Dutch 

Introduction

Dutch belongs to the west Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by over 12 million people in the Netherlands (Holland) and in the northern half of Belgium (Flanders, including Belgium’s capital Brussels). It is also spoken in Aruba, Belgium, France, Germany, Indonesia, Antilles, and Suriname . The worldwide population of Dutch speakers is estimated to be around 17 million people (Ethnologue).

The word ‘Dutch’ comes from the old Germanic word theodisk that referred to the language spoken by the people as opposed to the official Latin. Theodisk became deutsch in modern German. In Dutch, theodisk became two different words: duits, meaning ‘German,’ and diets, meaning ‘ Dutch, ‘ a term no longer in use. Today, theodisk survives as tedesco, the Italian word for ‘German.’

Prior to Holland’s becoming an independent country in 1550, the English word Dutch was used to refer to any Germanic language. To this day, descendants of German settlers in southeastern Pennsylvania are known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.

Status

• Netherlands
  Dutch is one of the 14 official languages of the Netherlands. It is spoken by over 12.3 million people. Practically all inhabitants of the Netherlands, regardless of their first language, are also fluent in Dutch.
• Belgium
  Dutch is an official language of Belgium, along with French and German. It spoken by over 4.6 million people.
• France 
  Although there are 80,000 speakers of Dutch (called Vlaams, or Flemish) in the northeast corner of France, it has no official recognition.
• Aruba
  Dutch is the official language of Aruba where it is spoken by over 5,000 people, but its use is declining.
• Netherland Antilles
  Dutch is the official language of Aruba. It is spoken by 4,000 people but its use is declining.
• Suriname
  Dutch is the official language of Suriname where it is spoken by over 5,000 people.

Dialects

The variety of Dutch spoken in Belgium is known as Flemish. There is a dialect continuum between Dutch and Low German so that there is no clear boundary between the two languages. Some German dialects are closer to Dutch than they are to Standard German.
The dialect picture is somewhat complicated since Dutch is spoken in several countries.

• Netherlands
  Low German spoken in Groningen, Drenthe and Overijssel.
  Zuid-Gelders which is also spoken in the North Rhine-Westphalia area of Germany.
  Brabantian
  Linburgish
• Belgium
  West Flemish which is also spoken in part of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and in a small area near Dunkirk, France, on the Belgian border.
  East Flemish
  Brabantian
  Linburgish

Flemish dialects are characterized by a large number of French loanwords, e.g., the Flemish word for ‘fork’ is fourchette, instead of the Dutch vork.

Structure

Sound system
A distinguishing characteristic of the Dutch sound system is its large inventory of vowels and diphthongs.

Vowels
Dutch has 16 vowel phonemes: 5 of them are short, and 7 are long. In addition, Dutch has 3 diphthongs: / ɛi, øy, ɔu/.

In the table below, long vowels are marked by a colon after the vowel.

• Rounded vowels are pronounced with rounded and protruding lips.
• /i/ = beet
• /I/ = bit
• /e/ – bait
• /ɛ/ = bet
• /y, ʏ, ø/ are rounded front vowels with no equivalents in English.
• /ə/ = bud
• /a/ – bat
• /u/ = boot
• /o/ = boat
• /ɔ/ = bought
• /ɑ/ = pop

Consonants
Below are the consonant phonemes of Dutch. They are subject to dialect differences.

• /ʃ/ = sh in shop
• /ʒ/ = s in vision
• /x, ɣ/ have no equivalents in English.
• /ŋ/ = ng in song
• /r/ can be realized as a trilled alveolar /r/, a uvular fricative /ʁ/ or a uvular trill /ʀ/.
• /g, ʃ, ʒ/ occur primarily in borrowed words.
• /v, z, ɣ / are in the process of disappearing in some dialects.
• /ʀ/ appears only in some dialects; it is similar to French.
• /ʋ/ = closest equivalent is the first consonant in phew.
• voiced paired consonants become voiceless at the end of words, e.g., e.g., baard ’beard’ is pronounced as /baart/.

Stress
Stress in Dutch words usually falls on the first syllable but there are some exceptions.

Grammar
Dutch grammar is simpler than that of German because Dutch lost noun and adjective declensions, although it still retains some pronominal inflections, like English.

Nouns

• Dutch has two two genders – common and neuter.
• There are two numbers: singular and plural, e.g., de lamp - de lampen, de computer – de computers.
• There are two definite articles: de for common gender, e.g., de man ’the man,’ and het for neuter gender, e.g., het huis ‘the house.’
• There is one indefinite article een, e.g., een man ’a man,’ een huis ’a house.’
• Adjectives that modify common nouns take the ending -e, e.g., een goede man vs. een goed huis ’a good house.’
• Modifiers precede nouns, e.g., een goed huis ’a good house.’

Verbs

• There are two simple tenses: present and past, e.g., ik werk ’I work,’ and ik werkte ’I worked.’In the past tense, weak verbs add –te for singular and –ten for plural: ik werkte ’I worked,’ wij werkten ’we worked.’ Strong verbs use umlaut (similar to Engliish), e.g., slap ‘sleep,’ sliep ’slept,’geslapen ’slept.’
• Future is formed using the auxiliary verb zullen, e.g., ik zal slapen ‘I will sleep.’
• There are two aspects: perfective and imperfective. The perfective is formed with the auxiliary verb hebben, e.g., ik heb geslapen ‘I have slept,’ ik had geslapen ’I had slept.’
• There are three moods: indicative, imperative, conditional.
• There are three voices: active,middle, and passive

Click here for a Dutch verb conjugator.

Word order
Word order in Dutch is Subject-Verb-Object for main clauses, Subject-Object-Verb for subordinate clauses, and Verb-Subject-Object for interrogative sentences.

Vocabulary
The vocabulary of Dutch is Germanic in origin, hence it is quite similar to that of other Germanic languages. Like German, Dutch is known for making building long words from native components. The number of borrowings from English is quite large and growing.

Below are some common Dutch words and phrases.

The Dutch numerals 1-10 are listed below.

Writing

Dutch is written with the Latin alphabet consisting of 26 letters. The Dutch alphabet was standardized in 1863, and revised and simplified in 1947, with many attempts at reform before and after.

• Qq, Xx, Yy are used mostly in loanwords.
• Double vowels represent long vowels.
• The diaeresis is used to mark vowels that are pronounced separately.
• The acute accent occurs mainly in loanwords like café, but can also be used to differentiate words that are identical but for stress.
• g represents a velar fricative similar to ch in Loch.
• j = y in yet
• v = f in folk.
• w = v in vale.
• sch= sh in shop

Take a look at Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Dutch.

Did You Know?

Dutch words in English 
English has many words of Dutch origin, too many to list here. Among them are:

• Place names in New York City, such as Brooklyn (after the Dutch city Breukelen,) Harlem (from the name of a Dutch settlement in ManhattanNieuw Haarlem, after the Dutch city Haarlem), and Bowery (from bowerij “farm”); specifically the farm of Peter Stuyvesant, who bought most of the surrounding land in 1651. These names are reminders of the time when Manhattan was the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.
• Nautical terms, e.g., ahoy, buoy, dock, cruise, freight, skipper, sloop.
• Names of winter sports, e.g., skate, sled, sleigh.
• Names of foods, e.g., Edam, Gouda, and Limburger cheese; waffle, cruller, scone pastry.

Difficulty

Language Difficulty

How difficult is it to learn Dutch?
Dutch is considered to be a Category I language in terms of difficulty for speakers of English.