen more
problem than any other when speaking German.
32. Words such as Spiel and Stein are still pronounced without the palatal spirant by many
educated speakers of High German in the north of the country.
32. Words such as Spiel and Stein are still pronounced without the palatal spirant by many
educated speakers of High German in the north of the country.
33. i.e. the sixteenth century, the period parallel with that of early Modern Dutch.

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considerably harder than even the German ach-Laut. In Middle Dutch texts the ‘rule
of uniformity’ (see p. 150) did not apply to ch/g and thus alternations of the following
kind

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 153

are found: loech/loeghen, sloech/sloeghen (singular/plural of the preterite of lachen

34.
- to laugh and slaan - to hit); nowadays one writes sloeg/sloegen.
The spelling gh is common in old Dutch texts, particularly before e and i - compare
the spelling of Van Gogh and Brenghel as well as the English spelling of Ghent (now
Gent in Dutch).
Certain pecularities of Middle Dutch spelling suggest that g in gemination and
after [ƞ] was still pronounced as a plosive at the time; for example, spellings like
licghen (= liggen - to lie) and dinc (= ding - thing) with Auslautverschärfung, suggest
35.
alternation with g not ǥ, as is still the case with b/p and d/t, Ǥ, or rather X, has
taken over since the seventeenth century in gemination (e.g. liggen, zeggen - to
say), and ƞg has assimilated to ƞ (e.g. dingen - things); note however the
pronunciation of the loan words evangelisch and geëngageerd as well as Gronings
surnames in -ga e.g. Huizinga (all with ƞX).
The devoicing of ǥ to X, which runs parallel with the devoicing of v and z, has
however occurred in all positions in ABN. It cannot be directly due to Frisian influence,
as is the case with v and z, but ǥ has probably followed by analogy v and z, whose
devoicing is believed to be due to Frisian substrate in Holland.
For the syncope of intervocalic g > ei see p. 146.
Dutch words with g often contrast with English words with y, a sound for which
the Dutch alphabet uses j e.g. gist (yeast), gisteren (yesterday), dag (day), zeggen
(to say). The contrast is one of palatalisation in English versus gutteralisation in
Dutch. Palatalisation of g > j, like several other forms of palatalisation, is an
Ingwaeonic phenomenon and is present only to a certain degree in Dutch (see j).
On the other hand, in OWLF sometimes g < j occurred before stressed palatal vowels
gij (Goth. jus), gene (that - yon, Germ. jener), ginder (yonder).

Compound grapheme ch

See g for the historical relationship with that grapheme.

Germanic X (now written ch in Dutch) has undergone various developments in
Dutch depending on where it occurs in a word. Dutch ch has two possible origins:
(1) < Gmc. X
(2) < Gmc. -ft.
(1) Germanic X was preserved in gemination e.g. lachen (to laugh - Goth. hlahjan)
and before the dental -t e.g. acht, nacht (compare Lat. octo, nox, see p. 122). In
Anlaut it shifted to h (see h). In all the following cases, Germanic X was syncopated
or apocopated:
(a) in Anlaut before a consonant, a combination common in Old Germanic, it
36.
dropped off e.g. waar (where - Goth. hvar) lachen (Goth. hlahjan), roepen (to call
- Goth. hrôpjan). As a result of metathesis occurring before the loss of h before r in
English, English ‘horse’ contrasts with Dutch ros.
(b) in Inlaut between vowels e.g. slaan (to hit - Goth. slahan) - compare geslagen,

34. Even in Northern Germany g in Auslaut is pronounced as [X].

35. Note the modern spellings jonkheer (< jongheer, junker), koninkje (< koning, king).
36. The English compound grapheme wh (with metathesis) and the hypercorrect pronunciation
of it taught by some elocution teachers are remnants of this Germanic sound combination.

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 154

an example of grammatical change; zien (to see) - compare Germ. sehen, where
the h is still written but no longer pronounced.
(c) X + s, which appears as ks (sometimes written x) in other Germanic languages,
was assimilated to s in Dutch e.g. vos (fox), was (wax) - (see s).
(d) the combination -sX in Auslaut was also assimilated to s (see sch p. 152).
(e) X in Auslaut was sometimes apocopated by analogy with inflected forms e.g.
dij (thigh), schoen (shoe, MNL scoe + plural n, Germ. Schuh), vlo (flea - Germ. Floh);
also door (through - Germ. durch).
In West Germanic the combination g + t, common in Auslaut, shifted to -cht;
compare the following couplets:

buigen (to bend) - bocht (bend, curve)

dragen (to wear) - klederdracht (costume)
plegen (to care) - plicht (duty)
wegen (to weigh) - gewicht (weight)
mogen (to be allowed) - mocht (past tense -
might)
brengen (to bring) - bracht (brought)
also denken (to think) - dacht (thought)
zoeken (to seek) - zocht (sought)

(2) The above -cht < g + t falls together in Dutch (but not in Frisian, English or
German) with -cht < f + t e.g. gracht (canal) < graven (to dig) - compare Germ.
Gruft/graben, achter (after), schacht (shaft), zacht (soft), lucht (air - Germ. Luft);
37.
also the past tense kocht < kopen (to buy).
This shift began in the tenth century in the Low and Middle Franconian areas. It
did not occur in Frisian and thus Hollands with its Frisian substrate, did not undergo
the shift until quite late; -ft still occurred there in the seventeenth century. Middle
Dutch texts, mostly of southern origin, show the shift as complete. Words such as
bruiloft (wedding) and deftig (distinguished) are relicts. Sometimes -ft has been
restored by analogy e.g. helft (< half), vijftig (< vijf) but vichtig still occurs in Middle
Dutch. Heeft and hoofd are contractions of hevet and hoved which have occurred
since the shift of -ft > -cht.

Grapheme h

Germanic h (X) developed from Indo-European k via the First German Sound Shift
(see p. 121); in Anlaut before vowels it is now found as h, in other positions as ch
(see p. 153) or not at all. The words hond (dog - Lat. canis), hoofd (head - Lat.
caput), huis (house - Lat. casa) all contrast with cognates beginning with c in Latin
based languages, for example.
The combination hw (pron. Xv or Xw) in Germanic usually dropped the h in favour
of the w e.g. waar (where, Goth, hvar), welk (which, Goth hvileiks) but in the case

37. Eng. f and Dutch X altemate sometimes outside the combination ft/cht e.g. enough/genoeg,
laugh/lachen, this is an Ingwaeonic feature of English.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

of hoe (how, < Gmc. *hwo), the reverse occurred - compare the pronunciation of
Eng. what, where, who.
In Flanders, Zeeland and parts of Brabant h is not a phoneme and is thus often

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 155

dropped, as in Cockney English. In these dialects, the space left by the dropping of
h in the phonemic system is filled by g, which is pronounced as h i.e. een gele hoed
(a yellow hat) - pron. een hele oed.
Confusion with regard to h in Anlaut is already evident in the eleventh century
West Flemish sentence mentioned on p. 127 i.e. hic = ic. Throughout the Middle
Dutch period texts of southern origin show such misspellings - huut (< uut = uit), us
(< huus = huis).
The pronoun het (it - Germ. es) also has no h historically, as the English and
German cognate forms indicate; it has been added by analogy with other pronominal
forms with h e.g. hij (he), hem (him), haar (her). Similarly the neuter definite article
het, which, like the pronoun het is usually pronounced [әt], is by analogy spelt in the
same way (see p. 163).
For the frequent occurrence of h in Inlaut and Auslaut in German, which is not
found in Dutch, see p. 154 i.e. sehen, gehen, Schuh, Floh etc.

Grapheme d

Dutch d also has a complicated prehistory involving the First German Sound Shift
(see p. 121). The two sounds which are found in Germanic as d (< IE. dh) and þ/ð
(< IE. t), occur as d in Dutch (see p. 126 for the development of þ/ð > d).
In High German, Germanic d > t and thus the following words contrast: Tag -
dag/day, Tal - dal/dale, Tat - daad/deed, trinken - drinken/drink etc. Where both
German and Dutch have d, this d is derived from þ, as the English cognates indicate
e.g. das/dat - that, denken - think, dünn/dun - thin etc.
Final d in Dutch is pronounced voiceless, as in German (see p. 150).
Vocalisation and syncope of d:
Depending on the preceding vowel, d in the combination vowel + d + e has been
38.
a) vocalised to i/j or w or b) syncopated (probably via j).
(a) ooievaar (stork < MNL. ôdevâre), rooien (to dig up, MNL. rôden); beneden
(beneath, pron. beneje), goede (good, pron. goeje), poeder (powder, pron. poeier
39.
or poejer), snijden (to cut, pron. snijen). The long vowels or diphthongs which
precede d in such words require a j-type glide between the two syllables to facilitate
pronunciation. This vocalisation of d is heard much more than it is written, as the
above spellings indicate. In a similar way, d after ou before e is often vocalised to
39.
w e.g. houden (to hold, pron. houwen), koude (cold, pron. kouwe), oude (old, pron.
ouwe); it is written as w in very few words, however e.g. gouwe (a flower, < *goude),
vouwen (to fold, < MNL. vouden < *volden < * Gmc. faldan).
(b) kou (cold, < koude), lui (people, < luide), sla (salad, < salade), slee (sleigh, <
slede), zou (should, < zoude < *zolde); blaren (leaves, < bladeren), een boel(a lot,
< boedel), broer (brother, < broeder), kwalijk (angry, < kwadelijk), leeg (empty, <
ledig), lelijk (ugly, < ledelijk), weer (weather, < weder).
When a long vowel + d + e occurred at the end of a word, the syncope of d led
to apocope of the final syllable, as the first examples above illustrate. The other
38. The term semi-vowel for j or w is particularly apt in this context.
39. The first person singular of the present indicative and the interrogative of the second person
singular of such verbs show apocope of d in both the spoken and the written word e.g. ik snij,
snij je; ik hou, hou je.
39. The first person singular of the present indicative and the interrogative of the second person
singular of such verbs show apocope of d in both the spoken and the written word e.g. ik snij,
snij je; ik hou, hou je.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 156

examples show the loss of a syllable in the middle ofa word due to syncope of d.
Occasionally in formal or older texts words of both types are written out fully e.g.
leder (leather, > leer), mede (with, > mee), weide (meadow, > wei). Sometimes the
syncopated and unsyncopated forms coexist with a differentiation in meaning e.g.
boel/boedel (a lot/possessions), broer/broeder (brother/brother in an order),
moer/moeder (nut/mother), Nederland/neerlandicus (Netherlands/graduate in Dutch),
vergaren/vergaderen (to gather/meet).
Vocalisation of d, whether to j or nothing, is very widespread in Modern Dutch,
but is found somewhat less frequently in Middle Dutch texts. It is not limited to Dutch
but is also heard in Plattdeulsch and Danish. In French too, intervocalic d was
syncopated (e.g. ouïr < Lat. audire). The origin of the phenomenon in Low Franconian
could thus have been in West Flanders(see p. 21). It certainly started in the south
any way and became common in Amsterdam only after 1585 with the arrival of the
southern immigrants (see p. 101). This is also consistent with the occurrence of j <
ij, a sound the Brabanders are believed to have introduced into the north.
An interesting example of the effect vocalisation of d can have on a word is the
variety of spellings of the name Bredero, a famous seventeenth century writer:
Brederode, Bredero, Breero (with a double syncope).
As the cause of this vocalisation of d is to be found in lazy articulation (it is even
more common in plat), there is still a feeling that it is not always beschaafd to apply
it. This has led to a stylistic distinction sometimes being made e.g. broer (the relative),
broeder (the cleric), goeie but Goede Vrijdag (Good Friday), tevree or tevreje but
tevredenheid (satisfaction), mee (with) but medeklinker (consonant), neer (down)
but nederlaag (deïeat). This had led to hypercorrect forms with d where etymologically
d never existed e.g. bevrijden (to liberate - Germ. befreien), geschieden (to happen
- Germ. geschehen), wijden (to dedicate - Germ. weihen). A well-known Dutch
politician who represents the farmers of Holland talks of the politieke partijden (=
partijen) in his regular television broadcasts.
For the occurrence of d in words such as kelder (cellar), donder (thunder) and
puurder (purer) see r.

Grapheme t

Dutch t is also a product of the First German Sound Shift (p. 121). German words
with ss/tz where Dutch has t have undergone the Second German Sound Shift e.g.
essen - eten (to eat), setzen - zetten (to put). Dutch t is pronounced unaspirated
unlike in English and German.
In Middle Dutch texts one often finds t in Auslaut where Modern Dutch has d e.g.
hant - hand (hand), vant - vond (found); nowadays the ‘rule of uniformity’ has been
applied to the spelling i.e. hand because of handen and vond because of vonden.
Final t after fricatives (i.e. cht, ft, st) is apocopated in Limburg and the big cities
along the rivers: Utrechtenaars in particular are noted for this and are thus
humorously known as theedieven (tea-thieves) e.g. Utrech < Utrecht. The same
phenomenon is found consistently throughout Afrikaans, inherited from plat Hollands.
For the history of -tje < -ke as a diminutive ending, see p. 157.
For rendering foreign words which contain the Eng. ch sound, the Dutch alphabet
uses tj (adopted by Indonesian originally) - compare sj for Eng. sh.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 157

Grapheme p

Dutch p, also a product of the First German Sound Shift (see p. 121), has remained
unchanged since Old Germanic times. It is pronounced unaspirated however, unlike
in English and German. In addition p, along with t and k, was one of the sounds
affected by the Second or High German Sound Shift and thus Dutch words with p
contrast with German words with ff/pf e.g. dorp/Dorf (Ihorpe), heup/Hüpfe (hip),
peper/Pfeffer (pepper), pond/Pfund (pound).

