Talk:Dutch language

Comment

"Dutch language, spoken in Aruba, Belgium, Curaçao, the Netherlands, Sint Maarten, and Suriname." Speling12345 (talk) 3:52, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Standard language: 3 genders

I am confused by the "two to three genders" in the lead. So there are neuter words which I don't think anyone is disputing. And while many historically feminine and masculine words can be considered "common" in the standard language (=speakers can chose whether these words are referred to as "hij/hem/zijn" (he/him/his) or "zij/ze/haar" (she/her/her)), not all words can. Het Groene Boekje has purely feminine (e.g., [1]) and purely masculine ([2]) words, which means that there are three genders in the standard language. Morgengave (talk) 09:24, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

IIUC, Het Groene Boekje gives genders as they were historically, and still are in Dutch idiolects and regiolects using all three. However, it has long been "acceptable" (since the 1960s and possibly earlier) to regard as masculine all de-words except those naming biologicaly female beings. As a rule of thumb, Hollandic usually has two genders (de and het, with, as in English which has no grammatical gender, zij, ze, haar only used for female persons or animals) while Southern Dutch (Flemish, Brabantian, etc.) usually has three (hij, ze, het, with de zon (the sun), de gelegenheid (the opportunity), de broederschap (the fraternity), etc. beiing regarded as feminine). I'm not sure where to draw the line between them. — Tonymec (talk) 00:57, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

References

@Vlaemink:, your recent edits included a few references that you invoked but didn't declare, which is leading to loud red errors in the article's reference section. Could you check and add the source information as appropriate? Thanks, Wham2001 (talk) 19:00, 31 August 2021 (UTC)

Dutch for Hindi speakers

The English Wikipedia article states that "English is the only language to use the adjective Dutch for the language of the Netherlands" but the English to Hindi translation of "Dutch" provided by English Wiktionary contradicts this. The Hindi word for Dutch ("डच" / ḍac) derives from the English word "Dutch". The translations into Dhivehi, Marathi, Nepali, and Urdu also appear to share the same root from English. Nicole Sharp (talk) 15:17, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

Well, the Hindi word for Dutch is unambiguously an English derivative, this is why it is ignored. The article wants to say that "English is the only language to use Dutch as an own word for the language of the Netherlands", the cognates of the word Dutch, German deutsch, Swedish tysk, Dutch Duits, Italian tedesco, all mean German, while Hindi probably had no word for either Dutch or German, as the Hindi did not know these nations, therefore, when it became important, they started to use the word for them from the language they know had, English. This all means that डच is actually an English word in Hindi i.e., "English is the only…" can be considered right. CERBERUS - ii iv iii (talk) 19:33, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

Official language of the Netherlands

Regarding this edit by User:Nederlandse Leeuw.

The second paragraph of the lede says that Dutch does not have the status of an official language, based on this source from the site De Nederlandse Grundwet.

Now, several sources claim otherwise:

Dutch is an official language in the Netherlands, Belgium, Surinam and the former Dutch Antilles (including Aruba).
— Georges, De Schutter (1994). "Dutch". In König, Ekkehard; van der Auwera, Johan (eds.). The Germanic languages. London: Routledge. pp. 439–477.

Modern Standard Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands and one of the official languages of Belgium.
— Kooij, Jan G. (2009). "Dutch". In Comrie, Bernard (ed.). The World's Major Languages. New York: Routledge. pp. 110–124.

Dutch (Nederlands) is the official language of the Netherlands...
— Simpson, J.M.Y. (2008). "Dutch". In Keith, Brown; Ogilvie, Sarah (eds.). Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World 1st Edition. Elsevier Science. pp. 307–311. ISBN 9780080877754.

I doubt that these sources are all wrong. The main issue seems to be the purely de facto status of Dutch as official language of the Netherlands since there is no explicit regulation in the constitution or elsewhere. The above-mentioned text in De Nederlandse Grundwet talks about unsuccessful attempts to amend the constitution in this respect, and cites as one of the reasons for an initiative in 1995: "Het artikel beoogde ook de tot dusver ongeschreven regel vast te leggen dat Nederlands de officiële voertaal is." (The article also intended to specify the hitherto unwritten rule that Dutch is the official language").

