Dutch language

“ The same may be said of the Dutch language, and it is to be hoped that the Dutch are used to it. They seem to get along with it passably well, at all events. But their ability to master the impossible does not alleviate our troubles in the least. ”

“ The Dutch language is spoken here, and it is so rare to find any one who understands English, that it is necessary to bring an interpreter as well as guide in visiting this secluded spot. The inhabitants look upon us as though we have dropped from the clouds, or sprung suddenly out of the earth. ”

“ It is now time to speak of the brilliant band of poets, dramatists and stylists, who cultivated the resources of their native tongue with such success as to make this great era truly the Golden Age of Dutch Literature properly so-called. The growth of a genuine national literature in the Netherlands, which had produced during the latter part of the 13th century a Maerlandt and a Melis Stoke, was for some considerable time checked and retarded by the influence of the Burgundian régime, where French, as the court language, was generally adopted by the upper classes. ”

“ A people like the Dutch, serious and taciturn, richer in hidden qualities than in brilliant showy ones—a people who are, if I may so express myself, self-contained rather than superficial, who do much and talk little, who do not pass for more than they are worth—may be studied without a knowledge of their language. On the other hand, the French language is generally known in Holland. ”

“ The Dutch themselves do not think their language harmonious, and will often ask a foreigner what he thinks of it, with an air expecting an unfavorable reply. And yet a book was once written to demonstrate that Adam and Eve spoke Dutch in the terrestrial paradise. But although they are so accomplished in other, tongues, the Hollanders hold fast to their own, and are very indignant when a stranger, as not unfrequently happens, betrays his belief that it is a German dialect. ”

“ Excepting Belgium (Flanders, Antwerp, Brabant) the Dutch language is heard outside Holland in Dutch East India and in the West Indies. In East India pure Dutch has been preserved, though some Javanese and Malay bastard words may have slipped in by the habit of speaking to the population in the Malay tongue or in the native idiom. Hence no Indo-Dutch was formed there. This is different in the West Indies, where a great number of negro words and English words as well as English syntactical constructions have slipped in. ”

“ As to the Dutch language, it will not entail any excessive hardship if it is equally banished as an official language, seeing that English is on the whole not more unfamiliar to the bulk of the Boer people than pure High Dutch is, and seeing that the dual right was accorded to Dutch as an official language under this almost inconceivable feature, that it admittedly had yet to be learnt to become of any practical use or utility other than as an instrument for keeping the races apart and to facilitate the Bond objects of usurpation and revolt. ”

“ Cultured people, like those who in Italy think it a necessity to know French, in Holland generally read English, German, and French with equal facility. The Dutch have an especial talent for learning languages, and an incredible courage in speaking them. We Italians before we attempt to speak a foreign language require to know enough about it to avoid making great mistakes; we blush when we do make them; we avoid the opportunities of speaking until we are sure of speaking well enough to be complimented, and in this way we continue to lengthen the period of our philological novitiate. ”

“ In this he was curiously aided by the school of ripe and enthusiastic scholars who began to flourish at Leiden, such as Drusius, Vossius and Hugo Grotius, who themselves wrote little in Dutch, but who chastened the style of the rising generation by insisting on a pure and liberal Latinity. Out of that generation arose the greatest names in the literature of Holland—Vondel, Hooft, Cats, Huygens—in whose hands the language, so long left barbarous and neglected, took at once its highest finish and melody. ”

“ They became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand, they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature, their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired. They are, in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and they have the good sense to be content with their condition. ”

“ A strict non-intercourse was observed with the captured city; not a boat ever crossed to it from Communipaw, and the English language was rigorously tabooed throughout the village and its dependencies. Every man was sworn to wear his hat, cut his coat, build his house, and harness his horses, exactly as his father had done before him; and to permit nothing but the Dutch language to be spoken in his household. ”

“ Saunders who the man was, and he told me he was a teacher, writing a mathematical text-book. Then I fully excused him. The work was accountable for the temper. For though mathematics may teach a man how to build a bridge, it is what the Scotch Universities call the humanities, that teach him to be civil and sweet-tempered.
In August I wrote to Holland for some directions about the Dutch forms of speech, for one of the Astor librarians who spoke the Dutch language, told me always to remember that the Dutch of the period I wish to write of, thought in Dutch, even if they spoke in English. ”

“ Influential men in the Government, with the Governor-General at their head, are strongly in favour of spreading the Dutch language among the natives, not only for enlightenment but as a means of bringing the Javanese nearer to the Hollanders ”

“ Of the white races in the Colony the French element has been completely absorbed in the Dutch. They and the German settlers are mainly pastoral people. The Dutch, who have retained in a debased form their own language, also engage largely in agriculture and viticulture. Of fine physique and hardy constitution, they are of strongly independent character; patriarchal in their family life; shrewd, slim and courageous; in religion Protestants of a somewhat austere type. Education is somewhat neglected by them, and the percentage of illiteracy among adults is high. ”

“ We had already heard from him a great deal [3] about William the Silent, and more than a great deal about Dutch art, but not a word about the Dutch language.
HUNTING IDIOMS IN THE DARK.
Our next-door neighbours, the “Professor” and the “Philosopher”—two students from the Cape who were working for their degree—were as interested as I was, in O’Neill’s Dutch, and they used to drop in to hear what was going on.
It was the third evening they had called; and as it was clear that Jack was somewhat reticent about his “linguistics”, we had to guide him gently to the subject. ”

“ U before a double consonant or before a consonant in monosyllables has about the same pronunciation as in English stuff, rug; so in kunnen, snurken, put. When used in open syllables it has the same sound as in French nature.
In the 16th and 17th centuries, Middle Dutch û passed over through oi into ui by the influence of the Holland dialect. In the Saxon districts û kept the old pronunciation, but only in the language of the peasants. The common language has everywhere ui, pronounced nearly as German eu, English oy; so in duizend, vuil, buigen, &c. ”

“ The inhabitants of each of these little islands speak a language peculiar to themselves, and it is an object of Dutch policy to prevent, as much as possible, their learning the language of each other. If they spoke a common language, they would learn, by a mutual intercourse with each other, to plant such things as would be of more value to themselves than their present produce, though of less advantage to the Dutch ”

“ The Dutch of Holland is as highly developed a language and as voluminous and capable of expressing the finest scintillations of thought as any in Europe. The vocabulary of the Taal has shrunk to a few hundred words, which have been shorn of almost all their inflections and have been otherwise clipped.... Of the commonest pronouns many are corrupted out of all resemblance to their originals. Of nouns and other words of Dutch extraction most are so clipped as to be scarcely recognizable. A few words are from Malay and other native sources ”

“ How this can be effected, unless they can click with their tongues without inspiring their breath, appears mysterious to a European: and yet I am told that many of the Dutch farmers understand and speak their language very fluently. Almost all the natives, however, speak Dutch, which they do without clicking their tongues, or any peculiarity whatever. ”

“ Foreign teachers are not very plentiful, as the diplomas are not easy to get, and a native, who has to relearn much of his own language from a Dutch point of view, has little or no advantage over a Dutchman in the examinations.
No sketch of Dutch schools would be complete without some reference to the way in which modern languages are studied, for this is the most striking feature in the national education, and is of great importance when we are considering the national life and character of Holland. ”

“ Their costume is light and costly, but they are very changeable and capricious, altering their fashions every year, both the men and the women. When they go away from home, riding or travelling, they always wear their best clothes, contrary to the habit of other nations. The English language is broken Dutch, mixed with French and British terms and words, but with a lighter pronunciation. They do not speak from the chest, like the Germans, but prattle only with the tongue. ”

“ In Limburg, the most southern province of the Netherlands, one finds a mixture of the German, Flemish, and Dutch types, and the language there is a dialect formed from all those three tongues, while in the most northern province, Groningen, the people speak a dialect resembling that spoken in Overyssel and Gelderland, and the Frisians, their neighbours, would feel themselves quite strangers in the last named provinces, and would not even be able to make themselves understood when speaking in their usual language. ”

“ For I was quite determined to stick by the principle I had learnt in the pen-shop, and use only one Dutch word for one word in English. But which one? The dictionary had a second part to it, Dutch into English. So I felt sure in my innocence that I could hunt down anything and get its exact signification.
I tried ‘boordje’.
It was a bad omen that ‘boordje’ didn’t figure in the Dutch-English part at all. Naturally a man reasons that if boordje really means a common thing like collar—an article of attire in daily use—it would surely be given a place in a Dutch-English lexicon. It wasn’t there ”

“ The language of the people is a dialect, spoken by the inhabitants of what is only a corner of Europe. But the Dutch are justly proud of their native poets, of Vondel and of Katz, for instance, from the former of whom, it is said, our Milton did not disdain to borrow, if we do not accept the alternative, that two persons of nearly the same age, not only thought alike, but expressed their thoughts in nearly the same words ”

“ A boy entering one of the higher schools at the age of twelve or thirteen generally has some knowledge of, at least, one foreign language, acquired either at an elementary school, or at home, and he is never shy of displaying that knowledge. If his parents are well off, he has probably learned to speak French or English in the nursery, and it sometimes happens that he even speaks Dutch with a French or an English accent, having been brought up on the foreign language and acquired his native longue later. ”

“ Thus, if Dutch should become a dead language, English and German would be separated by a wider gap.
Some languages which are spoken by millions, and spread over a wide area, will endure much longer than others which have never had a wide range, especially if the tendency to incessant change in one of these dominant tongues is arrested for a time by a standard literature. ”

“ There is no chance of practice unless you get away from everybody that speaks English. That was not too easy, I tell you. But Enderby helped me, and we searched about the Hague for two whole days. At last we found perfectly charming rooms opposite a canal; the landlady didn’t know a word of English. She knew Dutch, though, all right. Fluent, did you say? I should think she was. A perfect marvel. No need of the dictionary, you know.—Verbs all in their proper places—and plenty of them! ”

“ It shows what a literary people the Dutch are, that they are pleased beyond measure when a foreigner in conversation refers to any small technicality out of the grammar. Indeed so encouraged was I by all this enthusiasm that I boldly made use of my remaining words.
“Mynheer! wilt u mij toestaan U te vragen..... verkoopt gy snavels?” ”

“ Since that time the Frankish dialect came there, and the Celtic-speaking population of the south suffered its language to be entirely supplanted by that of the conquerors. Hence in the formerly Celtic-speaking parts of Brabant and Limburg we find but Frankish dialects, somewhat corresponding with those of part of Gelderland, Utrecht and Holland. The deviation that is perceptible concerns less the use of words than the way of laying the stress. ”