Grapheme k

Dutch k is also a product of the First German Sound Shift. In Middle Dutch texts it
often occurs as c or ck e.g. ick - ik. It only occurs in the combination ks in foreign
words e.g. boksen (to box), tekst (text) - (see p. 151).
Like the other unvoiced stops t and p, it is unaspirated in Dutch but aspirated in
English and German.
Also like the stops t and p this sound underwent the Second Sound Shift in High
40.
German and consequently Dutch words with k contrast with German words with
ch e.g. boek/Buch (book), ik/ich (I), maken/machen (to make), steken/stechen (to
sting). In Limburg k > ch, depending on the position in a word, and is found over a
large area (see the Uerdinger Line on map 5).
The Middle Dutch diminutive ending -kijn, still found in southern dialects as -ke(n),
is found in northern speech as -tje, the most frequent diminutive ending, depending
on the preceding sound. This tj is believed to be a Hollands (therefore coastal,
Ingwaeonic) palatalisation of k such as one finds in other positions too in English
and Frisian e.g. cheese/kaas, church/kerk, bench/bank. K was not otherwise
palatalised in Low Franconian, however.

Grapheme j

The grapheme j fulfils in Dutch the function of y in English, but as it is a very palatal
sound and many Germanic g's > y in English, it is not nearly as common as that
letter in English e.g. gelukkig - lucky (from Gmc. g), lag - lay, but ye - jij, year - jaar,
yoke - juk (all from Gmc. j). There are but a few examples of such palatalisation of
initial g in Dutch and these can be regarded as Ingwaeonisms - jenever (Dutch gin,
sometimes still written genever), jegens (towards - Germ. gegen). Where Dutch has
g instead of etymologically correct j (gene, gij, ginder), the cause may be
hypercorrection of the above.

Grapheme 1

Dutch l is a thicker, more velar sound than l in German or English, where it is also
pronounced differently according to its phonetic environment and position in a word
40. Standard High German, which is based on Middle German (i.e. of central Germany), does
not show a shifted k in Anlaut; this is only found in the dialects of the far south, particularly in
Switzerland.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

- thus the vocalisation of al and ol + t/d > ou in OWLF (see p. 126). The l in such
words was still written in the north for a long time. Sometimes l has been restored
by analogy e.g. gelden/gold/gegolden (to be valid), smelten/smolt/gesmolten (to
smelt). Otherwise the combinations old/olt and ald/alt are only found in words of
foreign origin e.g. altaar (altar) - but autaar also exists, bushalte

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 158

(bus stop), folteren (to torture, from Germ.), gehalte (quality), soldaat (soldier). In
the Saxon areas of the north and east l has not been vocalised e.g. Paterswolde
and Oldenzaal.
In Germanic hl (pron. Xl) was common in Auslaut, as were hr and hw, but these
h's had dropped off by the time of Middle Dutch e.g. lid (eyelid, < *hlid), Lodewijk
(Louis, < Hlodowîk).
Although r is the sound that most frequently underwent metathesis in Dutch,
metathesis of l in the combination þ + l also occurs e.g. naald (needie - Germ. Nadel).

Grapheme m

M has changed little since Old Germanic times. The combination mb (compare Eng.
comb, lamb) is found in Middle Dutch as mp in Auslaut (see p. 150) and as mm (i.e.
by assimilation) in Inlaut e.g. lamp - lammeren (lamb - lambs); nowadays, however,
the singular or uninflected forms also show m by analogy with forms with mm in
Inlaut e.g. kam - kammen (comb - combs), dom - domme (dumb - infl. form).
Historically one also finds m in Auslaut which has been weakened to n nowadays
e.g. Middle Dutch ic hem - Modern Dutch ik ben (I am), Middle Dutch hem/hum -
Modern Dutch hen/hun (them). The masculine and neuter dative m, so evident in
German, also weakened to -n in Dutch e.g. tenslotte (at the end, finally) < te den (=
n. dat. sing.) slot. However, several words beginning with b preserve m in Auslaut,
where English also keeps m but German shows n e.g. bezem (broom - Germ. Besen),
bodem (bottom - Germ. Boden), boezem (bosom - Germ. Busen).

Grapheme n

The tendency for final n after ә to be apocopated (e.g. lopen - to walk, pannen -
pans) in most Dutch dialects, except those based on Saxon, was already present
in Middle Dutch. However, even in areas where it is usually dropped (also in ABN),
it is often retained to avoid hiatus e.g. eten en drinken (eating and drinking); it is
also commonly heard in such positions where there is no n in the written language
e.g. wat zien ik (> wat zie ik - plat), toen hoorde-n-ie (< toen hoorde hij). Although
infinitives have always ended in -en, -en has not always been as widespread as a
plural ending (see p. 166).
For the development of n in Auslaut from m, see m.
For the combination ng (pron. ƞ), see g.
Historically n has been syncopated and caused lengthening of the preceding short
vowel in some words i.e. compensatory lengthening in the combination short vowel
+ n + X/f/þ/s (i.e. fricatives) e.g. bracht (brought, < brengen), vijf (five - Goth. fimf),
muiden (river mouth in place names, Goth. munþs). In part of South Holland and
North Brabant the combination short vowel + n + s causes nasalisation and
lengthening of the vowel e.g. mens (compare the pronunciation in Afrikaans).

Grapheme r

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Dutch r has a double origin - either Germanic r or Germanic z. The latter origin
explains why Dutch has z in verliezen (to lose) and vriezen (to freeze), for example,

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 159

while German has verlieren and frieren (compare also Eng. to lose - forlorn). As a
result of Verner's Law (see p. 122), s and z alternated in certain words in Germanic;
z in Inlaut could change by a process known as rhotacism to r. This process, often
aided by analogy, produced the following cognate forms with r and s/z alternating
e.g. kiezen (to choose)- voorkeur (preference), meer (more)- Goth. máiza, oor (ear)
41.
- Goth. ausô, verliezen (to lose) - verloren (lost) . The process is common in English
and German too, as the examples illustrate.
The alternation of dental and velar r, depending on the area, is discussed on p.
54, the original Dutch r was a dental one, however.
Many monosyllabic Dutch words show metathesis of r i.e. r + short vowel + dental
> short vowel + r + dental e.g. borst (breast), kerstmis (Christmas), pers (press),
vers (fresh). This did not occur, however, in Anlaut or in combination with nt/nd e.g.
rust (rest), branden (to burn). Many more instances of metathesis are found in Middle
Dutch texts, even in polysyllabic words, than exist in ABN today.
Where (originally sonant) r immediately followed l, n or r, a medial d often
developed in Dutch e.g. daalder (dollar - Germ. Taler), donder (thunder - Germ.
Donner), kelder (cellar - Germ. Keller); beenderen (bones, < been, bone), boerderij
(farm, < boer, farmer). It is common in the comparative of adjectives that end in r
e.g. duurder (dear, < duur), puurder (purer, < puur).
R has often had various effects on preceding vowels depending on the phonetic
environment: for example, it often caused lengthening of the vowel (baard - beard,
woord - word). Such changes have been dealt with under the respective vowels.

Grapheme w

North of the rivers w is now a labio-dental sound and thus also in ABN; in the Middle
Ages, and even nowadays south of the rivers, w was and is a bilabial sound as in
English.
Germanic hw in Anlaut (i.e. kw < IE. kw via the First German Sound Shift) has
been simplified to w e.g. waar (where), wat (what, < *hwat - compare Lat. quod),
welk (which) etc.; thus hw and w in Anlaut fell together, as in German.
The combination wr in Anlaut was retained in Dutch but was simplified to r in
German e.g. wreken (to revenge - Germ. rächen), wrijven (to rub - Germ. reiben),
42.
wringen (to wring - Germ. ringen). In this position wr is pronounced as Dutch vr,
however.
For the effect of Germanic w after vowels where diphthongs and double vowels
were created see p. 148.
Words like schaduw (shadow), zenuw (nerve - sinew), zwaluw - (swallow) have
preserved w in Auslaut where it historically followed a consonant; the German

41. Germ. verlieren - verlor/verloren - verloren and Dutch verliezen - verloor/verloren - veloren
contrast with Middle Dutch verliesen - verloos/verloren - verloren where Middle Dutch shows
r only where historically z occurred; the Dutch and German paradigms show a partial and
complete analogy respectively.
42. Compare also Eng. ‘to write’ where the w is preserved in the spelling but not pronounced;
similarly with hw in ‘what’, ‘where’, ‘who’ etc.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 160

cognates either show no trace of w or it appears as b e.g. Schatten, Sehne, Schwalbe

- also gelb (yellow - Dutch geel).
In some instances w in Auslaut after r became v which was devoiced to f e.g. nerf
(woodgrain - Germ. Narbe), verf (paint - Germ. Farbe).

Bibliography

LOEY, A. van Schönfeld's historische grammatica van het Nederlands.

Thieme, Zutphen, 1959.
This is the last word on Dutch historical grammar. A wonderfully detailed book
that takes some effort to become acquainted with, but it is an effort which is
well worthwhile for the enthusiast.

LOEY, A. van Inleiding tot de historische klankleer van het Nederlands.

Thieme, Zutphen, 1967.
The original intention of this booklet was to offer a synopsis of the chapters
dealing with historical phonology in the above book. The result is disappointing
because more of the book is devoted to general Germanic phonology than to
the sounds of Dutch.

BREE, C. van Leerboek voor de historische grammatica van het Nederlands.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1977.

This book was intended as a more palatable update of Schönfeld (see above).
In this it has failed in my opinion; Schönfeld remains insurpassable.

TIESEMA, H.D. Abriβ der historischen Laat- und Formenlehre des Deutschen.

Van Walraven, Vaassen, 1969.

This is an excellent synopsis of the historical grammar of German but as it was
written by a Dutchman for use by Dutch tertiary students of German, much of
what is described is compared with developments in Dutch.

WEIJNEN, A.A. Het schema van de klankwetten.

Van Gorcum, Assen, 1970.
This is a terse lucid summary of the development of the sounds of (West)
Germanic into those of Dutch.

GOOSSENS, J. Historische Phonologie des Niederländischen.

Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1974.
A Standard work on the subject. It is compact and quite technical in approach
but very good.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 161

18 Historical morphology
In the introduction to the historical phonology it was mentioned how phonologically
conservative Dutch is and thus how useful it can be for shedding light on the
phonological development of its sister languages, German and English, which are
quite progressive in this regard. With the morphology, the reverse is the case.
German is morphologically quite conservative, whereas Dutch (and English even
more so) has been very progressive in this field. There has been a continual
development since Common Germanic times from synthesis towards analysis in
the grammar of all Germanic languages, but this analytical development has gone
somewhat further in Dutch than in German. In laymen's terms, one would say that
Dutch grammar has become simpler; more specifically this means that the case
system, which affected nouns, adjectives and pronouns, has been simplified virtually
into extinction, and the verbal system has also undergone simplification since
Common Germanic times. Gender, still a problem in Dutch for the foreigner, has
been reduced to two categories, whereas German still has three, as in
Indo-European. Consequently the relatively conservative, or in laymen's terms,
‘difficult’ grammar of German can often shed light on the morphological development
of Dutch. Gothic is used as much in comparative morphology as in comparative
phonology, although even here Gothic too has lost several important grammatical
categories that we know were common to all Indo-European languages e.g. eight
cases. As the process of analysis or simplification has been an ongoing one, the
wealth of Middle Dutch texts that have come down to us often preserve grammatical
subtleties which have since virtually disappeared e.g. distinction between masculine
and feminine nouns, a wider choice of adjectival ending depending on gender and
case. On the other hand, the simplifications which are now the norm had already
begun in the Middle Ages and Middle Dutch texts thus do not always reflect the
situation as it must have been originally. Part reason for this is that the all important
weakening of full vowels in unstressed syllables to schwa, which occurred towards
the end of the OWLF period (see p. 126), caused the loss of distinction in gender,
case and personal form of the verb etc. because such grammatical categories had
been reflected in the endings. The weakening of unstressed vowels in endings
contributed more than any other single factor to the analytical development of the
grammar of Germanic languages; analogy and falling together of originally separate
categories followed as a direct result of this phenomenon, which was itself a
consequence of the main stress having become fixed on the first syllable of a word
(certain prefixes and compounds excepted).

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Case

Case was originally reflected in the endings of nouns and adjectives, articles and
pronouns. Nowadays, with the exception of certain standard expressions, only the
pronouns preserve distinctions based on whether they are the subject or object of
the sentence. The remnants of the cases will be dealt with under the relevant
categories.

Gender
1.
Gender in Dutch was originally determined by the stem declension to Which nouns
belonged. There were three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Gender was
determined purely according to the form of the word, a result of its declension, and
had little to do with any sexual distinction; thus there are forms today such as het
wijf (the woman - pej.), het meisje (the girl).
In Middle Dutch the distinction in declensional endings between masculine and
feminine nouns had already begun to break down. Feminine nouns commonly ended
in e, as they still do in German, and thus masculine and neuter nouns ending in e
could be confused with feminine ones; a change of gender could then take place.
Further confusion resulted, for example, from the fact that historically feminine nouns
often employed the genitive s, an ending which was originally reserved for masculine
and neuter nouns of a particular declension; thus we have today (and already in
Middle Dutch) a form such as 's nachts (< de nacht, a feminine noun) by analogy
with 's morgens etc. (< de morgen, a masculine noun.)
Neuter nouns still exist as a separate category in Dutch, but common gender
nouns, the name given to the combined category of formerly masculine and feminine
nouns, only betray a distinction when they are substituted by pronouns, but even
here hij/hem is generally used for all nouns with the exception of those that designate
a feminine being or nouns that end in historically feminine endings such as -heid,
-ing, -iek etc.

Definite articles de/het

The Dutchman knows intuitively whether a given noun is of common gender or

neuter and virtually never makes an error. The foreign student is dependent on
learning the definite article with each new noun, the article usually being the only
reliable indicator of the gender of a noun. De/het are the result of a long history of
simplification in Dutch.
The definite articles in all Germanic languages are derived from the
demonstratives, as nouns originally had no article at all (whether definite or indefinite)
in

1. Broadly speaking a-stem nouns were all masc. or neuter, o-stem nouns were all feminine and
i- and u-stems contained words of all genders but were chiefly masc. and fem.; n-stems, or
weak nouns, were of all three genders.