So, should we follow reliable sources in this matter, or do we take the position "no de jure official language" = "no official language". Personally, I opt for the former solution. – Austronesier (talk) 12:05, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

@Austronesier It is a valid question, and I've wondered about this. But I think we can regard de jure and "official" as synonyms, because all discussions about whether to make Dutch the "official" language had to do with enshrining it in the Dutch Constitution or some other sort of national/countrywide law. "Nederlandse taal in de Grondwet" [Dutch language in the Constitution]. denederlandsegrondwet.nl (in Dutch). Montesquieu Instituut. 2018. Retrieved 21 March 2023.

By comparison, the Dutch language has been made co-official in the province of Friesland, as well as co-official in the Caribbean Netherlands or BES islands (as well as the CAS islands), but not on a national/countrywide level. How? By law. We can point to a written text which says that Dutch is official in each of these subnational territories.

The fact that, after a plethora of formal opposition, arguments and recommendations against it were made, the formal proposal by the government to make Dutch an / the official language of/in the Netherlands on the national/countrywide level was ultimately withdrawn by the government on 19 February 2018, leads to the conclusion that it still hasn't been made "official". And that this withdrawal is the result of careful considerations of the pros and contras (and the latter seem to have outweighed the former). The government gave up because it was unclear what to do with other languages, and there was "insufficient societal need" (onvoldoende maatschappelijke behoefte) to continue trying to make it official: Minister Ollongren wrote to the House of Representatives that the proposal did not sufficiently take into account other the official languages used in the Netherlands besides Dutch and Frisian, such as English and Papiamentu. The cabinet also saw insufficient societal need for the bill.

That means we are still stuck at the level of "unwritten rule". An "unwritten rule" = unofficial. If it were a written rule, it would be de jure, i.e. official. But it's not.

I think Wikipedia should be accurate on this point, and not explain de facto as if it means "official", which I consider misleading. To take a ridiculous example: I can claim my dad is the de facto Pope as long as I say: "Well it's not written down in any sort of law or anything, but really, my dad is the Pope." Regardless of how many people may believe in, or how many RS support, my claim that my dad is the de facto Pope, that doesn't make him the official Pope. The same goes for languages. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 12:50, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

In the term "official language", "official" is an attribute that describes the functional range of a specific language, and not the way how it achieved this property. The Oxford Companion to the English Language describes an official language as follows: A language used for official purposes, especially as the medium of a national government. (courtesy link for WP Library users: Official language), which corresponds with my understanding of what an official language is (even before I looked it up). Thus, a language can become an official language by being explicitly declared so by law, decree etc. ("de jure"), or it may have assumed this role historically without explicit legislation/regulation ("de facto"). In the discourse surrounding the official language debate in the Netherlands and the United States, "official language" has been restricted to mean the former, but that's not how the term generally is employed (s. above). In the general sense of the term, it aptly characterizes the role of Dutch in the Netherlands as described in heaps of reliable sources. –Austronesier (talk) 15:14, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

That may be, but that seems like a personal interpretation that does not pass WP:OR. I also don't buy the implicit argument that the term "official language" means something else in English than the term officiële taal in Dutch. As I said before, Dutch is an official language at certain sub-national levels, but in each of those cases, it is co-official with another language. There is no national/countrywide/kingdomwide "official language" in either the Netherlands or the Kingdom of the Netherlands. If there were, this discussion could not have happened in the first place. If you look at the explanation given by MP Ronald van Raak (who was amongst the parliamentary majority who opposed officialisation), he is pretty clear:

The Dutch government wanted to make a statement against the overuse of the English language and therefore made a law to change the Constitution and give the Dutch language a place in it. (But,) Dutch is not the only official language in our country, Frisian is also an official national language. (Namely, in the province of Friesland). I already said back then that if we were to anchor the Dutch language in the Constitution, we would also have to include Frisian. But a month after the law to record the use of Dutch in the Constitution was submitted, new constitutional relations went into effect in the Kingdom: on October 10, 2010, Curaçao and St. Maarten became – Aruba was already a country – autonomous countries within the Kingdom. Bonaire became part of the Netherlands as a public entity. This island is also bilingual and has Papiamentu in addition to Dutch. In addition to Dutch and Frisian we should now also record Papiamentu in the Constitution. However, Saba and Statia also became part of the Netherlands and these islands also have two languages: in addition to Dutch, that is English. That language should now also be included in the Constitution.

