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Dutch language

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Languages

   Dutch
   Nederlands
   Pronunciation: IPA: ˈneːdərlɑnts
   Spoken in: Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname, Aruba, Netherlands Antilles,
   and other countries.
   Total speakers: 22 million (2005)
   Ranking: 37-48 (depending on counting method)
   Language family: Indo-European
     Germanic
      West Germanic
       Low Franconian
       Dutch
   Writing system: Latin alphabet ( Dutch variant)
   Official status
   Official language of: Aruba, Belgium, European Union, Netherlands,
   Netherlands Antilles, South American Community of Nations, Suriname
   Regulated by: Nederlandse Taalunie
   ( Dutch Language Union)
   Language codes
   ISO 639-1: nl
   ISO 639-2: dut (B)  nld (T)
   ISO/FDIS 639-3: nld

                Map of the main area in which Dutch is spoken


   Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA
   chart for English for an English-​based pronunciation key.

   Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by around 22
   million people, mainly in the Netherlands and Belgium.

History

   The history of the Dutch language begins around 450/500 AD, after Old
   Frankish, one of the many West Germanic tribal languages, was split by
   the Second Germanic consonant shift while at more or less the same time
   the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law led to the development of the direct
   ancestors of modern Low Saxon, Frisian and English.

   The northern dialects of Old Frankish generally did not participate in
   either of these two shifts, except for a small amount of phonetic
   changes, and are hence known now as Old Low Franconian; the "Low"
   refers to dialects not influenced by the consonant shift. The most
   south eastern dialects of the Franconian languages became part of High,
   specifically Upper, German even though a dialect continuum remained.
   The fact that Dutch did not undergo the sound changes may be the reason
   why some people say that Dutch is like a bridge between English and
   German. Within Old Low Franconian there were two subgroups: Old East
   Low Franconian and Old West Low Franconian, which is better known as
   Old Dutch. East Low Franconian was eventually absorbed by Dutch as it
   became the dominant form of Low Franconian, although it remains a
   noticeable subtrate within the southern Limburgish dialects of Dutch.
   Because the two groups were so similar it is often very hard to
   determine whether a text is Old Dutch or Old East Low Franconian, hence
   most linguists will generally use Old Dutch synonymously with Old Low
   Franconian and most of the time do not differentiate.

   Dutch, like most modern languages, is conventionally divided into three
   phases:
     * 450/500-1150 Old Dutch (First attested in the Salic Law)
     * 1150-1500 Middle Dutch (Also called " Diets" in popular use, though
       not by linguists)
     * 1500-Present Modern Dutch (Saw the creation of the Dutch standard
       language and includes contemporary Dutch)

   The transition between these languages was very gradual and one of the
   few moments linguists can detect somewhat of a revolution is when the
   Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. It
   should be noted that Standard Dutch is very similar to most Dutch
   dialects.

   To actually see the evolution of the Dutch language the following,
   originally Old Dutch, sentence has been translated into Middle and
   Modern Dutch.

          "Irlôsin sol an frithe sêla mîna fan thên thia ginâcont mi,
          wanda under managon he was mit mi." (Old Dutch)

          "Erlossen sal hi in vrede siele mine van dien die genaken mi,
          want onder menegen hi was met mi" (Middle Dutch)

   (Using same word order)

          "Verlossen zal hij in vrede ziel mijn van zij die genaken mij,
          want onder menigen hij was met mij" (Modern Dutch)

   (Using correct contemporary Dutch word order)

          "Hij zal mijn ziel verlossen in vrede (net als) zij die (mijn
          ziel) genaken, want onder menigen was hij met mij" (Modern
          Dutch)

          "He will relieve my soul in peace like he will relieve the souls
          of others who lived like me as He was amongst many times" (Loose
          English translation)

   A process of standardization started in the Middle ages, especially
   under the influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon (Brussels
   after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most
   influential around this time. The process of standardization became
   much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the
   urban dialect of Antwerp. In 1585 Antwerp fell to the Spanish army:
   many fled to the Northern Netherlands, especially the province of
   Holland, where they influenced the urban dialects of that province. In
   1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language,
   when the first major Dutch Bible translation was created that people
   from all over the United Provinces could understand. It used elements
   from various, even Low Saxon, dialects but was predominantly based on
   the urban dialects of Holland.

Etymology of the word "Dutch"

   The word Dutch comes from the proto-Germanic word *þeudisko-z, and
   became Duutsc in Middle Dutch, which later gave the two early modern
   Dutch forms, Duits in the north and Diets in the south. Duits has taken
   on the meaning of "German" and Diets meaning "Dutch" (along with
   "Nederlands") but no longer in general use (see the Diets article),
   dropped for its Nazi-era overtones. German Deutsch meaning "German" has
   the same origin.

   The English word Dutch has also changed with time. It was only around
   1550, with growing cultural and economical contacts and the rise of an
   independent country, that the modern meaning arose, i.e., 'designating
   the people of the Netherlands or their language'. Prior to this, the
   meaning was more general and could refer to any Germanic-speaking area
   or the languages there (including the current Germany, Austria, and
   Switzerland as well as the Netherlands). For example:
     * William Caxton (c. 1422–1491) wrote in his Prologue to his Aeneids
       in 1490 that an old English text was more like to Dutche than
       English. In his notes, Professor W.F. Bolton makes clear that this
       word means German in general rather than Dutch.