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Indo-European languages - compare Gothic, Latin and Russian. The following

paradigm for the definite article/demonstrative existed in Middle Dutch, but even
there it was no longer rigidly applied:

M F N
N die (de)
2.
die (de) dat ('t) die (de)
A dien (den) die (de) dat ('t) die (de)
G des ('s) der des ('s) der
D dien (den) der dien (den) dien (den)

The unstressed forms de and 't of the nominative have become the definite article
in ABN, while the stressed forms of the nominative are nowadays used as the
demonstratives - plat still knows die/dat as definite articles and Afrikaans also uses
die with this meaning. The simplification that English underwent was in favour of
‘the’ (Dutch de) for the definite article and ‘that’ (Dutch dat) for the demonstrative;
German has preserved a paradigm similar to the above one for Middle Dutch, but
there the masculine and neuter dative forms still retain the longer sound m, whereas
Middle Dutch had weakened it to n. In German the definite article is also commonly
used as the demonstrative.
Middle Dutch het has developed from unemphatic dat. 't was originally a proclitic
form of the article and still 't or [әt] is the normal pronunciation of het today. The
spelling with h is by analogy with the pronoun het (it- see p. 172) with which it fell
together in pronunciation. The pronunciation [hεt] is thus a spelling pronunciation
and not historically correct.
In Middle Dutch die (and thus later de as the unstressed form) is also used for
the masculine sing. acc. and dat., breaking down further the formal distinction
between masculine and feminine nouns, an issue which was causing great confusion
by the sixteenth century. This led in the seventeenth century to artificial attempts
by writers to keep the distinction between masc. and fem. alive. For details on the
compulsory writing of den for masculine nouns in the acc. and dat. right up to 1947
see p. 41. The very artificiality of den caused unnecessary problems and was
inevitably destined to extinction. Den is still found in standard expressions e.g. op
den duur (in the long run) and in the places names Den Haag/Den Bosch where it
is a locative dative i.e. at the park/forest.
Other case forms of the definite article, which are often difficult or impossible to
separate from those of the demonstrative, also occur in standard expressions or
higher style e.g. de heer des huizes (the man of the house), deskundig (expert, lit.
‘of it knowing’), dientengevolge (as a result of that, < *dien te den gevolg), ten slotte
(finally, < *te den slot - lit. at the end), ter zake (tot hernat ter in hand, < *te der zaak).
These examples also illustrate that prepositions always governed the dative case
in Dutch.

2. Even today southern dialects distinguish three genders where den, de and het are used as
the definite article for masculine, feminine and neuter respectively. As the paradigm here
illustrates, the use of den in this way is unhistorical.

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Nouns

Nouns were classified according to stem i.e. whether the stem ending contained an
a, o, i, u or n. A noun was declined according to the stem declension to which it
belonged. Because the stem endings were unstressed in Dutch, the distinguishing
vowels of the endings were all weakened to ә, written e, by the Middle Dutch period.
Therefore only comparison with Gothic or Old English or Old High German (because
of the lack of OWLF texts) can determine for sure which declension any particular
noun belonged to; the distinction is an historical one and in Dutch it borders on the
artificial, even in Middle Dutch. The vowel stem nouns are known as strong nouns,
and the consonant stem nouns (mainly n) are known as weak nouns, a terminology
borrowed from J. Grimm and one which is also used, although with different
connotations, to describe verbs.

3.
a-stems

The following comparison of the paradigms of Gothic dags and Middle Dutch dach
(day) illustrate the degree to which Gothic preserves the original stem vowels and
Dutch has weakened them to e.

sing. pl. sing. pl.

N dags dagôs N dach daghe
A dag dagans A dach daghe
G dagis dagê G daghes daghe
D daga dagam D daghe daghen

This paradigm of dag in Middle Dutch illustrates several interesting facets of the
historical development of Dutch: the alternation of voiced and unvoiced fricative in
the plural and singular respectively - the ‘rule of uniformity’ (see p. 150) in spelling
was not yet applied. Wherever case endings are added, the root syllable is open
and consequently the vowel has been lengthened (see p. 127) - compare NNL
dag/dagen (day/days), vandaag (today, < van daghe dat.), daags tevoren (the day
before, < daghes gen.).
In the above paradigm, the plural ending -e in all cases but the dative is the result
4.
of analogy. The current plural ending -en for the originally masculine and neuter
a-stems, as for other strong nouns, is derived in all probability from an analogy with
weak nouns (see p. 167); it is already common before the end of the Middle Dutch
period. The fact that the dat. pl. already ended in -en must also have helped the
process.
The a-stem nouns schoen (shoe - Germ. Schuh) and teen (toe - Germ. Zehe), as

3. Because IE. ŏ > GMC. ă and IE. ă > GMC. ŏ, what are called a- and o-stems here are
sometimes referred to as o- and a-stems, but then this is from the point of view of IE. philology.
4. The fact that large areas of Holland and Belgium do not pronounce the final n of the plural
may be the result of this n having come by later analogy in the written language only, but it
is more likely to be due to a later apocope of the n after it had been applied by analogy; after
all, all words in -en, whether nouns, verbs or adjectives, drop the final n in speech.

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their English and German cognates illustrate, did not originally end in -n; this is a
plural n which ceased to be felt as a plural ending. The current plural forms
schoenen/tenen are in fact a doubling up of the plural ending.
The oscillation that often exists in Dutch between plurals in -en and -s is ultimately
to be traced back to an alternative means of forming the plural of a-stems. The s
plural is an Ingwaeonic form and thus its ubiquitous presence in English and total
absence in German words. Even the much quoted West Flemish sentence from the
OWLF period has both vogala (> vogelen) and nestas (> nests) where NNL happens
to now have the reverse, vogels and nesten. Plurals in -s were, and still are in the
dialects, more common along the coast from West Flanders to North Holland. It is
difficult to formulate rules for the use of -s or -en in Modern Dutch, but the origin at
least of the alternative in -s is most probably that described here (see p. 59).
Neuter a-stems in GMC and MNL were identical to masc. a-stems except in the
nominative and accusative plural where many had no ending and were thus identical
to the singular. Remnants of this situation are still to be found e.g. op de been (on
one's feet), vijf jaar (5 years), drie pond (3 pounds) - compare also English ‘sheep’,
‘deer’, ‘three pound’.
Quite a large, but nevertheless finite group of common neuter nouns, not all
necessarily a-stems by origin however, take a plural in -eren (in Middle Dutch and
various dialects also -er or -ers) e.g. ei/eieren (eggs), kalf/kalveren (calves),
kind/kinderen (children), lam/lammeren (lambs). This plural formation has but one
solitary representative in English, ‘children’, but is much more widely found in German
than in Dutch although both languages have extended the use of the ending beyond
its origin. In German too it is chiefly a neuter ending, but several masculine nouns
have adopted it as well - compare Dörfer/dorpen, Häuser/huizen, Länder/landen;
5.
in the above mentioned cases German also has Eier, Kälber, Kinder, Lammer. The
ending -en on Dutch words such as land, huis etc. is by analogy with the other large
number of nouns ending in -en in the plural. Note the forms kleren (clothes, <
klederen) and bladeren (leaves, pron. blaren); occasionally the -eren ending is used
beside -en with a distinction in meaning e.g. been (leg, bone) - benen
(legs)/beenderen (bones), blad (page, leaf) - bladen (pages)/bladeren (leaves).

wa- and ja-stems

If the a-stem ending was preceded by a w or a j in Germanic, the masculine or neuter

noun in question was said to be a wa- or ja-stem respectively. From the point of
view of Modern Dutch this is only of importance in as far as some words that end
in w have retained the w of the wa-stem ending e.g. schaduw (shadow), sneeuw
(snow) and the ja-stem nouns, which contained an Umlautsfaktor, have been
umlauted in Dutch e.g. heer (army - Goth. harjis), kunne (gender - kin, Goth. kuni);
also the e ending of kunne, which is found in other originally neuter stems in Middle
Dutch

5. Strictly speaking, the ultimate origin of the ending is to be found in a small group of words
one can best call iz/oz stems (the former with Umlautsfaktor) because the combination -er
(with r < z by rhotacism) is also found in the singular of such nouns - compare eierdop
(egg-shell), runderlap (cut of beef); Latin gens/generis (nom./gen. sing.) illustrates the same
phenomenon.

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 166

and nowadays still in certain dialects too (e.g. bed - bedde, net - nette) is to be traced
back to the final i of the nominative case of ja-stems.

6.
o-stems

o-stems nouns were all feminine. The following two paradigms of o-stem nouns
(daad - deed, ziel - soul) show the degree to which the declensional endings had
already been watered down in Middle Dutch when compared to an o-stem noun in
Gothic (giba - gift):

Sing. Pl. Sing. Pl. Sing. Pl.

N daet dâde siele siele(n) giba gibôs
A daet dâde siele siele(n) giba gibôs
G daet, dâde siele(n) siele(n) gibôs gibô
7.
dâde
D daet, dâde dâden siele(n) siele(n) gibái gibôm

The ziel paradigm shows particularly clearly the degree to which analogy was
applied to the nominal endings after the weakening to e. It is believed that the now
ubiquitous plural ending -en in Dutch, originally the plural ending for weak nouns of
all genders, probably first made its way into the realm of strong nouns (i.e. vowel
stems) via the feminine o-stems, which usually ended in -e in both the singular and
the plural (but -en in gen. and dat. pl.). Weak nouns also ended in -e in the nom.
sing.; the application of n to the gen. and dat. sing. of ziel in the above paradigm is
also in imitation of weak nouns (see p. 167). The ending -en was undoubtedly
regarded as a clearer indication of the plural than simply an -e. In English, precisely
the reverse occurred and -en is thus found in very few nouns (oxen, children) and
the -s (< as) ending of the masc. a-stems was applied across the board. German
still retains a diversity of plural formation similar to the original situation in Germanic.
Because both o-stems, which were all feminine, and fem. n-stems ended in e, e
became generally recognised as a feminine ending, as it still is in German for the
same reason. In Dutch, however, the -e was usually apocopated in the post Middle
Dutch period but there are still several originally fem. words that end in -e e.g.
beschermvrouwe (patron), gave (gift), hulde (homage), koude (cold), schande
(shame), geen sprake van (no mention of).
Final e could have other origins, however (either a ja-stem, i-stem or n-stem) and
this formal resemblance often led to a change of gender i.e. to feminine gender e.g.
ellende (misery), kudde (flock), kunne (gender), oorlog (war < MNL oorloghe). These
were all originally neuter nouns and are now of common gender. Although hart
(heart) and oor (ear) are still neuter nouns, for example, in the expressions van
ganser harte (with all one's heart) and ter ore komen (to reach one's ear) show them
being treated as feminine nouns. Such confusion about inflection and gender was
already common in Middle Dutch and was the beginning of the simplified grammar
of Dutch. The loss of case and gender in English must have followed a similar path.

6. See footnote 3 on p. 164.

7. Dâde in the gen. was already due to an early analogy with the dative, but in the Middle Dutch
period daet, originally only the nom. and acc. form, was being applied by analogy in all cases.

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jo-stems

Just as there were ja-stems beside the a-stems, so there were originally also jo-stems
beside the o-stems; this is only relevant from a modern point of view in as far as it
explains the umlauted and sometimes geminated forms (better preserved in German)
of some feminine words e.g. hel (hell, < helle - Germ. Hölle), brug (bridge, < brugghe
- Germ Brücke).

i- and u-stems

Nouns of these two declensions were nearly all masculine or feminine. The u-stem
declension was never large and even in Primitive West Germanic they began to join
the i-stems. As final i and final u both became e in Middle Dutch anyway, the falling
together of these declensions was helped even more. Some Middle Dutch nouns
that end in e are thus historically i- or u-stems e.g. sone (son, NNL zoon), beke
(brook, NNL beek); also stede (town, NNL stad) where the e < i acted as an
Umlautsfaktor. Stede is still found as an ending in place names. The German plural
formation in -̈ is also to be traced back to i-stems.
By the i and u endings weakening to -e, and thus falling together in form with
feminine o-stems, the stage was set for firstly the feminine u- and i-stems to follow
the fem. o-stems, and then for the masc. u- and i-stems, which didn't differ formally
from the feminines, to follow suit. As the fem. o-stems were meanwhile asimilating
with the weak nouns of all genders, particularly as far as the adoption of the -en
plural ending is concerned, the masc. and fem. u- and i-stems also followed suit in
this regard. The history of the spread of the -en plural ending in Dutch is a classic
example of the far-reaching effects analogy can have on the grammar of a language.

The n-stems or weak nouns

Although strictly speaking the term weak nouns is applied to all consonant stems
(i.e. also dr- and nd/nt-stems), the number of non n-stem consonant stems is so
small that the term is usually understood to denote n-stems only and the two terms
have thus become synonymous.
Weak nouns were chiefly masculine and feminine but a few very common neuter
nouns were also weak, namely hart (heart), oog (eye) and oor (ear). Compare the
following paradigms of a masc. and fem. weak noun in Middle Dutch and Gothic:

haan (rooster - masc.)

MNL: sing. pl. GOTHIC: sing. pl.
N hâne hânen hana hanans
A hâne hânen hanan hanans
G hânen hânen hanins hananê
D hâne hânen hanin hanam
tong (tongue - fem.)

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MNL: GOTHIC:
N tonge tongen tuggô
8.
tuggôns
A tonge tongen tuggôn tuggôns
G tonge(n) tongen tuggôns tuggônô
D tonge(n) longen tuggôn tuggôm

8. Under the influence of Greek orthography Goth. writes ƞg as gg whereas in Dutch ƞg > ƞ.

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The above Middle Dutch paradigms already show analogy in the singular where the
usual ending is -e; in German, masc. weak nouns still have -en in the acc., gen. and
dat. singular. Interesting relicts of n inflection in the singular in Dutch are the place
names 's-Gravenhage (= at the park of the count) and 's-Hertogenbosch (= the forest
of the duke) from the nouns graaf (MNL grave) and hertog (MNL hertoghe).
Comparison of the above paradigm of MNL tonge with that of MNL siele (p. 166)
shows little formal difference between the two, and in fact they fell together completely
at that early date. Separate paradigms for the two, as given here, only have an
historic validity even for MNL.
A few masc. words that end in -e in NNL owe this -e to the fact that they were
originally weak nouns that did not lose the ending by apocope e.g. getuige (witness),
postbode (postman); jongen (boy, < jonghe - Germ. Junge) has adopted an n in the
nom. by analogy with the other cases; other nouns that formerly had -en in the acc.,
gen. and dat. singular now behave like all other nouns but can be compared with
their German cognates that still add -en in those cases e.g. graaf/Graf (count),
heer/Herr (gentleman), hertog/Herzog (duke), mens/Mensch (person), vorst/Fürst
(prince).
The spread of the -en plural ending from weak nouns to all other classes has been
dealt with under strong nouns (see p. 167).