The government was clearly wrestling with this situation. To create a barrier in the Constitution against the overuse of English in the Dutch language, the new state-based relations would now also require English to be recorded as the official language. Successive ministers like Piet-Hein Donner, Liesbeth Spies and Ronald Plasterk wrestled with this law proposal, until Ollongren finally made the decision to withdraw it.

Anyway, you can read the full article here. I don't see an indication that "official language" means something else than officiële taal. It confirms what the sources said: only in a limited number of sub-national levels (that cover c. 16% of the Kingdom's territory, containing c. 5.6% of the Kingdom's population) there are multiple co-official languages. At most, you can say "Dutch is one of the four co-official languages at sub-national level, but there is no national/countrywide/kingdomwide "official language" in either the Netherlands or the Kingdom of the Netherlands". Those who say otherwise have either not checked the legal status, or engage in wishful thinking, and in both cases ignore the 2010s debate which resulted in the withdrawal of the proposal to make Dutch the/a national/countrywide/kingdomwide official language of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 16:27, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I have provided three academic sources which say that Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands. Fram has cited another uhm let's say quite relevant source below. I have also cited a dictionary definition for "official language" from a reliable source (not a "personal interpretation"; the full text linked above explicitly mentions non-statutory official languages). That's not OR. Rather, it is OR to restrict the term "official language" to statutory official languages without a source that explicitly does so. –Austronesier (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

I'll grant you that technically, De Schutter 1994 is correct that Dutch is an official language in the Netherlands. So are Frisian, English and Papiamentu. That is not the question though: the question is whether Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands. Answer: no. It has no countrywide/kingdomwide official language. Simpson 2008 and Kooij 2009 are incorrect. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:54, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Not being grounded in the constitution doesn't mean that it can't be an official language. According to the Rijksoverheid (which should know things like this)[3], Dutch is unambiguously the official language of the Netherlands. First sentence: "Nederlands is de officiële taal van Nederland." Fram (talk) 16:40, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

Some informational Q & A web page on Rijksoverheid.nl can claim whatever it wants. That statement has no legal basis whatsoever; neither in the Constitution, nor in any other countrywide/kingdomwide law. All the other statements that follow it actually do. We can point to laws which confirm it. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 22:46, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

denederlandsegrondwet.nl "Bepaling over de Nederlandse taal (2010-2018)":

The proposal De officiële taal van Nederland is het Nederlands. ("The official language of the Netherlands is Dutch.") was withdrawn.

[T]he usefulness, necessity and practical added value of the bill were not considered sufficient by the House of Representatives. The House also criticised that Frisian was to be included in the Constitution while English and Papiamentu were to be omitted, while these are also languages spoken in the (Caribbean) Netherlands.

The Council of State also saw little benefit in the proposal. In its recommendation, the Council concluded, amongst other things, that there was no compelling reason because it was "not in dispute" that the language of the Netherlands was Dutch. Moreover, the Council felt the provision did not fit with the "austere character" of the Constitution. From a comparative legal inquiry, the Council noted that EU member states often did name their official language(s) in their constitutions, only that there was often a concrete reason for this, while there was none in the case of the Netherlands. Partly because of these arguments, the proposal was withdrawn in 2018.

A similar proposal was rejected already on 3 May 1997:

Responses from the House of Represetnatives echoed that they could not find any rationale for the "internal necessity" for a provision of the Dutch language in the explanatory memorandum. People also asked why Frisian was left out. Most felt that the initiative was insufficiently supported by arguments.

In short, enshrining Dutch as the official language (of communication) of the Netherlands was seen as unnecessary. This was in line with the recommendation of the Council of State.

If Dutch were the official language already, these debates couldn't have taken place. It would be a fait accompli. One would have to abolish it first in order to make it the official language (again). The fact that the first proposal was rejected by the House in 1997, and the second proposal was withdrawn by the government itself in 2018, confirms that Dutch is still not the official language of the Netherlands today. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 23:21, 22 May 2023 (UTC)

We already know that attempts to enshrine the status of Dutch as official language in the constitution have failed. This is not the issue here.

