Newsgroups: sci.lang.translation,sci.lang,soc.culture.nordic
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!newsfeed.pitt.edu!gatech!news.cse.psu.edu!uwm.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!in2p3.fr!swidir.switch.ch!swsbe6.switch.ch!news.belnet.be!news.be.innet.net!bofh.dot!INbe.net!news.nl.innet.net!INnl.net!hunter.premier.net!bofh.dot!news.mathworks.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!EU.net!sun4nl!cs.ruu.nl!tijger.fys.ruu.nl!usenet
From: Michiel Meeuwissen <meeuwiss@fys.ruu.nl>
Subject: Re: easiest lang for beginner (Dutch)
Sender: usenet@fys.ruu.nl (News system Tijgertje)
Message-ID: <31975F20.41C6@fys.ruu.nl>
Date: Mon, 13 May 1996 16:11:12 GMT
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: ruunat.fys.ruu.nl
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
References: <Pine.HPP.3.91.960507030300.11260D-100000@course1.HARVARD.EDU> <holman-2708561656540001@eng18.pc.helsinki.fi>
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Mozilla 2.01 (X11; I; OSF1 V3.2 alpha)
Organization: Physics and Astronomy, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
Lines: 73
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu sci.lang.translation:6658 sci.lang:53635

As a speaker of dutch I want to make a few commences.
> Dutch requires more work than learning to pronounce German does. And, once
> you've learned to pronounc 'standard Dutch', (Algemeen Beschaafd
> Nederlands), there are still local pronunciations (e.g. that of
> Rotterdam), and Flemish to deal with.
It is not correct to see Flemish as a seperate language. Flemish is
dutch as spoken in Flanders. 
> * Grammar: Quite easy for an English speaker. Dutch and English are the
> modern versions of a 'language' (or set of dialects) spoken in what is now
> north-western German and Holland as recently as fifteen hundred years ago.
> In addition to their common origin, they have, unlike German, evolved
> along a similar path, so that the basic grammatical patterns are
> basicsally the same. Dutch is somewhat more conservative than English, so
> it has retained two genders and strong adjective endings even if the case
> system has been reduced to a few relicts. It is exciting when learning a
> language like Dutch to see many of the irregularities of English reflected
> in its grammar. Dutch syntax still makes use of Germanic inversion in
> subordinate clauses and sentences beginning with a constituent other than
> the subject, but this is easily learned.
> * Vocabulary: Relatively easy for an English speaker, even to the extent
> of having cognates like: *hij/he* = 'he', *hem* = 'him', *wij/we* = 'we'.
The word 'he' is unknown in dutch. There is however *zij/ze* = 'she'.
> On the one hand, the basic vocabulary is essentially the same, nor have
> relationships been obscured by the second sound shift, as is the case with
> German:
> 
> Dutch       German      English
> open        offen       open
> eten        essen       eat
> hart        Herz        heart
> maken       machen      make
> paad        Pfad        path
paad? paad = pad
> tien        zehn        ten
> drinken     trinken     drink
> geven       geben       give
> 
> On the other hand, though. Dutch, like German, has been more puristic, and
> has augmented its vocabulary more by compounding, calquing, and derivation
> than by borrowing, as English has done. Dutch has even gone further than
> German in this respect, thus *scheikunde* = 'chemistry, *wiskunde* =
> 'mathematics'.
In these particular examples it is true that Dutch gas gone further then
German, but I doubt it in general. 
e.g. *televisie* = 'television' and in german it's *Fernsehen*, or
something like that.  Borrowing did take place a lot, mainly from latin
and german, french and english. 

By the way, the more international terms 'chemie' and 'mathematiek' also
can be used as is often done in compound words. The examples
'scheikunde' 'wiskunde' , and I can add 'natuurkunde' (=physics) and
'aardrijkskunde' (=geography) I think all belong to a same group, and
were thought out all by one man (was it not Simon Stevin).

 
> * General usefulness: With more than 15,000,000 speakers, Dutch is hardly

It is true that in Flanders for a greater percentage of the people the
first language might be their dialect, but I feel they too should be
counted as speakers of dutch. Flemish television is perfectly
understandable for a speaker of dutch, and in literature, where subtile
variations of pronounciation disappear, at least I cannot distinguish a
Flemish author from a Dutch one. Dutch therefore has over 20 million
speakers (15 million in the netherlands and 5 million in belgium)

> a minor language. Knowledge of it provides access to the culture and
> history of the Low Countries and, surprisingly, to that of Indonesia and
> various Dutch outposts in the Western hemisphere. A knowledge of
> Afrikaans, one of the official languages of South Africa, is easily
> acquired by a person knowing Dutch. Finally, perhaps even more so than
> German, study of Dutch provides many insights into the structure and
> history of English.
>
