Dutch. A linguistic history of Holland and Belgium

[p. 44]

This leesplank (reading board), which was introduced into all schools in Holland in 1909, was only gradually phased out during the 1960's. The words that appear on it contain all the cardinal sounds of Dutch. It is known colloquially and affectionately as aap-noot-mies.
The distinction between ó (closed) in bok and ò (open) in hok is not made by all speakers of Dutch (see p. 48) (The words Mies, Wim, Jet, Teun and Gijs are proper nouns.)

[p. 45]

5 The sounds of Dutch (phonology)

When beginning a new language one inevitably starts with pronunciation. In the case of Dutch, the beginner is immediately struck by how ‘hard’ it is to pronounce. In this section I shall attempt to look in some detail and in more specific terms at what constitutes the difficulty of Dutch pronunciation for English speakers. The average Dutchman is aware that foreigners find his language difficult to pronounce but he usually thinks no further than the pronunciation of g/ch, which even Germans pronounce too softly; a common shibboleth they often ask foreigners to repeat is the name Scheveningen, a town near The Hague. In my opinion, it is in fact more the vowels, in particular the diphthongs, which form the main barrier in attaining a good Dutch pronunciation.

The articulation basis of Dutch is considerably further back and lower^1. in the mouth than in both English and German. Dutch vowels are, on the whole, not as palatal. The chapter on historical phonology looks in greater depth at the general absence of Umlaut of long vowels in Dutch; this lack of Umlaut, which is simply another name for the fronting of vowels, is a good example of the articulation basis of the language being considerably further back in the mouth than is the case in English and German. Both these languages have undergone extensive umlauting - compare kaas v. cheese/Käse (here English has even palatalised the initial consonant), groeten v. greetings/Grüsse.

1. An example of this is the way English speakers often pronounce Dutch ee and oo, which often sound like Dutch ie and oe to Dutch ears i.e. higher vowels.

The Vowels

Checked vowels:

Checked vowels only occur in closed syllables and are thus always followed by a consonant e.g. pan (pan), pet (cap), pit (seed), pot (pot), put (well); pannen (pans), petten (caps) etc. Such double consonants (see Spelling, p. 37) only indicate a preceding short vowel and are not pronounced double.

The phonetic symbols used here do not all adequatly reflect some of the subleties of these vowels. For instance, the a in Dutch man is obviously pronounced lower in the mouth than in English ‘man’, where the vowel is [æ], but it is even somewhat lower than in German Mann. To the English ear it often tends to sound a little like [ɔ].

The situation with e is rather complex for the English speaker because although

[p. 46]

The vowels
The three diphthongs on the opposite page are the short diphthongs of Dutch. In certain words, however, vowels combine to give the following additional long diphthongs, sometimes called double vowels:

[a.i] e.g. haai (shark), haaien (sharks)

[o.i] e.g. mooi (pretty), mooie (inflected)

[ui] e.g. boei (buoy), boeien (buoys)

[ui] e.g. nieuw (new), nieuwe (inflected) N.B. pron. [niuwә]

[yu] e.g. schuw (shy), schuwe (inflected) N.B. pron. [sXywә]

[e.u] e.g. leeuw (lion), leeuwen (lions) N.B. pron. [le.uwәn]

In the first three examples the i > j when followed by ә and in the last three examples u > w in that position.
The colourless vowel ә, called schwa, is common in Dutch in unstressed syllables and can be written as e, i or ij e.g. beloven (to promise), gelukkig (happy), lelijk (ugly). Schwa is also sometimes heard as a svarabhakti vowel after l or r plus a consonant particularly in plat speech e.g. melk (milk) - [mεlәκ], film - [fIәm].

^{1. 2. 3. 4. 5.}

1. In Dutch one talks of gedekte and ongedekte or vrije klinkers. The vowels ie, uu and oe, although now pronounced short except before r, are regarded historically as long vowels, as their spelling suggests. This has led to the common use of the term long and short instead of checked and unchecked.

2. These sounds are written with one letter in open syllables (see Spelling, p. 37).

3. Full length and half length are usually indicated as follows [i:] [i.] etc.

4. See the explanation of this symbol on p. 48.

5. Some people would possibly give preference to the symbol [au] to represent this Dutch sound. I too have used it on p. 148.