The question at stake is: is statutory regulation a prerequisite for a language to be called the official language of a country (or any other territorial entity) in Wikivoice? Multiple reliable sources don't confirm such a prerequisite. The Oxford Reference definition does not narrow it down that way (again: Official language – A language used for official purposes, especially as the medium of a national government. English is not the statutory or de jure official language of either the UK or the US, but is the de facto official language.) Three academic sources (and there are literally dozens of others) explicitly state that Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands. In order to prove them wrong, you will need to present reliable sources that explicitly state that Dutch is not the official language of the Netherlands. And in order to prove the Oxford Reference definition wrong, you will need to present reliable sources that explicitly state that only a statutory official language may be called an official language, whereas de facto official language may not. I'll be happy to see such sources. In case conflicting definitions of the term "official language" indeed exist, this discussion will reach a different level, viz. from an issue of WP:V to a question of WP:due weight.

Until then however, it is not sufficient to rely on sources that only report the non-statutory nature of Dutch when trying to refute its "official language" status; to do so is original research based on a personal definition of the term "official language" which so far has not been supported by reliable sources. –Austronesier (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

I will ask for wider input in WT:LANG. Maybe I over-rely on the Oxford Reference definition or put too much trust in academic reference works published by Routledge and Elsevier :) –Austronesier (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Add: I have certainly said enough at this point when it's time for others to chime in, but I can't escape the charm of these two quotes from a De Gruyter volume:

The official language in the Netherlands is Dutch, which is spoken by the majority of the people (Rijksoverheid, n.d.-b).
Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands, although its status is not incorporated in the Dutch constitution (Nederlandse Grondwet, n.d.).
— Andreu van Hooft, Frank van Meurs, Ulrike Nederstigt, Berna Hendriks, Brigitte Planken, Sjoerd van den Berg (2019). "The Netherlands". In Cecilio Lapresta-Rey & Ángel Huguet (eds.), Multilingualism in European Language Education. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 132–155.

–Austronesier (talk) 18:37, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

De jure = official.

De facto = unofficial.

en:wikt:de facto In fact or in practice; in actual use or existence, regardless of official or legal status. (Often opposed to de jure.) quotations ▼

Although the United States currently has no official language, it is largely monolingual with English being the de facto national language.

Ok this is really ironic. Our own Wiktionary gives precisely English in the United States as an example of why de facto is opposed to "official". Notice that it says "de facto national language". If "national" could be replaced by "official" here, then the word "official" would be either meaningless or Schrödinger's cat: Foo has no official language, but somehow, miraculously, Bar is the official language of Foo. It simultaneously has no official language and one single official language. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article de facto says the same thing. "De facto" is equated with "unofficial", "de jure" with "official"/"legal"/"by law"/"official law"(which seems tautological, but ok). And again, "national languages" versus "official languages" are the very first example used. The irony burns hard. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 00:38, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Collins Dictionary provides 3 definitions of "unofficial" (in relation to Spanish, but that is irrelevant hete), namely: "informal, de facto, unconfirmed".

Merriam-Webster provides three definitions for "de facto": "not formally recognised", "not legally constitutes", "not through laws or actions of the state".

List of Latin phrases (full)#D. Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 01:01, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

We might express the situation by stating that Dutch is the actual ambtstaal of The Netherlands.--MWAK (talk) 07:44, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

@MWAK: the simplest and most straightforward translation of ambstaal into English is "official language" (per one reference work – cited above – defined as "a language used for official purposes, especially as the medium of a national government", which encaptures the main shades of Dutch ambstaal).

@Nederlandse Leeuw: There's is really no need to do OR by trying to derive the meaning of "official language" based on dictionary definitions for the word "official" alone, especially when a reliable source explicitly defines "official language" as a full phrase, and also when others sensibly apply the term as it is commonly understood to the case of Dutch (I am bold enough to say "commonly", because I am not bold enough to call multiple reliable sources written by subject-matter experts wrong, solely based on OR). You really need to provide sources that talk about what an "official language" actually is.

