Dutch (Nederlands) is the official language of the Netherlands. A West Germanic language, it is spoken by around 23 million people as a first language (including the population of the Netherlands and about sixty percent of Belgium where it is one of the three official languages) and by another 5 million as a second language. Outside the Low Countries, it is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname where it also holds an official status, as it does in Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, which are constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands located in the Caribbean.

Linguistics

As a Germanic language, Dutch is related closely to other Germanic languages like English and German. More distantly, it is related to other Indo-European languages such as Hindi and Russian.

Classification

Dutch's full classification is as follows:

Indo-European (Proto-Indo-European) > Germanic (Proto-Germanic) > West Germanic > Low Franconian/Weser-Rhine Germanic (Old Frankish) > Dutch

Phonology and Lexicon

Dutch distinguishes at least 12 vowel phonemes and 3 diphthongs. Vowel length is not always considered a distinctive feature in Dutch phonology, because it normally co-occurs with changes in vowel quality. One feature or the other may be considered redundant, and some phonemic analyses prefer to treat it as an opposition of tenseness. However, even if not considered part of the phonemic opposition, the long/tense vowels are still realised as phonetically longer than their short counterparts. The changes in vowel quality are also not always the same in all dialects, and in some dialects, there may be little difference at all, with length remaining the primary distinguishing feature. Although older words always pair vowel length with a change in vowel quality, new loanwords have reintroduced phonemic oppositions of length. Compare zonne(n) /ˈzɔnə(n)/ ('suns') versus zone /ˈzɔːnə/ ('zone') versus zonen /ˈzoːnə(n)/ ('sons'), or kroes /krus/ ('mug') versus cruise /kruːs/ ('cruise').

Dutch has 19 consonant phonemes, as well as three that appear in loan words (though one of those, /g/, appears allophonically due to voicing assimilation). Dutch voiced obstruents experience final devoicing when they appear word-finally, leading to pairs such as huizen [ˈɦœy̑zə] ('houses') and huis [ɦœy̑s] ('house')

Grammar

Dutch has an underlying SOV word order, but also experiences the V2 rule, where a finite verb is moved to the second place in the sentence, which means other forms like SVO and VSO can appear in these clauses.

Dutch nouns decline for two numbers, the singular and the plural. Standard Dutch has three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter; however, despite this, among many Dutch people there's only a distinction between two genders -- common and neuter. Cases are gone in the language for the most part, as are the endings that were used to express them. Nouns also have a diminutive form, with two basic ways to form it with either -tje or with -ke(n); the former is the standard way, while the latter is used in some of the dialects.

Dutch pronouns still preserve a case distinction, much like in English. Dutch does have a T-V distinction. The third person singular is divided into three forms: masculine, feminine and object. The third plural is split based if it's identifying humans or objects.

Dutch verbs inflect for two tenses -- past and present. The present tense can be used to express the future as well, and is perhaps better called a "non-past" form; it can also express punctual, progressive and habitual actions. Three moods are identified on Dutch verbs: imperative, indicative and subjunctive. However, the subjunctive is only modernly productive, mainly restricted to archaic/formal phrase; otherwise, periphrastic forms are used.

Dutch has several non-finite verb forms, such as past and present participles. There is also an infinitive form, which can be used as a gerund, and as an indefinite imperative, such as 'One must not spoke', niet roken. Dutch verbs can belong to several different transitivity classes: unergative, unaccusative, transitive, ditransitive, middle verbs/verbs of innocence, reflexive verbs, impersonal verbs and absolute verbs.

Miscellany

Dutch has spawned a daughter language, Afrikaans.

Samples

Spoken sample:

https://youtu.be/Qv53zmmpM5Q?list=PLDsEIivsLesLkvc9To1ZDJykOK93YFRpf (Wikitongues project)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHP5NU-wSGc (lullaby)

Written sample:

Alle mensen worden vrij en gelijk in waardigheid en rechten geboren. Zij zijn begiftigd met verstand en geweten, en behoren zich jegens elkander in een geest van broederschap te gedragen.

Sources

Previous LotWs

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Goededag! - This week's language of the week: Dutch!

Linguistics

Miscellany

Samples

Sources

Previous LotWs

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