The Influence of Low Dutch on the English Vocabulary

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Chapter VI
English and Low Dutch Intercourse through Whaling

6. 1.^{6. 1.}

The first of the northern whale fisheries was off the coast of Greenland. As early as 1552 there is record of clashing there between the English and the Dutch, for in that year the Dutch whalers were driven away by the English and some part of their cargoes confiscated; but the Dutch returned under the protection of ships of war and suceeeded in re-establishing themselves.

The voyage of Richard Chancellor in 1553 through the White Sea to Archangel was the first step in the opening up of the Spitzbergen Seas. The Dutch navigator Berents discovered Spitzbergen in 1596, and he was followed in 1607 by Hudson in the Hopewell. They found the sea swarming with whales which showed no fear of ships. The first whaling expedition was fitted out by the Muscovy Company under the command of Jonas Poole, and four voyages, made from 1609 to 1612, were so successful as soon to attract the competition of other nations. Hot quarrels between the Muscovy Company and Dutch ship-owners drove the latter in self-preservation to form a Northern and Greenland Company, which obtained its charter in 1614, and this Company soon had a score of well-armed ships, each with two sloops, and proceeded to exploit the fisheries. They were so successful that for a time they drove the English altogether from the Greenland fishery. The Dutch maintained a fishery at Jan Mayen until 1640, but this was not of such importance as the Spitzbergen fishery. In the latter 10,019 whales were taken by them in the ten years from 1679 to 1688; about 1680, when the fishery was at the height of its prosperity, they had 260 ships and 14,000 seamen engaged in it. They built at Spitzbergen their own huts for the blubber boiling, and there the whalers pitched their tents, so that a regular village, Smeerenburg, sprang up, which was deserted at their departure.

The Dutch Northern Company had lost its charter in 1642, and the whale fishery from the Netherlands was henceforth

6. 1. Blok, iii. 331-2; iv. 81, 272, 534; v. 74; Bense, A.D.R. 142; I.C. i. 506; ii. 111, 484; Encycl. Brit. (11th ed., vol. xxviii, pp. 571-2, art. ‘Whaling’).

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free. In 1660 the Greenland fishery was mainly prosecuted from the Friesland ports, though by the end of the 17th century Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Vlaardingen, Delfshaven, and the Zaan villages had gained most of this trade. There sailed annually then about 200 ships, though in good years about 250. The fishery was prosecuted on an extensive scale till 1770 and then began to decline, until at the end of the 18th century no more ships were being sent out. New ground for whaling had been opened out by the Dutch when they started the fishery in the Davis Strait in 1719, and for a time this was some compensation for the increasing English, French, and Low German competition. At first they killed large numbers of whales, but English ships soon came in to compete.

The German ports also engaged extensively in whaling. In 1721, 79 ships sailed from Hamburg and Bremen, while an average of 45 ships sailed every year from Hamburg alone during the period from 1670 to 1719. The Germans continued to take part in the industry until 1873.

The English Government made many attempts to recover the supremacy in whaling which the English had lost in the reign of James I. In 1660 double alien customs were imposed on whalebone and blubber imported as a merchant's speculation, and not by the owners of the ship which had prepared the cargo. A joint-stock company was formed in 1692, which was subsequently allowed to import whale oil free of duty; the company, however, soon ran through its capital, and the fishery was then left to private enterprise, supported, however, by government bounties. The trade was so stimulated that in 1755 no less than £55,000 was paid out in bounty.

In the first quarter of the 19th century there was scarcely a port of any importance on the east coast of England that was not represented in the whale fisheries, and most of the Scottish east coast ports and Greenock on the west coast were also taking part. One by one they fell away until only Dundee and Peterhead were left in 1893, and then the latter dropped out also.

6. 2.

