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The Dutch Language in 2050? More Diverse Than Ever
20 September 2023
Will the Dutch language still exist in the future? Linguist Marten van der Meulen addresses this question, as we specified, in the book The Low Countries in 2050: A Past with a Future. His response, written as if it’s already 2050, is also available here. “Let’s discuss Dutch, considering its
Why We Will Never Agree About Dutch
21 March 2023
Dutch is a multicentric language, that is the consensus propagated by the Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) and others. We all speak Dutch, but some of us speak Belgian Dutch, others Netherlandic Dutch, and still others Surinamese Dutch. Linguist and Professor of Dutch Marc van Oostendorp exposes that
How Romanian Writer Mira Feticu Made Dutch Her Own
17 September 2021
It requires a great deal of courage and persistence to make a new language and culture your own. In her book Liefdesverklaring aan de Nederlandse taal (Declaration of Love to the Dutch Language) Mira Feticu describes this struggle – this process of falling over and getting back up again – with D
When Japan’s Elite Spoke Dutch
9 September 2021
From the middle of the seventeenth until the middle of the nineteenth century, the Dutch were the only Europeans allowed to trade with Japan. Since nearly all of the academic knowledge that reached Japan from the West arrived in written Dutch, the Dutch language became the language of science in Jap
In the Low Countries, Do People Speak Dutch, Flemish, or Hollandic?
25 February 2021
People in the Netherlands and Flanders speak one language: Dutch. But some speakers call it Flemish or Hollandic. In the past, the varieties were known as Southern and Northern Dutch. What is really going on? Linguist Fieke Van der Gucht attempts to disentangle the issue.
Gezellig! The Legacy of Dutch Around the Globe
9 February 2021
What is the origin of Dutch? Why does the language sound familiar on all continents? What do Yiddish, English and Russian have in common? What is the difference between Dutch spoken in Belgium and in the Netherlands? And why were cuddle-buddy and one-and-a-half-metre-society voted Dutch words of the
What if We Were to Speak Skepi Dutch?
17 November 2020
Researchers from universities in Krakow and Stockholm have discovered 250 new words of Skepi Dutch in a nineteenth-century missionary diary. And that's a big deal. This creole language, which is related to Dutch, is now extinct, but was once spoken in the Essequibo area of what is now the Republic o
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.
This is How the World Discovers Dutch Literature
11 February 2020
Every year, hundreds of Dutch books are published in translation all over the world. For example, how does a Flemish novel get translated into Tamil, the fifth language of India? This is the result of a collective effort of all those involved. The commitment of the Taalunie (Dutch Language Union) to
Why Language Is Always Linked to Territory
10 February 2020
I reject the existence of a bond between language and ethnicity – or Blut und Boden (‘blood and soil’), if you will. Instead, I would suggest the term ‘territory’.