     * In four books containing the Chronography and History of the whole
       world, Vol. II (London, 1677: 154) contains "…the Dutch call
       Leibnitz," adding that Dutch is spoken in the parts of Hungary
       adjoining to Germany.

     * To this day, descendants of German settlers in southeastern
       Pennsylvania are known as the " Pennsylvania Dutch", especially
       those who are members of the plain sects. (Those who are not
       members of the plain sects often identify themselves as being
       Pennsylvania German).

Classification and related languages

   Dutch is a Germanic language, and within this family it is a West
   Germanic language. Since it did not experience the High German
   consonant shift (apart from þ→d), it is a Low Saxon-Low Franconian
   language (Low Germanic language), and it is most closely related to the
   Low Saxon variety of the West Germanic languages. There was in fact a
   dialect continuum which blurred any clear boundary between Dutch and
   Low Saxon, in some minute areas there are still tiny dialect continuums
   but they continue to go extinct.

   Dutch is grammatically similar to German, for example in syntax and
   verb morphology (for a comparison of verb morphology in English, Dutch
   and German, see Germanic weak verb and Germanic strong verb).

   Dutch has grammatical cases, but these are now mostly limited to
   pronouns and set phrases. Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine
   and neuter although masculine and feminine have merged to form the
   common gender (de), whilst the neuter (het) remains distinct as before.
   The inflectional grammar of Dutch, for instance in adjective and noun
   endings, has been simplified over time.
   English Frisian Dutch (High)German Remark
   eat
   cat
   town ite
   kat
   tún(1) eten
   kat
   tuin (1) essen
   Katze
   Zaun (2) English, Frisian and Dutch have kept Germanic t; German has
   shifted t to [s] or [ts]
   apple
   pipe
   thorpe appel
   piip
   terp (3) appel
   pijp
   dorp (4) Apfel
   Pfeife
   Dorf (4) English, Frisian and Dutch have kept Germanic p; German has
   shifted p to [f] or [pf]
   think
   through
   thorn tinke
   troch
   toarne denken
   door
   doorn denken
   durch
   Dorn English has kept Germanic þ; Frisian has shifted þ to [t], Dutch
   and German have shifted þ to [d]
   there
   brother dêr
   broer daar
   broeder, broer da
   Bruder English has kept Germanic ð; Frisian and Dutch shifted to ð to
   [d] or deleted it between vowels; German shifted ð to [d]
   yesterday
   yarn
   day juster
   jern
   dei gisteren
   garen
   dag gestern
   Garn
   Tag Dutch has shifted Germanic g to the velar fricatives [ɣ] and [x],
   but retained the spelling with <g> and thus at least a visual
   similarity to German; English and Frisian have shifted g to [j] before
   palatal vowels
   church
   make
   tsjerke
   meitsje kerk
   maken Kirche
   machen English and Frisian shifted k to [tʃ] before palatal vowels,
   Dutch retained Germanic k, German shifted k to [x] or [ç] when it was
   not in initial position

   Note semantic shifts: 1. 'garden'; 2. 'fence'; 3. 'hill' 4. 'village'

   Even when written Dutch looks similar to German, however, the
   pronunciation may be markedly different. This is true especially of the
   diphthongs and of the letter <g>, which is pronounced as a velar
   continuant similar to the <ch> in Swiss German. The rhotic
   pronunciation of <r> causes some English-speakers to believe Dutch
   sounds similar to a West Country accent; this is the reason for Bill
   Bryson's famous remark that when one hears Dutch one feels one ought to
   be able to understand it. Dutch pronunciation is, however, difficult to
   master for Anglophones, many of its diphthongs and gutturals being the
   greatest obstacles. Germans seem to have an advantage with the Dutch
   grammar, but suffer the same difficulties as the English when dealing
   with pronunciation. Dutch is generally not on the curriculum of German
   schools, except in some border cities, such as Aachen and Oldenburg.

Geographic distribution

   Dutch is spoken by practically all inhabitants of the Netherlands and
   Flanders, the northern half of Belgium where it is often referred to by
   the dialect name Vlaams (Flemish). It is also spoken in the bilingual
   region of Brussels, together with French and other languages. In the
   northernmost part of France, the Dunkirk arrondissement in the Nord
   département, Dutch is still spoken as a minority language, also often
   referred to by the dialect name Vlaams. On the Caribbean islands of
   Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles, Dutch is used but less so than
   Papiamento (Aruba, Curaçao, Bonaire) and English ( Sint Maarten, Sint
   Eustatius, Saba). Dutch is spoken as a mother tongue by about 60% of
   the population in Suriname, most of them being bilingual with Sranan
   Tongo and other ethnic languages (2005, Nederlandse Taalunie: , in
   Dutch). There are also some speakers of Dutch in Indonesia and in
   countries with a lot of Dutch migrants, such as Canada, Australia, New
   Zealand and the United States. In South Africa and Namibia a language
   closely related to Dutch, called Afrikaans is spoken.