Many of the words borrowed from Low Dutch on the whaling voyages are the names of northern beasts and birds, the various species of whale and seal which the whalers hunted, and the sea-birds they met in the northern seas. Whalefish (c. 1511), a whale; ad. Du. or MLG. walvisch. Walrus (1655), a

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large amphibious and carnivorous mammal of the northern seas, the morse or sea-horse; probably from Du. walrus, walros; the OE. word was horshwael. Narwhal (1658), the name of this whale of the northern seas was borrowed by the Dutch, from Scandinavian seamen (cf. Da. narhval); the Eng. word is from the Du. narwal. Rubb (1694), a seal, is from the LG. rubbe (Du. rob). Potwalfish (1694), potfish or cachalot; probably ad. e.mod.Du. potswalvisch, which Kilian glosses as ‘cete’. A later name for the same whale is Potfish (1743), ad. Du. potvisch; O.E.D. suggests that in this word pot is the same as in early Du. potshoofd, thickhead, Flem. potshoofd, eelpout, in reference to the huge head. Clapmatch (1743), a kind of seal; apparently ad. Du. klapmuts, a sailor's cap; so called from the hood of the animal. Nordcaper (1822), a North Atlantic species of whale; ad. Du. noordkaper or G. nordkaper, from Du. noordkaap or G. nordkap, the North Cape, from the regions where the beast is found.

The names of northern sea-birds are Rotge (1694), the little auk; Martens in his Voyage to Spitzbergen (trans. 1694) gives this as the name current among Dutch and Frisian seamen, with the statement that it is derived from the bird's cry, rottet tet, but it is more likely a misunderstanding of Fris. rotgies, plural of rotgoes, brent goose; we know that at this period the Dutch whaling trade was mainly in the hands of Frisians. Mallemuck (1694), the fulmar or similar bird; ad. Du. mallemok, from mal, foolish, and mok, gull; compare mallemaroking, which has the first element the same.

6. 3.

A group of words deals with the practice of whaling, the treatment of the whale's carcass, and the products obtained from the whale. Train oil (c. 1553), oil obtained by boiling the blubber of whales, and formerly also seals, &c.; the later name for train (see Train, p. 46). Greaves, Graves, sb. plur. (1614), the fibrous matter found in animal fat, originally a term of the whale fishery and a by-product of the production of train oil; it was used in agriculture in cake form as a food for hogs, dogs, &c., and the first reference in English, in Markham's Cheape and Good Husbandry, is to this; ad. LG. greven, plur. (also borrowed into Scand. as Sw. dial, grevar, Da. grever).

Cardel (1694), a hogshead containing, in the 17th century, 64 gallons; used in the Dutch whaling trade; ad. Du. kardeel, properly quartel, fourth part.

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Hovel (1694), the whalers' term for the bump on top of a whale's head; ad. Du. heuvel (M.Du. hövel, in Kilian hovel), hill, bump, boss. Specksioner (1820), a harpooner, usually the chief harpooner who directs the operation of flensing a whale; ad. Du. speksnijer, colloquial form of speksnijder (with dropping of intervocalic d), from spek, speck, blubber, and snijden, to cut. Crang (1821), a carcass of a whale after the blubber has been removed; ad. Du. kreng (M.Du. crenge), carrion. The word is also found in the form Kreng (1835); ad. Du. kreng. Lull (1836), a tube to convey blubber into the hold; also as a compound, lull-bag; ad. Du. lul, tube.

A curious word which is evidence of the intermingling and carousing together of the crews of English and Dutch whalers is Mallemaroking (1867), the visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships; from Du. mallemarok, a foolish woman, tomboy, from mal, foolish, and meroc, marot, woman, from F. marotte, object of foolish affection.

There are a few words which illustrate the conditions of navigation in northern waters. Shoal (1648), a mass of floating ice, an iceberg or floe; ad. Du. schol, in the same sense; O.E.D. points out that this is certainly a term of the northern voyages and not of the Baltic, for we should expect MLG. scholle, a clod, to have developed the same meaning of a mass of ice. Iceberg (1774), an Arctic glacier, which comes close to the coast and is seen from the sea as a hill or ‘hummock’; (1820), a detached portion of a glacier carried out to sea, a huge floating mass of ice, often rising to a great height above the water; an adapted form of the Du. (and M.Du.) ijsberg. The shortened form of iceberg is Berg (1823), only used when ice is mentioned or understood in the context.