Adjectives

Adjectival inflection, of which the meagre remnants in NNL are the presence or lack
of a final e, has a long complicated prehistory in Germanic and Indo-European.
Suffice it to say that the weak and strong declensions of the adjective, which are
still alive and well in German today, were still in existence in Middle Dutch, although
the two had begun to fall together and simplify even then.
Historically the weak declensional ending had been used in definite contexts i.e.
after de/'t, die/dat, deze/dit and possessives, whereas the strong endings had been
used in indefinite contexts i.e. after een/geen, elk/ieder etc. - compare Germ. der
gute Mann, ein guter Mann. Because of the confusion between the two originally
separate declensions of the adjective - partially due to the adjectival ending often
being borrowed from the preceding article (e.g. terzelfdertijd - at the same time) - it
is not possible to give complete weak and strong paradigms even for Middle Dutch
as one can for NHG. The use of strong and weak endings in Middle Dutch, and thus
also in the many standard expressions still used today that contain archaic adjectival
endings, was already not entirely in accordance with the historical distinction. The
following paradigm represents the situation in Middle Dutch:

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 169

M F N PL
N goede, goel goede, goet goede, goet* goede
A goeden goede, goet goede, goet goede
G goets goeder goets goeder
D goeden goeder goeden goeden

Where alternative forms are given for the masc. and neuter, the distinction is due
to the weak form existing side by side the strong form (marked *); in the feminine
nom. and acc. both weak and strong declensions originally had -e, but in the strong
declension it was apocopated. The -en endings can be of either strong or weak
origin.
The rules for adjectival inflection in NNL (see p. 60) are based on a very much
simplified version of the above paradigm i.e. the absence of any ending on the
adjective before a sing. neut. noun in an indefinite context (e.g. een goed huis) is
ultimately to be traced back to the strong declension of the adjective, whereas the
presence of an -e ending (e.g. het goede huis) is based on the weak declension.
Otherwise the endings of the above paradigm are found in countless expressions
e.g. goedenavond (good evening, masc. acc.), blootshoofds (with a bare head, neut.
gen.), tegelijkertijd (at the same time, fem. dat.), ter elfder ure (at theeleventh hour,
fem. dat.). As previously mentioned under nouns, final e was usually apocopated
in Dutch, but the distinction between the e ending and no ending, which actually
serves no practical function, has remained; this is probably because of the former
occurrence of -en (pron. ә) as an adjectival ending i.e. ә < en possibly helped
preserve ә < e.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries men of letters attempted to artificially
keep such case endings alive. The last vestige of such attempts was the
recommended -en ending on adjectives (and articles) for sing. masc. nouns in the
acc. and dat. (e.g. van den goeden man), which was not abolished from the written
language until 1947 (see p. 41).
The frequent omission of the e ending, particularly before masculine agents (e.g.
een goed man), has nothing to do with strong/weak endings; it is purely stylistically
(and occasionally semantically) determined. Afrikaans also now inflects chiefly
according to sound and number of syllables, not according to grammar.
In the case of adjectival inflection, we thus see Dutch very much occupying a
medial position between German on the one hand, where two completely separate
paradigms for weak and strong inflection exist, and English on the other hand, where
all endings have been dispensed with - compare, however, ‘the olden days’.

Comparative and superlative of the adjective:

The comparative in -er and superlative in -st have, as in German and English, not
changed substantially since the earliest records. (For the inclusion of d after r in
comparatives, see p. 159)

Numerals

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those for the adjective (see p. 169), according to gender and case. The only numeral
for which there is still a full paradigm of endings in Middle Dutch is een, which, in
its unstressed form (әn or 'n), had developed into the indefinite article, as in the
other Germanic languages. Remnants of the earlier inflection of een, and less
frequently of the other numerals, are still found in the literary language and standard
expressions e.g. het leed ener moeder (the sorrow of a mother, fem. gen.), tweeërlei
(of two kinds, gen. pl.), met z'n tweeën (two of them, dat. pl., < tween plus analogy
with the nominal plural ending -en).
Sometimes the form of the cardinal numeral now used is by origin one of the
inflected forms e.g. twee (neut.) but twintig, drie (fem.).
The word geen (no, not a/any- Germ. kein) is found in Middle Dutch as negheen
(<* nih + aina not one) and is inflected like een.
For the phonology of vijf (five) see p. 146, for zes (six) p. 151 and acht (eight) p.
153. In negen (nine - Germ. neun, Goth. nium, Lat. novem) we see the change of
w>g - compare zag/saw, Eng. drag/draw. Tien (ten - Germ. zehn, Goth. taíhun, Lat.
decem) shows, at least in Gothic, h<k via the First German Sound Shift plus later
contraction in Dutch, English and German.
The numerals elf/twaalf (eleven/twelve - Goth. áinlif/twalif) were compound words,
as comparison with the Gothic shows, where the meaning was something like ‘(ten
and) one left’ etc.
Dutch drie/dertien/dertig show the same metathesis of r that occurs in English
three/thirteen/thirty - compare Germ. drei/dreizehn/dreiβig.
For the alternation of veertien/veertig with vier see p. 138.
In Middle Dutch the forms viftien/viftich also occur with a shortening of the long
vowel in vijf as in English five/fifteen/fifty; these alternative forms also often show
the regular Low Franconian shift of ft>cht in Middle Dutch e.g. vichtien/vichtich (see
p. 154).
The ending -tig (Goth. tigus) for numerals 20-90 contrasts with palatalised g in
Eng. twenty etc. In West Germanic the word hund (ten) was used as a prefix for 70,
80 and 90 - it is still found as hund in Old English texts and as ant in Old Saxon;
thus the Middle Dutch forms tseventich, tachtich, tnegentich and, by analogy, also
tsestich. Today the former presence of the prefix is still evidenced in tachtig, where
the initial vowel facilitated retention, and in the voiceless pronunciation of the initial
consonant in zestig and zeventig and, by analogy, also in veertig and vijftig; eastern
dialects also still know the form tnegentig. The original division between the two
forms -tig and hund- being at 70 reflected an older counting system based on a
‘greater hundred’ (120).

Personal Pronouns

The paradigms for the personal pronouns in Middle Dutch are as follows:

1st person 2nd 3rd person 3rd person 3rd person

person (masc.) (fem.) (neut.)
N ic du hî sî het
Sing. A mî dî hem haer het
G mijns dijns sijns haer (sijns)

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D mî dî hem haer hem

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 171

all
genders
N wî ghî sî
Plural A ons u hem, hen
G onser uwer haer
D ons u hem, hen

Comparison with the forms of the pronouns in Modern Dutch on p. 61 will show
considerable differences between the situation in Middle Dutch and that in ABN
9.
today. The greatest change has been in the forms of the second person singular
and plural, the forms of direct address. The changes that have occurred in Dutch
since the Middle Ages are similar to those which have taken place in English over
the same period; the following early Modern English forms can thus be useful for
comparison:

singular plural
N thou ye
A thee you
G thine your
D thee you

The plural form ghi was at the same time the polite form of address, both sing.
10.
and plural. Du and its related case forms ceased to be used in the sixteenth century
and were replaced by the plural forms gij/u. North of the rivers along the coast,
however, the alternative palatal forms jij/jou existed. This situation is still reflected
in the use of gij and jij in the Low Countries today: in the south, gij is the usual form
of address (both sing. and plural), whereas in the north, gij is felt to be an antiquated
form with biblical connotations because of its use in the seventeenth century State
11.
Translation of the Bible (see p. 108). But as jij stood beside gij in the post Middle
Dutch period as both a singular and plural form, both polite and familiar, a need was
felt for a new plural form and a new polite form; thus the appearance of jullie (<je +
12.
lie[den] = you people ) as the familar plural form and u as a polite form in both the
singular and plural. U as a subject pronoun is ultimately derived from a seventeenth
century form of address, Uwe Edelheid (Your Honour), which was abbreviated in
writing to Uwe Edt, U(w)e Ed., U Ed. or U.E., which abbreviation was pronounced
uwé and was finally shortened, by a shift of stress to the first syllable, to u. The
13.
existence of u as an original object form of gij must have assisted the final shift to
u, which was already current in the seventeenth century. U still betrays its third
person origins by its ability to be accompanied by a third
9. The unemphatic forms given on p. 61 were also existence in Middle Dutch - see p. 176.
10. Still found in certain dialects, however.
11. Compare the connotations of ‘thou’ in English.
12. Compare the popular form ‘youse’ in Eng. which is apparently also the result of a need to
distinguish between the singular and the plural. The dialects also know the forms wullie, gullie,
hullie (Afr. hulle) and zullie.
13. Such influence is not without precedent - compare the Eng. subject pron. you (dat/acc. of ye)
and the frequent use of hun (instead of zij) as a subject pronoun in colloquial Dutch today; in
Swedish too de (nom.) has been replaced by dat. dom in the spoken language.

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person form of the verb (e.g. u is/heeft) and the reflexive pronoun zich; the second
person forms u bent/hebt and reflexive pronoun u are also current, however.
In the above Middle Dutch paradigm it will be noticed that the acc. and dat. form
of all persons are identical, as they are in English too, but unlike German - compare
mich/mir, dich/dir etc. The lack of final r (< Gmc. s/z via rhotacism) in the pronouns
is an Ingwaeonic phenomenon - compare he/hij - Germ. er, me/mij - Germ. mir.
Historically one would thus expect *mik/mi, *dik/di in Middle Dutch but the dative
forms have been adopted in the accusative for all persons - a simplification of the
paradigm in other words.
The presence of so many pronouns with initial h is also an Ingwaeonic trait -
compare he/hij - Germ. er, hun/hem - Germ. ihnen/ihn, her/haar - Germ. ihr.
Comparison of Dutch het with Eng. it and Germ. es shows that the initial h in this
case is not etymological; it has been added by analogy with the other personal
pronouns in h (see het meaning ‘the’ on p. 163).
The object forms of the plural have changed somewhat since the above situation
in Middle Dutch. The forms in -m are clearly originally dative forms which have since
been weakened to hen; but beside hen we now also have hun, which is historically
purely a regional phonetic variant of hen, with rounding of the vowel. The current
distinction made between hen (acc. or direct object) and hun (dat. or indirect object)
in the written language, where the spoken language only knows hun, has been
artificially imposed by grammarians (see p. 108).
The gen. forms (originally ‘of me’, ‘of you’ etc.) in the above paradigm are the
forerunners of the current possessive pronouns. The forms ons (our) and uw (your)
have been shortened and a possessive form jouw has developed beside jij/jou. The
use of haar for both ‘her’ and ‘their’ (compare Germ. ihr-her, ihr-their) has since
been replaced in the plural by hun, the dative pronoun, but in very formal written
style haar is still used for the (frequently feminine) plural e.g. de prinsessen en haar
echtgenoten (the princesses and their spouses). The unemphatic form of possessive
hun, d'r, is a remnant of the situation as it was in former times, however.
The unemphatic forms of the pronoun (see p. 61) have also existed since the
earliest times and are commonly found as enclitic and proclitic forms in Middle Dutch
e.g. hoordi < hoorde gi or < hoorde gij; hi nam et (he took it) > hi namet > hi naemt,
where the proclitic pronoun places the short vowel of the verb in an open syllable
and causes lengthening. English too knows unemphatic pronouns but does not write
them e.g. ya (< you), ee (< he).
The third person sing. and plural reflexive pronoun zich is of German origin, as
the final gutteral fricative indicates. Dutch formerly (and even now in dialects and
Afrikaans) used the object form of the third person pronouns as reflexives, as we
still do in English e.g. he washes himself/she washes herself/they wash themselves
- compare Afr. hy was hom/sy was haar/hulle was hulle. Zich did not become common
in Holland until the sixteenth century, under the influence of Reformation literature
from Germany. Its incorporation into the State Translation of the Bible in the
seventeenth century assured it of a place in ABN. However, in plat one still very
commonly hears the following forms, an indication that zich is not an indigenous
word: z'n eigen (lit. his own)/d'r eigen (lit. her own, their own).

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Demonstrative and relative pronouns

As the definite article developed from the unstressed forms of the demonstrative
pronoun, the original paradigm for the demonstratives is on p. 163. Certain adverbs
and conjunctions (actually also adverbial phrases) still retain case forms of die as
they appear in that paradigm e.g. sindsdien (since, adv. < since that), indien (if, conj.
< in that [case]); also met dien verstande (on the understanding that). The genitive
form diens also still alternates with zijn as a possessive pronoun in certain contexts
e.g. de gouverneur en diens echtgenote (the governor and his wife).
Originally in Germanic there was no particular relative pronoun, as is still often
the case in English and the Scandinavian languages e.g. The man (whom, that) I
saw yesterday. Dutch, like German, also gave the function of relative pronoun to
the demonstrative pronoun (die, dat) but unlike German uses the interrogative
pronoun (wie) when a preposition is involved. The common use of waar as a relative
instead of wie in combination with prepositions and the rather plat (also Afrikaans)
use of wat as a general relative regardless of antecedent, also show the utilisation
of originally interrogative forms; the variety of possibilities of relative pronouns, also
well illustrated in English (who[m], that, which, what, -), is a result of the absence
of specifically relative forms in Old Germanic. The use of welk as a relative pronoun
is probably in imitation of Latin and it is a form which is still only found in formal
written style.
The initial w of interrogative forms (e.g. wat-what, waar-where, wanneer-when,
welk-which, wie-who) is derived from Germanic forms in hw (< IE. kw via the First
German Sound Shift). They are common to all Germanic languages. Middle Dutch
knows a paradigm for wie, both as an interrogative and a relative pronoun, which
is similar to that for die (p. 163) by which it had been greatly influenced. This accounts
for the rather formal genitive forms wiens (masc.) and wier (fem. and pl.- very formal)
which are occasionally used in the written language but are more commonly replaced
by the periphrastic forms wie z'n/d'r or van wie in speech e.g. Wiens jas is dat?
(Whose coat is that? - interr.), De man wiens jas... (The man whose coat...) - compare
German Wessen Mantel ist das? Der Mann, dessen Mantel....
The loss of case in Dutch has led to the more frequent occurrence of analytical
forms such as waarvan (whose), aan wie (to whom < former dat. wien). The use of
van in the genitive is particularly striking in Dutch when compared with English and
above all German: het huis van de man (the man's house - Germ. das Haus des
Mannes). Constructions like the English are not unknown in Dutch (e.g. mijn vaders
auto - my father's car) but they are not nearly as common (see p. 58).

