The Low Countries. Jaargang 9
(2001)– [tijdschrift] The Low Countries[p. 231] | |
Vigour and Flexibility
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New instrumentsAfter a century and a half of diligent labour, the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal, a historical dictionary of the Dutch language and the largest dictionary in the world, was finally completed in 1998. This massive work, inspired by Grimm and Murray, is made up of forty solid volumes, together taking up three metres of shelf space and containing more than 88,000 columns spread over more than 44,000 pages. When the initiator of the project and one of its two original editors, Mathias de Vries, died in 1892 the dictionary had reached only the second letter of the alphabet, and De Vries' co-editor, Allard te Winkel, had not seen a single volume published at the time of his death in 1868. Compiling a dictionary is no sinecure, especially where subsidies are meagre and the scale of the enterprise is greatly underestimated in the preparation phase. And that is precisely what De Vries did midway through the nineteenth century. It was not until 1969, when the dictionary was taken under the wing of the Belgo-Dutch Institute for Dutch Lexicology (Instituut voor Nederlandse Lexicologie; inl) in Leiden, that it was possible to guarantee - with the aid of generous government support - that the task would be completed before the year 2000. After the founding in 1980 of the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie), a supranational body in which the Belgian federal state of Flanders and the Netherlands joined forces to promote the language and culture of the Low Countries, the funding of the Woordenboek was taken over by this body. The dictionary describes the vocabulary of the language in the period from 1500 to 1921. It is therefore a historical document, which says nothing about the most modern lexical developments in the language. Copiously illustrated with quotations, the history of each word is outlined: its origin in time and space, the morphological and semantic changes it has undergone and its occurence in proverbs and sayings. The history of words is to some extent also a cultural history: for example, no less than 27 pages are needed to describe the word ‘water’, and compound words beginning with ‘water’ take up a further 215 pages. The compilation of such a large, academic dictionary is unlikely to be repeated, even in a revised version or a version which includes the most modern vocabulary; information and communication technology such as the Internet and cd-rom) offer other possibilities, and a large electronic word archive comprising the entire vocabulary of the Dutch language from the earliest times to the present - the Language Database run by the inl referred to earlier - provides the basic for modern lexicography. 1984 saw the publication of the first edition of a comprehensive academic work on the Dutch language and its grammar: the Algemene Nederlandse Spraakkunst, or ans for short, written by the Flemings G. Geerts and W. Haeseryn and the Dutchmen J. de Rooij and M.C. van den Toorn. The production of this work, which was made possible by the support of the Dutch Language Union, was originally an initiative of the International Association for Dutch Studies (Internationale Vereniging voor Neerlandistiek; inv) in reponse to the serious need from abroad for a complete, modern description of contemporary Dutch. A second, completely revised edition was published in 1997 in Deurne (Belgium) and Groningen (The Netherlands). This new edition comprises two stout volumes and a total of | |
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more than 1,900 pages. A fifth author, K. Romijn from the Netherlands, joined the four-strong team who had worked on the first edition. The ans is aimed at a wide foreign readership who already have some knowledge of Dutch, as well as at native Dutch-speakers who wish to test their use of the language against the standards of grammaticality and acceptability. Although the work seeks to be primarily descriptive, it is also normative: items which do not form part of the Dutch standard language (e.g. dialects) are ignored, or are marked with labels such as ‘outmoded’, ‘jargon’, ‘informal’ and ‘regional’. Finally, under the editorship of M.C. van den Toorn, W.J.J. Pijnenburg, J.A. van Leuvensteijn and J.M. van der Horst, and with the collaboration of fourteen other authors, a modern history of the Dutch language was published in Amsterdam in 1997: Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Taal. This extensive work of 700 pages includes the results of recent research and contains a wealth of bibliographical references. An introductory chapter is followed by seven further chapters dealing with the ‘external history’ (the fortunes of the language in the political, social, economic and cultural context) and the ‘internal history’ (developments in the sounds, declension and conjugation, in the derivation and compounding of words, in vocabulary and in the combinatory possibilities of words to form larger wholes such as word groups and sentences). The work covers the full historical span of the language, from Old Dutch (dating from before 1200) to Modern Dutch. The book concludes with chapters on the Dutch language in Belgium and on Afrikaans, the Dutch-based language of South Africa. Although the chapter on modern Dutch, written by M.C. van den Toorn, begins around 1920, considerable attention is devoted to developments in recent decades. I have made grateful use of this chapter. | |
