A Brief History of Speaking Dutch
Have you ever wondered why or how things are called what they are? Linguistics is a deep well of science and there's a lot to learn. The Dutch language has certainly come a long way.
Before the 9th century, much of Northern Europe spoke pretty much the same language, called Old Frankish. It was a mix of Germanic languages and Latin, since the Roman Empire still wielded great influence at the time. Incidentally, Old Frankish is also the basis for modern French. As time went on, regional dialects began to develop, and by the end of the 11th century Dutch was a distinct language with many slight differences. Obviously Dutch shared a lot in common with neighbouring languages like German, and these languages would have a huge influence on English as well.
During the Renaissance with the invention of the printing press, printers needed a standardized language, since they wanted to sell books to as many people as possible. When global trade took off many words from other countries like Portugal, Japan and Malaysia were absorbed into the Dutch language (kat, pinda, soja). In 1637, the Statenbijbel (State's Bible) was first published and became the standard for grammar and spelling, influencing Dutch for centuries.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the Dutch developed a strong national pride, and the uniform language became a symbol of cultural identity. With increased expansion, Dutch words also worked its way into colonies like Suriname, Indonesia and South Africa, which became Afrikaans.
From the 19th century onward, Dutch has become even more standardized, mainly due to media. It is spoken by over 23 million people worldwide.
Many Dutch words are a common thing in the English language, especially anything relating to maritime. For example, the word “skipper” comes from the Dutch “schipper” meaning ship’s captain. Dock comes from doc, freight from vracht, dollar from daalar. Other words used by merchants were sleigh from slee, brandy from brandewijn, meaning burnt wine and imported in huge quantities by Dutch traders.
The Dutch language continues to evolve, as do most languages, but it’s nice to know that a bit of our Dutch pride is used in English on a regular basis.
7 comments
You might say a few words about how French words crept into the language liike kado and trotoir and portemanee and odeklonje.
You might say a few words about how French words crept into the language liike kado and trotoir and portemanee and odeklonje.
A Dutch woman from Amsterdam once commented that Afrikaans resembles the original Dutch language, more so than modern Dutch.
I find this believable, as the Dutch language was ‘isolated’ on the southern tip of Africa as of 1652, when Dutch settlers established the trading post in the ‘Kaap de Goede Hoop’ and therefore could very well have preserved original linguistics.
(possibly much the same as with old French that was ‘preserved’ separately/removed from European French for a couple centuries in French-Canadian Quebec?)
While Afrikaans is derived from Dutch, to me it sounds more like Flemish.
Thankyou. That is very interesting and useful information. Danke well from Hamilton, Ontario.
Danke well
Very interesting; thank you.