[p. 48]

[ε] is used on page 46 as the phonetic transcription, in reality the Dutch sound is a little lower than English [ε], i.e. it approximates [æ]. English, however, knows two separate phonemes: [ε], written e, and [æ], written a e.g. ‘bed’ and ‘bad’. In Dutch these are perceived as allophones of the same phoneme, [ε], This is best illustrated in the way the Dutch treat English loan words containing an a; for example the loan word tram^2. is also pronounced in Dutch as [træm] but is somewhat shorter than in English. But this is the normal pronunciation of e in Dutch and consequently some people now write he word as trem, such a spelling would be pronounced [trεm] in English. In other words, Dutch e, like Dutch a, are pronounced lower in the mouth than the corresponding sounds in English (see footnote 1). This is the result of the difference in articulation basis between the two languages.

Depending on the phonetic environment, some speakers of Dutch distinguish between an open and a more closed pronunciation of o (i.e. hòk and bók, see leesplank p. 44, but north of the rivers, at any rate, there is an ever growing tendency in favour of the more open vowel as the difference is not phonemic. Thus a falling together of once distinctly separate sounds has occurred among some speakers.^3. This is fortunate for the English-speaking student of Dutch, particularly as the more open variant is closer to the short o in English.

[ɔ] is occasionally heard as a long vowel in certain foreign words e.g. loge (theatre box), roze (pink).

The pronunciation of the checked vowel u usually causes foreigners some trouble at first. Even its phonetic transcription is not always the same; some academies use [y] or [ʌ], I have opted for [ü] as this clearly shows it is a high rounded sound. It can be described as a rounded [ә] for it is pronounced very short.

2. There are many loan words from English with this sound e.g.flat, jam, plannen (to plan) and a Dutch creation tanken (to fill up with petrol). Belgians pronounce these words as they are written i.e. as [a], because some, if not all, have reached them via the medium of French where they had already undergone assimilation. Sometimes this pronunciation is also heard in Holland but then it is usually simply a spelling pronunciation.

3. The historical distinction between the two is discussed on p. 136.

Unchecked vowels

Unchecked vowels can occur in both closed and open syllables, unlike checked vowels e.g. closed syllables- dier (animal), wij laadden (we loaded), groot (big), wij vergrootten (we enlarged); open syllables- dieren (animals), wij laden (we load), wij vergroten (we enlarge), ik zie (I see), na (after).

The terms long and half long on the chart on p. 46 refer to the pronunciation of the sounds aa, ee, eu and oo before r (or in Auslaut) and other consonants respectively. They are not as long as the corresponding sounds in German where the spelling often uses an h to show length e.g.fahren (to travel), Sohn (son). The sound r, which has had a variety of effects on the phonology of Dutch (see p. 159) causes these vowels to be pronounced very long when it follows: e.g. schaar (scissors), beer (bear), deur (door), boor (drill) with [a:], [e:], [ø:] and [o:]. Even the otherwise short unchecked vowels ie^4., oe and uu are pronounced long before r e.g. Piet (Pete), boek (book), minuut (minute) with [i], [u] and [y] but mier (ant), boer (farmer), duur (expensive) with [i:], [u:] and [y:].

4. In some words of Greek origin, this sound is written as y e.g. typisch (typical), type.

[p. 49]

The long vowel ee and the diphthong ei/ij cause different problems in different parts of the English speaking world. Once again the cause of the difficulty is that the difference between the two is phonemic in Dutch whereas English knows the two sounds simply as allophones of the one phoneme. An Englishman, for example, will have difficulty in separating kreeg (got) and krijg (get) and is likely to apply the pronunciation of the former to both; an Australian, on the other hand, will also tend to pronounce the two in the same way but will diphthongise both - compare the pronunciation of ‘today’ in British and Australian English. As the above minimal pair illustrates, it is imperative to keep the two sounds separate in Dutch.

There is, to make matters even more complex, a strong tendency in plat Hollands to diphthongise ee too much. Although speakers of ABN regard their ee as a pure (half) long vowel, phonetically speaking there is a certain diphthongisation present even in their pronunciation. It is this tendency which is taken further in plat Hollands e.g. ik weet (I know) > ik weejt. As the vowel then encroaches into the territory of the diphthong ei/ij, this latter sound then shifts somewhat in plat speech towards [ai] to avoid a falling together.^5.