The times they are a-changingAt the end of the 1960s society and culture were undergoing sweeping changes, changes which also had an impact on the language. The generation born after 1945 was reaching adulthood. Young people rebelled against their elders, against established authority: there were protests against the war in Vietnam, against nuclear weapons and against the undemocratic structure of university education and industry. Society was secularising at a rapid rate. Women were demanding equal rights. Growing prosperity increased people's ability to travel the world in their free time, while the same time attracting large numbers of foreign workers, especially from the countries around the Mediterranean Sea and the former Dutch and Belgian colonies in Africa and Central America. These immigrants brought their mother tongues with them, and the Netherlands and Flanders rapidly evolved into multilingual communities, including 270,000 Turkish-speaking and 45,000 Kurdish-speaking Turks, 85,000 Arabic-speaking and 195,000 Berber-speaking Moroccans. More than 250,000 Surinamese settled in the Netherlands, along with 70,000 Antilleans and Arubans. The total number of speakers of a mother tongue other than Dutch was estimated at more than one and a half million. In the 1970s the number of students at universities and colleges of higher education increased rapidly. At the end of the 1960s | |
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higher education had primarily been the preserve of the elite, the privileged. This is now no longer the case: higher education has become accessible to young people from all ranks of society. International co-operation, especially within the context of the ever-expanding European Union, is blurring national borders. I have already referred to the creation of the Dutch Language Union, that unique supranational collaborative venture between Belgian Flanders and the Netherlands, in 1980. The anti-authoritarian attitude of young people has led to greater tolerance in the use of language than in the past, to a blurring of norms according to the claims of those who defended the ‘civilised’, ‘correct’ use of language which has been the province of concerned individuals and language politicians for more than a century. This tolerance extended to informal language use in terms of vocabulary, but above all in terms of pronunciation. Traditionally, the professed ideal was that it should be impossible to hear from someone's pronunciation from which region or social class they came. Everyone had to strive to achieve this as yet unattained ideal. The general consensus was that those who came closest to it were the educated inhabitants of the urban conglomeration in the western part of the Netherlands known as the ‘Randstad’. They came close to the ideal, but did not achieve it, although the educated Dutchman is often firmly convinced that he has done so: the fact that he is instantly recognisable as a ‘Hollander’ is something he is often not aware of. It now seems likely that this ideal will never be achieved. Dialectal and social variants of the standard language (for many still a contradiction in terms) are increasingly tolerated. Dialectal or social pronunciation features which serve to reinforce the solidarity of a certain group are deliberately employed by some people in the standard language. Others use such variants because of indifference towards any norms. The fact that increasingly large sections of the population, through education, radio and television, are coming into contact with what was in the past generally regarded as ‘correct’ Dutch, has not been able to stem this process of divergence. While dialects may be slowly disappearing, being levelled out and absorbed into larger regiolects, the standard language can be broken down into regionally and socially coloured standard variants. The shift in norms is also reflected in a changed attitude on the part of many Flemings. Now that the linguistic battle waged by the Flemish against the ‘frenchification’ of their language has been fought and won, many of them no longer strive to achieve the Northern Dutch standard. From the nineteenth century the Flemish movement, in its bid to shake off the dominance of French, had sought alignment with the standard language that had developed in the Netherlands, on the premise that unity is strength. The modern Fleming is self-aware and no longer needs the northern norm. This changed attitude in Flanders is reinforced by the rapid changes in language use by their northern neighbours as regards vocabulary and, above all, pronunciation. The changes in the northern part of the language area are not held in high esteem in the south: Flemings believe that the Dutch speak the language poorly. A Flemish norm is developing for generally accepted use of the language in the southern part of the language area. Increasing internationalisation is also changing the function of Dutch. The use of English as a scientific language, at conferences and in publications, | |
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 Dutch reading exercise, formerly used in primary schools.
