Holland v The Netherlands

[Rynn]

15 minutes ago, Quasar.w said:

Dutch was a bit of brain gymnastics

When I first learned the English word it was brain gymnastics for me too. We don't call ourselves any variation of 'dutch' in our own language. In dutch I am 'nederlands' I speak 'nederlands' and I live in 'nederland'. The word 'dutch' only exists in english because the English couldn't tell us apart from the Germans, who do use 'deutsch' to describe themselves and their language.

 

Eg dutch pennsylvania is actually german.

[Forest Spirit]

6 minutes ago, Rynn said:

When I first learned the English word it was brain gymnastics for me too. We don't call ourselves any variation of 'dutch' in our own language. In dutch I am 'nederlands' I speak 'nederlands' and I live in 'nederland'. The word 'dutch' only exists in english because the English couldn't tell us apart from the Germans, who do use 'deutsch' to describe themselves and their language.

 

Eg dutch pennsylvania is actually german.

Ohhh... that makes sense. Dutch and Deutsch (the words) sound very similar, and think they're very similar as languages too. At least that's what I found when looking for similar languages to German. It's funny that they kept it then😅

[timewarp]

12 hours ago, De Mij'lory said:

We used to visit quite often when I was a kid so I learnt pretty early on the difference and it's stuck ever since. Holland for the entire country just seems wrong to me.

Oh, how very educated. When I was a kid we used to do day trips to "Holland" quite often and that was usually either Gelderland or Overijssel. I can only remember one trip we actually did to Holland. That was Amsterdam, back when the creepy blue- and red-light tourists were not there yet.

[Ortac]

Just to throw another angle at this, in French the Netherlands is called Les Pays-Bas, which literally translates into English as "the Low Countries". However the French name for the language that is spoken there is Néerlandais.

[LogicalStroopwafel]

11 hours ago, Ortac said:

Just to throw another angle at this, in French the Netherlands is called Les Pays-Bas, which literally translates into English as "the Low Countries". However the French name for the language that is spoken there is Néerlandais.

While “de lage landen” (the Low Countries) does not strictly refer to the Netherlands in Dutch (it tends to include parts of Belgium as well), “neder” does mean low, so les pays-bas is actually IMO a perfect way to refer to the Netherlands. It’s just translated instead of trying to mimic the sound

[Homer]

The Hollerlands

[ben8884]

I call it the Netherlands

[J. van Deijck]

I typically say the Netherdalnds, because if I say Holland, people think I said Poland

But from I have noticed, people around my area seem to prefer to say Holland anyway. In Poland, though, people typically say Holandia instead of Niderlandy and now it's apparently incorrect

[Siimo van der fietspad]

I call it The Netherlands, because I'm a Remoaner and the sticker on my Urban Arrow shows 'NL' not 'HO' (which would not be desirable)

[Pandark]

  

On 4/30/2021 at 3:01 PM, Acing It said:

But... that's the important part, isn't it?

The city folks in the west like to think that. During the war hordes of people went east and north for a few potatoes. In truth the rural folk manage fine on their own.

 

On 5/2/2021 at 3:48 AM, Rynn said:

The word 'dutch' only exists in english because the English couldn't tell us apart from the Germans, who do use 'deutsch' to describe themselves and their language.

Bah, weren't you taught the national anthem in school?

https://onzetaal.nl/taaladvies/ben-ik-van-dietsen-bloed

 

[Rynn]

10 minutes ago, Pandark said:

Bah, weren't you taught the national anthem in school?

Definitely was, was forced to sing it in front of class for a presentation too. Stupid nonsense. 

 

But yeah, the Dutch and the Germans were considered one and the same for a long time, and that's probably where the word Dutch originated. 

[Acing It]

2 hours ago, Rynn said:

Definitely was, was forced to sing it in front of class for a presentation too. Stupid nonsense. 

 

But yeah, the Dutch and the Germans were considered one and the same for a long time, and that's probably where the word Dutch originated. 

I know that the language spoken in the Netherlands (except Friesland) and Flanders was called 'Niederdeutsch' and I'm now wondering whether the term 'Hochdeutsch' (proper German as it's now called) stems from then.

[Acing It]

8 hours ago, Jelle van der Lee said:

because if I say Holland, people think I said Poland

Well, you shouldn't talk then while you're eating, should you 😄

[daveb]

4 hours ago, Rynn said:

But yeah, the Dutch and the Germans were considered one and the same for a long time, and that's probably where the word Dutch originated. 

Then there's the Pennsylvania Dutch, who are descendants of German immigrants, especially the many who came there from German states prior to the 1800s.

[Rynn]

@daveb Haha look at the first post on this page  

[daveb]

2 minutes ago, Rynn said:

@daveb Haha look at the first post on this page  

sorry

missed that

[Pandark]

13 hours ago, Acing It said:

I know that the language spoken in the Netherlands (except Friesland) and Flanders was called 'Niederdeutsch' and I'm now wondering whether the term 'Hochdeutsch' (proper German as it's now called) stems from then.

Similarly to Common Civilized Dutch, it's the result of standardizing the language and ensure people from different dialect districts can speak the same language. In the border regions many still speak the old Low Saxon dialects, which are also sometimes referred to as Platduuts (Low/Flat Dutch/German). Funny trivial fact: on the Dutch side of the border a German is called a Pruus, a term that stems from the Prussian era.