The unchecked vowel oo is in a similar position to ee i.e. Dutch speakers generally regard it as a pure (half) long vowel but it is in fact somewhat diphthongised in ABN, a tendency which becomes stronger in plat speech.^6. South of the rivers both ee and oo are pronounced considerably ‘purer’. But a tendency to diphthongise long vowels is nothing new to speakers of English. For further comment on the pronunciation of ee and oo see footnote one on page 45.

The sound represented in writing by eu - the spelling is French in origin. see p. 141 - resembles ee and oo in that if too is considered by ABN speakers to be a pure (half) long vowel that tends in reality to be diphthongised a little in the ABN of the west of Holland. It is more open than German ö (i.e. as in Vögel) in western ABN, but in the south and the east of the Netherlands it is pronounced purer and higher; it is thus closer to the corresponding sound in German.

Dutch uu is a difficult sound for English speakers but will not be difficult for those who have done French or German as it corresponds exactly in quality, if not always in quantity, to French u i.e. pur (pure) and für (for).

[u] is written as oe for historical reasons (see p. 140).

5. Such shifts are common in language to avoid homonyms, which can lead to misunderstanding.

6. See p. 137 and p. 139 where the origin of these two sounds is discussed; both were in fact originally diphthongs. Afrikaans, which bears many plat Hollands traits in pronunciation, breaks ee and oo very strongly e.g. weet (know) - [ve.әt], brood (bread) - [bro.әt].

Diphthongs:

The two spellings of the diphthong [εi] are the result of two historically separate sounds having fallen together (see p. 145). This has led to homonyms e.g. leiden (to lead) - lijden (to suffer), hei (heath) - hij (he), zei (said) - zij (she). This is quite an open sound, although a too open pronunciation can sound somewhat plat (see ee above). English speakers tend to pronounce ei/ij as [ai], firstly because this exact sound does not exist in English but also because the Dutch words containing ij

[p. 50]

often have cognate forms in English (and German) with [ai] e.g. mijn - mine/mein, ijs - ice/Eis.

The two spellings of the diphthong [ɔu] are also the result of separate origins (see p. 148). In certain words, for etymological reasons, they can be followed by a w in spelling which does not affect pronunciation, however, e.g. ik hou (I hold) but houwen (to hew), blauw (blue). This sound is similar to the corresponding sound in English and does not normally present any difficulty to speakers of English.

The diphthong ui is one of the most difficult sounds in Dutch. It is often found in words whose cognate forms in English contain ou, e.g. huis - house, and thus the tendency for English speakers is to substitute ou for ui, but Dutch also knows a diphthong ou, as described above, so this must be avoided.

Vocalisation of d: it is a curious characteristic of Dutch that an intervovalic d, according to the vowel preceding it, can drop out and generate a semi-vowel in its stead. After long a in words such as raden (to guess) and laden (to load), the pronunciation [a.i] is commonly heard i.e. raaien, laaien (see long diphthongs on p. 47). It is particularly colloquial and is considered in some words as plat.

After oe in the word goede (inflected form of goed, good), one will nearly always hear d pronounced as the semi-vowel j i.e. goeje or goeie;^7. to pronounce the d in this word sounds most unnatural.

This i/j quality of intervocalic d is also often heard, but never written, after long e e.g. geleden (ago) - geleje, beneden - (beneath) - beneje. When d follows ei/ij it is virtually always dropped except in careful, deliberate speech^8. e.g. rijden (to ride) (drive), snijden (to cut); ik rij(d), snij(d) je.

After ou, d very commonly becomes the semi-vowel w. This phenomenon is not limited to any particular words, nor is it necessarily unnatural to pronounce d as d in such words e.g. houden (to hold) > houwe.^7.

With the exception of d after long a, there is not generally speaking any particular social connotation associated with the vocalisation of d. It can be said, however, that the lower classes in the west of the country^9. tend to apply it consistently, whereas the upper classes are not so consistent in their application.

See p. 155 for the vocalisation of d in words where the original form with d has become obsolete.

