Find Your Valentine
Slog
News & ArtsThursday, August 6, 2009
Life What's the Deal with the Netherlands?
Posted by Gillian Anderson on Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between the Netherlands and Holland? And what is Dutch, exactly? Today's Garner's Usage Tip of the Day from Oxford University Press helps us figure it out:
Netherlands, the; Kingdom of the Netherlands; Holland; Dutch; The HagueThe European country is called "the Netherlands." The Netherlands together with two of its former Caribbean colonies — the now-independent countries of Aruba and Netherlands Antilles — make up the "Kingdom of the Netherlands."
Strictly speaking, "Holland" refers to two coastal provinces of the Netherlands (North Holland and South Holland), and not the country's ten other provinces. Still, "Holland" is commonly used to refer to the Netherlands as a whole. The people, language, and culture are called "Dutch." While the country's capital is Amsterdam, its government is located in The Hague.
The article "the" is not capitalized in "the Netherlands" (though it always is in "The Hague"). The country's name is plural in form but grammatically singular. This means that it takes a singular verb {the Netherlands is home to the International Court of Justice} but forms a plural possessive {the Netherlands' population is over 16 million}.
So now you know.
Sign up for Usage Tip of the Day here.
6
I always love watching the Olympics becasue all the Dutch athletes have "Ned" next to their name and flag on the screen.
9
Sort of like the English call Scotland and Wales "England", even though it bugs the shit out of the Scots and the Welsh? I wonder if the other provinces of the Netherlands find it comparably irritating.
And also? The Hague (cap T, cap H) but the Netherlands (lower t, cap N)? Why would the Dutch care? They don't speak fucking English.
Strictly speaking, "Holland" refers to two coastal provinces of the Netherlands (North Holland and South Holland), and not the country's ten other provinces. Still, "Holland" is commonly used to refer to the Netherlands as a whole.
Sort of like the English call Scotland and Wales "England", even though it bugs the shit out of the Scots and the Welsh? I wonder if the other provinces of the Netherlands find it comparably irritating.
And also? The Hague (cap T, cap H) but the Netherlands (lower t, cap N)? Why would the Dutch care? They don't speak fucking English.
10
In my experience it's mostly clueless Americans that refer to Scotland and Wales as part of England.
11
What does it mean for a national capital to be located somewhere other than where the government is? That does not make sense to me. I'm sure there's an explanation, but it does not make sense to me.
13
@11: It's probably like those countries that have more than one capital city, like Bolivia (La Paz and Sucre) and South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein), and many others.
14
@11: It's probably like those countries that have more than one capital city, like Bolivia (La Paz and Sucre) and South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town, and Bloemfontein), and many others.
15
And why do Americans usually say "Great Britain" instead of "the U.K." or just Britain? Great Britain is the geographic term for the mainland, not including Northern Ireland. Sounds odd to British ears. Is it ignorance, not wanting to offend Irish Republicans, a hangover from the language used in the Declaration of Independence, what?
Please publish another explanatory note on this topic!
Please publish another explanatory note on this topic!
17
judah,
the dutch speak better english than most of the english majors i know.
also, The Netherlands is almost as annoying as the Ukraine. it's just ukraine, snatches.
the dutch speak better english than most of the english majors i know.
also, The Netherlands is almost as annoying as the Ukraine. it's just ukraine, snatches.
18
I could be wrong, but the term Dutch probably came from Deutsch, German for German, and was in fact applied to Germans by Americans in the 19th century and earlier (cf. Pennsylvania Dutch, now known as Amish, who are actually descended from Germans). How it got transferred to natives of the Netherlands I don't know, but the Clueless American Who Can't Tell The Difference Theory probably has something to do with it.
19
@15: On a related note, when Americans use the term British they usually mean English. People from Wales are Welsh and people from Scotland are Scottish (at least to the educated, as opposed to those cretins who use the term Scotch. Scotch is an alcoholic beverage or the brand name of an adhesive tape, but a true Scot will wince at the term when used to apply to a native of his or her country). I could continue about inhabitants of the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands, but that would be a bit too much.
20
@13/14: Apparently it's in the Dutch constitution that Amsterdam is the capital, so it's an honorary title while the government is in The Hague. Not like S. Africa or Bolivia, in that regard.
21
@13/14: Apparently it's in the Dutch constitution that Amsterdam is the capital, so it's an honorary title while the government is in The Hague. Not like S. Africa or Bolivia, in that regard.
23
@18 Add that Danish and Dutch are not the same thing. Copenhagen and Amsterdam have bicycles, canals and accessible hash – or at least Copenhagen used to, but otherwise are fairly different.
24
@18 That's pretty close. The Dutch language is a fairly recent spinoff of Low German branch of the Western Germanic dialect continuum (from which English also springs; there's actually a lot of similarities between Old English and modern Dutch, even down to the way they conjugated their verbs — which aren't exactly the same, but if you're familiar with both languages the parallels stand out like a sore thumb). But the history of the Dutch language is even more nuanced than that; I won't even get into Vlaams and Brabants and Nedersaksisch.
