Holland's Influence on English Language and Literature

[p. 69]

Chapter IX The Influence Exerted on the English Language is Entirely Different from that on English Literature.

However closely and even inseparably language and literature may be connected, yet they are not identical, and the influence which Holland exerted on the English language is entirely different from that on English literature. The Flemish weavers and soldiers, brought to England by William the Conqueror, the thousands of skilled laborers and farmers, who settled in the eastern districts of England during several centuries, and the great mass of refugees who fled to England during the sixteenth century, all lived among the English people, mixed with the English population, taught different things to the inhabitants of England, and used for those things their own Flemish names. They introduced Flemish words into England; those words were added to the English vocabulary, and in that way all those people exerted some influence on the English language, but this influence did not touch English literature.

On the contrary when scholars like Erasmus and Franciscus Junius, Vossius and Van der Noot came to England, they spoke from the beginning the English language, or they spoke Latin. They did not introduce Flemish words into the English language, but by their writings, by their conversation and correspondence they brought new ideas, new suggestions

[p. 70]

for the literary men, for the scholars and poets; they exerted an influence on English literature. And even without coming themselves to England, when the works of scholars and poets in the Netherlands are spread over England, and read by men of education and learning, then the influence of these scholars and poets on English language is nothing, but on English literature it may be considerable.

English soldiers and refugees came to the Netherlands by the thousand; they saw there things, and learned there industries which they did not know before; they heard the names for all those new things, and for every part of them, in the Dutch language; they grew familiar with these Dutch words and terms, and coming back to England, they continued to use these Dutch terms as they learned them in Holland. Their influence is only on the English language, not on English literature.

But when hundreds of students from England and Scotland come to Leyden University to study there all kinds of sciences, and some of them in later time write books in England, then we see the influence of what they studied in Holland, and in their writings we shall find something of the influence which Holland exerted on English literature.

The common citizens, the unlearned people, the men of industry, trade and agriculture, these are the people that are making and changing the language.

So a language is changing all the time. ‘Growth and change,’ says Whitney, ‘make the life of language, as they are everywhere else the inseparable accompaniment of life. A language is living when it is the instrument of thought of a whole people, the wonted means of expression of all their feelings, experiences, opinions, reasonings; when the connection between it

[p. 71]

and their mental activity is so close that the one reflects the other, and that the two grow together, the instrument ever adapting itself to the uses which it is to subserve.’¹

But the scholars and poets, the learned men of high education, the philosophers, the statesmen and the clergymen, the people who propagate and practice their ideas in state, in church and in society - these are the men who are making the literature. Now when the things that happen in Holland in any department of life are important, and interesting enough to attract the attention and the interest of English people, and to influence their writings, then we can say that Holland has an influence on English literature, which is the result of this interest.

When a nation is ahead in industry and trade, in navigation and agriculture, in a word, in all those things which touch immediately the life and the daily work of the common people, then it is very likely that words and terms in connection with all these things will be introduced into the language of that other nation, which has to learn and to follow.

But when a nation is ahead in religious and political ideas and movements, in sciences and in art, or in social movements, then it is very likely that philosophers and statesmen, clergymen and poets, in a word all those people who make the literature of a nation, will feel the influence of the leading nation, and in such cases we observe the influence of one nation on the literature of the other.

Now in the case of Holland and England every historian knows that during centuries Holland was far ahead of England in industry and in trade, in

1 William Dwight Whitney, Language and the Study of Language, p. 32.

[p. 72]

navigation and in agriculture, as well as in political, religious and social ideas and movements, in sciences and in art. Consequently, before having made any further researches, we may suppose that during those centuries Holland has exerted some influence on the English language, as well as on English literature, an influence which the following pages may show more clearly.