7. As a general rule it is advisable not to write these spellings although the words goede and oude are commonly spelt goeie and ouwe, but houden, for example, would never be written as houwen. However, ik hou(d), like ik rij, is possible and usually is written without d.

8. Leiden, in the dialect of the area, is pronounced Leie by the lower classes but in addition the pronunciation Leie/Leienaar (inhabitant of Leiden) is regarded in certain upper class circles, notably the studentenkorps of Leiden University, as particularly posh. A similar sociological phenomenon is reflected in the lower classes pronouncing hypercorrect d's e.g. partijen (parties) > partijden.

7. As a general rule it is advisable not to write these spellings although the words goede and oude are commonly spelt goeie and ouwe, but houden, for example, would never be written as houwen. However, ik hou(d), like ik rij, is possible and usually is written without d.

9. In those regions in the north and east of Holland where final -en is pronounced as a syllabic n (see p. 13), d is no longer intervocalic and is thus not vocalised.

[p. 51]

The Consonants

b:	[b]	but [p] in Auslaut.
c:	[s]	or [k] - only in words of foreign origin.^10.
d:	[d]	but [t] in Auslaut.
f:	[f]
g:	[X]	or [ɣ] - also rendered [ǥ]
h:	[h]
j:	[j]
k:	[k]
l:	[l]
m:	[m]
n:	[n]
p:	[p]
q:	[k]	only in words of foreign origin.
r:	[r]	or [R]
s:	[s]
t:	[t]
v:	[Ѣ]	or [f]
w:	[v]	i.e. labiodental but bilabial after u and au/ou.
x:	[ks]	only in words of foreign origin.
z:	[z]

10. The fricative pronunciation is heard before e, i, ij and y e.g. cent, citroen (lemon), cijfer (number), cynisch (cynical).

The stops:

The voiceless stops p, t and k are not aspirated at all in Dutch and consequently p and t without aspiration often sound somewhat like b and d to the English speaker, who like the German, strongly aspirates these sounds. The corresponding voiced stops b and d - g is a fricative in Dutch^11. - are also unaspirated; in fact the Dutchman often hears p and t when the English speaker attempts to pronounce Dutch b and d, which can lead to confusing homonyns e.g. pet (cap) and bed (bed). Aspiration is a prominent characteristic of an English or German accent in Dutch and is one of the most difficult to overcome.

B and d are devoiced at the end of a word, as in German. See p. 50 for the vocalisation of d in intervocalic positions.

11. The voiced stop [g] occurs only incidentally in Dutch where k is assimilated to a following voiced consonant (see p. 55).

The fricatives:

The fricatives g and ch are usually phonetically transcribed as [ɣ] and [X], i.e. as voiced and unvoiced respectively. However, nowadays in the north this represents

[p. 52]

more what was, than what is the case; they are now usually both voiceless, but this point will be discussed a little later. It is undoubtedly the common occurrence of [X] which leads the layman to label Dutch a ‘gutteral’ language.^12. It is true that the way g/ch are pronounced in the west of the country, they do nothing to enhance the sound of the language although there is perhaps nowadays a tendency afoot towards a somewhat softer pronunciation of [X], even in the Randstad. But some people have a particularly hard pronunciation. When Holland, and particularly Amsterdam, had a larger Jewish community than it does now - the result of World War II - it was commonly claimed that the Jews of the Randstad had an especially hard [X], as a result of the frequent occurrence of that pronunciation in both Yiddish and Hebrew.

The so-called soft g (zachte gee) of the south (see p. 15) is a more palatal sound, somewhat like the sound in German ich, but is heard before and after vowels of all qualities. However, in areas where soft g is used, it is also commonly voiced.

Dutch v is pronounced somewhere between English v and f and is a sound that can cause the English speaker some difficulty. North of the rivers, however, initial v has been largely devoiced and can be safely pronounced as an f; certainly an f pronounciation of Dutch v in Anlaut is preferable to an English v, a role filled by the letter w in Dutch. Intervocalically, in more deliberate speech and south of the rivers, v is pronounced voiced.

Dutch z is pronounced as in English. In the west of the country the local dialects have devoiced initial z to s and as the standard language is largely based on these dialects, initial z is often somewhat devoiced by ABN speakers of the Randstad. Nevertheless this is a tendency which should be avoided as it is considered plat if it is done too clearly and consistently.