Official status

   Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands, Belgium, Suriname,
   Aruba, and the Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese
   governments coordinate their language activities in the Nederlandse
   Taalunie (' Dutch Language Union'). Dutch was an official language in
   South Africa up until 1961, having fallen into disuse since Afrikaans
   became an official language in 1925. A noticeable minority of the
   inhabitants of New Zealand, 16,347 (0.4%) are sufficiently fluent in
   Dutch to carry on an everyday conversation.

   Standaardnederlands or Algemeen Nederlands ('Common Dutch', abbreviated
   to AN) is the standard language as taught in schools and used by
   authorities in the Netherlands, Flanders, Suriname, Aruba and the
   Netherlands Antilles. The Dutch Language Union defines what is AN and
   what is not, for example in terms of orthography. Since efforts to
   uplift people came to be considered rather presumptuous, as reflected
   by the evolution of the vocabulary heard on television, the earlier
   name Algemeen Beschaafd Nederlands ('Common Civilized Dutch') and its
   abbreviation ABN have been replaced with Algemeen Nederlands and thus
   AN.

Dialects

   The main Dutch dialectal groups.
   Enlarge
   The main Dutch dialectal groups.

   In Flanders, there are roughly four dialect groups: West Flemish, East
   Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish. Some of these dialects, especially
   West and East Flemish have incorporated some French loanwords in
   everyday language. An example is fourchette in various forms
   (originally a French word meaning fork), instead of vork. Brussels,
   especially, is heavily influenced by French because roughly 85% of the
   inhabitants of Brussels speak French. The Limburgish in Belgium is
   closely related to Dutch Limburgish. An oddity of West Flemings (and to
   a lesser extent, East Flemings) is that, when they speak AN, their
   pronunciation of the "soft g" sound (the voiced velar fricative) is
   almost identical to that of the "h" sound (the voiced glottal
   fricative), thus, the words held (hero) and geld (money) sound nearly
   the same, except that the latter word has a 'y' /j/ sound embedded into
   the "soft g". When they speak their local dialect, however, their "g"
   is almost the "h" of the Algemeen Nederlands, and they do not pronounce
   the "h". Some Flemish dialects are so distinct that they might be
   considered as separate language variants, although the strong
   significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the
   government from doing so. West Flemish in particular has sometimes been
   considered as such. Dialect borders of these dialects do not correspond
   to present political boundaries, but reflect older, medieval divisions.
   The Brabantian dialect group, for instance, also extends to much of the
   south of the Netherlands, and so does Limburgish. West-Flemish is also
   spoken in part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and even in a small
   part near Dunkirk, France, bordering on Belgium.

   The Netherlands also have different dialect regions. In the east there
   is an extensive Low Saxon dialect area: the provinces of Groningen (
   Gronings), Drenthe and Overijssel are almost exclusively Low Saxon.
   Zuid-Gelders is a dialect also spoken in the German land of North
   Rhine-Westphalia. Brabantian ( Noord-Brabant) fades into the dialects
   spoken in the adjoining provinces of Belgium. The same applies to
   Limburgish ( Limburg (Netherlands)), but this variant also has the
   status of official regional language in the Netherlands (but not in
   Belgium). It receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter
   for Regional or Minority Languages. Limburgish has been influenced by
   the Rhinelandic dialects like the Cologne dialect: Kölsch Platt, and
   has had a somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages.

   Zealandic of most of Zeeland is a transitional regional language
   between West Flemish and Hollandic, with the exception of the eastern
   part of Zealandic Flanders where East Flemish is spoken. In Holland
   proper, Hollandic is spoken, though the original forms of this dialect,
   heavily influenced by a Frisian substratum, are now relatively rare;
   the urban dialects of the Randstad, which are Hollandic dialects, do
   not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear
   difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam
   or Utrecht.

   In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are
   still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Limburgish and Low
   Saxon have been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the
   legal status of streektaal ( regional language) according to the
   European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, which causes some
   native speakers to consider them separate languages. Some dialects are
   unintelligible to some speakers of Standard Dutch.

   Dutch dialects are not spoken as often as they used to be. Nowadays in
   The Netherlands only older people speak these dialects in the smaller
   villages, with the exception of the Low Saxon and Limburgish
   streektalen, which are actively promoted by some provinces and still in
   common use. Most towns and cities stick to standard Dutch - although
   many cities have their own city dialect, which continues to prosper. In
   Belgium dialects are very much alive however; many senior citizens
   there are unable to speak standard Dutch. In both the Netherlands and
   Belgium, many larger cities also have several distinct smaller
   dialects.

   By many native speakers of Dutch, both in Belgium and the Netherlands,
   Afrikaans and Frisian are often assumed to be very deviant dialects of
   Dutch. In fact, they are two different languages, Afrikaans having
   evolved mainly from Dutch. There is no dialect continuum between the
   Frisian and adjoining Low Saxon. A Frisian standard language has been
   developed.

   Until the early 20th century, variants of Dutch were still spoken by
   some descendants of Dutch colonies in the United States. New Jersey in
   particular had an active Dutch community with a highly divergent
   dialect that was spoken as recently as the 1950s. See Jersey Dutch for
   more on this dialect.