Verbs

Regular and irregular verbs are known as weak and strong verbs respectively in
Germanic languages, terms (invented by J. Grimm) which are also applied to nouns
and adjectives, but where the concepts which they indicate are of course quite
different. There is no distinction between weak and strong verbs in the present tense;
only in the imperfect and in the formation of the past participle is the

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 174

difference between the two evident. The dental suffix of the imperfect and past
participle of weak verbs is characteristic of all Germanic languages.
Originally in Germanic there were but two tenses - the present tense, which was
also used to express the future, and the preterite (now called imperfect), which
expressed all actions in the past. However new compound tenses, the perfect and
the pluperfect, which are formed from the verbs ‘to be’ and ‘to have’ plus the past
participle (previously used only adjectively and substantively) had already begun to
develop simultaneously in both Romance and Germanic languages in the old period
i.e. prior to 1100.
By the Middle Dutch period, Dutch thus had the following tenses: present tense,
imperfect tense, perfect tense, pluperfect tense and a future tense formed with the
auxiliary zullen (Eng. shall) plus the infinitive. There were also three moods - the
indicative, the imperative and the subjunctive (both past and present) The subjunctive
in Dutch has undergone a similar fate to that in English since the Middle Ages and
is now only found in standard expressions and occasionally in literary style. The
development of the verbal system in Dutch and English has been parallel; only in
use of the tenses (see p. 65) have the two languages diverged to any great extent.
German, on the other hand, has preserved both the present and past subjunctive.

Present tense

In the present tense, where there was and is no distinction between a weak and a
strong verb, a verb was conjugated in Middle Dutch as follows:

woenen
14.
(to live) nemen (to take)
1 ic woene ic neme
2 du woens (< woenes) du neems (< nemes)
3 hi woent (< woenet) hi neemt (< nemet)
1 wi woenen wi nemen
2 ghi woent (< woenet) ghi neemt (< nemet)
3 si woenen si nemen

The present subjunctive differed from the above only in the third person singular,
15.
which was identical to the first person singular.
Comparison of the above conjugation, which stays close to the situation as
preserved in Gothic, with that on page 63 reveals the following changes since Middle
Dutch times:
The -e ending of the first person singular has been apocopated, chiefly a post
Middle Dutch development; it still occurs occasionally in standard expressions e.g.
Verzoeke... (I kindly request that...) Verblijve... (I remain...)
The second person singular, like the third person singular and second person
plural, usually showed apocope of the vowel in the final syllable in Middle Dutch,
but the older longer form is still found in many Middle Dutch texts. The ending of

14. This spelling was common in Middle Dutch for long o.

15. This third person present subjunctive ending is still found in formal imperatives e.g. lang leve
de koningin (long live the queen); men neme één ei (take one egg, in recipes).

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 175

the second person singular is now identical to the third person but there has been
a change of pronoun since the above situation existed (see p. 171); since the
substitution of du with jij (< gij), the ending-t, a second person plural ending, is now
used in the singular. In Middle Dutch the ending -st often accompanies du, as in
German, the origin of this ending being the inverted form of the verb and subject
i.e. nemes - du > nemestu > nemest - du > du nemest. Inversion of jij with the verb
ending in t led to assimilation of the t in early Modern Dutch e.g. jij neemt but neem
je?
The long vowel in all persons of a verb like nemen above is the result of it having
originally been followed by a second syllable which opened the preceding syllable
to cause lengthening. Even once the vowel of some endings was syncopated, the
analogy with other persons preserved a long vowel throughout - compare German
ich nehme (long), du nimmst (short, with Umlaut of e < OHG nimis, OWLF *nemis).
Although jullie has nowadays replaced gij as the second person plural in ABN
and can also take a -t ending, it is more usual for it to take -en by analogy with the
first and second persons plural.
We see here a unitary plural form where the ending of the first and third persons,
which fell together in pre-history, is applied to the second person. In the Saxon
based dialects of the east of Holland and northern Germany, however, it is the dental
ending of the second person which has been applied analogously to the other two
persons. This is also the case in Old English and Old Frisian.
5 Due to its origin, u (see p. 171), which did not exist in Middle Dutch, can take
either a second or a third person singular ending, but as both these persons now
end in -t, this duality is not usually obvious; the verbs hebben (to have) and zijn (to
be) are the only ones where the second and third persons differ (see p. 182).

16.
The imperfect and the past participle of weak verbs

The origin of the dental suffix of the preterite (now imperfect) in Germanic has been
the subject of much debate among philologists; it would go beyond the aim of this
book to delve into this problem. Suffice it to say here that there is considerable
evidence (especially in Gothic) to suggest that the ending is derived from the verb
‘to do’.
The imperfect of a weak verb in Middle Dutch was as follows:

1 ic hoorde (< ede)

2 du hoordes (< edes)
3 hi hoorde (< ede)
4 wi hoorden (< eden)
5 ghi hoordet (< edet)
6 si hoorden (< eden)

16. In Germanic there were originally four classes of weak verbs (as in Gothic) which were
distinguished by the vowels in the endings. With the weakening of vowels in unstressed
syllables, this distinction was doomed to extinction and eventually all four groups fell together.
This was already the situation by the Middle Dutch period where the endings -de or -ede were
applied willy-nilly to any weak verb, whereas historically -ede was the ending of the first class
of weak verbs, the so-called jan-verbs.

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 176

The imperfect indicative and subjunctive of weak verbs had fallen together in Middle
Dutch.
The current alternation of -te(n) and -de(n) endings employed in the formation of
the past tense of weak verbs is the result of assimilation of the initial consonant of
the ending (i.e. -de < -ede) to the final sound of the stem of the verb. Wherever the
medial vowel was preserved in Middle Dutch, although forms without it are already
more common by then, assimilation of d to t was prevented. Nevertheless, Middle
Dutch spelling is still too erratic to show the regularity modern spelling does with
regard to these endings (see p. 63).
In those areas where gij is still used, the ending is as in the above paradigm.
Otherwise, as du and its verbal forms have died out and jullie has followed the other
plural persons, there is now a complete falling together of the three persons of the
singular to -de or -te and of the three persons of the plural to -den or -ten. In practice,
of course, all six endings are pronounced the same in that large area of the Low
Countries where final n after ә has been apocopated. We witness here a de facto
simplification of verbal endings which is analogous to the situation in English -
compare I/you/he/we/they worked.

The dental ending of the past participle of weak verbs:

Historically the t/d ending of the past participle is also derived from an original d,
but with the same distinction having been applied as for the imperfect. In this
instance, however, as final d is always devoiced to t in Dutch, the distinction in
spelling is not heard unless the past participle is inflected (i.e. when used adjectively
or substantively) e.g. gekocht (bought)/geverfd (painted) - both pronounced t, but
het geverfde huis (the painted house), pronounced d.

The prefix ge-

The unstressed prefix ge-, which in both Dutch and German precedes all past
17.
participles whether of weak or strong verbs , was formerly known in English too,
18.
but English, along with Frisian, has dispensed with it ; it is still heard in some English
dialects in palatalised form as ye-. It occurs in Gothic as ga- but is not yet associated
with past participles there; it is by origin a prefix which designated completion (i.e.
perfectiveness of an action in general and thus also some infinitives could and still
do begin with ge- e.g. geloven (to believe), gelukken (to succeed), geraken (to
attain). As past participles by definition stress the perfectiveness of an action, the
prefix became very much identified with them in West Germanic and was eventually
applied to all - for some strong verbs it became a means of distinguishing between
the infinitive and the past participle e.g. vallen (to fall) - gevallen (fallen). Nevertheless
there were several verbs which were apparently already felt to be perfective in
meaning whose past participles still did not take ge- in Middle Dutch e.g. bracht
(brought), komen (come), vonden (found), worden (become). From the fifteenth
century these verbs too began to adopt ge-, as did

17. Except when such verbs already begin with an unstressed prefix i.e. be-, her-, ont-, ver- etc.
or are inseparable verbs.
18. Loss of the prefix is also found in several Dutch dialects, notably in West Friesland, the north
and the east. Other areas know an ә prefix.

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 177

verbs of foreign origin - compare Dutch gereserveerd, gestudeerd etc. and German
reserviert, studiert.
The verbs blijven (to remain, < *belijven), blussen (to extinguish, < *belussen -
compare Germ. löschen), and vreten (to eat, < *vereten) contain a contracted
unstressed prefix which is no longer felt to be such and thus can take ge- in the past
participle i.e. gebleven, geblust, gevreten. Compare also Dutch geloven (to believe)
- past participle geloofd, German glauben - past participle geglaubt.
Verbs which are often regarded as ‘irregular’ by the student of the language but
which are in fact historically weak verbs are brengen/bracht/gebracht (to bring),
denken/dacht/gedacht (to think) dunken/docht/ - (to seem); kopen/kocht/gekocht (to
buy), plegen/placht/ - (to be used to), zoeken/zocht/gezocht (to seek). Comparison
with the English past forms ‘brought/thought/sought’ illustrates that the concept is
not foreign to English either. The group is also smaller in German than in Dutch.
The past tense of the first three verbs shows the results of a prehistoric compensatory
lenghtening (i.e. loss of n plus lengthening of the preceding vowel) with a later
shortening of the vowel before the cluster -cht; in English the vowel is still long,
unlike Dutch. The shift from final *-kta > -chta, which must have occurred before the
loss of the nasal, is thus also prehistoric and common to all West Germanic
languages (and Gothic). The latter three verbs have also undergone this shift and
19.
lost the final e, which is still present in German (brachte, dachte), by apocope ; it
was apparently considered superfluous as there are other clear signs that these are
past tense forms, which is not the case with other weak verbs. Kopen (kocht) shows
the regular Low Franconian shift of ft > cht (see p. 153); ft < pt is comparable to the
cht < kt in the other verbs in this group i.e. a shift from voiceless stop to voiceless
spirant (Auslautsverschärfung). Brengen/bracht shows alternation of vowels due to
Ablaut but the vowel in dacht is the result of Rückumlaut i.e. the e in denken
(<*þankjan) goes back to an original a which has been retained in the past, where
there was no Umlautsfaktor following.

The imperfect and past participle of strong verbs

The degree to which Dutch has preserved the seven Ablaut series known to all
Germanic languages is an unusually conservative aspect of its morphology. But
even English, in most respects even more morphologically progressive than Dutch,
has preserved the original situation quite well. The Ablaut series as they are in Dutch
today are on p. 64 and can be compared with the following situation as it was in
Middle Dutch:

19. Apocope of final e is characteristic of many aspects of the historical morphology of Dutch and
contrasts distinctly with German - see the 1st person sing. of the present tense of verbs (p.
174), loss of -e by feminine nouns (p. 166) and weak nouns (p. 167).

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 178

1 grîpen ic greep wi grēpen gegrēpen

2 a bûgen booch bōgen gebōgen
b gieten goot gōten gegōten
3 a binden bant
20.
bonden gebonden
b werpen warp
20.
worpen
20.
geworpen
4 nēmen nam nâmen genōmen
5 gēven gaf gâven gegēven
6 vāren voer voeren gevāren
7 a vallen viel vielen gevallen
b hangen hinc hingen gehangen

The only significant changes have been in series 3 where the singular of verbs
in group a have adopted the vowel of the plural and past participle. In German the
reverse has occurred in the preterite - compare band/banden/gebunden. In addition,
those verbs in group b whose stem ends on l or r + consonant, have since adopted
the vocalism of group 7 in the preterite e.g. helpen (to help) - hielp, sterven (to die)
- stierf, werpen (to throw) - wierp; compare German helfen - half, sterben - starb,
werfen - warf.
The alternation of a short vowel and a long vowel in the singular and plural of
verbs in series 4 and 5 is an example of the phonological conservatism of Dutch;
this is the original Germanic situation whereas German shows analogy with the
plural in these instances, as both the singular and the plural contain a long vowel -
21.
compare nahm/nahmen, gab/gaben.
The seven Ablaut series show fewer deviations in Dutch than in German, where,
for example, group 1 has divided into two sub-sections: German
steigen/stieg/gestiegen, schneiden/schnitt/geschnitten and Dutch
stijgen/steeg/gestegen, snijden/sneed/gesneden; group 2 in German has verbs with
both long and short vowels depending on the consonant that follows:
21. 21.
biegen/bog/gebogen (long), riechen/roch/gerochen (short) versus Dutch
22.
buigen/boog/gebogen, ruiken/rook/geroken
Strong verbs were conjugated as follows in the past tense in Middle Dutch: nemen
(to take)

indicative subjunctive
1 ic nam nâme

20. These forms are those that differ from the situation as it is today.
20. These forms are those that differ from the situation as it is today.
20. These forms are those that differ from the situation as it is today.
21. German spelling does not reflect as regularly as Dutch spelling which vowels are long and
which are short.
21. German spelling does not reflect as regularly as Dutch spelling which vowels are long and
which are short.
21. German spelling does not reflect as regularly as Dutch spelling which vowels are long and
which are short.
22. The Second German Sound Shift created in many cases a double consonant sound in German
which locked the preceding vowel into a closed syllable and prevented lengthening, unlike in
Dutch, where lengthening in open syllables could take place unimpeded.