It is useful to bring the following three fricative couplets together to compare what has happened or is happening to them in Dutch:

voiced		unvoiced
g	>	ch	:	now usually devoiced in all positions in northern ABN although a degree of voicing can still occur intervocalically; it is considered regional to give g a voiced pronunciation consistently.
v	>	f	:	may be, and usually is devoiced in initial position north of the rivers, but not intervocalically.
z	>	s	:	cannot be devoiced anywhere in a word without being considered socially inferior. This does not include devoicing of z under the influence of assimilation however (see p. 55).

This is an interesting sociolinguistic facet of the development of the voiced fricatives in the ABN of the Randstad. But south of the rivers the distinction between voiced and unvoiced fricatives is still clearly made. For the foreign student of

12. In English circles one often hears the same of German but the gutterals are not as hard nor as frequent as in Dutch; after all, g is a stop in German. In addition, German has several other very palatal sounds which Dutch does not.

[p. 53]

Dutch, the above development can be seen as a simplification, particularly as Dutch g and v are sounds that English does not know.

Dutch f is pronounced as in English and often falls together with Dutch v in Anlaut. In Auslaut v is never written, always f e.g. leven (to live) - ik leef (I live). This latter rule also applies to z e.g. reizen (to travel) - ik reis (I travel). It is not the case for g, however, as both g and ch occur in Auslaut, although ch never occurs in Anlaut except in foreign words e.g. vragen (to ask) - ik vraag (I ask), lachen (to laugh) - ik lach (I laugh), chaos.

To summarise what has been said about consonants so far, the following may help:

	stops	fricatives
voiceless:	p t k	f s ch
voiced:	b d -^13.	v z g
voiced and voiceless:	contrast	do not contrast
	phonemically	phonemically^14.

Dutch s is similar to English s. The palatal sound [ʃ], which is so common in English and German, is not at all common in Dutch. English and German words that start with [ʃ] begin with [sX] in Dutch, and those that end in that sound in English and German, end in s in Dutch.^15. One may be led initially to assume that Dutch does not know [ʃ] at all but it does occur by accident when nouns ending in s are diminutised e.g. huisje pron. [hœyʃә] but it never occurs in Anlaut or Auslaut in indigenous words. Consequently, when foreign words that contain [ʃ] are borrowed into Dutch, the sound is often shifted to [s], the closest voiceless fricative, to facilitate pronunciation e.g. Chinees (Chinese), douche (shower). In the French loan words sju (gravy, < jus), sjek (cheque) and sjaal (scarf, shawl), [ʃ] is usually said, as reflected in the spelling which resorts to s + j to approximate the sound.

A similar thing occurs with English loan words containing ch; in indigenous words this sound also occurs only ‘by accident’ in Dutch diminutives e.g. katje (kitten), where the pronunciation is, however, truly [t] + [j] and thus not identical to English [tʃ].

So sjek (< French cheque) contrasts with checken (< Eng. to check).

The voiced equivalent of English sh, [ʒ], occurs in French loan words e.g. garage [Xara.ʒә], In some words that have been assimilated, former French [ʒ] is now pronounced [X] e.g. intelligent.

The grapheme w in Anlaut represents the English v sound i.e. a labiodental

13. See footnote 11.

14. It is possible to find minimal pairs where f/v and s/z would seem to contrast phonemically, but in practice the two usually fall together in those areas where v and z in Anlaut are not voiced e.g. Finnen (Finns) - vinnen (fins), cent (cent) - zend (send).

15. The current spellings historisch (historical), logisch (logical) etc. and the former spellings Nederlandsch (Dutch), mensch (person) - now spelt Nederlands and mens - are remnants of an earlier period in Dutch when they were possibly pronounced [sX], as is still the case with schip (ship), school etc.; sch was dropped in spelling from the end of indigenous words after 1934.

[p. 54]

sound. South of the rivers, and particularly in Belgium, ie is commonly pronounced as a bilabial sound i.e. as English w. It also receives a bilabial pronunciation, even in the north, after u and ou e.g. ruwe (rough, inflected), brouwen (to brew), as well as in the combinations -auw, -eeuw, -ieuw and -ouw when followed by a vowel e.g. blauwe (blue), leeuwin (lioness), nieuwe (new), mouwen (sleeves).