Accents

   In addition to the many dialects of the Dutch language many provinces
   and larger cities have their own accents, which are usually accompanied
   by a particular dialect. Ethnic minority communities tend to have
   varying accents: for example many people from the Dutch Antilles or
   Suriname speak with a " Surinaams" accent, and the Dutch-Moroccan and
   Dutch-Turkish youth have also developed their own accents, which in
   some cases are enhanced by a debased Dutch slang with Arabic or Turkish
   words thrown in; a prominent feature of the latter two accents is the
   excessive use of the imperative.

Derived languages

   Afrikaans is derived from Dutch and is one of the 11 languages of South
   Africa and the mother tongue of about 15% of its population and spoken
   or understood by many more. Afrikaans originated from modern Dutch
   (1500 - present).

   Before the United Kingdom took control of South Africa from the
   Netherlands in 1814, the Afrikaans language (which wasn't called or
   considered Afrikaans at that time) was exposed to a steady stream of
   Dutch language influence, and the two languages were therefore almost
   identical. The differentiation and major changes from Dutch started
   when the Dutch settlers moved deep inland ( Trek Boers). In addition,
   when the UK seized South Africa, the Dutch language spoken in South
   Africa was practically cut off from other Dutch-speaking areas,
   allowing the language to differentiate and evolve further. In 1922 the
   Afrikaans language was recognized as one of South Africa's official
   languages, alongside Dutch and English. Dutch was formally derecognized
   in South Africa only in 1984 (since 1961 it had merited only a mention
   in the legislation). By that time however it had no longer been in
   everyday official use for a long time.

   The distinction of Afrikaans from the Dutch language was perhaps
   briefly in danger just after the Second World War when a great number
   of Dutch immigrants chose South Africa as their new homeland. However,
   the Afrikaans language survived the new influx of Dutch language which
   presented the danger of turning Afrikaans into a mixed language.
   Practically all of the Dutch immigrants and their descendants now speak
   Afrikaans instead of Dutch, be it (in the case of the Dutch-born
   parents) with a slight accent. A great deal of mutual intelligibility
   still exists.

   Someone who is able to speak Dutch usually can read and understand
   Afrikaans (especially when the native dialect is Hollandic, Zealandic,
   Flemish or Brabantic). There are also Dutch-based creole languages.

Names of the Dutch language

   Because of the turbulent history of both the Netherlands, Belgium as
   well as the Dutch language, the names that other peoples have chosen to
   use to refer to it vary more than for most other languages. Mostly the
   name is derived either from " Holland" an important historical
   province, or a translation of "Low Countries", but many other variants
   exist including those deriving from "Flanders", the ancient Germanic
   word for "the people" and ancient Germanic tribes living in the region
   of the Low Countries at the time of the Roman Empire.

Sounds

Vowels

   The vowel inventory of Dutch is large, with 14 simple vowels and four
   diphthongs. The vowels /eː/, /øː/, /oː/ are included on the diphthong
   chart because they are actually produced as narrow closing diphthongs
   in many dialects, but behave phonologically like the other simple
   vowels. [ɐ] (a near-open central vowel) is an allophone of unstressed
   /a/ and /ɑ/.

                                              IPA chart Dutch monophthongs
                                             Image:Dutch-monophthongs.png

                                                IPA chart Dutch diphthongs
                                               Image:Dutch-diphthongs.png

   CAPTION: Dutch Vowels with Example Words

   Symbol                  Example
    IPA      IPA     orthography English translation
   ɪ      bɪt        bit         'bit'
   i      bit        biet        'beetroot'
   ʏ      hʏt        hut         'cabin'
   y      fyt        fuut        'grebe'
   ɛ      bɛt        bed         'bed'
   eː     beːt       beet        'bite'
   ə      də         de          'the'
   øː     nøːs       neus        'nose'
   ɑ      bɑt        bad         'bath'
   aː     zaːt       zaad        'seed'
   ɔ      bɔt        bot         'bone'
   oː     boːt       boot        'boat'
   u      hut        hoed        'hat'
   ɛi     ɛi, ʋɛin   ei, wijn    'egg', 'wine'
   œy     œy         ui          'onion'
   ʌu     zʌut, fʌun zout, faun  'salt', 'faun'

Consonants

   CAPTION: IPA chart Dutch consonants

               Bilabial Labio-
                        dental Alveolar Post-
                                        alveolar Palatal Velar  Uvular Glottal
   Plosive     p b             t d                       k g^1         ʔ ^2
   Nasal       m               n                         ŋ
   Fricative            f v ^3 s z ^3   ʃ ʒ ^4           x ɣ ^3 ʁ ^5   ɦ
   Approximant          ʋ ^6                     j
   Lateral                     l

   Where symbols for consonants occur in pairs, the left represents the
   voiceless consonant and the right represents the voiced consonant.

   Notes:

   1) [g] is not a native phoneme of Dutch and only occurs in borrowed
   words, like goal.

   2) [ʔ] is not a separate phoneme in Dutch, but is inserted before
   vowel-initial syllables within words after /a/ and /ə/ and often also
   at the beginning of a word.

