The Influence of Low Dutch on the English Vocabulary

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Chapter XVI
The Intercourse of English and Dutch in the East Indies, West Indies and Guiana, and on the West Coast of Africa

16. 1.^{16. 1.}

Dutch sailors had been employed in Portuguese ships in the 16th century and had learned the way to the East. Information of great value on the course of navigation and the commercial relations of the Portuguese in the East was given by the seaman Van Linschoten in his Reys geschrift van de Navigatien des Portugaloysers in Orienten (1595). A year after the publication of this book a company fitted out four ships for Bantam and cargoes were brought home, and only two years later no less than twenty-two vessels sailed for the East Indies. In 1602 all the little companies were united into one, and the United East India Company received a charter for twenty-one years.

This was the beginning of a long struggle with the Portuguese, who were continually harried by the Dutch. Up to 1609 the position of the Company remained very precarious, but its condition was then improved by the ability and determination of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who in 1614 fixed the head-quarters of the Dutch in West Java. A bitter contest was maintained with the English, who were now the most dangerous rivals of the Dutch in the eastern seas. Coen was resolved to drive the English from the Archipelago and establish a monopoly for his Company. He also continued to make war on the Portuguese and Spaniards whether there was formal peace between the countries or not, and at last only Malacca and the Philippines remained to them.

The English East India Company, which had been established in 1609, had built one of their many factories at Macassar, in order to force their way into the Moluccas. Friction between the two nations was unceasing. The Dutch factory at Bantam had to be protected against English onslaughts by a considerable force. In 1618 Coen was appointed director-general and redoubled his opposition to the English, but immediate action was frustrated by the arrival of an English fleet before

16. 1. Blok, iii. 269-71, 291-4, 327, 491-2; iv. 14, 34, 75-6, 521-5; v. 195; Egerton, 203-14.

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Bantam. In 1619, however, Coen took Jacatra, and the Dutch became masters of Java; a new city was founded there and named Batavia. Coen now concentrated his attack on English shipping.

In 1619 a league was formed between the Dutch and English Companies; but there was so much friction between the two races that co-operation had to come to an end. A conspiracy of the English settlers in Amboyna to take the fort was discovered in 1623. Some of the English were tortured into confessions which appeared to place the affair beyond doubt, and the conspirators, who included the English agent at Amboyna and several merchants and officials of the English Company, were at once executed. The trial aroused the most violent indignation in England, and remonstrances to the States inflamed the bad feeling on both sides. The English now settled in Bantam on their own account, and there they remained, a source of serious competition to Batavia, until the Dutch drove them out in 1682. Dutch trade in Sumatra also suffered severely through the competition of the English station at Bencoolen. The English lost their last footing in the Moluccas, at Pularoon, which had been occupied by them in 1665. In 1641 the Dutch, after a siege, had taken Malacca, the centre of East Asiatic commerce and the principal remaining station of the Portuguese.

The Dutch also made good their footing in India itself. In 1638 Westerwolt, in alliance with the ruler of Kandy, after a struggle of two years gained possession of the principal settlements of the Portuguese in Ceylon. By the end of the 17th century the Dutch had factories at Surat, Cochin, Hughli, and on the Coromandel coast, and had worked up a great trade. All the Ceylon trade was now in their hands, though they only held the coast, the interior being independent.

English and Dutch relations in the East were peaceful in the 18th century, the English dominating India and the Dutch the Indies. The Fourth Dutch War, however, was disastrous to the Dutch in the East. Nagapatam, the factories in Bengal, the west coast of Sumatra, and Trincomalee all fell in the summer of 1781. The conquest of Ceylon and Java was only prevented by the arrival of a French fleet under De Suffren.

In 1795 Pichegru reduced the Netherlands to the condition of a French dependency, and England at once attacked the

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Dutch colonies; in the East Ceylon was captured. The English had in 1786 obtained a footing in the Malay Peninsula at Penang, and in 1824 the Dutch colony of Malacca, which had fallen into English hands in 1795, but had been restored to the Netherlands, was finally transferred to England in exchange for Bencoolen in Sumatra. This exchange was the final recognition of English supremacy on the coast of the mainland of Malaysia and of Dutch supremacy in the Islands.

Most of the words borrowed from Dutch in the East Indies are the names of eastern products previously unknown to Europe and introduced by Dutch trade. Some are originally Malay or from the Portuguese lingua franca of the Islands and are only transmitted to English through Dutch.

Bamboo (1598), a genus of giant grasses: the early forms in English are bambus, bambous, bambouse, ad. Du. bamboes; Du. is the first European language in which the word appeared with initial b-; the final -s of the Du. word is not explained; the name in Malay, Sundanese, and Javanese is now bambu, but the original source is unknown. Sapan, Sappan (1598), a dyewood yielding a red dye obtained from trees indigenous to tropical Asia and the East Indies; from Du. sapan(hout), ad. Malay sapaŋ.

The names of two beautiful birds of the parrot kind, frequently brought home by sailors, are Dutch borrowings. Cockatoo (1616), immediately ad. Du. kaketoe, from Malay kakatúa; the first syllable has been Anglicized to cock. Cockatiel (1880), the bird-fancier's name for the Cockatoo Parrakeet; ad. Du. kaketielje; O.E.D. suggests that this is an adaptation from the Pg. diminutive of cacatú, perhaps cacatílho or cacatelho.

