- the low countries

Our summer selection of Dutch-language poetry that has recently been translated into English.

If you really want to understand how the Dutch lived in the Golden Age, then you should learn to read 17th century Dutch.

Have you ever heard of “suburban Flemish” and “Polderdutch”? Editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere about the tension between dying dialects, weird "in-between-languages" and overpowering standard languages.

16th century humanist Jan van Gorp believed that Dutch was the only language that originated directly from the Proto-Human language and was still very similar to it.

The proximity, shared language and history make it easy for Dutch artists to find their way to Belgium.

There are well over 150 Dutch loanwords in common use in Japanese and many more words which owe their origin to Dutch.

Words become outlawed, and people with different opinions soon accuse the other party of engaging in ‘framing’. Are the language police just round the corner?

The Dutch in the East Indies inserted a lot of words of the languages they encountered into their own language.

The distorted image that many Dutch people have of the overseas territories during the colonial occupation is often based on movies.

Studying Dutch abroad signifies considerable economic and cultural added value. But are the Dutch and Flemish politicians truly aware of this untapped potential?

Travel diaries written by Dutch men and women born more than two centuries ago suggest that stress is not a recent phenomenon.

Flemish and Dutch people have a totally different relationship with their language. Editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere explains why.

For centuries, the Dutch language in Belgium had to pave the way for French. And yet, editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere, a Fleming, wouldn’t miss French for the world.

Discover the fascinating history and impact of the Dutch language all around the world.

We translated excerpts from 'Declaration of Love to the Dutch Language' in which Mira Feticu describes her struggle to learn Dutch.

Substantially declining student numbers, reduced social status, dropping budgets: Dutch studies is encountering heavy weather.

Linguist Fieke Van der Gucht attempts to disentangle the issue.

How can we make large, complex issues more manageable? Dutch artist Lieke van der Made discovered that by editing footage, her videos could achieve these ends.

Martin Michael Driessen has already had a successful theatre career as a director, actor and translator. Now, he establishes himself as an important figure in contemporary Dutch writing.

Remarkable conclusions from the very first global study of the preservation of Dutch language, culture and identity.

The anxieties around the status of the language we speak, find a precedent in the nineteenth-century Netherlands.

At the children's book fair in Bologna, the American publisher Arthur A. Levine and the Dutch Querido announced that they will work together in America under the name Levine Querido.

J. Slauerhoff’s romantic novel ‘Adrift in the Middle Kingdom’ is for the first time available to English-language readers.

Lovers of Frisian literature and translation gathered at University College London for an evening of Frisian culture around the great new bilingual anthology Swallows and Floating Horses.

Pinkster came across to the United States with the 17-th century Dutch settlers.

When it comes to solving the crisis of the neerlandistiek in the Netherlands, universities can learn a lot from their colleagues in the United States.

All over the country young people still study the Dutch language and Netherlandic culture at educational and cultural institutions.

Our best language stories of 2020, handpicked by the editor.

Our best language stories of 2021, handpicked by the editor.

Foreign publishers, foreign rights agents, cultural foundations, translators and a bit of luck. This is what you need to get your book translated.

Large-scale research shows that the Dutch are unanimous about what makes the Netherlands the Netherlands, despite sharp contradictions in the public debate.

Luc Devoldere states that we have no choice in Europe, but to become as multilingual as possible.

250 words have been discovered from Skepi, a Dutch-based creole language spoken in Guyana for three centuries. And that's a big deal.

Despite the English conquest of the northeast coast of North America in 1664, the Dutch language continued to thrive in New York and northern New Jersey for generations, persisting into the twentieth century in certain areas.

Between 1600 and 1900, Dutch was the dominant European language in Japan. A new book examines how this affected the local culture and society.

Why do we call the language we speak today 'Dutch'?

The English language knows 'they' for one person. But in Dutch a gender-neutral alternative to 'he' and 'she' is still a long way off. This may have to do with a grammatical rule that Dutch speakers consider important.

Luc Devoldere rejects the existence of a bond between language and ethnicity – or Blut und Boden. Instead, he suggests the term ‘territory’.

Linguist and Professor of Dutch Marc van Oostendorp debunks the consensus that Dutch would be a pluricentric language.

Henriette Louwerse, Director of Dutch Studies and Senior Lecturer in Dutch at the University of Sheffield, argues for an open and inclusive approach towards the Dutch language.

Editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere considers himself a language romanticist. 'A romanticist will consider language as the spine of one’s identity.'

Important to know