   3) In some dialects, notably that of Amsterdam, the voiced fricatives
   have almost completely merged with the voiceless ones, and [v] is
   usually realized as [f], [z] is usually realized as [s], and [ɣ] is
   usually realized as [x].

   4) [ʃ] and [ʒ] are not native phonemes of Dutch, and usually occur in
   borrowed words, like show and bagage (baggage). And even then they are
   usually realized as /s^j/ and /z^j/ respectively. However, /s/ + /j/
   phoneme sequences in Dutch are often realized as /s^j/, like in the
   word huisje (='little house'). In dialects that merge s and z [z^j]
   often is realized as [s^j].

   5) The realization of the /r/ phoneme varies considerably from dialect
   to dialect. In "standard" Dutch, /r/ is realized as [r]. In many
   dialects it is realized as the voiced uvular fricative [ʁ] or even as
   the uvular trill [ʀ].

   6) The realization of the /ʋ/ varies considerably from the Northern to
   the Southern and Belgium dialects of the Dutch language. In the South,
   including Belgium, it is sometimes realized as [w]. Some, mainly
   Hollandic, dialects nearly pronounce it like [v].

   CAPTION: Dutch Consonants with Example Words

   Symbol                Example
    IPA    IPA   orthography English translation
   p      pɛn    pen         'pen'
   b      bit    biet        'beetroot'
   t      tɑk    tak         'branch'
   d      dɑk    dak         'roof'
   k      kɑt    kat         'cat'
   g      gol    goal        'goal' (sports)
   m      mɛns   mens        'human being'
   n      nɛk    nek         'neck'
   ŋ      ɛŋ     eng         'scary'
   f      fits   fiets       'bicycle'
   v      ovən   oven        'oven'
   s      sɔk    sok         'sock'
   z      zep    zeep        'soap'
   ʃ      ʃɛf    chef        'boss, chief'
   ʒ      ʒyʁi   jury        'jury'
   x      ɑxt    acht        'eight'
   ɣ      ɣaːn   gaan        'to go'
   ʁ      ʁɑt    rat         'rat'
   ɦ      ɦut    hoed        'hat'
   ʋ      ʋɑŋ    wang        'cheek'
   j      jɑs    jas         'coat'
   l      lɑnt   land        'land / country'
   ʔ      bəʔamə beamen      'to confirm'

Phonology

   Dutch devoices all consonants at the ends of words (e.g. a final /d/
   becomes [t]; to become 'ents of worts'), which presents a problem for
   Dutch speakers when learning English. This is partly reflected in the
   spelling, the singular huis has the plural huizen (house(s)) and duif
   becomes duiven (dove). The other cases, viz. ‘p’/‘b’ and ‘d’/‘t’ are
   always written with the voiced consonant, although a devoiced one is
   actually pronounced, e.g. sg. baard (beard), pronounced as baart, has
   plural baarden and sg. rib (rib), pronounced as rip has plural ribben.

   Because of assimilation, often the initial consonant of the next word
   is also devoiced, e.g. het vee (the cattle) is /(h)ətfe/. This process
   of devoicing is taken to an extreme in some regions (Amsterdam,
   Friesland) with almost complete loss of /v/,/z/ and /ɣ/. Further south
   these phonemes are certainly present in the middle of a word. Compare
   e.g. logen and loochen /loɣən/ vs. /loxən/. In the South (i.e. Zeeland,
   Brabant and Limburg) and in Flanders the contrast is even greater
   because the g becomes a palatal. ('soft g').

   The final 'n' of the plural ending -en is often not pronounced (as in
   Afrikaans where it is also dropped in the written language), except in
   the North East (Low Saxon) and the South West (West Flemish) where the
   ending becomes a syllabic n sound.

   Dutch is a stress language, the stress position of words matters.
   Stress can occur on any syllable position in a word. There is a
   tendency for stress to be at the beginning of words. In composite
   words, secondary stress is often present. There are some cases where
   stress is the only difference between words. For example vóórkomen
   (occur) and voorkómen (prevent). Marking the stress in written Dutch is
   optional, never obligatory, but sometimes recommended.

   The syllable structure of Dutch is (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C)(C). Many words,
   like in English, begin with three consonants - e.g. straat (street).
   There are words that end in four consonants - e.g. herfst (autumn),
   ergst (worst), interessantst (most interesting), sterkst (strongest) -
   most of them being adjectives in the superlative form.

Historical sound changes

   Dutch (with the exception of the Limburg dialects) did not participate
   in the second Germanic (High German) Sound Shift - compare German
   machen /-x-/ Dutch maken, English make, German Pfanne /pf-/, Dutch pan,
   English pan, German zwei /ts-/, Dutch twee, English two.

   Dutch underwent a few changes of its own. For example, words in -old or
   -olt lost the l in favour of a diphthong as a result of vocalisation.
   Compare English old, German alt, Dutch oud.

   Germanic */uː/ turned into /y/ through palatalization, which sound in
   turn became a diphthong /œy/, spelt 〈ui〉. Long */iː/ also diphthongized
   to /ɛi/, spelt 〈ij〉.

   The phoneme /ɡ/ became a voiced velar fricative /ɣ/, or a voiced
   palatal fricative /ʝ/ (in the South: Flanders, Limburg).