There is no Schrödinger's cat, because Foo has no official language, but somehow, miraculously, Bar is the official language of Foo. is not what any source says. You're combining your personal opinion (= "the Netherlands has no official language") with a well-sourced statement ("Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands"); of course the result will be paradoxical, but only because the first statement is wrong (at least at the current state of sourcing). Austronesier (talk) 18:31, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Of course no source says Foo has no official language, but somehow, miraculously, Bar is the official language of Foo., because I made it up as a fictional example (by employing an argumentum ad absurdum). But it is not far off from the premise of your position, namely: "the purely de facto status of Dutch as official language of the Netherlands". That is a contradiction in terms if de facto and "official" are mutually exclusive terms - which I sought to demonstrate with dictionary definitions.

You really need to provide sources that talk about what an "official language" actually is. I did. With reference to denederlandsegrondwet.nl and Van Raak, where it is explained that "official" means that its status is written down in either the Constitution or a regular/ordinary law. It was never just about the Constitution. The Council of State said that Regeling van het gebruik van de officiële taal kon volgens de Raad net zo goed geschieden via een gewone wet. Als toch voor een grondwettelijke bepaling zou worden gekozen, zou kunnen worden volstaan met een regelingsopdracht voor de formele wetgever. (According to the Council, regulation of the use of the official language could just as well be done through an ordinary law. If a constitutional provision were to be chosen after all, a regulation order for the formal legislature would suffice.) This makes clear that no such regular/ordinary law is in place yet either, otherwise they could point to that existing law.

How about you?

Kooij 2009 never defines the term "official language"

De Schutter 1994 never defines the term "official language"

Simpson 2008 never defines the term "official language"

All three of the original sources you provided just give you a quote declaring Dutch to be "the/an official language of/in the Netherlands", but otherwise they are mostly linguistic or geographical analyses of various Dutch dialects, they do not analyse the legal position at all.

van Hooft et al. 2019 also don't say why or how Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands, although its status is not incorporated in the Dutch constitution (Nederlandse Grondwet, n.d.). They only explain that it hasn't been incorporated into the Constitution and why, but not why we should nevertheless consider Dutch "the official language of the Netherlands" anyway. For Friesland they can actually point to the 2014 law. They can't do that for the Netherlands as a whole, because such a law does not exist (as I've been trying to explain).

To close with a confession: Until recently, I also thought that Dutch was the official language of the Netherlands, just because I assumed that. I had never checked. I had never asked. It just made sense because lots of countries around us have official languages, often in the Constitution or in a regular/ordinary law. The Netherlands do not. It was a surprise to me. But I read all there was to read about it (which is well-summarised at the denederlandsegrondwet.nl), and I had to draw the conclusion that I and many others are just simply wrong. There is no countrywide/kingdomwide official language. There are only 4 co-official languages in those 4 local cases. c. 94.4% of the Kingdom's population lives in an area that has no official language whatsoever. The constitutional question demonstrated that all 4 would have to be recognised as official languages at the kingdomwide level if Dutch were become an official language at that level. I already put all this information on Dutch Wikipedia on 21 March 2023, nobody complained about it, let alone reverted it. This is accepted knowledge amongst people who have been following these debates. I hadn't, so I was surprised, but I read it all, and I came to the conclusion I had simply been wrong. I had just assumed something without evidence. And this belief appears to be widespread, even in some otherwise reliable sources. But if you really pin someone down to ask how they know that, or how it is "official", there is just no response. Cheers, Nederlandse Leeuw (talk) 19:26, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Dutch language and practice.

Dutch is one of the easiest languages for an English speaker. Also after learning it you will get a great reward, you will get to learn German, Afrikaans, and Flemish easier, and Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish will be easier to learn at an extent. Practice. Waar is de man. Where is the man. Waar is het koekje. Where is the cookie.

Notice Het and De.

Het is for anything non living and doesn't come from anything living and the word girl is the only word that is in the het section but is living.

De is for anything living and comes from anything living.

So The Wine would be De Wijn.

Why? Because wine comes from grapes, which grapes grow on plants and plants are living.

Thanks for reading! Bye, Joshua. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.43.104.127 (talk) 04:39, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Yours is an interesting hypothesis but one easily falsified. A konijn (bunny) is living but nevertheless het konijn. A ster (star) is a non-living object (by the usual standards) yet de ster.

Though some very simple Dutch sentences are understandable to an intelligent English-speaking reader (Aan de arm van een man zitten een hand en vingers), a correct pronunciation and grammar are often difficult to attain. And Flemish is not a language :o).--MWAK (talk) 08:03, 15 December 2023 (UTC)