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)

Possibly related subject: clitics

If, and that is a big if, clitics may be included in the clusters, sequences like the following might be added:

• Ik zei dat ik - van allen - het allerpromptst 'm 't 'r 'ns stevig zou inwrijven!

(I said that - of all people - I would most quickly rub it in his face!)

Probably the clitics would then have to be divided over the previous and the following word, and I would not yet know how exactly.Redav (talk) 21:36, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

While the sentence you provide is more or less grammatically correct it would be an exceedingly rare line. That such a line could (in theory) be constructed does not mean that we should construct such line to make a point. It would of course be more convincing if there were texts in actual use. Especially since clitics are to my experience fairly rare in Dutch. I have hardly ever seen the 'm (hem/him) 't (het/it) 'r (er/there) form in written language and even de 'ns (eens/once) is rare in my experience, much rarer than the English it's form (which you find in formal texts). Also not very clear where to put it in, in what way. Arnoutf (talk) 06:48, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

And as there is no proof that such sequences ever occur in actual speech, it would be Undue Weight to mention them.--MWAK (talk) 06:59, 22 July 2025 (UTC)

But examples as:

• <‘k Struikel erover, joh!>
• <‘k Zal ‘m ‘t ‘r ‘ns schriftelijk inwrijven.>

definitely occur, on occasion even without any schwas intervening between the clitics and their hosts. (Natural speech has the most bizarre reductions, like [tyk] for <natuurlijk>.)

Now, according to https://e-ans.ivdnt.org/topics/pid/topic-16007639306879258 paragraph 1.5.3 (and another source that I might be able to find again), vowelless clitics are part of the prosodic word headed by the grammatical word they lean against. If that view is accepted, the first example contains the initial quadriphonemic cluster

• /kstr/

and, depending on how the clitics are (to be) distributed over the hosts, the second example contains:

• /lm/ + /trnssxr/

as syllable-final and syllable-initial clusters.

I am not suggesting to add “all” details about clitics to the article. It might be a good thing, though, to make the wording more precise, e.g. by defining a restriction to cliticless syllables, for example.Redav (talk) 01:44, 30 July 2025 (UTC)

About the country of Holland

Can you talk to me in dutch language about the holland country 185.187.131.132 (talk) 19:10, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

We are not a chatbot. And the country is The Netherlands. At nl:Nederland Dutch text can be found about the subject.--MWAK (talk) 20:39, 12 August 2025 (UTC)

1947 Act

The 1947 spelling reform act is mentioned in a footnote, but we could do with a little more than that. As I understand it, that act not only reformed the orthography but also officially removed the Germanic system of noun cases from the grammar of the official language, which is quite a big issue. Can someone with a reliable source add a sentence or two about this? Doric Loon (talk) 12:02, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

This is a common misunderstanding. Let's look at Art 1, lid 5: De naamvalsuitgang -n bij lidwoorden, voornaamwoorden, bijvoeglijke naamwoorden en daarmee gelijkstaande woorden mag, behalve in staande uitdrukkingen, worden weggelaten. So it's not really about nouns but about articles, pronouns, adjectives and such. Furthermore it's not mandatory to omit the n-suffix but only allowed (mag) to do so. The n-suffix had already been largely been abandoned by the Spelling-Marchant of 1934. Real noun declensions were in disuse long before any official spelling was established. The e-suffix for datives was not mandatory in the Spelling Siegenbeek.--MWAK (talk) 14:31, 21 October 2025 (UTC)

Dutch

The name "Dutch" is not accurate. Dutch refers to an old language "Diets". This is an archaic language however. Modern people from the Netherlands speak Nederlands, which is Netherlandish in English. This term is not very widespread, I am aware, but should also not be popularised as this is culturally false. It should at least be noted somewhere that Dutch means something else than Netherlandish.

We are Netherlandish-speaking people from the Netherlands. We are Netherlanders. Not Dutch(ies), not Dutch-speaking, and definitely not Holland or Hollandish or Hollanders.

Our southern neighbours in North Belgium speak Flemish. Not Dutch. It is an accent tone of Netherlandish. ~2026-40907-15 (talk) 16:41, 21 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, the term Dutch is etymologically related to "Diets". This is mentioned in the article. And Nederlands can be literally translated with "Netherlandish". All this does not detract from the fact that Dutch is the English name for Nederlands. Given that fact, the term Dutch should be used for the language. See WP:Commonname.

In northern Belgium, Dutch dialects are spoken. These are often called Flemish dialects. This is ambiguous however and rather misleading as it hides the fact that these dialects do not form a unity and that West Flemish, Brabantian and Limburgish are also spoken in area's inhabited by millions on the Dutch side of the border.--MWAK (talk) 20:31, 21 July 2026 (UTC)