@19 Close again; actually, when Americans use the term "British", they usually mean "people from the British Isles". When (ignorant) Americans use the term "English", they usually mean "British".
@19 Close again; actually, when Americans use the term "British", they usually mean "people from the British Isles". When (ignorant) Americans use the term "English", they usually mean "British".
25
Then there is the fact that the colors of the Dutch flag are red, white, and blue, yet in international competition (soccer, Olympics) their teams always wear orange. This is because orange is the color of the Dutch royal family - the current dynasty dates back to William of Orange in the 1500s.
26
The "the" in "the Hague" does not have to be capitalized any more than it does in "the Yukon" or "the Bronx." That's just a made-up silliness that no copy editor should pay the slightest attention to.
The Queen (Beatrix, House of Orange) lives in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam: this is why Amsterdam is the capital. The Estates General (parliament) sit in the Hague: this is why the Hague is the seat of government. It's only like a 45 minute drive on the A4 between the two cities, though, so it's not like it's that big a deal. It's faster than driving to Ballard from Madison Park...
The reason it's called "Dutch" instead of "Netherlandish" is complex. Basically, "Dutch" and "Deutsch" come from the same original term, but Germany didn't exist as an actual country until 1871--and at various times in its history what we call the Netherlands now was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the "German" Nation, etc. So the term "Dutch/Deutsch" just kind of meant "the Germanic-speaking peoples of continental Europe." Since England was close to what is now the Netherlands, the term "Dutch" came to be applied to the Netherlands in English.
Dutch is mutually intelligible with German dialects on the German side the border, so Dutch and German actually form a continuum of one language area. From village to village there are only a few differences at a time as you head from Amsterdam to Vienna, but obviously Viennese German and Amsterdammer Dutch are not at all mutually intelligible.
English would be more intelligible with Dutch and Frisian today if it hadn't been for the Danelaw, which turned English into a kind of Saxon/Danish hybrid, and the Norman conquest, which grafted a second layer of French vocabulary on top. Even so, English speakers are often surprised at how similar Dutch and especially Frisian are.
More...
The Queen (Beatrix, House of Orange) lives in the Royal Palace in Amsterdam: this is why Amsterdam is the capital. The Estates General (parliament) sit in the Hague: this is why the Hague is the seat of government. It's only like a 45 minute drive on the A4 between the two cities, though, so it's not like it's that big a deal. It's faster than driving to Ballard from Madison Park...
The reason it's called "Dutch" instead of "Netherlandish" is complex. Basically, "Dutch" and "Deutsch" come from the same original term, but Germany didn't exist as an actual country until 1871--and at various times in its history what we call the Netherlands now was part of the Holy Roman Empire of the "German" Nation, etc. So the term "Dutch/Deutsch" just kind of meant "the Germanic-speaking peoples of continental Europe." Since England was close to what is now the Netherlands, the term "Dutch" came to be applied to the Netherlands in English.
Dutch is mutually intelligible with German dialects on the German side the border, so Dutch and German actually form a continuum of one language area. From village to village there are only a few differences at a time as you head from Amsterdam to Vienna, but obviously Viennese German and Amsterdammer Dutch are not at all mutually intelligible.
English would be more intelligible with Dutch and Frisian today if it hadn't been for the Danelaw, which turned English into a kind of Saxon/Danish hybrid, and the Norman conquest, which grafted a second layer of French vocabulary on top. Even so, English speakers are often surprised at how similar Dutch and especially Frisian are.
27
To add to the madness, historically the Netherlands (or "Low Countries") also included Belgium. In the sixteenth century the Low Countries split politically between... (wait for it)... the Spanish Netherlands (Belgium) and the Dutch Netherlands.
29
The "The" in The Hague does have to be capitalized because it's part of the name. In Dutch it's Den Haag. Sounds somewhat similar to The Hague, so "The" is not an article, but part of the name. Hence capitalized.
Advertisement
Most Commented on Slog
-
SL Letter of the Day: Pill The Homos! by Dan Savage
-
Dear Huffington Post... by Dan Savage
-
Because Guns Make Us More Safer by Goldy
-
The Rick Santorum Rally in Tacoma Probably Could Have Gone Better by Paul Constant
-
Slog Bible Study: Deuteronomy 21:10-14 by Goldy
-
The AP Is Reporting That Whitney Houston Is Dead by Paul Constant
-
SL Letter of the Day: Daddy Loves Who? by Dan Savage
-
Because Guns Make Us Safer by Goldy
-
Gay Kids Are Still Killing Themselves by Dan Savage
-
Gregoire: "This is signed!" by Eli Sanders
RSS
Facebook
Twitter
Comments (29) RSS