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2 du names, < naems nâmes, < naems
3 hi nam nâme
1 wi nâmen nâmen
2 ghi nâmet, < naemt nâmet, < naemt
3 si nâmen nâmen

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The s ending of the second person sing., which is also found in Middle High German,
is not historical - Gothic has namt - but is probably by analogy with the present tense
and the subjunctive. Nowadays analogy has reduced the indicative to two forms
nam/namen. In areas where gij is still used, its verb still ends in -t and takes the
vowel of the plural i.e. in Ablaut series where the plural differs from the singular e.g.
gij waart (you were) but jij was.
The imperfect indicative and the imperfect subjunctive of weak verbs had fallen
together in Middle Dutch, as in MHG and ME. The imperfect subjunctive of strong
verbs, which has now fallen together with the imperfect indicative in Dutch and
English, still preserved different forms in the first and third persons singular in Middle
Dutch, however - compare als het ware (as it were).
The falling together of the above paradigms which we see taking place here, did
not occur in German where Umlaut distinguishes between the two e.g. ich
23.
nahm/nähme, ich aβ/äβe etc. Dutch and English, in as far there is any need to
distinguish between the two forms, now use a periphrastic construction (see p. 67)
i.e. a further analytical development that these two share that German doesn't.

Strong verbs changing class or becoming weak i.e. mixed verbs

Although Dutch, German and English all still preserve certain patterns among their
strong verbs which can be traced back directly to the seven Ablaut series inherited
from Old Germanic, in all three languages a degree of interchange between the
classes of the strong verb and between strong and weak verbs has occurred. The
24.
instances of a strong verb joining another strong class with which it shares one or
other phonetic similarity are not as numerous or as obvious, from the point of view
of the student, as those of strong verbs that have become (usually only partially)
weak. Comparison of such words in related languages can reveal former situations
which analogy has since disguised. The English verb ‘to laugh’, for example, is a
weak verb, as it is in German (lachen/lachte/gelacht); only when one is confronted
with Modern Dutch lachen/lachte/gelachen does one realise that Eng. ‘to laugh’ and
German lachen were originally also strong. Lachen, as its past participle in Dutch
indicates, was formerly a group 6 verb and it occurs in Middle Dutch as such i.e.
lachen/loech - loeghen/ghelachen.
It is group 6 in particular that has shown a tendency to turn weak in the imperfect
but the phenomenon is not exclusive to this group:

bakken (to bake) bakte gebakken (group 6)

laden (to load) laadde geladen (group 6)
malen (to grind) maalde gemalen (group 6)
wreken (to avenge) wreekte gewroken (group 4)
brouwen (to brew) brouwde gebrouwen (group 2)
weven (to weave) weefde geweven (group 5)

23. The e ending of the imperfect subjunctive was originally an i (i.e. an Umlautsfaktor)and was
weakened to e in unstressed syllables.
24. For example: wegen (to weigh, group 5) joined group 2; steken (to sting, group 5) got a new
past part., gestoken, by analogy with breken (to break) etc. in group 4. (see also p. 178).

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 180

The term often given to these verbs is mixed verbs. They are the product of various
analogies such as we hear children and foreigners and even ourselves applying
daily to English verbs e.g. snuck < to sneak, shat < to shit; striked < to strike.
What we now call group 7 is, from an Indo-European and Old Germanic point of
view, a separate class altogether from groups 1-6. It contained the so-called
reduplicating verbs which formed their past with or without Ablaut of the root vowel
of the verb plus the addition of a reduplicating prefix. However, as such reduplicated
25.
forms are not recorded in any of the West Germanic languages , not even in the
oldest period, tradition has assigned them the status of group 7 in the Ablaut series
as they now form their past tense by the application of Ablaut in the same way as
other strong verbs. That they have at one time had a special status is possibly
reflected in the fact that many of these group 7 verbs are now mixed verbs or have
become totally weak:

heten (to be called) heette geheten

spannen (to stretch) spande gespannen
stoten (to push) stootte gestoten
vouwen (to fold) vouwde gevouwen
vloeken (to swear) vloekte gevloekt
zaaien (to sow) zaaide gezaaid
waaien (to blow) waaide gewaaid
also woei (< group
6)

Modal verbs or preterite-presents

The term modal verb, which all readers should be acquainted with, to denote the
verbs kunnen (to be able), mogen (to be allowed to), moeten (to have to) and zullen
(will), is of little validity or utility when one looks at the rather irregular conjugations
of such verbs from an historical point of view. In terms of historical linguistics these
verbs belong to the so-called preterite-presents, a class to which several other verbs
also did or do belong. A preterite-present, a concept known to other Indo-European
languages as well as to all other Germanic languages, is a verb which in form is a
past tense (kan, mag - compare nam-took, lag-lay) but in meaning is a present (ik
kan-I can, am able; ik mag - I may, am allowed to). The origin of such verbs lies in
a time when there was but one form of the past tense, the preterite, which thus also
rendered the perfect tense i.e. ik kan - lit. I have come to know (preterite) therefore
I can (present).
The preterite-presents, like the imperfect of strong verbs (actually preterites),
know only one form for all persons in the singular and one for the plural:

present:
kunnen mogen zullen moeten

25. The past tense of doen (to do) is a possible exception (see p. 182).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

ik kan mag zal moet
jij/u kan/kunt
26.
mag zal/zult
26.
moet
hij kan mag zal moet
wij kunnen mogen zullen moeten
jullie kunnen mogen zullen moeten
zij kunnen mogen zullen moeten

26. Younger analogical forms with the plural gij to which jij is related.
26. Younger analogical forms with the plural gij to which jij is related.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 181

imperfect:
kon (< mocht/mochten zou (< moest/moesten
konde)/konden zoude)/zouden

past participle:
gekund gemoogd, gemogen gezuld gemoeten

The infinitives have been formed by analogy with the plural forms of the present
27.
according to which Ablaut series the verb is derived from. Similarly, as the present
tense forms are preterites in origin, new analogous imperfects had to be invented;
they are all weak. The past participles are a good example of the options that were
at the disposal of these verbs for forming their past tenses - kunnen and zullen have
formed past participles by analogy with weak verbs, moeten by analogy with strong
verbs while mogen has exploited both possibilities; nowadays the strong form of
mogen is the more common, however.
Weten (to know - compare ‘to wit/I wot’) is also a preterite-present by origin i.e. ‘I
have seen’ thus ‘I know’ (compare Lat. vidi - I have seen). For this reason it also
28.
has irregular past forms: wist /geweten - compare German wissen/ich
weiβ/wuβte/gewuβt.
Willen (to want to):
This verb, although usually regarded as a modal verb, has a different origin from
the other modals. It is not a preterite-present but, as comparison with Gothic clearly
shows, a preterite subjunctive by origin where the meaning must have been
something like ‘I would like’ therefore ‘I want’ - compare German ich möchte:

ik wil wij willen

jij wil/wilt jullie willen
hij wil zij willen

imperfect: wou (< woude < *wolde), wilde/wilden

past part: gewild

The imperfect forms wilde(n) and the past part. gewild are by analogy with weak
verbs, as is wou, but here we see an Ablaut variant common in Hollands and
competing with the Flemish form wilde; the plural wouden (pron. wouwen) is never
written and is regarded as plat Hollands. In English too, forms with i and o alternate
e.g. will, won't, would.
It should be noted that Dutch retained the verb zullen (Eng. shall) as the auxiliary
for forming the future tense, whereas English, after letting ‘shall’ and ‘will’ compete
for some time, has finally opted for the latter to form the future tense.

27. The forms of the preterite-presents enable us to identify which Ablaut series they originally
belonged to e.g. weten (1), kunnen (3), zullen (4), mogen (5), moeten (6).
28. With apocope of the final e (see p. 177). The i of the past tense alternates with the e of the
infinitive because short i lengthened to long e in open syllables - compare schip (ship)/schepen
(ships).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 182

The monosyllabic verbs

The six monosyllabic verbs known to Dutch are of various origins. Doen, staan and
gaan are original root verbs. Doen (to do) with its past tense deed/deden is possibly
the only surviving example of a reduplicating verb (see p. 180). Staan (to stand) and
gaan (to go) contrast with German stehen and gehen, where the h is purely
orthographical, and they too are usually pronounced as one syllable. West Germanic
knew forms *gangan and *standan. The past tense of staan, stond/stonden, as well
as the English infinitive, are clearly derived from this alternative form. The past tense
of gaan, ging/gingen, is the result of an analogy between *gangen and hangen (to
hang) and vangen (to catch) which are class 7 verbs; in Middle Dutch (and Old
English) they too occur as the younger contracted forms haen and vaen (< vāen
<*vāXen<*vanXen). In plat, the analogical form sting (= stond) is heard as well as
gong (i.e. ging).
The verbs slaan (to hit - Germ. schlagen) and zien (to see - Germ. sehen) are not
root verbs by origin but later contractions of forms with medial [X] - compare Gothic
slahan, saíhvan.

Zijn

The final monosyllabic verb, ‘to be’, shows great irregularity of form as it has in fact
inherited its constituent parts from various verbs - compare ‘I go/I went’. In simple
terms there are forms derived from b-roots (Eng. be), s-roots (Lat. essere) and the
verb wezen (Eng. was/were), a strong verb belonging to group 5. The present tense
in Middle Dutch was as follows:

ic bem/ben wi sijn
du best/bist ghi sijt
hi es/is si sijn

In Modern Dutch, du and its form of the verb have died out, but jij has preserved
the b-root in jij bent by analogy with the first person. Jullie has fallen into line with
the other plural forms so that we now have only one form in the plural. In plat, the
analogous form benne is sometimes heard throughout the plural.
The verb wezen, which also exists as an alternative infinitive to zijn in Modern
Dutch, has provided zijn with its past tense was/waren (also the imperfect subjunctive
form ware) and its weak past part. geweest. The strong past part. gewezen, which
German uses, now exists in Dutch only as an adjective e.g. de gewezen
burgemeester (the ex-lord mayor). Dutch was/waren and English was/were show
the alternation of s and r (< z) as a result of grammatical change; in German
war/waren, the consonant of the plural has been adopted by analogy into the singular.
The alternative infinitive wezen also provides the imperative - wees braaf (be good)
- but in Middle Dutch the b-root (Eng. be) and s-root (Germ. sei) forms also existed.
The present subjunctive form zij is now only found in certain standard expressions
e.g. God zij dank (God be thanked).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Hebben

The verb ‘to have’ is historically a weak verb but it now shows irregularities which
are peculiar to it. To begin with, only hebben, along with zijn, has a different ending

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 183

in the present tense for the second and third person singular i.e. jij hebt, hij heeft
29.
and thus u hebt or heeft (see p. 171). Heeft occurs in Middle Dutch as hevet, where
v could alternate regularly with b in intervocalic position, and the vowel of the ending
is preserved, which thus lenghtened the root vowel in an open syllable. The modern
form is a contraction of the Middle Dutch form. Jij has preserved the second person
plural ending indigenous to gij, which it has replaced. Dutch hebben contrasts with
German haben (also zeggen/sagen - to say) as it joined the first class of weak verbs,
which contained an Umlautsfaktor in the ending, in the pre-Middle Dutch period. In
the past tense and past part. the original a has been preserved and the b has been
assimilated i.e. had (older hadde)/gehad - compare Germ. hatte (also with
assimilation)/gehabt. Such alternation of vowels between the present and past tense
forms is found in many more verbs in German e.g. kennen (to know) -
30.
kannte/gekannt; rennen (to run) - rannte/gerannt - compare Dutch kennen - kende
/ gekend; rennen - rende/gerend.

Bibliography

LOEY, A. van Schönfeld's historische grammatica van het Nederlands.

Thieme, Zutphen, 1959 (see p. 160).
BREE, C. van Leerboek voor de historische grammatica van het Nederlands.

Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen, 1977.

29. Plat Hollands uses heb in the third person singular.

30. This is due to a phenomenon known as Rückumlaut (see p. 177).

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 185

Glossary
The following definitions, which could have been more detailed in some instances,
relate to how the terms are used in this book.