Grammar

   Like all other continental West Germanic languages, Dutch has a word
   order that is markedly different from English, which presents a problem
   for some Anglophones learning Dutch. As an illustration, consider a
   subtitle from the Dutch release of ' Star Trek: Voyager' episode 7X17,
   "Workforce Part II": when Captain Kathryn Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew) warns
   her erstwhile romantic partner Jaffen ( James Read) not to get involved
   in a shipboard battle, he responds in English "I've been involved since
   the day I met you." The Dutch subtitle appropriately reads, "Ik doe al
   mee sinds ik je ken," which translates directly as "I do already with
   since I you know."

   The Dutch written grammar has simplified over the past 100 years: cases
   are now mainly used for the pronouns, such as ik (I), mij, me (me),
   mijn (my), wie (who), wiens (whose masculine singular), wier (whose,
   feminine or plural), although the latter is quite formal and rarely
   used in speech, comparable to English ‘whom’. Nouns and adjectives are
   not case inflected (except for the genitive of proper nouns (names):
   -'s or -'). In the spoken language cases and case inflections had
   already gradually disappeared from a much earlier date on (probably the
   15th century) as in many continental West Germanic dialects.

   Inflection of adjectives is a little more complicated: nothing with
   indefinite neuter nouns in singular and -e in all other cases:

          een mooi huis (a beautiful house)
          het mooie huis (the beautiful house)
          mooie huizen (beautiful houses)
          de mooie huizen (the beautiful houses)
          een mooie vrouw (a beautiful woman)

   More complex inflection is still found in certain lexicalized
   expressions like de heer des huizes (literally, the man of the house),
   etc. These are usually remnants of cases (in this instance, the
   genitive case which is still used in German, cf. Der Herr des Hauses)
   and other inflections no longer in general use today. In such
   lexicalized expressions remnants of strong and weak nouns can be found
   too, e.g. in het jaar des Heren (Anno Domini), where “-en” is actually
   the genitive ending of the weak noun. Also in this case, German retains
   this feature.

   Dutch nouns can take endings for size: -je for singular diminutive and
   -jes for plural diminutive. Between these suffixes and the radical can
   come extra letters depending on the ending of the word:

          boom (tree) - boompje
          ring (ring) - ringetje
          koning (king) - koninkje
          tien (ten) - tientje (a ten euro note)

   Like most Germanic languages, Dutch forms noun compounds, where the
   first noun modifies the category given by the second, for example:
   hondenhok (doghouse). Unlike English, where newer compounds or
   combinations of longer nouns are often written in open form with
   separating spaces, Dutch (like the other Germanic languages) either
   uses the closed form without spaces, for example: boomhuis (eng. tree
   house) or hyphenated: VVD-coryfee (outstanding member of the VVD, a
   political party). Like German, Dutch allows arbitrarily long compounds,
   but the longer they get, the less frequent they tend to be. The longest
   serious entry in the Van Dale dictionary is
   wapenstilstandsonderhandeling (ceasefire negotiation). Sometimes
   hottentottensoldatententententoonstellingsterreinen (hottentot soldiers
   tents exhibition terrains) is jocularly quoted as the longest Dutch
   word (note the four times consecutive ten), but outside this usage it
   actually never occurs. Notwithstanding official spelling rules, many
   Dutch people nowadays tend to write the parts of a compound separately,
   which is sometimes dubbed “the English disease”.

Vocabulary

   Like English, Dutch includes words of Greek and Latin origin. Its
   number of Romance-based loanwords is higher than in German, but much
   lower than in English. Especially on the streets and in many
   professions, there is a steady increase of English loanwords, rather
   often pronounced or applied in a different way. Except for the adverbs
   überhaupt and sowieso, the few German loanwords are relatively rarely
   used. The Dutch vocabulary is one of the richest in the world and
   comprises over 350,000 headwords.

Writing system

   Dutch is written using the Latin alphabet, (see Dutch alphabet). One of
   the clues to recognise that a piece of text is written in Dutch is the
   occurrence of many doubled letters. This happens both to vowels and
   consonants. One cause is the many compound words where the same letter
   ends one part and begins the next part. Another cause is formed by
   spelling devices used to distinguish the many more vowel sounds in the
   Dutch language, than there are vowel letters in the Latin alphabet (see
   Dutch orthography). A prime example is the word voorraaddoos (supply
   box).

   The diaeresis (called trema) is used to mark vowels that are pronounced
   separately. In the most recent spelling reform, a hyphen has replaced
   the diaeresis in compound words (i.e., if the vowels originate from
   separate words, not from prefixes or suffixes), e.g. zeeëend (seaduck)
   is now spelled zee-eend.

   The acute accent (accent aigu) occurs mainly on loanwords like café,
   but can also be used for emphasis or to differentiate between two
   forms. Its most common use is to differentiate between the indefinite
   article 'een' (a, an) and the numeral 'één' (one); also 'hé' (hey, also
   written 'hee'). The grave accent (accent grave) is used to clarify
   pronunciation ('hè' (what?, what the ...?, tag question 'eh?'), 'bèta')
   and in loanwords ('cassière' (cashier), 'après-ski'). In the recent
   spelling reform, the accent grave was dropped as stress sign on short
   vowels in favour of the accent aigu (e.g. 'wèl' was changed to 'wél').
   Other diacritical marks such as the circumflex only occur on a few
   words, most of them loanwords from French.

