INTRODUCTION

Dutch, as its English name suggests, originated as a variety of German. The affinity between the languages is still apparent today, both on a syntactic and a lexical level. One of the most distinctive characteristics is the word order, where German and Dutch are similar in that subordinate clauses have the order SOV (subject-object-verb), contrasting with English and the Scandinavian languages.

It is quite impossible to give the exact date when Dutch came to be regarded as a separate, independent language. Dutch was first standardised in the 16th century. However, undoubtedly, the language existed before that date. The designation of Dutch in the language itself is ‘Nederlands.’ Nowadays, Dutch is used by around 21 million people as the language of government, administration, education and culture. The language is mainly spoken in the Netherlands (15 million speakers) and the northern part of Belgium, Flanders (6 million speakers). In the Netherlands Dutch is the only official language, except for Friesland, the north-eastern province, where Frisian is recognised as an official language alongside Dutch. In Belgium, Dutch is an official language along with French, which is spoken in the south, and German, spoken by a minority in the east of the country.

HISTORY OF DUTCH

About 1100 AD a Flemish monk wrote a love poem in a book to test his new writing materials. It is the oldest known sample of writing in the language of the region -- we might say, the oldest sample of Dutch -- though of course a spoken form of the language existed long before that (since the region has been occupied by Germanic-speaking peoples for much longer). However, it is hard to say exactly when Dutch became a separate language, independent from German. Moreover, it is difficult to say from precisely which moment onwards Dutch should really be called ‘Dutch.’ Languages evolve and change constantly. The Dutch spoken by the Flemish monk in the twelfth century is miles away from the Dutch spoken today.

From 1500 onwards, for economical, political and religious reasons, people tried to suppress the regional peculiarities of their dialects in writing, and a common Dutch language began to grow. In the second half of the 16th century the first attempts at a fixed Dutch spelling were made. Since then, there have been quite a few spelling reforms in the Dutch language. The latest one was carried out in 1994. Until the 18th century the unity of the Dutch language was solely determined by the written standard. Gradually, however, a more independent standard spoken language developed. First in the province of Holland, then elsewhere in the Netherlands and still later in Flanders. The standard language was based on the respectable language that was spoken in the Randstad (the Amsterdam-Rotterdam region). In the middle of the 20th century the ‘standard’ language was still very much affected by bourgeois notions of stylistic elegance. A democratisation of Dutch has been stimulated by the egalitarian ideals of the sixties, which have resulted in a growing tolerance of what is correct Dutch.

The number of varieties of Dutch that exist in the small region where the language is spoken is remarkable. Today, the tendency seems to be to speak a mixture of the standard language and one’s dialect. However, although norms of correctness have become looser, people still expect a common Dutch norm. It is this norm that tends to be spoken on the Dutch and Flemish national television channels. However, deviations from the standard language are becoming a reality, even on television. Due to the liberalisation of language standards and the political situation in Flanders, many Flemish wished to have a language regimen after the French model to prescribe what is correct language use. In 1980 the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie) was founded. It is an intergovernmental organisation of the Netherlands and Flanders, which looks after and promotes the Dutch language and literature, inside and outside the Dutch language region. It co-ordinates policies regarding Dutch spelling, grammar, terminology, the teaching of Dutch as a foreign language, and Dutch literature.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE DUTCH SPOKEN IN THE NETHERLANDS AND FLANDERS

Officially, the Standard Language of the Netherlands and Flanders is the same one, Nederlands. In actual practice, however, there are some phonological, lexical and even grammatical differences between the languages, due to historical events. From the middle of the 16th century until 1815 the Northern and Southern Netherlands led separate existences. After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, it was decided that the Northern and the Southern Netherlands would be made into one state to act as a buffer against France. The king of the United Netherlands, Willem I, excessively promoted the Dutch language in the Southern Netherlands. However, 15 years later, in 1830, the Brabant Revolution made Belgium, for the first time in history, an independent country. At first, Belgium was a French-speaking state, due to the fact that the country’s upper classes spoke French. This led to the protest of the Flemish nationalists who wanted Dutch to be recognised as an official language of Belgium. It was not until 1898 that Dutch was accepted as an official language along with French. Even though today Dutch is officially spoken in the Netherlands and Flanders, minor linguistic differences between the regions remain.

FOREIGN INFLUENCES ON DUTCH

Since the Low Countries have been subjected to different occupiers throughout history and due to their geographically and economically central position in Europe, Dutch has been influenced by different languages. Naturally, there is quite a bit of Latin and Greek influence. The French influence started around the 12th century. The German influence on the Dutch vocabulary started in the 16th century. There are also a smaller number of words that have Spanish, Arabic or Italian origins as a result of political, economical and cultural relations. The Dutch spoken in the Netherlands also has a number of Indonesian and Surinam loan words. The English impact is the most recent one. Words such as ‘computer‚’ ‘caravan‚’ and ‘dashboard’ have been adopted into the language in the second half of the 20th century. In some fields, Dutch has resisted foreign influence. Geometric terms such as ‘triangle’ and grammatical terms such as ‘object’ have Dutch equivalents: ‘driehoek’ and ‘lijdend voorwerp.’

GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION OF DUTCH

Dutch may be known primarily as being the language spoken in the Netherlands and Flanders, but its distribution is not limited to those two regions. Due to colonisation and historical border shifts Dutch is still spoken today outside those borders. The north of France used to be part of the Low Countries and today some older people in French Flanders still speak a Dutch dialect. Dutch is also still one of the official languages of the Netherlands’ former colonies: Surinam and the Netherlands Antilles. Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands in 1945, but Dutch is still spoken by some of the country’s older inhabitants. In South Africa, Dutch was an official language until the end of the 18th century. Today, one of South-Africa’s official languages, Afrikaans, is very similar to the Dutch language. This is due to the fact that the Dutch East India Company settled in southern Africa in the middle of the 17th century. Afrikaans in now regarded as an independent Germanic language and a sister language of Dutch.

In many languages, a few Dutch loan words can be found. These words, however, mainly include maritime terminology.