Search results
Sort results
Select author
Refine search results
Select genre
Select tag
An Audible Accent When Speaking Dutch? It Doesn’t Matter
24 February 2023
Native speakers of Dutch should adopt a more tolerant and empathetic attitude towards non-native speakers and not judge a speaker by their accent, argues Christopher Joby, a Dutch Studies scholar from Norwich. Let people speak different varieties of Dutch. In the English-speaking world, this has lon
Dutch Was an International Language of Diplomacy and Trade
1 April 2022
Nowadays, international discussions are mainly held in English, but once upon a time, Dutch played an important role in trade talks and diplomatic relations. In 1856, Russia signed a treaty with Japan that was written in Dutch, Dutch served as a lingua franca around the Baltic Sea for a while and Du
Young Taiwanese Had to Learn Dutch at School in the Seventeenth Century
17 June 2020
The official language of Taiwan may be Mandarin Chinese, but you shouldn't be surprised if you still hear islanders say a few words that sound rather Dutch. In the seventeenth century parts of Formosa (present-day Taiwan) were occupied by the Dutch for decades, or more precisely, by the Dutch East I
Bīru and Kōhī Are Not the Only Japanese Words Dutch Speakers May Understand
22 April 2020
The Dutch language was for some time the lingua franca between Japanese and Europeans. Today, there are still well over 150 Dutch loanwords in common use in Japanese and many more words, such as the grammatical terms, which owe their origin to Dutch.
From Dwile to Forlorn Hope. This Is Why English Sometimes Sounds Like Dutch
20 February 2020
You may have thought that the first Dutch grammar was written in the Low Countries, but a grammar written in London in 1568 has a strong claim to this title. This is just one way in which Britain’s geographical closeness to the Low Countries means that it has played an important role in the histor
Wizo Flandrensis and the Flemish Settlers in Wales
11 July 2019
Given their geographical proximity, it is unsurprising that in the last thousand years there has been much migration from the Low Countries to the British Isles. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there were reports of people of Flemish heritage in Scotland, the north of England and Wales. It
Boers and Creoloid: The Legacy of Dutch Migration to South Africa
12 June 2019
It is well known that many South Africans can trace their roots back to the Low Countries and that the Afrikaans language is closely related to Dutch, but how is it that a land so far away and different in so many ways has such close links to the Low Countries?
Draining and Building: The Dutch in the Baltic Sea Region
23 May 2019
It is well known that at the end of the seventeenth century Peter the Great spent several years in Holland learning techniques such as shipbuilding in order to modernize the Russian Empire, but since the Middle Ages many people from the Low Countries have been going the other way, often settling in
The Call of the Orient: Dutch Migration to East Asia
6 May 2019
Through the ages, people have migrated from the Low Countries to all the corners of the globe. One area that has seen ongoing migration from this area since the turn of the seventeenth century is East Asia. The reasons for this are complex, but essentially they have to do with the struggle for the i
Canaries and Weavers: The Flemish Strangers in Norwich
29 April 2019
All over the world, migration stories have been featured prominently in the news in recent years. They often focus on negative aspects of migration, but in most cases there are both challenges and opportunities for migrants and the host country. In the coming weeks we will be bringing you stories ab
Code Switching in the Dutch East Indies
18 March 2019
When speakers of one language encounter those of another, they often insert words of the other language into their own. This is called code switching. This also was and is the case for Dutch speakers.