   The most important dictionary of the modern Dutch language is the Van
   Dale groot woordenboek der Nederlandse taal , more commonly referred to
   as the Dikke van Dale ("dik" is Dutch for "fat" or "thick"), or as
   linguists nicknamed it: De Vandaal (the vandal). However, it is dwarfed
   by the "Woordenboek der Nederlandsche taal", a scholarly endeavour that
   took 147 years from initial idea to first edition, resulting in over
   45,000 pages.

   The official spelling is given by the Wet schrijfwijze Nederlandsche
   taal (Law on the writing of the Dutch language; Belgium 1946,
   Netherlands 1947; based on a 1944 spelling revision; both amended in
   the 1990's after a 1995 spelling revision). The Woordenlijst
   Nederlandse taal, more commonly known as "het groene boekje" (i.e. "the
   little green book", because of its colour), is usually accepted as an
   informal explanation of the law. However, the official 2005 spelling
   revision, which reverted some of the 1995 changes and made new ones,
   has been welcomed with a distinct lack of enthusiasm in both the
   Netherlands and Belgium. As a result, the Genootschap Onze Taal
   (Society Our Language) decided to publish an alternative list, "het
   witte boekje" ("the little white book"), which tries to simplify some
   complicated rules and offers several possible spellings for many
   contested words. This alternative ortography is followed by a number of
   major Dutch media organisations but mostly ignored in Belgium.

Dutch as a foreign language

   The number of non-native speakers of Dutch who voluntarily learn the
   language is small. This is partly because Dutch is not geographically
   widespread and because in its home countries the Netherlands and
   Belgium most of its speakers are proficient in other European
   languages. In the Netherlands German is spoken with varying levels of
   proficiency (especially in the regions bordering Germany) and the
   language is part of the core curriculum in schools for 2-5 years. In
   Belgium, German is less widely spoken, and not always required, but it
   still spoken by a considerable number of people.

   French is also taught for 2-6 years in the Netherlands, but it is not
   as widely spoken. In Flanders (Belgium) French is required from age 10
   to 18 (from 8 to 18 for Dutch-language schools in bilingual Brussels)
   and is very widely spoken, not so strange when one considers that the
   southern half of Belgium is Francophone. But on the other hand,
   Francophone Belgians are far less proficient in Dutch; recently,
   Walloon schools were allowed to choose to teach English as first
   foreign language, instead of Dutch.

   In the Netherlands, English is taught in schools from a young age -
   occasionally from age 11 or 12, and in Flanders from the age of 13 or
   14, but typically until the completion of secondary education. Most
   universities in the two countries, recognizing the importance of the
   English language in the modern world, continue to teach the language to
   those students who need to improve their skills. As a result English is
   spoken throughout the Netherlands and Belgium with members of the
   younger generation sometimes being fluent or near fluent speakers. The
   majority of the population of both countries speaks some English.

   Some non-native residents of the Netherlands and of Belgium have never
   learnt to speak Dutch, probably because of a perception of its
   difficulties. In addition, native Dutch speakers themselves are often
   so linguistically proficient (or consider themselves to be so) that
   they will try to help a struggling Dutch learner by replying in his or
   her own (second) language – usually English, or in Belgium also French.

   The Dutch often make fun of their own language — for example Tom Meyer,
   a radio commentator, used to say on air that "Dutch isn't a language;
   it's a disease of the throat." Pronunciation can be a challenge as many
   of the Dutch vowel sounds are difficult for non native speakers.
   Diphthongs such as the "ui" sound in such words as "zuid" (south) or
   "huis" (house), the "eu" in "keuze" (choice) or "sleutel" (key), and
   the "ij" sound in words like "mijt" (mite) or "wijn" (wine) present
   difficulties and even though some of these words are superficially like
   their English equivalents the correct sound is very different.

   Its cohesiveness sometimes also produces words that might baffle
   speakers of other languages due to the high amount of consecutive
   consonants, such as the word "angstschreeuw"  (scream in fear), which
   has grand total of eight in a row (ngstschr). It has to be noted though
   that the pronunciation of a word can differ greatly from its written
   form. In this case, "angstschreeuw" actually features 6 consonants
   (ng-s-t-s-ch-r) originating from two distinct linked words ("angst" and
   "schreeuw"), which is reduced further in everyday pronunciation by
   blending consecutive consonants into one sound - e.g. "ch" and "r".

   Native speakers of German usually have the biggest advantage of all
   people when learning Dutch from a grammar and vocabulary point of view
   but almost always struggle with the pronunciation. However, those
   residents or visitors who do learn some Dutch will be rewarded, not
   only by the extra fillip this gives to their understanding of Dutch
   history and culture, but also because it will enable them to converse
   with people in areas away from the big cities where other languages are
   less commonly spoken and experience other Dutch culture.