Ablaut: (German term) regular system of

alternation of vowels in the same
consonantal environment; the alternation
denotes a distinction in meaning e.g.
sing/sang/sung/song.
ABN: abbreviation of Algemeen Beschaafd
Nederlands (General Cultivated Dutch)
- see p. 17).
affricate: a stop (see stop) plus movement into the
corresponding fricative (see fricative)
position e.g. ts, pf, kch.
allograph: see grapheme.
allophone: see phoneme.
analogical change: the occasional and unpredictable
tendency of a word or form to be pulled
out of its natural orbit of development by
the attraction of another word or form
with which it has a real or fancied
resemblance.
Anlaut, Auslaut, Inlaut: (German terms) at the beginning, at the
end and in the middle of a word
respectively.
apocope: the loss of a final vowel e.g. MNL ic neme
> NNL ik neem.
aspiration: the addition of a perceptible breath, or
h-sound, after a stop or plosive e.g. Eng.
h h
p ot, t op.
Auslaut: see Anlaut.
Auslautsverschärfung: (lit. final sharpening - a German term) the
devoicing of voiced stops and fricatives
at the end of a word, common to Dutch
and German but foreign to English e.g.
leven-leef.
back vowel: a vowel which is articulated in the back
of the mouth - see chart on p. 132.
beschaafd: (lit. civilised, cultured) standard, non-low
class.
checked vowel: see p. 46.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

closed syllable: a syllable ending in a consonant e.g.
zet-ten - see open syllable.
cognate (form): words in two or more languages from the
same original source e.g. Eng.
beam/Dutch boom, as distinct from a loan
word e.g. Eng. boom (< Dutch boom).
compensatory lengthening: the lengthening of a short vowel to
compensate for the loss of a following
nasal in the combination short vowel + n
+ fricative e.g. Dutch mond - Eng. mouth.
compound grapheme: see grapheme.
cultuurtaal: (lit. language of culture) standard
language, R.P.
diphthong: a sound made by gliding continuously
from the position for one vowel to that for
another.
diphthongisation: see p. 131.
Ersatzdehung: (German term) - see compensatory
lengthening.
etymology: that branch of linguistics which deals with
the origin and history of words.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 186

fricative: a consonant produced by friction caused

by the air moving through a narrow
passage somewhere in the mouth e.g. f,
s, th, v, z.
front vowel: a vowel whose point of articulation is in
the front of the mouth - see chart on p.
132.
fronting: bringing a sound, whether vowel or
consonant, from the back to the front of
the mouth.
gemination: doubling or prolonging of a sound,
especially consonants, usually indicated
by a double letter in writing.
grapheme: the smallest unit of writing that
distinguishes one meaning from another;
compound grapheme - a group of two or
more letters representing a single sound;
allograph - a positional or other variant
of a written symbol or grapheme.
gutteral: see velar.
Ingwaeonism: see p. 128.
Inlaut: see Anlaut.
isogloss: a line on a map marking the boundaries
within which a given linguistic
phenomenon is to be found.
methathesis: a sporadic sound change whereby there
is a transposition of the order of sounds
within a word.
monophthong: a phoneme produced as a single sound.
monophthongisation: see p. 131.
morphology: the science and study of the smallest
meaningful units of language and of their
formation into words - includes inflection
and derivation but not syntax.
oblique cases: a collective term for all declensional
cases other than the nominative.
open syllable: a syllable ending in a vowel e.g. pra-ten
- see closed syllable.
palatal sound: any sound formed by placing the front of
the tongue against the hard palate as in
front vowels for example.
phoneme: a minimal unit of distinctive sound;
allophone - a positional variant of a

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 phoneme which occurs in a specific
environment and does not differentiate
meaning e.g. the different k-sounds in
cat and kit.
phonetics: the analysis and classification of speech
sounds including how they are produced
in the mouth - compare phonology.
phonology: a description of the sounds of a language
and how they function in that language -
compare phonetics.
plat: a non- or sub-standard form, often
dialectical in origin.
plosive: see stop.
Randstad: (lit. rim city) the collective name given to
the following cities in the west of the
Netherlands which almost form a circle:
Haarlem, Amsterdam, Utrecht,
Rotterdam, Delft, The Hague, and
Leiden. Together they play a dominant
role in the economic, political,
sociological and linguistic life of the
Netherlands.
rhotacism: the shift from intervocalic voiced s (i.e.
[z] to [r]) e.g. kiezen - keuren.
rounding, unrounding: pronouncing a sound with the lips
rounded or unrounded respectively -
compare choose (rounded) and cheese
(unrounded).
schwa: (a Hebrew term) the colourless, indistinct,
neutral vowel represented by the symbol
[ә] e.g. father, enough.
stop: a consonant that momentarily halts the
flow of breath e.g. p, t, k, b, d - also
called a plosive.
svarabhakti: (a Sanscrit term) the insertion of a vowel
to break up a troublesome consonant
cluster e.g .film [filәm].
syncope: the loss of a medial sound.
syntax: the study of word order.
Umlaut: (a German term) see p. 132.
Umlautsfaktor: (a German term) the i or j (often
weakened to ә or lost altogether)

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 187

which causes the back vowel in a

previous syllable to mutate to a front
vowel.
unrounding: see rounding.
uvular: a consonant, usually r, produced by
contact between the back of the tongue
and the uvula.
velar: a consonant formed by the back of the
tongue against the soft palate - also
called gutteral.
vocalisation: the change of a consonant to a
semi-vowel or vowel.
voiced: sounds produced with simultaneous
vibration of the vocal cords i.e. all vowels
and the following consonants for example
b, d, g, v, z; the voiceless or devoiced
counterparts of these consonants are p,
l, k, f, s.

Note: Several of the definitions in this glossary have been taken (almost) verbatim
from M. Pei, ‘Glossary of Linguistic Terminology’, Anchor Books, New York, 1966.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 188

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Vries, J. de, Nederlands etymologisch woordenboek
Brill, Leiden, 1971.
Vries, J. de, Woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandse plaatsnamen
Spectrum, Utrecht/Antwerp, 1962.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Vries, J. de, Etymologisch woordenboek
Spectrum, Utrecht/Antwerp, 1970.

Weijnen, A., Zeventiende-eeuwse taal

Thieme, Zutphen, 1965.
Weijnen, A., Nederlandse dialectkunde
Van Gorcum, Assen, 1966.
Weijnen, A., Het schema van de klankwetten
Van Gorcum, Assen, 1970.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 192

Weijnen, A., Het Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands historisch beschouwd

Van Gorcum, Assen, 1974.
Wijk, N. van, Franck's etymologisch woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal
Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, 1949.
Winkel, J., Geschichte der niederländischen Sprache
Trübner, Straβburg, 1898.
Winkler Prins Geschiedenis der Nederlanden
Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1978.
Woordenlijst van de Nederlandse taal
Staatsdrukkerij- en Uitgeverijbedrijf, The Hague, 1954.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 193

Index
The following abbreviations are used: f. = following page; ff. = following pages; n =
footnote; italics = main entry.
a:
a: short, devt. of 133
a: long, devt. of 136
aai:
aai: devt. of 149
abbreviations:
list of XII
Ablaut: 139, 141, 185 (see also strong verbs)
ABN: see Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands
Activism: see Frontism
adjectives:
adjectives: modern 60, 79
adjectives: inflection 60
adjectives: comparative/superlative 60
adjectives: participles 62
adjectives: devt. of 168
adjectives: devt. of inflection 168
adjectives: devt. of comparative/superlative 169
adverbs: 60, 80
Afrikaans: 3, 33, 41n, 49n, 136, 140, 141, 157 158, 169, 172
Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands (ABN): 5, 13, 17 41, 49, 52, 55, 103, 106,
143, 146, 150, 185
American Revolution: 113
Amsterdam: 11, 97, 101ff., 146, 156, 186
AN: see Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands
analogy: 133, 164, 168, 175, 179, 185
ancien régime: 24
Anglo-Saxons: 20, 86
Anglo-Saxons: missions 89
Antwerp: 23, 26, 95, 97, 101, 146
apocope:
apocope: final e 128, 132
apocope: final t 13, 156
articles: 58, 60
articles: devt. of 162f.
assimilation: 55, 132
au:
au: devt. of 148
Auslautsverschärfung: 36, 150, 185
Australia: 3, 146n
Austrian Netherlands: 24
auw:
auw: devt. of 148

b:
b: devt. of 150, 158
Barbarians: 85f.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Bargoens: 20
Batavians: 85, 87
Batavian Republic: 114f.
Bavai: 87
Beets, Nicholas: 115
Belgae: 20
Belgium: 16f., 20f.
Benrather Line: 16, 123
Beweging van Tachtig: 108
Bible:
Bible: Van Liesveldt 99
Bible: State translation (Statenvertaling) 99, 108, 116, 171, 172
Bible: Louvain 99
Bible: Luther 99
Bible: Gothic 125
Bilderdijk, Willem: 114
Boniface: 89f.
Boulogne: 87
Brabant:
Brabant: province 23
Brabant: Bible 99
Brabant: dialect and influence 11, 13f., 18, 23, 95, 101, 103, 107f., 127, 138,
141, 143, 146, 154, 158
Bredero, G.A.: 106, 107
Bruges: 21n., 23, 95
Brussels: 23, 24, 26, 28f., 32, 34, 95
Burgundy: 23

c:
Calvinism: 99, 107, 108
Canninefates: 85

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 194

Canada: 3
Carolingians: 88f., 91
Cats, J.: 107
case: 59, 72
case: devt. of 162
Catholic Church: 15, 30, 95, 99
Celts: 20, 87, 142

ch:
ch: devt. of 153f.
Chamavi: 85
Chambers of Rhetoric: 101
Charlemagne: 21, 88, 90
Charles V: 23
Charles the Hammer: see Charles Martel
Charles Martel: 89
Chatti (Hessians): 85, 90
Childerich: 88
Christianity:
Christianity: spread of and missions: 88f., 93
Clovis: 88f.
Cologne: 85
Comines - Mouscron: see Komen-Moeskroen
Common Market: see E.E.C.
compensatory lengthening: 128, 134, 145, 146, 156, 177, 185
Congo: 34
conjunctions: 68
Conscience, Hendrik: 25
Consonants:
Consonants: modern 51ff.
Consonants: modern stops (p, t, k, b, d) 51
Consonants: modern fricatives (g, ch, v, f, z, s) 51f.
Consonants: modern trills (r) 54
Consonants: modern laterals (l) 54f.
Consonants: devt. of 150ff.
Consonants: devt. of b 150
Consonants: devt. of v/f 150f.
Consonants: devt. of sch 151f.
Consonants: devt. of sj 152
Consonants: devt. of g 152f.
Consonants: devt. of ch 153f.
Consonants: devt. of h 154f.
Consonants: devt. of d 155f.
Consonants: devt. of t 156f.
Consonants: devt. of p 157
Consonants: devt. of k 157
Consonants: devt. of j 157
Consonants: devt. of l 157f.
Consonants: devt. of m 158
Consonants: devt. of n 158
Consonants: devt. of r 159

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Consonants: devt. of w 159f.
contracted forms: 132 (see also syncope/apocope)
Coster, Laurens: 96
cultuurtaal: 24, 33, 185

d:
d: devt. of 126, 155
d: vocalisation of 50
d: syncope of 155f.
Dagobert I: 89
Dekker, Eduard Douwes: 115
Deutsch: 4
Deventer: 97
devoicing: 13, 55
dialects: 9ff.
Dictionarium: 103
Diets: 4f, 96
diminutive: 13, 15, 53, 59, 80, 157
diphthongs: 49f.
diphthongs: diphthongisation 101, 128, 131, 142
diphthongs: tendency of o and e in Hollands 13
diphthongs: devt. of 142f.
diphthongs: long: see double vowels
Drenthe: 11
Duits: 4
Dunkirk: 7, 87n.
Dutch Antilles: 3. 110
Dutch East Indies: 110, see also Indonesia
Dutch Guyane: see Surinam
Dutch Revolt: see Eighty Years' War

e:
e: short, devt. of 134
e: long, devt. of 137
East India Company: 110
E.E.C.: 17, 28, 31
eeuw:
eeuw: devt. of 149
ei:
ei: devt. of 146
Eighty Years' War: 24, 97, 99, 143
English loanwords in Dutch: 34, 48n., 76
er: 68
Erasmus of Rotterdam: 96
Ersatzdehnung: see compensatory lengthening
Etymologicum: 103
eu:
eu: devt. of 141
Eupen-Malmédy: 30

f:
f: devt. of 150
First German Sound Shift: 119, 121, 126
First German Sound Shift: b 150

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

First German Sound Shift: g 152
First German Sound Shift: h 154
First German Sound Shift: d 155
First German Sound Shift: t 156
First German Sound Shift: p 157
First German Sound Shift: k 157

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 195

Flanders: 20ff., 143

flaminganten: 27
Flemish: 5, 6, 11, 33f., 95, 103, 154, 181
Flemish: Middle Dutch texts 127
Flemish: Bible 108
Flemish: East Flemish 17
Flemish: West Flemish 9, 13, 17, 127, 143, 150, 154, 156
Flemish Movement: 25f.
Fourons: see Voerstreek
France: 3, 21
France: ancien régime 24
France: Revolution 113
French:
French: as cultuurtaal 21ff.
French: in Belgium, see Chapter 3, 33f.
French: loanwords 33 , 75, 78, 104, 106f., 112, 139
French: as international language 106, 114
Franconian dialects: 11
Franconian dialects: High 93
Franconian dialects: Low 91, 93, 118
Franks: 85ff.
Friesland: 89f.
Frisian:
Frisian: people 85, 89f.
Frisian: language and dialect influence 11, 13, 97, 103, 108, 128, 138, 140,
143, 150, 151, 152, 153, 176
Frontism and Activism: 26, 27

g:
g: devt. of 152
g: see also j 157
gallicisms: see French
ge-: (prefix):
ge-: (prefix): devt. of 176f.
geen: 170
Gelderland: 11
gender: 34, 41, 58
gender: pronouns 61
gender: devt. of 162
genitive: 58
genitive: s 163
German:
German: influence on Dutch vocabulary and loanwords 76, 104, 115, 124
German: in Belgium 28
Germany: 11, 23, 89f., 91
Germanic: 9, 118, 119ff.
Germanic: West Germanic 9, 88, 119
Germanic: North Germanic 119
Germanic: Proto-Germanic 126
Gezelle, Guido: 26
Ghent: 23, 25, 95

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

gij: 15, 108, 115, 171, 183
glossary: 185ff.
Golden Spurs, Battle of the: 23, 26
Goths: 88, 118, 125
Gothic: 124f., 161, 164, 165, 166, 167, 175
grammar (morphology): see Chapter 6, 58 ff.
grammar (morphology): historical 161ff.
grammatical change: 122f., 150
Great Migrations: see Chapter 9
Gregory of Tours: 88
Grimm, Jakob: 120
Grimm's Law: see First German Sound Shift
Groene Boekje: 42f.
Groningen: 11, 90, 115
Grootnederlandse Gedachte: 26
Gutenberg, Johannes: 96

h:
h: devt. of 154f.
Haarlem: 96, 110
Habsburgs: 23, 24, 101
Hanseatic League: 109
Heliand: 91
hebben: 182
hebben: as an auxiliary verb 66
Hessians (Chatti): 85, 90
De Heuiter, Pontus: 103
High Franconian: 93
High German: 11, 16, 91
High German: in Netherlands, see Limburg
High German Sound Shift: see Second German Sound Shift
Hildebrand: 115
Hochdeutsch: 4, 123
Hochdeutsch: see also High German
Holland, Hollands: 6, 11, 13, 18, 101, 103, 104, 106, 108, 137, 140, 141, 145,
181
Holland, Hollands: Noordhollands (Westfries) 11, 89
Holland, Hollands: Zuidhollands 136, 158
Holy Roman Empire: 21, 23
Hooft, P.C.: 107
Van Hoogstraten, David: 112
Huguenots: 107
Huns: 125
Huydecoper, Balthasar: 112f.
Huygens, Constantijn: 107
hw: 154
hypercorrection: 50n., 137, 156

i:
i: short, devt. of 135
ie: devt. or 128, 138f.
ij: 36, 38f.
ij: devt. of 128, 145f.
ik/ich line: see Uerdinger Line