has resulted in some functional loss of Dutch, but is necessary in order to guarantee the ability of the Netherlands and Flanders to keep up with international scientific developments. The same applies to the use of English in the business community: if industry and commerce wish to maintain their important position in the world, then a knowledge and command of the major world languages, and especially English, is essential. Consequently, a great deal of attention is rightly devoted in Belgian and Dutch schools to developing a command of foreign languages. The growth in the number of bilingual (Dutch-English) secondary schools, and especially the increasing use of English as the medium of instruction in universities, does however pose a threat to the position of Dutch. Students have a right to be educated in their mother tongue. Moreover, education in the mother tongue ensures that Dutch will continue to be an ackowledged language of science and scholarship. The European Union recognises eleven official languages, including Dutch, and every expansion of the Union will add another language. All these languages have equivalent status and equal rights, which means that a great deal of translation and interpreting is called for. This multiplicity of languages is not only very expensive, it also causes practical problems. In contrast to what happens in official meetings and documents, therefore, in their mutual dealings officials and members of the European Parliament use one of the ‘working languages’: English and, to a lesser extent, French. The more member states accede to the Union, the greater the chance that English will become the working language. The Treaty of the European Union does not permit the sanctioning of the use of working languages. Moreover, there | |
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is little chance that the Treaty will be amended in favour of a single working language, i.e. English; France, in particular, would resist such a move. The increasing, unofficial use of English is unavoidable, however, and this too has led to some functional loss for the Dutch language. | |
Internal changesChanges in vocabulary and pronunciation are related most clearly to the external changes outlined earlier. The Dutch have always been happy to borrow words from other languages. Since the Second World War the most important source of these loan words has been English, and English loan words such as ‘hotpants’ and ‘floppy’ made their way easily into everyday Dutch usage. The Dutch also have no qualms about using quasi-English words of Dutch invention: the word ‘showmaster’, a television presenter, does not occur in English. The many minority languages also contribute to this enrichment of the Dutch vocabulary: ‘falafel’ denotes an Arab, ‘pilav’ a Turkish dish. Loan words are important from the point of view of cultural history, but they do not bring about an essential change in the ‘host’ language. Social and cultural changes create a need to adapt the vocabulary. To meet this need, words are borrowed from other languages or existing words are used to create new ones, such as ‘betaalpas’, a combination of ‘betaal’ (pay) and ‘pas’ (card or pass) which is used to designate cards that can be used to make electronic payments and withdraw cash from atms. The generally accepted pronunciation is also changing, though much more clearly in the Netherlands than in Flanders. The letters v and z are increasingly pronounced without vibration of the vocal cords, with the result that they sound more like f en s: the word ‘vanzelf’ thus becomes ‘fanself’. The letter r is pronounced less and less distinctly, sounding more and more like an English r, whether this sound is formed at the front of the mouth as in Scotland or at the back of the mouth as in French. The vibration of the tongue is disappearing, with the result that words such as ‘rood’ (red), ‘goot’ (gutter) and even ‘groot’ (great) are becoming almost indistinguishable from each other. The diphthong ei, which has the written forms ei and ij, is being pronounced by more and more Dutch-speakers almost like the i in the English word ‘five’. In a related development, the vowel sound ee is increasingly coming to sound like the diphtong ei, similar to the sound in the English word ‘late’, as the gradual disappearance of the old ei sound creates room for a new, similar sound. In a comparable development, the vowel sound oo is changing almost into an ou as in Enlish ‘go’, so that the Dutch for ‘big toe’ is increasingly pronounced ‘groute tein’ instead of ‘grote teen’. All these sounds were already found in a number of Dutch dialects: all that is happening is that the norm for ‘correct’ pronunciation of the standard language is changing. One change which is not based on borrowings from a dialect is the recent shift in the pronunciation of the letter s. This sharp sibilant is increasingly acquiring a ‘softer’ pronunciation, almost like sh sound in English ‘shower’. All these changes in pronunciation have been set in motion by highly educated young women, working for radio and television. It is frequently the case that women are the vectors of language change. | |