The trills and laterals

Dutch r is very interesting, as indeed r is in many European languages. Historically too it has had various curious effects on its environment (see p. 159). There are two accepted pronunciations of r in Dutch, and as both are quite different from English r and as all r's must be heard in Dutch - even at the end of words, as in vader and moeder - this sound is one of the larger stumbling blocks on the road towards a good Dutch accent for English speakers.

The original Dutch r is [r] i.e. a slightly trilied dental sound.^16. When the uvular or velar r, [R], spread all over Europe from France, particularly in the eighteenth century, it did not miss the Netherlands and Belgium. For a long time it was considered typical of upper class Haags and of Dutch as spoken south of the rivers. Even today r in the latter area is a particularly ‘throaty’ sound - the Dutch call it brouwen i.e. to speak with a throaty r. This uvular r has, however, been making ever increasing inroads into the north and is now more common there, particularly in the cities and among younger people, than the original dental r which Van Haeringen maintains is on the way to becoming a provincialism, as is already the case in Denmark and France.¹⁷

It is paradoxical that uvular r, which originally started to replace dental r because it was considered socially more acceptable at a time when French manners, dress and speech swept across Europe, should now have become the norm and that dental r is now considered by many to be chic and ‘more correct’;¹⁸ elocution and singing teachers, for example, recommend the dental sound as ‘nicer’ and ‘clearer’.

Clarity of speech is in fact affected by the close phonetic relationship of the velar sounds [R] and [X], In many mouths the two sounds have almost fallen together producing homonyms e.g. erwt (pea, where w is silent) and echt (real). In the combinations schr and gr only one continuous velar sound is often heard e.g. schrijven (to write), pron. [sRεivәn] and grot (cave), pron. [Xɔt] or [ɣɔt].

Historically l is also an interesting sound and it is dealt with in the chapter on historical phonology on p. 157. The phoneme [1] has two allophones in Dutch, a so-called thick l and a somewhat thinner variant: the former occurs in Auslaut and in Inlaut after back vowels e.g. wel (well) and vallen (to fall), whereas the latter is heard in Anlaut and after front vowels e.g. lopen (to walk) and vellen (to fall). To

16. An overtrilled dental r is often termed een Indische r because it is considered to be one of the prominent characteristics of Dutch as spoken in the East Indies.

17 C.B. van Haeringen, ‘Eenheid en nuance in beschaafd-Nederlandse uitspraak’, in Schippers, B.W., Taal en spraak in stad en streek, Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1968.

18 Increase in the use of [R] and the somewhat softer g in the north are, however, phenomena which are too recent for sociological values to have been allotted to them.

[p. 55]

the English and German ear, however, all Dutch l's sound particularly ‘thick’ and ‘dark’ and can be difficult to master.

See page 47 for comments on a svarabhakti vowel after l.

Some idiosyncrasies of Dutch pronunciation

1	It is normal practice in ABN to ‘drop one's n's’. There is a large number of words - infinitives, plural nouns and strong past participles, for example - that end in -en but which leave the n unpronounced in normal fluent speech.
2	The indefinite article een is always pronounced [әn] but the numeral ‘one’ is pronounced [e.n].
3	The word het - neuter singular definite article and pronoun ‘it’ - is always pronounced [әt] except in the most deliberate speech (see p. 163 for the historical reasons). It is also often written 't.
4	The possessives mijn (my) and zijn (his, its), unless stressed, are pronounced [mәn] and [zәn] and are sometimes written m'n and z'n.
5	Generally speaking, the articulation of Dutch is laxer - the Dutch say slapper - than that of German. This can apply to individual sounds, such as l for example, but also to the overall sound of the language: syllables run over into each other and one word often flows on into the next much more than in German (see Assimilation below). For example: Dutch koeien (cows), pron. [kujәn] and German Kühe, pron. [ky:ә]; Dutch herinnneren (to remind) pron. [hεrInәrәn] and German erinnern pron. [εr'Inәrn] where ['] stands for a glottal stop.

