Talk:History of the Dutch language

Statenvertaling fragment

The wording may be 1618, but the spelling has definitely been modernised. Shouldn't we use the original spelling? If so, I can provide it as my great-gran's old Bible has the original. -- Curt Woyte 09:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

If you can provide the a genuine 1618 bible text sure. Rex Germanus Tesi samanunga is edele unde scona 09:34, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

I can but it'll have to wait as it now transpires someone has borrowed the bit I need. -- Curt Woyte 09:55, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

that doesnt matter. Rex Germanus Tesi samanunga is edele unde scona 10:50, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Proto Indo-European

I don't think the whole piece about the Proto Indo-European history is relevant nor necessary. Meursault2004 14:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, it give a complete image ... but it's also somewhat confusing.Whould would you suggest?Rex 16:27, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well for a start we can look at the other articles about the history of other languages. I think that the History of the English language is a good article. Meursault2004 12:01, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'll do some cutting, and you tell me if you think it's an improvement okay? Rex 13:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I think it is now a vast improvement over the original. It is now much more readable. Meursault2004 16:57, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

how many people are they in dutch

• how many people are there in Dutch
• how many dogs is there in Dutch — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.114.222.101 (talk) 17:54, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

"Dutch is noteworthy as the language of an outstanding literature..."

This is the second sentence of the second paragraph. It's problematic for two reasons.

One reason is that its wording is very awkward; I don't think I've seen anyone ever use the term "outstanding literature", much less refer to a language as a "language of outstanding literature". The second reason is that it's very nationalistic. This sounds like it was written by someone from the 19th century. I don't really think these subjective and nationalistic ideas should belong on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ourdearbenefactor (talk • contribs) 22:23, 10 January 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 11:59, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 07:14, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 23:14, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Error in the vowel table

According to Proto-Germanic_language#ē₁_and_ē₂, ē₁ turns into ā for all Germanic languages except for Gothic. This phoneme is represented in the vowel table here as /ɛː/ --> /aː/. That leaves ē₂ to be represented in this table as /eː/(which falls in line with the IPA of reconstructed Proto-Germanic words). The paragraph in the Proto-Germanic page also discusses how Krahe treats ē₂ as identical to ī, which explain why the table currently states that both are merged in Old Dutch. What I however found is that Old_Dutch#Phonology states that the ē₂ in Proto-Germanic does in fact not become ī, but ie. This ie eventually merges with io and ia in Middle Dutch as is explained in Middle_Dutch#Differences_with_Old_Dutch. To give a concrete example, hier from Middle Dutch hier, from Old Dutch hier, from Proto-Germanic *hē₂r.

So if the table is to be correct, the /eː/ may need to be moved down to beneath /eu/ in PG, become /ie/ in Old Dutch and merge with /io/ to become /iə/ in Middle Dutch and follow from there on. I am completely to editing so I hope someone with more knowledge on this can approve it and make the actual change in the table. Dinghwehs (talk) 00:35, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

References

Old Dutch

Hello, @Ermenrich The following sentence in the section "Old Dutch" claims that it is only considered a separate language because Dutch later functioned as the standard language, which I doubt. I believe this is not the majority opinion, but rather an outdated view, especially since there are examples like Low German, where non-standardized language varieties are mostly recognized as separate languages. Therefore, I would ask you to approve the deletion of this sentence: Old Dutch is considered a separate language mainly because it gave rise to the much later Dutch standard language, for contingent political and economic reasons. ~2025-44203-93 (talk) 22:46, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

You don't need to ask for my permission to delete sentences like that! If anyone has a problem with it, they'll revert it, but it's best to address talk page comments to the general editing public.--Ermenrich (talk) 23:00, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

Okay thank you @Ermenrich, but would you, as a linguist, appreciate the deletion of this sentence? ~2025-44203-93 (talk) 23:14, 31 December 2025 (UTC)

I'm actually not a linguist, but go ahead!--Ermenrich (talk) 22:28, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

Yes, but you are a German professor and probably studied „Germanistik“(German studies). So I do have your support, without which I wouldn't have carried out the work, since as a first-semester linguistics student I'm not entirely familiar with the topic? Perhaps you could review my explanation that I submitted, or something like that.~2026-20280 (talk) 22:34, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I would highly appreciate it. ~2026-20280 (talk) 23:42, 1 January 2026 (UTC)

I support the edit, yes.--Ermenrich (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2026 (UTC)