Examples of Dutch

        Translation               Phrase                    IPA
   Dutch                 Nederlands                nedəɾlɑnts
   Hello                 Hoi / Hallo               ɦɔi / ɦɑlloː
   I am [...]            Ik ben [...]              ɪk bɛn [...]
   My name is [...]      Ik heet [...]             ɪk ɦeːt [...]
   Good morning          Goedemorgen               ɣudə mɔɾxən
   Good day              Goedendag                 ɣudədɑx
   Good evening          Goedeavond                ɣudə aːvɔnt
   Good night            Goedenacht                ɣudə nɑxt
   Good-bye              Dag / Tot ziens           dɑx / tɔt zins
   Please                Alstublieft               ɑlstyblift
   You are welcome       Graag gedaan              ɣɾaːx ɣədaːn
   Thank you             Dank u wel                dɑnk y ʋɛl
   That                  Dat                       dɑt
   How much?             Hoeveel?                  ɦuveːl
   Yes                   Ja / Jawel                jaː / jaːʋɛl
   No                    Nee / Neen                neː / neːn
   I want that, please   Doe dat maar, alstublieft du dɑt maːɾ ɑlstyblift
   Where is the toilet?  Waar is het toilet?       ʋaːɾ ɪs ɦət tʋɑlɛt
   Generic toast         Proost                    pɾoːst
   Do you speak English? Spreekt u Engels?         spɾeːkt y ɛŋəls?
   I don't understand    Ik begrijp het niet       ɪk bəxɾɛi̯p ɦət niːt
   I'm sorry             Het spijt me              ɦət spɛi̯t mə
   I don't know          Ik weet het niet          ɪk ʋeːt ɦət nit

Popular misconceptions about Dutch

The language of Flanders: "Dutch" or "Flemish"?

   Dutch is the language of government, education, and daily life in both
   The Netherlands and Flanders, the northern part of Belgium. There is no
   officially recognized language called Flemish, and, both the Dutch and
   Belgian governments adhere to the standard Dutch (Algemeen Nederlands)
   defined by the Taalunie (Language union).

   The actual differences between the spoken language of Dutch and Belgian
   speakers, are comparable to the differences between American and
   British English. Some of these differences are recognized by the
   Taalunie and major dictionaries as being interchangeably valid,
   although some dictionaries and grammars may mark them as being more
   prevalent in one region or the other. Note that unlike between American
   and British English, a boundary may be loosely implied to follow a
   different geographical line within the Dutch language area according
   the precise distinction of Flemish.

   The use of the word Flemish (Vlaams in Dutch) to describe the standard
   Dutch language including its variations prevalent in Flanders and used
   there, is fairly common in the Netherlands and Belgium. Flemish is also
   a collective term often used for the Dutch dialects spoken in Belgium.
   However, Flemish, in a linguistic context refers to a much more limited
   number of Dutch dialects.

   The adjective Flemish for anything connected to, originating in or
   describing Flanders, led to the use of the substantive referring to
   Dutch as used by its native speakers in Belgium, and this is the
   meaning given in most dictionaries, including the Dutch Van Dale
   dictionary.

Dutch is not a German dialect

   Dutch simply cannot be called a German dialect, on whatever level of
   analysis we choose to consider the matter. The Dutch standard language,
   by definition, cannot be a dialect of another standard language, in
   this case Standard German. The dialect group from which Dutch is
   largely derived, Low Franconian, belongs to the whole of continental
   West Germanic dialects. This whole is sometimes imprecisely indicated
   with the word "German", but it might as well be called "Dutch". Indeed
   the Low Franconian dialects and languages are morphologically closer to
   the original form of Western Germanic than the High German from which
   standard German is derived. No intrinsic quality of whole of the
   component dialects favours one standard over the other: both were
   rivals and historical contingency decided the range of their use. The
   state border does not reflect dialectal subdivisions. Only now that the
   dialect continuum of continental West Germanic has been broken by the
   19th century introduction of mass education, the respective ranges have
   been fixed; in the 18th century standard Dutch was still used as the
   normal written standard in the Lower Rhine, the county of Bentheim and
   East Frisia, now all part of Germany.

Dutch is not the most closely-related language to English

   Dutch does have a relatively close genetic relationship to the
   descendants of Middle English (such as Modern English and Scots), since
   both belong to the West Germanic language family and both lack most or
   all of the High German consonant shift that characterizes the
   descendants of Middle High German (such as Modern German and Yiddish).

   Frisian, however, is even more closely related to the Middle-English
   descendants than Dutch. Languages and dialects sharing some features
   found in English and Frisian are referred to as Anglo-Frisian languages
   or, sometimes, Ingvaeonic languages.

Pennsylvania Dutch is not a form of Dutch

   Pennsylvania Dutch, called Deitsch by its speakers, is not a form of
   Dutch. The word Dutch has historically been used for all speakers of
   continental West Germanic languages, including, the Dutch, Flemish,
   Austrians, Germans, and the German-speaking Swiss. It is cognate with
   Dutch archaism Diets (meaning "Dutch") and the German autodesignation
   deutsch. The use of the name Dutch exclusively for the language of
   Belgium, or for the inhabitants of the Netherlands or some of its
   former colonies, dates from the early 16th century. Pennsylvania Dutch
   is a West Central German variety.

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