Genealogical Classification
Indo-European / Germanic / West Germanic / Low German / Low Frankish
Area
Standard Dutch is used and taught as the common language in the Netherlands and Flanders (i.e., the Dutch-speaking area of Belgium). In total, Dutch is the language of more than 21 million Europeans and as such ranks thirtieth among thousands of languages spoken in the world.
The Dutch-speaking area has no clearly defined boundaries. Going from southwest to northeast, it comprises French Flanders, the Belgian language boundary, Brussels and the national boundary of Germany.
Status and education
Dutch enjoys official status everywhere in the Netherlands and is taught throughout the country. In Belgium, Dutch enjoys official status throughout Flanders (Northern Belgium). The language boundary in Belgium was determined in 1963. Dutch-speaking minorities resident in the French-speaking south received certain concessions, namely permission to use Dutch when communicating with official administrations. Such concessions apply conversely to French-speakers in the north. Brussels, the capital of Belgium and historically a Flemish-Brabantish city, is officially bilingual: French and Dutch. Most indigenous inhabitants of Brussels now speak French, their forebears having chosen French as their first language at a certain point in time. People who moved to Brussels more recently are predominantly French speakers. There is a tendency toward being able to speak both languages (which is important in competing for prime jobs).
More than 50% of all students in Wallonia (the Romance-speaking parts of Belgium) choose Dutch as their second language. Since 1955, Dutch has been taught in the German states of North-Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. The areas of Emden and Bentheim as well as the Lower Rhine region used to belong to the Netherlands.
Dutch is recognized as an elective school subject in Northern France. There are both official and unofficial courses.
History
Following the decline of Roman rule, the Netherlands were inhabited by Franks, Saxons, Frisians and Angles. It was primarily the Franks that would usurp power over the region in the middle ages. Modern Dutch thus developed from a mixture of dialects with Frankish as the foundation.
The ten oldest known words in Old Dutch are
wad ‘tide flats’ (year: 107)
twee ‘two’ (year: 222)
trecht ‘ford’ (year: 300)
vlies ‘fleece’ (year: 639)
zaal ‘hall’ (year: 639)
donk ‘marshland knoll’ (year: 694)
ham ‘ham’ (year: 694)
midden ‘middle’ (year: 694)
mond ‘mouth’ (year: 698)
ruim ‘hold (of a ship)’, ‘church nave’ (698).
The earliest period of written Dutch began sometime in the eighth century, and this Old Dutch period ended abound the year 1200.
There is a good deal more extant literature composed in Middle Dutch (1200–1500).
Modern Dutch would ultimately come to be responsible for the development of a written standard language. This came about with the transfer of the linguistic, economic and cultural center from the Southern Netherlands to the Northern Netherlands. Religious squabbles led to the Netherlands being partitioned. Many southerners fled north (or to other, safer parts of Europe).
In 1637, the State Bible was published in Leiden. The language used in it was a deliberately chosen compromise between various dialects. The bible was meant to serve as a lasting model for correct Dutch.
In 1794, France invaded the Netherlands. The administration in the Southern Netherlands came to be Gallicized and francophone. The north continued to use Dutch.
After Napoleon’s defeat (Waterloo, 1815), north and south were reunited after a partition that lasted a century.
Dutch became the national language everywhere. The French-speaking citizens of the south felt severely disadvantaged and would finally revolt. This led to the south breaking away and becoming “Belgium,” which has been turning more and more francophone.
The birth and growth of the “Flemish Movement” (Vlaamse Beweging) in the 19th and 20th centuries saw to it that Flemish (Dutch) regained official status in the north of Belgium. In 1898, Dutch became a national language besides French thanks to equal rights legislation. The boundary between the languages was determined in 1963.
In the meantime, beginning already prior to the Belgian revolution of 1830, discussions had been underway between Dutch and Flemish scholars about a general Dutch language. They met regularly. Their final job was of gigantic proportions: the production of the Woordenboek der Nederlandse taal (Dictionary of the Dutch Language). Its first volume (A – ajuin) was published in 1864, and the last volume as late as at the end of the 20th century! In fact, it is the world’s largest and most widely distributed dictionary and is available on CD-Rom as well.
The concord of the Dutch Language Alliance (Nederlandse Taalunie) on September 9, 1980, officially established the shared language of the Dutch and the Flemings.
Literature
Nederlands, het verhaal van een taal (Omer Vandeputte) Ons Erfdeel 1989
Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse taal (M.C.van der Toorn) A.U.P. 1997
Chronologisch woordenboek (Nicoline van der Sijs) Veen Amsterdam 2001
Samples
click here for language
samples
Author: Luc Vanbrabant, 2002
Translator: Reinhard F. Hahn, 2002
Further information: http://www.lowlands-l.net (Click on “Resources” and on “Links” or “Offline Material”.)
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