[Acing It]

6 hours ago, Pandark said:

Funny trivial fact: on the Dutch side of the border a German is called a Pruus, a term that stems from the Prussian era.

Interesting. I didn't know that! 🙂

6 hours ago, Pandark said:

Similarly to Common Civilized Dutch, it's the result of standardizing the language and ensure people from different dialect districts can speak the same language. In the border regions many still speak the old Low Saxon dialects, which are also sometimes referred to as Platduuts (Low/Flat Dutch/German).

Oh I'm aware of this. I meant the word itself; Hochdeutsch.

I think comparing words between languages is always interesting to determine influence as well. Swiss German has a strong influence from French for instance, for maybe obvious reasons; Velo instead of Fahrrad, Trottoir instead of Bürgersteig, merci instead of danke, etc... and some italian. Even in German there are some words similar to Dutch and English - examples aplenty. Others have acquired a negative connotation - wife, weib, wijf (?). and then there are monstrosities that drifted into English like furlough, which has German/Dutch roots - fur leib in old German and für liebe in modern German, which has been bastardised to some English word that looks like it belongs in the middle ages and that virtually no one had heard of before lockdown.

[timewarp]

21 hours ago, Acing It said:

I know that the language spoken in the Netherlands (except Friesland) and Flanders was called 'Niederdeutsch' and I'm now wondering whether the term 'Hochdeutsch' (proper German as it's now called) stems from then.

Nope nope nope. Low German ("Niederdeutsch" in German) is a language spoken in both Northern Germany and the Netherlands and it's also recognised as an official language in both Germany and the Netherlands. It's not the same as Dutch though - although Dutch is related to it. It's more like a collection of thousands of different dialects that are somewhere between German and Dutch. I grew up listening to it and still understand it (I'm guessing @Homer might too). Sadly I never learned to speak it properly.

[Acing It]

12 minutes ago, timewarp said:

Nope nope nope. Low German ("Niederdeutsch" in German) is a language spoken in both Northern Germany and the Netherlands and it's also recognised as an official language in both Germany and the Netherlands. It's not the same as Dutch though - although Dutch is related to it. It's more like a collection of thousands of different dialects that are somewhere between German and Dutch. I grew up listening to it and still understand it (I'm guessing @Homer might too). Sadly I never learned to speak it properly.

Interesting. Thanks for that! 🙂

[Snao Cone]

Low German is still spoken in some Mennonite communities here. 

[Acing It]

2 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

Low German is still spoken in some Mennonite communities here. 

I never even knew they existed either. I looked them up and they look very similar to the Amish.

[Snao Cone]

1 minute ago, Acing It said:

I never even knew they existed either. I looked them up and they look very similar to the Amish.

There used to be colonies like that, but (here in Manitoba, at least) they've mostly integrated, at least in comparison to the Amish and Hutterites. Most of them are a couple generations in on living here, and even before that many of them were a couple migrations out of Germany (living in Russia and South America before coming to Canada). But they were insular communities in most of those places, so the language was maintained. 

[Acing It]

10 minutes ago, Snao Cone said:

There used to be colonies like that, but (here in Manitoba, at least) they've mostly integrated, at least in comparison to the Amish and Hutterites. Most of them are a couple generations in on living here, and even before that many of them were a couple migrations out of Germany (living in Russia and South America before coming to Canada). But they were insular communities in most of those places, so the language was maintained. 

At the risk of drifting even further away from the subject of this thread, I find this fascinating for a number of reasons, not least of all as a live example of how powerful social influence (nurture if you like) can be in the face of a never ending, it seems, pull of 'modern society'. I do realise that the resistance to this is breaking down in quite a few of those societies, but still... It does give you pause for thought about more subtle influences on your own life I think.

[J. van Deijck]

23 hours ago, Acing It said:

Well, you shouldn't talk then while you're eating, should you 😄

Can't resist these poffertjes

[daveb]

4 hours ago, Acing It said:

virtually no one had heard of before lockdown

Really? I thought furlough was a rather well-known word in the US anyway.

[Acing It]

4 minutes ago, daveb said:

Really? I thought furlough was a rather well-known word in the US anyway.

When I was in the UK when the first lockdown and furlough-ing happened, people seemed to pretend they knew the word, but many clearly didn't and didn't know how to spell it either. You could even see the blank faces when it was mentioned to some and I bet quite a few went to look it up in a dictionary. Any UK natives want to chip in, in case it was just me noticing?

 

Edit: maybe you need to use it more often in the US?

[Acing It]

12 minutes ago, daveb said:

Really? I thought furlough was a rather well-known word in the US anyway.

I think here's some evidence to support this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furlough if you look at the dates and the mentions of furlough in the US versus in the UK. And in line with the thread, the Dutch link is mentioned as well 🙂

I wonder if it's a word that travelled from Germany/Holland oops! The Netherlands!! to the US and then to the UK/revived in the UK because of Corona, like so many Americanisms?

[daveb]

Might be interesting to see one of those word frequency graphs that shows usage over time (I've seen ones that also show UK vs US frequency over time, too), but I don't know how to find or create one for specific words.

[Acing It]

8 hours ago, daveb said:

Might be interesting to see one of those word frequency graphs that shows usage over time (I've seen ones that also show UK vs US frequency over time, too), but I don't know how to find or create one for specific words.

I found this, which frustratingly only runs to 2019:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=furlough&year_start=1800&year_end=2019&corpus=26&smoothing=3