Assimilation

The student of French is always drilled in the application of liaison i.e. the gliding together of the sound at the end of one word with the first sound of the next. In Dutch there is a similar although somewhat different phenomenon which is best called simply assimilation. Assimilation can be either progressive or regressive i.e. a sound can affect either the one which follows it or the one which precedes it. It can occur both within a word and between words. It is the voiced and unvoiced stops and fricatives which are affected e.g. postzegel (postage stamp) > pos(t)segel (progressive assimilation), uitbreiden (to expand) > uidbreiden (regressive assimilation); wat zit erin (what's in it) wat sit erin (progressive assimilation), ik ben ziek > ig ben ziek (regressive assimilation).

It is curious that through assimilation of k with a following voiced sound, a g sound (i.e. a stop, as in English) occurs which is a sound that Dutch does not otherwise know e.g. zakdoek (handkerchief) > zagdoek, vlak naast ons (right next to us) > vlag naast ons.

As mentioned previously, initial z should not be devoiced in ABN, unlike v where either voiced or voiceless variants are permissible, but in situations where z is devoiced by assimilation with preceding voiceless consonants, it is permissible to do so.

Certain words also know a proleptic assimilation where the preceding devoicing

[p. 56]

factor is no longer evident e.g. zestig (sixty) - pron. sestig, vijftig (fifty) - pron. fijftig, langzaam (slow) - pron. lanksaam < older lankzaam.

Stress

Being a Germanic language, Dutch usually stresses the first syllable of a word, except when that syllable is a recognised unstressed prefix such as be-, ge-, out- etc.; this it has in common with all other Germanic languages e.g. lístening, but begínning. Loan words often behave differently in this regard, but so they do in other Germanic languages too e.g. opposítie (opposition), faillíet (bankrupt), pick-úp (record-player). However, even in Dutch words the stress can vary in certain compounds and in this respect Dutch stands alone.^19. Even German, where word formation is very similar to that of Dutch, does not let the accent shift from the first syllable when compounds are formed e.g. lópen/láufen (to run) but voorlópig/vórläufig (temporary), hogeschóol/Hóchschule (university), stadhúis/Ráthaus (town hall), burgeméester/Bürgermeister (mayor).

This shifting stress can be very confusing to the student of Dutch as hard and fast rules are difficult to formulate but there is a certain reasoning behind the phenomenon. As heavy stress on the first syllable of a word can lead to a reduction in the quality and quantity of the vowels in following syllables, it seems likely that certain (particularly adjectival) endings pulled the stress towards them to help preserve the full value of the vowels in all syllables e.g. misdádig (criminal, adj.) < mísdaad (crime), onuitpúttelijk (inexhaustible) < uítputten (to exhaust).

The stress is often placed on the final syllable of certain Dutch place names e.g. Amsterdám, Edám, Maastrícht (but Útrecht), Bredá (but Góuda).

19. Shifting stress is of course also very characteristic of English e.g. to procéed and próceeds, but such shifts are peculiar to the words of Norman or Latin origin.

Bibliography

Those interested in hearing some spoken Dutch to improve their pronunciation are advised to consult any of the following recorded courses (ie. first four items)

Cursus Nederlands. Linguaphone, London. Now rather dated but still useful and financially within most people's reach.

HULSTIJN, J. & SCHELLART, M. Makkelijk praten. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1978. Not intended for the absolute beginner. The greatest advantage of this course is that it is modern, affordable and comes with a cassette tape.

Levend Nederlands. Cambridge University Press, 1975. By far the best, most up to date audio(-visual) course available. The Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam has since published a supplement for students teaching themselves.

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LAGERWIJ, W. Speak Dutch. Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1968. Not quite as vibrant as Levend Nederlands but nevertheless still a good aid.

CONINCK, R.H.B. de Groot uitspraakwoordenboek van de Nederlandse taal. Nederlandsche Boekhandel, Antwerp, 1970. The only pronunciation dictionary currently available.

BLANCQUAERT, E. Praktische uitspraakleer van de Nederlandse taal. De Sikkel, Antwerp, 1969. A good detailed account of Dutch pronunciation intended for native-speakers. It deals at times with issues that are only relevant in Belgium. It is particularly good on Dutch stress patterns.