Three words are the names for Eastern foods, a sauce, a fish, and a fruit. Soya (1679), a sauce prepared in China and Japan from soya beans and eaten with fish; ad. Du. soya, soja, ad. Jap. soy (ad. Chinese shi, salted beans, and yu, oil). Weakfish (1686), an East Indian fish esteemed a delicacy; ad. Du. weekvisch, from week, soft, and visch, fish. Pompelmoose (1696), a large citrus fruit, the shaddock; the name arose in the Dutch Indies in the 17th century and is given by early writers as the Du. name of the fruit; Du. pompelmoes is recorded from 1676, but no native name in Malaysia resembles it; O.E.D., quoting Dr. Kern, states that the word is composed of limoes, Malay from Pg. limoes, plural of limão, lemon, and perhaps Du. pompoen, pumpkin.

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There is one term of navigation. Monsoon (1584), a seasonal wind prevailing in South Asia; ad. e.mod.Du. monssoen, monssoyn (Linschoten, 1596), ad. Pg. moncão, in the 16th century also moucão, believed to be ad. Arab. mausim, lit. season.

Two obsolete names for East Indian languages are probably of Dutch origin. Moors (1767), a name for the Urdū or Hindustānī language; ad. Du. Moorsch, Moorish; Yule refers to the parallel forms Bengals for Bengāli, Indostans for Hindustānī, and Turks for Turkish. Malays (1779), the Malay language; ad. Du. Maleisch.

16. 2.^{16. 2.}

Dutch ships made their appearance in the Antilles and Guiana before 1609 to obtain tobacco, sugar, and timber in return for negro slaves and manufactured articles. Enterprising merchants tried to establish colonies on the Guiana coast in Essequibo and Berbice. The Dutch West India Company, formed in 1621, carried on these settlements as small trading posts. In 1666 the Virgin Islands were seized by English adventurers, who drove out the Dutch buccaneers who had held them previously. The Dutch secured a firm footing in the West Indies when they captured Curaçoa in 1634. The Dutch were the first in the slave trade; indeed, for years they were without serious competitors. Guinea and Angola furnished thousands of slaves for American plantations, mainly in Spanish possessions, and the island of Curaçoa might be called the Staple for the trade. After very slow beginnings the Dutch colonies in Guiana began to flourish in the last quarter of the 17th century through careful attention to sugar-growing. The Dutch had captured a rival English colony founded by Lord Willoughby in Surinam.

The Dutch suffered severely in the West Indies in the Fourth Dutch War. In 1781 Rodney took the island of St. Eustatius with immense booty in captured warehouses and a fleet of 130 merchantmen. Demerara was surrendered by its governor Schuylenburg, who favoured the English, and later Essequibo and Berbice suffered the same fate; Curaçoa, however, being properly defended, was saved. In 1803, during the time of the Batavian Republic, Demerara finally became British.

Of the four words borrowed in the West Indies only one comes from the West Indian Islands; the other three are from Guiana, where contact between the two peoples was more close, for the English occupied a colony originally Dutch.

16. 2. Blok. iii. 330; iv. 38, 78, 520-30.

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Crawl (1660, from Jamaica), an enclosure, pen, or buildings for keeping hogs; (1769), a pen or enclosure of stakes or hurdles in shallow water on the sea-coast to contain fish, turtles, &c.: ad. colonial Du. kraal, from Sp. corral, an enclosure; the word was probably borrowed in Jamaica from the Dutch engaged in the slave trade, and Du. kraal here was originally a pen for keeping slaves; cf. Afrik. kraal, a native village.

Not one of the three words from Guiana is originally Dutch, but of Carib, Negro, and Spanish origin. They have, however, passed through Dutch into English. Powese (1769), the pauxi or pheasant peacock; ad. Surinam colonial Du. pouwies, a corruption of Sp. pauxi. Tonka (1796, Stedman, Surinam, as tonquin, 1830, Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., as tonka), a bean used in scenting snuff; according to Focke, Neger-Engelsch Wdb. (1855), quoted in O.E.D., this is the negro name in Guiana for the bean; in Du. tonquin-boontje and tonka-boon, which give the two Eng. forms. Pegall (1796), a basket of native make used by the Indians of Guiana; ad. Du. pagaal, ad. Carib pagāla.

16. 3.^{16. 3.}

The Dutch were the rivals of the English on the West Coast of Africa, though Portuguese, French, and Danes were present also. As early as 1618 an English Company had been formed to open up trade on the Gambia River, but it was not until 1631 that an English settlement was made there. The Dutch West India Company was founded in 1621, and it established some small trading posts on the Guinea Coast and in Sierra Leone. In 1637 the Dutch captured the great settlement of St. George del Mina from the Portuguese, but in 1661 lost Cape Coast Castle to the English.

The importance of the Guinea Coast to the European nations in the 17th century was that it was the head-quarters of the trade in slaves to the West Indies. As long as the slave trade lasted, West Africa and the West Indies were economically parts of a single whole. A great trade was carried on in West Africa, too, by the East India Company, whose ships exported English cloth to Africa and got in exchange the gold which enabled the Company to drive a trade with India.

At the Restoration, when there seemed a chance of securing a large share of the commerce with Brazil, the development of the African trade was taken up by the Duke of York and Prince Rupert, and an attempt was made to form a company. This

16. 3. Blok, iv. 38, 78.

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new scheme had hardly a fair chance, as the constant conflicts with the Dutch involved the merchants in serious losses both of shipping and stations.

Paan (1705), a loin-cloth; ad. Du. paan; the form usually found in English is pagne, from F. pagne, itself from Sp. paño, or Pg. panno, cloth; this is undoubtedly a word for an article of trade introduced by the first traders on the Coast, the Portuguese, and borrowed by all the various nationalities trading there. Craw-Craw (1863), a malignant species of pustulent itch prevalent on the African coast, esp. about Sierra Leone; apparently borrowed from the Negro-Dutch name craw-craw, from the Du. kraauw, scratch, kraauwen, to scratch, claw.