Netherlandic language research

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Introduction

The language of the Low Countries has met with less interest abroad than other Germanic languages. This is explainable in part by the fact that Dutch has never become a world language, knowledge of which is of practical importance for a foreigner. The great world languages are in a much more favourable situation. English, for example, is taught and studied almost everywhere outside the English linguistic area. Teachers in non-English-speaking countries are obliged to concern themselves seriously with Modern English, both written and spoken, and in many cases this study involves an acquaintance with the historical foundation of the language. The need to train teachers efficiently leads in its turn to the establishment of centres of English studies and thus to the publication of much valuable work on English philology. Modern English Grammar in particular would not be what it is had not many foreign scholars contributed to its study.

Another cause of the small interest taken, even by Germanic philologists, in the Dutch language is the fact that the written tradition of Dutch goes back a comparatively short way. Because Germanic studies are carried out mainly on comparative-historical lines, it is the older documents that attract the attention of linguistic workers not specializing in one of the Germanic languages. No Germanic or Indoeuropean linguist can do without a knowledge of Old High German and Old English, but because Old Netherlandic hardly exists at all Netherlandic itself escapes their notice. The Scandinavian languages are in a happier position. Old Norse, for example, with its inscriptions of very early date, is bound to receive the attention of every comparative linguist and this entails a knowledge of modern Scandinavian languages or at least the ability to read the vast number of publications on Old Norse written in one of the Scandinavian languages. Despite this, many Germanists of renown have shortcomings in this respect and will blithely misquote the title of a Danish or Swedish book. It is not only the Dutch language that has to put up with careless treatment of this sort.

From the viewpoint of both comparative Germanistic studies and general linguistics, Dutch deserves more attention than it has hitherto enjoyed outside the Low Countries. Its linguistic territory, small as it is, provides a wealth of dialectal differentiation such as is hardly

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to be found anywhere else in the Germanic area. To start with, there is Frisian, which survives in the Low Countries not in the form of scattered remains, as in East Frisia and the North Frisian islands, but as a coherent area where it is regularly written and where it is steadily becoming an independent language within the territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. This independence extends even to linguistic research: the study of Frisian lies for the most part beyond the horizon of Netherlandists in the strict sense and is carried on chiefly by scholars whose mother tongue is Frisian. But even within ‘Netherlandic’ proper there are large dialectal differences. We cannot, it is true, make a strict division based on the Germanic tribes - traditionally the Frisians, Saxons and Franks - that peopled the Low Countries in the first centuries of our era, for subsequent moves, particularly from west to east, changed the old tribal boundaries. Notwithstanding this, the north-eastern ‘Saxon’ dialects have so many peculiar traits in common that there is a sound basis for differentiating between the north-eastern area and that composed by west and south. Moves of an older date took place from south to north, sliding a Franconian superstratum over the former ‘Ingwaeonic’ dialects. The isolation of ‘Ingwaeonic’, from Frisian on the one hand and from Franconian and Saxon on the other, is an important problem in the linguistic history of the Netherlands and one that has a bearing on Germanistics in general.

Old Netherlandic may be less accessible than other Germanic dialects of the older period, but there is something to compensate for this disadvantage, namely that in the Netherlands, and particularly in the south-west corner, a great number of the ancient elements have been preserved. The German scholar Th. Frings, who displays towards Netherlandic the interest it deserves, has pointed out repeatedly that West Flemish is of exceptional interest as regards Latin and Romance influence.

A matter of special interest for the Netherlands themselves is the rise of a common cultivated language as a result of political and economic events in the Low Countries. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the provinces of the Southern Netherlands were economically and culturally the centre of the Low Countries, and the dialect of the most important province, Brabant, showed every sign of becoming the basis of a common language. The separation of the Southern and Northern provinces as a result of the revolt against Spain, and the

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foundation of the Republic of the Seven Provinces with Holland as its powerful centre led, however, to the dialect of the province of Holland becoming predominant and eventually, after the incorporation of southern elements, especially in the written language, to its becoming the common language of the country. This political, economic and linguistic hegemony of Holland explains the use of ‘Holland’ as a name for the Kingdom of the Netherlands and of ‘Hollandic’ (Germ. holländisch, French hollandais) for the language known in English as Dutch. In this book we shall avoid using the term ‘Dutch’ because of its imprecision and shall use instead the term ‘Netherlandic’ (Germ. niederländisch, Fr. néerlandais), one that is rapidly gaining ground, especially in linguistic publications.

The history of Standard Netherlandic is an interesting one and deserves the attention of general linguistics for the same reasons as, for example, the peculiar circumstances in Norway do. The situation in the Netherlands is unlike the Norwegian, however, in that it is an example of almost completed evolution, in so far as one can speak of completion where linguistic development is concerned.

At any rate we would appear to be justified in claiming that the language of the Low Countries forms a linguistically interesting part of Continental Germanic, and it is the aim of this booklet to present linguists outside Holland and Belgium, especially those occupied with Germanic studies, with a general view of linguistic activity in the Low Countries and of the methods used and results gained. In particular it provides a survey of monographs and papers on Netherlandic linguistic subjects that should be of help to foreign scholars whose studies bring them, regularly or not so regularly, into contact with Netherlandic. If, in addition, the book should succeed in arousing interest in linguists who hitherto have paid little attention to Netherlandic, the author would feel that his labours have not been entirely misdirected. Nor is it foreigners alone for whom this book is designed; students in the Low Countries themselves may perhaps be able to find here signposts that will guide them on their way.

The book is mainly concerned with the activities of the last forty years, but since the younger generations are building on the foundations laid by the older ones and some of the great serial publications started in the 19th century, we have taken the year 1880 as point of departure. The earlier period, from 1880 till about 1920, has been treated fairly broadly, from 1920 onwards the ground has been covered

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more closely. Even in the second period, however, no attempt has been made at completeness. Any such attempt would have made the book unreadable and, besides, is hardly necessary, since constant reference is made to works containing extensive bibliographies.

Frisian is treated in this book only when publications are quoted dealing with both Frision and Netherlandic proper or with the mutual influence of the two languages. Little harm will come of this apparent omission for, strange as it may seem, Frisian linguists have more international contacts than their Netherlandic colleagues and the publications in this field are sufficiently known abroad.