language, society

The Curse of Dutch

Paradoxically, it’s the language partially shared between the Flemish and the Dutch that makes it so hard, if not impossible, for newcomers from the north to integrate in Flanders, as Dutch journalist Anouk van Kampen has experienced.

“Ah!”, I often hear. The exclamation will be accompanied by a twinkle in the eye and a cagey smile. I know what’s coming next. But I’m never entirely sure how to respond to the phrase that follows, somewhere halfway between statement and question: “You’re Dutch!?”

Yes, that’s correct. Well-spotted! You’re the first to notice. How perceptive. Was it the guttural G? The not-quite-rolling R?

I’ve lived in Belgium for nine years. From bar staff and business contacts to casual passers-by: the number of total strangers in Flanders who comment on my origins as soon as I utter a full sentence has remained stable at around one in two.

Equally stable are my efforts not to out myself as a Dutch national. My G has become less guttural, and I’ve included certain words and idioms in my lexicon while ditching others. Ever since a barman mocked my order of a ‘biertje’ I’ve started asking for a ‘pintje’, and I now pay by ‘kaart’ instead of ‘pin’. At meetings with strangers I think twice before asking questions, otherwise everyone there will know that I’m Dutch, the kind of person who insists on doing all the talking. And don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I practice at home to see whether I’ve already mastered the Flemish accent.

The answer to that question is a resounding no. However hard I try, when I say more than just ‘hallo’ or ‘merci’ it’s not exactly hard to tell that I hail from the Netherlands.

What’s the big deal, you ask?

The problem isn’t so much that I’ve had terrible experiences. Sadly, people from ethnic minorities are still encountering far worse than the clichés I’ve had to contend with over the years. (In a nutshell: the Dutch are direct, loud and penny-pinching.) Often, the unmasking is accompanied by praise for the Dutch, for the way they speak their mind and don’t beat about the bush. My shame is linked to another well-known migrant phenomenon: the identity crisis.

Whether you’re from a neighbouring country or from the other side of the world, a relocation is often coupled with, at the very least, a reassessment of your identity. Habits and behaviours that you always thought were perfectly normal aren’t necessarily so in the new place. An identity that perhaps you weren’t even aware of begins to take shape in this new environment. At the same time, you develop new routines and gradually lose parts of your old self. The writer of an article on the online platform Medium attests to just that: to the surprise of her family back home, she became both more direct and more impatient after moving to Germany.

A 2016 BBC article compiled experiences from expats about the impact of such a changing identity. They explain that while your stint elsewhere makes your ‘homeland’ feel increasingly foreign, to some degree, however small, you will always remain a stranger in the new place. A dual identity is born in which neither location feels entirely familiar. As one interviewee puts it: ‘The sense of never being at home anywhere is very real.’

Even though the Netherlands is very close to Flanders, it turns out that I can’t escape these kinds of feelings either. I never felt entirely Dutch in the Netherlands. I was born in France, raised bilingually, and I’m not tall, blonde or tight-fisted. And I’m sorry to disappoint those who think all Dutch people are direct: I’m a champion conflict avoider.

It wasn’t until I moved to Belgium that I became aware of my Dutchness. To my surprise, I began to long for peanut butter and Albert Heijn supermarkets, noticed that I’m quick to offer unsolicited opinions – trained by years of debating in school and at university – and was annoyed by shops closing at 6 instead of late in the evening. I welcomed the chance to talk to the odd compatriot about my cultural confusion, even though prior to my move, I’d sworn not to turn into ‘that person’. At the same time, I learned to listen before I speak and began to appreciate labour unions and strikes.

The longer I’m away, the less Dutch I feel. In the space of nine years, the Netherlands has come to feel less and less homelike. So, can my new home take its place? Surprisingly, it’s what I thought the Dutch and Flemish have in common that stops me from fully integrating here: the language. As long as I keep my mouth shut, I don’t stand out. The moment I open it, I no longer quite belong, reduced to a single word: Dutch. Long story short, a well-meaning ‘Ah!’ makes me fear that in twenty years’ time I’ll still be talking to total strangers about the mores of a country that I haven’t lived in for a quarter century.

At this stage, I could call on everybody to stop naming our differences and to focus on our similarities instead, to stop being so quick to reduce people to their accents and origins, however well-intentioned. But I’d like to propose a much simpler and quicker solution: the gradual but widespread introduction of English as our lingua franca. Step up the Anglicisation of the universities. Let those young people read their books in English – many of them already do so anyway. Take a cue from the Dutch, who answer the Flemish in English. No more talk of standard Dutch, relay languages and dialects: in twenty years, with a bit of luck, we’ll be talking to each other in Dunglish and Flenglish. Since those two are more or less the same, language will cease to be an obstacle to integration.