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The grammatical and structural language changes are much less striking; a period of a few decades is too short for this. All Germanic languages have developed over the centuries from synthetic to analytic languages, with characteristic developments including the loss of cases and other declensions, the emergence of large numbers of prepositions and conjunctions, the disappearance of verb conjugations and an increasingly fixed word order. German has changed least in an analytical direction, English the most; Dutch occupies an intermediate position. New prepositions are still emerging: the Dutch noun ‘richting’ (direction) is increasingly being used as a preposition in competition with ‘naar’ (to): ‘Ga richting het wonder, ga richting Jezus’ (Go to the miracle, go to Jesus), as a recent advertising text had it. There is a growing tendency to use the preposition ‘om’ to introduce an infinitive without there being any expression of purpose: ‘deze beslissing is moeilijk om te begrijpen’ is then the equivalent of ‘deze beslissing is moeilijk te begrijpen’ (this decision is difficult to understand). In the past, the use of ‘om’ to introduce an infinitive was permitted only in sentences where the word group introduced by om expressed a specific purpose, with the sense of ‘in order to’: ‘ik ga naar de dokter om beter te worden’ (I'm going to the doctor to get better). The distinction between cases, including in pronouns, is disappearing: the direct object form ‘hen’ (them) is giving way to the indirect object form ‘hun’ (to them), which is even replacing the subject form ‘zij’ (they), despite the best efforts of the education system: ‘hun hebben gelijk’ instead of ‘zij hebben gelijk’ (they're right). And ‘meer’ (more) and ‘meest’ (most) are increasingly being used instead of the comparative and superlative adjectival forms: ‘de meest makkelijke verf’ (the most easy paint) instead of ‘de makkelijkste verf’ (de easiest paint). English influence has played a role here. The disappearance of cases and the more rigid word order are undermining the use of the indirect object, which centuries ago had a dative form without a preposition. There is no dative form in the sentence ‘hij geeft het zijn vader’ (he gives it his father), and increasingly a preposition is therefore being used: ‘hij geeft het aan zijn vader’ (he gives it to his father). The first position in the sentence is generally occupied by the subject of the sentence. If an indirect object is placed in this position, it is now often reinterpreted as a subject: ‘passagiers worden verzocht niet te roken’ (passengers are requested not to smoke; plural form of ‘worden’ to match the plural form ‘passagiers’) instead of ‘passagiers wordt verzocht’ (singular form of ‘worden’ conveying the sense of ‘it is requested that passengers do not smoke’). There are also instances of a new synthesis: ‘Jan z'n boek’ alongside the old synthetic ‘Jans boek’ and the newer analytic ‘het boek van Jan’ (all with the meaning ‘Jan's book’), and ‘een computer gestuurd programma’ alongside ‘een programma dat door de computer gestuurd wordt’ (‘a computer-driven program’ versus ‘a program (that is) driven by the computer’), with a participle being used rather than a declined verb form. Other recent changes cannot be explained on the basis of such a general trend. A couple of examples: in a sentence such as ‘meer auto voor uw geld’, which was first used by Dutch Ford dealers as a translation of the English ‘more car for your money’, or ‘een beetje politicus’ (a bit of a politician), ‘auto’ (car) and ‘politicus’ (politician) are treated like adjectives and nouns such as ‘suiker’ (sugar) (‘een beetje suiker’ - a little sugar) which, unlike | |
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‘auto’, never occur in the plural form. The preposition ‘met’ (with) is moving from the middle of a word group to the front: ‘met naar mijn overtuiging grote gevolgen’, alongside ‘naar mijn overtuiging met grote gevolgen’ (‘with in my view major consequences’ versus ‘with major consequences in my view’). The verbs ‘denken’ (think), ‘zeggen’ (say) and ‘hebben’ (have) are increasingly being used, especially in conjunction with the word ‘zoiets’ (something like), and especially by young people, in combination with the preposition ‘van’ in sentences such as: ‘ik heb dan zoiets van niet alweer steengrillen’ (and then I sort of think, not stone-grilling again), ‘hij dacht van nee’ (he thought not) and ‘ik heb zoiets van het kan me niet schelen’ (I sort of think, well, I couldn't care less). The scope of the verb ‘doen’ (do) is also widening: ‘doe mij maar een pils’ (I'll have a beer, make mine a beer). Words such as ‘waarop’ (on which) are virtually never split any more: ‘de stoel waarop ik zit’ as opposed to the more traditional ‘de stoel waar ik op zit’ (the chair on which I'm sitting, the chair I'm sitting on). The word ‘dat’ (that, which) in sentences such as ‘het boek dat ik lees’ (the book that I'm reading) is increasingly being replaced by the word ‘wat’ (what): ‘het boek wat ik lees’. According to the grammatical rules, the word ‘dan’ cannot be left out in sentences such as ‘houd je van vlees, dan braad je in boter’ (if you like meat, (then) you fry in butter), because the sentence begins with a conditional form. One manufacturer disregarded this rule totally with its advertising slogan ‘hou je van vlees, braad je in Croma’. This trend is increasing: ‘wil je iets drinken, pak je het zelf’ (if you want a drink, you get it yourself). Finally, word order changes in sentences such as: ‘dat soort dingen moet ik vaak aan denken’, in which the word ‘aan’ is left near the end of the sentence and does not move to the front of the sentence with the rest of the group to which it belongs, are also becoming more common alongside ‘aan dat soort dingen moet ik vaak denken’ (I'm often reminded of things like that). A changing perception of norms also undoubtedly plays a role in syntactic changes, though less clearly than with pronunciation. These changes are also less noticeable, and in many cases we do not know whether particular syntactic phenomena were already present in the spoken language. What can be said in general, however, is that things which formerly occured only in the spoken language may now also be used in the written language; what in the past was regarded as careless language usage is now acceptable. In short, what was not permitted in the past is now allowed. Attributing this to language change can perhaps be defended from an educational standpoint, but is not scientifically accurate. A linguist describes the use of language in all its variation, and if possible provides an explanation for that use. Judgments are a matter for the language politician, not the linguist.
jan w. de vries Translated by Julian Ross. |