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

imperfect in Germanic languages: 119. 175
Indo-European: 119
Indo-Germanic: see Indo-European
Indonesia: 3, 54n.
Indonesia: see also Dutch East Indies

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 196

Ingwaeonisms: 89, 128f., 137, 140, 146, 153, 165, 172

interrogatives:
interrogatives: devt. of 173

j:
j: devt. of 153, 157
Jews: 52, 77, 101, 107

k:
k: devt. of 157
Ten Kate, Lambert: 112f., 146
-kijn (diminutive suffix): 157
Kiliaen: 103
Kluit, Adriaan: 113
Kollewijn, R.A.: 41
Komen- Moeskroen: 28
koningskwestie: 28

l:
l: devt. of 126, 157f.
language laws:
language laws: of 1932 27
language laws: of 1962 28, 30
Latin: 4, 73, 90, 91, 93, 95f., 103, 112, 124, 127
Latin: loanwords from Romans 88
Leeuw van Vlaanderen, De: 25
Leuven: see Louvain
Leiden: 97
Leiden: University of 109, 114, 115
Lex Salica: 91
Liège: 23, 25
Van Liesveldt: 99
Limburg: 11, 15f., 89, 93f., 123f., 127, 152, 157
limes: 85f.
Liudger: 89f.
loanwords: 74ff.
loanwords: spelling of 42f.
loanwords: in Middle Dutch 96
loanwords: Latin 88, 124
loanwords: English 34, 48n., 76f.
loanwords: French 33, 75, 78, 104, 106, 112, 115
loanwords: German, 76, 104, 115, 124
loanwords: Malay 78
loanwords: Yiddish 77
loanwords: Dutch words in other languages 109f.
Louvain: 21n., 30, 96
Low German: 4, 16n., 99, 109, 123, 143
Luther, Martin: 99, 108

m:
m: devt. of 158

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Maastricht: 87
maken/lachen line: see Benrather Line
Malay:
loanwords 78
Malay: Dutch influence on 110
Marchant, H.P.: 41
Max Havelaar: 115
Mennonites: 99
Mercator: 97
Merovech: 88
Merovingians: 88f.
metathesis: 153, 158, 159, 186
Middle Dutch: 93ff.
Moer Dyke: 13
monophthongisation: 131, 137f., 140
Moonen, Arnold: 112
morphology:
morphology: modern Dutch, see Chapter 6, 58ff.
morphology: modern Dutch, articles 58
morphology: modern Dutch, gender 58
morphology: modern Dutch, nouns 58f.
morphology: modern Dutch, case 59
morphology: modern Dutch, possession 58, 62
morphology: modern Dutch, dominutives 59
morphology: modern Dutch, adjectives 60
morphology: modern Dutch, adverbs 60
morphology: modern Dutch, numerals 60f.
morphology: modern Dutch, pronouns 61f.
morphology: modern Dutch, verbs 62ff.
morphology: modern Dutch, conjunctions 68
morphology: modern Dutch, er 68f.
morphology: historical, see Chapter 18, 161ff.
morphology: historical, case 162
morphology: historical, gender 162
morphology: historical, articles 162f.
morphology: historical, nouns 164ff.
morphology: historical, adjectives 168f.
morphology: historical, numerrals 169f.
morphology: historical, pronouns 170f.
morphology: historical, verbs 173ff.
morphology: historical, hebben 182f.
morphology: historical, zijn 182
morphology: historical, modals 180f.
Muiderkring: 107
Multatuli: 115
Münster, Treaty of: 24

n:
n: devt. of 158
Nantes, Edict of: 107
Napoleon: 25, 74, 115
NATO: 17, 28, 31
Nederlands: 5f.
Nederlandse Taalunie: 38

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Negerhollands: 110
New York: 110
New Zealand: 3
ng: see g
North Sea Germanic: see Ingwaeonisms
nouns:

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 197

nouns: modern Dutch 58f., 79f.

nouns: modern Dutch plurals 59
nouns: modern Dutch diminutive 59
nouns: modern Dutch infinitive as noun 62
nouns: historical devt. 164ff.
nouns: historical devt. a-stems 164f.
nouns: historical devt. wa-stems 165
nouns: historical devt. ja-stems 165
nouns: historical devt. o-stems 166
nouns: historical devt. jo-stems 167
nouns: historical devt. i-stems 167
nouns: historical devt. u-stems 167
nouns: historical devt. n-stems 167f.
nouns: historical devt. weak, see n-stems
numerals: 60f
numerals: historical devt. 169f.
numerals: -tig 170

o:
o: short, devt. of 135
o: long, devt. of 139f
oe:
oe: devt. of 127, 140f.
oei: 149
Old Dutch: 91 (see Old West Low Franconian)
Old East Low Franconian: 91
Old Saxon: 127
Old West Low Franconian: 91, 126f.
ooi:
ooi: devt. of 149
orthography: see spelling
Ostrogoths: 125
ou: 126f., 148, 155f.
ou: ouw 148
Overijssel: 11
Overmaas, Land van: 28

p:
p: devt. of 157
p: see also b, 150
Panninger Line: 14, 152
palatalisation: 127, 142, 143, 151, 153
personal pronouns: 61, 129
personal pronouns: devt. of 170f.
Phillip II: 23
Plantin: 97
plat: 16, 106, 186
Pliny: 85n., 128
possessive pronouns: 62
printing press: 96f.
Protestants: 15, 99f.

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

pronominal substitution: 34, 61f.
pronouns: 61f.
pronunciation: see Chapter 5, 45ff.

r:
r: devt. of 159
r: influence on environment 133, 134, 137f., 139, 142
r: pronunciation 54
r: metathesis 159
r: rhotacism 122, 157
Radboud: 89
Randstad: 16, 52, 140, 142, 150, 186
Redbad: 89
rederijkerskamers: 101
Reformation: 100, 172
relative pronouns: 62, 173
Renaissance: 96, 99, 104
rhotacism: 122f., 159, 186
rhyme, as phonetic guide: 95
Romans: 85f.
Romans: loanwords 88
Roorda, Taco: 116
Rotterdam: 11, 40
royal question: 28
Rücklehnwörter: 75
Russian: 109n.

s:
s: devt. of 151
Saint Amandus: 89
Saxon:
Saxon: dialect 11f., 97, 138, 142, 158.
Saxon: Heiland 127
Saxon: tribes 85, 89, 90
sch:
sch: devt. of 151f.
Scheldt River: 21
schoolstrijd: 28
schools struggle: 28
schwa: 161, 186
Second German Sound Shift: 74, 123f., 126, 137
Siegenbeek, Matthijs: 114f.
sj: 53, 152
South Africa: 3, 109f. (see Afrikaans)
Spaanse Brabander: 106
Spain: 23
Spanish Succession, War of: 24
Spelling: see Chapter 4, 36ff.
Spelling: history of 40ff.
Spelling: Spellingbesluit 42
Spelling: Spellingwet 42
Spelling: syllabification 39f.
Spelling: voorkeur-vs. nieuwe 42f.
Spelling: Middle Dutch 95, 103

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Spelling: Siegenbeek 114f.
Spieghel, H.L.: 103
Statenvertaling (Bible): 99, 108
Stevin, Simon: 104

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 198

stress: 56
stress: Germanic 119, 122
Surinam: 3, 110
syllabification: 39f.
syncope: 132, 155, 186
syntax: see word order, 70ff,.

t:
t: devt. of 156f.
Taalbesluiten: 25
taalpolitiek: 25
Tacitus: 85n., 128
tangconstructies: 34, 72
tense:
tense: use of 65f.
tense: see also verbs
Thuringians: 85, 90
-tig: (numeral suffix): 170
Tongeren: 87
Tubantes: 85

u:
u: short, devt. of 136
u: long, devt. of 142
Uerdinger Line: 14, 16, 124, 157
ui:
ui: devt. of 128, 142ff.
Umlaut: 45, 132f., 134
unrounding: 128
U.S.A.: 3
U.S.A.: American Revolution 113
Utrecht(s): 6, 11, 13, 18, 89, 73, 106, 115, 156, 157
Utrecht(s): Union of 107

v:
v: devt. of 150f.
v: devoicing 13, 187
Van Veldeke, Hendrik: 93
verbs:
verbs: modern Dutch 62ff.
verbs: modern Dutch infinitive 62
verbs: modern Dutch present tense 62f.
verbs: modern Dutch imperative 63
verbs: modern Dutch past tenses, use of 65f.
verbs: modern Dutch weak verbs: imperfect 63
past participle 63
verbs: modern Dutch strong verbs: imperfect 63f.
past participle 63f.
verbs: modern Dutch irregular verbs 64f.
verbs: modern Dutch monosyllabic verbs 62n., 64
verbs: modern Dutch zijn 64f., 66

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

verbs: modern Dutch hebben 66
verbs: modern Dutch modals 65
verbs: modern Dutch reflexive verbs 66f.
verbs: modern Dutch passive voice 67
verbs: modern Dutch subjunctive 67f., 179
verbs: modern Dutch Ablaut, see strong verbs
verbs: historical devt. 173ff.
verbs: historical devt. present tense 174f.
verbs: historical devt. subjunctive 174, 179
verbs: historical devt. weak verbs 175f.
verbs: historical devt. prefix ge- 176f.
verbs: historical devt. irregular verbs 177
verbs: historical devt. mixed verbs 179f.
verbs: historical devt. strong verbs 177f.
verbs: historical devt. reduplicating verbs 180
verbs: historical devt. modals 180f.
verbs: historical devt. monosullabic verbs 182
verbs: historical devt. zijn 175, 182
verbs: historical devt. hebben 175, 182
Verlooy, J.B.C.: 25n.
Verner, Karl: 122
Verner's Law: 122, 159
Verdun, Treaty of: 21
Versailles, Treaty of: 30
Vienna, Congress of: 25
Vikings: 91
Virgin Islands: 110
Visigoths: 125
Vlaams: 5, 20
Vlaams: see Flemish
Vlaams Cultureel Centrum: 33
Vlaamse Beweging: see Flemish Movement
vocabulary: see Chapter 8, 74ff.
Voerstreek: 28
volkstaal: 16
Volksunie: 26, 27, 31
Van den Vondel, J.: 107
vowels:
vowels: modern Dutch 45ff.
vowels: modern Dutch checked 45ff.
vowels: modern Dutch unchecked 48f.
vowels: modern Dutch diphthongs 49f.
vowels: devt. of 133ff.
vowels: devt. of monophthongisation 131
vowels: devt. of diphthongisation 131
vowels: devt. of lengthening 127, 131
vowels: devt. of syncope/apocope 132
vowels: devt. of Umlaut 132f.
vowels: short vowels:
vowels: short vowels: a 133f.
vowels: short vowels: e 134f.
vowels: short vowels: i 135f.
vowels: short vowels: o 135f.
vowels: short vowels: u 136

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

vowels: long vowels:
vowels: long vowels: a 136f.
vowels: long vowels: e 137f.
vowels: long vowels: ie 138f.
vowels: long vowels: eu 141f.
vowels: long vowels: o 139f.
vowels: long vowels: u 142

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 199

vowels: diphthongs:
vowels: diphthongs: ui 142f.
vowels: diphthongs: ij 142f., 145
vowels: diphthongs: ei 146f.
vowels: diphthongs: ou(w)/au(w) 148
vowels: double vowels:
vowels: double vowels: aai 149
vowels: double vowels: ooi 149
vowels: double vowels: oei 149
vowels: double vowels: eeuw 149
De Vries, Matthijs: 40ff., 113, 115f., 138, 140

w:
w: devt. of 159f.
Waalse Kerk: 107
Wachtendonk Psalms: 91. 127
Walloons: 3, 20ff.
Waterloo: 31n.
Weiland, Petrus: 114
West Friesland: 11, 13, 89
wezen: 65, 182
Widukind: 90
William I: 25f., 115
Willems, Jan Frans: 26
Willibrord: 89f.
Te Winkel, L.A.: 40ff., 113, 115f., 138, 140
Woordenlijst der Nederlandse Taal: 42
word formation: 78ff.
word order: 70ff.
word order: in Belgium 34
World War I: 26, 27, 30
World War II: 27, 52, 74, 77
Wulfila: 125

x:
Xanten: 85

y:
Yiddish: 52, 118
Yiddish: loanwords 77

z:
z: devt. of 151
z: devoicing 13, 52, 55
Zeeland: 9, 11, 13, 40, 138, 143, 145
Zeeland: Frisians in 89
Zeeuws-Flanders: 9
zich: 66f., 172
zijn: 64, 182
zijn: as an auxiliary verb 66
Zuidnederlands: 5, 15, 18

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

Zwolle: 97

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

 200

List of maps, charts and illustrations

Maps

Map 1 The Netherlands and Belgium showing

provincial borders and main cities p. 2
Map 2 Dutch dialects (in detail) p. 8
Map 3 Dutch dialects (in general) p. 10
Map 4 The Netherlands and Belgium showing
waterways, swamps and polders p. 12
Map 5 The High German Sound Shift in Limburg
p. 14
Map 6 The Netherlands in the Middle Ages p.
22
Map 7 The language border in Belgium p. 29
Map 8 Brussels p. 32
Map 9 Tribal settlement in the early mediaeval
Netherlands p. 84
Map 10 The ui isogloss p. 144
Map 11 The ij isogloss p. 147

Charts and illustrations

The leesplank (reading board) p. 44

The vowels of Dutch p. 46-47
The tribal origins of the Dutch, Germans and English p. 86
The Boeckdrucker by J. & C. Luiken, 1694. p. 94
The Leeraar by J. & C. Luiken, 1694. p. 100
The Schoolmeester by J. & C. Luiken, 1694. p. 102
Germanic languages p. 118

Bruce Donaldson, Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium