{"id":6253,"date":"2019-09-23T12:18:35","date_gmt":"2019-09-23T12:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/?p=6253"},"modified":"2019-09-23T12:18:35","modified_gmt":"2019-09-23T12:18:35","slug":"why-are-the-dutch-called-dutch-when-they-shouldnt-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/why-are-the-dutch-called-dutch-when-they-shouldnt-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Are The Dutch Called Dutch When They Shouldn’t Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, you may or may not have been wondering about this, but I certainly have. As a Dutch-German, I’ve always been stumped by the confusing demonyms (“a name used for the people who live in a particular country, state, or other locality”, thanks dictionary.com<\/a>)\u00a0 used in English to refer to my two native countries. Why is it the country called “Netherlands” and its demonym is “Dutch”? It’s weird. Let’s figure out why.<\/p>\n

Last week I was wondering why there’s both “Holland” and “The Netherlands”. Read about that mystery here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

From Diets\u00a0<\/em>to Nederlands<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Is this Diets<\/em>, Duits<\/em>, deutsch<\/em>, or Dutch? (Image by Jacques Kleisterlee at Unsplash.com)<\/p><\/div>\n

So, here’s the confusion.<\/p>\n

Dutch means “pertaining to the Netherlands”, whereas German means “pertaining to Germany”. However,\u00a0Germans refer to their own stuff as\u00a0deutsch<\/em>, which sounds like this (compared to the English word “Dutch”):<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2019\/09\/deutsch-Dutch.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

And the people from the Netherlands call their stuff\u00a0Nederlands,\u00a0<\/em>which sounds like this:<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/dutch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/11\/2019\/09\/nederlands.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

And while other languages found a way to refer to stuff from the Netherlands as something recognizably “Netherlandish” (n\u00e9erlandais\u00a0<\/em>in French,\u00a0neerlandese\u00a0<\/em>in Italian,\u00a0neerland\u00e9s\u00a0<\/em>in Spanish), or at least “Hollandish”, referring to the pars pro toto “Holland” for the entire country<\/a>, the English went with… Dutch. How did this happen?<\/p>\n

Well, it is all about time and place.<\/p>\n

Most likely in the l<\/em>ate<\/em>\u00a0Middeleeuwen <\/em>(late Middle Ages), the Dutch referred to their own language as\u00a0Duitsch\/<\/em>Dietsch\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Nederduitsch\/Nederdietsch <\/em>(“Lower Dutch”). This means “of the people”, or “people’s language” in a broader sense. The language at the time, Middelnederlands <\/em>(Middle Dutch), did not make reference to\u00a0Nederlandsch\u00a0<\/em>or anything the like at all.<\/p>\n

But then, when\u00a0Vroegnieuwnederlands\u00a0<\/em>(Early New Dutch) came about in the 16th century, things got weird.\u00a0Duitsch\/Dietsch\u00a0<\/em>became\u00a0Duits\/Diets<\/em>. However,\u00a0Duits\u00a0<\/em>also became the term used to refer to\u00a0deutsch<\/em>, the language of the Germans. So Duits <\/em>refers to both deutsch <\/em>AND N<\/em>ederlands<\/em>! This is also when the English derived their demonym.<\/p>\n

Crazy enough,\u00a0Duits\u00a0<\/em>kept this double meaning well into the 19th century in the Dutch language. Things were cleared up. Kind of. Duits\u00a0<\/em>would from now on only refer to the German language\u00a0deutsch<\/em>.\u00a0Diets\u00a0<\/em>would still refer to the Dutch language Nederlands <\/em>in an elevated way. Still too similar to be confusing! Thankfully, the term Nederlandsch\u00a0<\/em>started being used in the 16th century already.<\/p>\n

These days,\u00a0diets\u00a0<\/em>no longer exists as a term.\u00a0Duits\u00a0<\/em>simply means German, and\u00a0Nederlands\u00a0<\/em>is Dutch. We made sense of it in the Netherlands, yet in English, the term “Dutch” stuck.<\/p>\n

So, I guess it is our own fault when Peter from Baarle-Nassau<\/a> is scrambling to explain to Mike from Atlanta that he is not\u00a0deutsch\u00a0<\/em>but Dutch! Though Mike “from America” might also have some explaining to do…<\/p>\n

Because of the confusion that can occur,\u00a0taalkundigen\u00a0<\/em>(linguists) refer to Dutch as “Netherlandic”. In fact, the United States even has an American Association for Netherlandic Studies (AANS)<\/a>! We could argue, then, that perhaps the Dutch should be called Netherlanders with their Netherlandic\u00a0molens\u00a0<\/em>(mills) and grachten <\/em>(canals)!<\/p>\n

Do you know of another place with a confusing demonym? Let me know in the comments below!<\/strong><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

So, you may or may not have been wondering about this, but I certainly have. As a Dutch-German, I’ve always been stumped by the confusing demonyms (“a name used for the people who live in a particular country, state, or other locality”, thanks dictionary.com)\u00a0 used in English to refer to my two native countries. Why…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":6280,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[60713,3590,27711],"tags":[506092,65,8,10149],"class_list":["post-6253","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture-2","category-dutch-language","category-dutch-vocabulary-2","tag-dutch-terms","tag-etymology","tag-language","tag-netherlands"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t