The Dutch Language

Dutch is a West Germanic language spoken by around 23 million people as a first language and 5 million people as a second language. It is spoken by the majority of people in the Netherlands, where it is the official language, and Belgium, as one of its three official languages. It is the third most widely spoken Germanic language, after its close relatives English and German. Outside of the Low Countries, Dutch is spoken in the Republic of Suriname, the Caribbean countries of Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten, as well as parts of France and Germany, and in Indonesia, while up to half a million native speakers may reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined. The Cape Dutch dialects of Southern Africa have evolved into Afrikaans, a mutually intelligible daughter language. Afrikaans is spoken by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia.

Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English. Like English, Dutch has not undergone the High German consonant shift. It does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker. It has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive. Moreover, Dutch has evened off much of its morphology, including most of its case system¹. The only similar features shared with the German language is that Dutch still includes two to three grammatical genders such as the use of modal particles, final-obstruent devoicing, and a similar word order. Dutch vocabulary is mostly Germanic, but there are more loan words from Romance languages as compared to its German cousin. Yet, when compared to the English vocabulary, English has more loans words from Romance languages than Dutch. Dutch vocabulary also has strong similarities with Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish. However, Dutch is not mutually intelligible in text or speech with any of the three Scandinavian languages.

 

History of Dutch

Old Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. Over the source of 15 centuries, the Old Dutch has developed through Middle Dutch, and then finally, to Modern Dutch. During that gradual period of development, Old Frisian influence was pushed back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and eventually replaced Old Saxon, which was spoken in the east of the Low German territories. Dutch was then replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany.

 

Dutch Dialects

The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland, is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant. Historically, West Flemish variety was spoken in some parts of France near the Netherlands, known as French Flemish, and is listed as a French minority language. Nonetheless, at present, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish people still speaks and understands West Flemish.

 

Dutch Alphabets, Consonants, Vowels, and Diphthongs

 

Dutch Grammar

Similar to German, Dutch places verbs at the end of a sentence after the first initial verb. The underlying structure is basically Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) but the first verb is in second position after the subject. Therefore, if there is only one verb in a sentence, then the structure would be Subject-Verb-Object (SVO).

 

SVO Example:

Dutch: Ik lees een boek.

                 ^{s.   verb         obj.}

English: I am reading a book.

 

SOV Example:

Dutch: Ik wil   je    een knuffel geven.

            ^{s. verb  obj.1          obj.2            verb}

English: I want to give you a hug.

 

Plurals

ends with ‘-en’

deur (door) = deuren (doors)

fiets (bicycle) = fietsen (bicycles)

muis (mouse) = muizen (mice)

droom (dream) = dromen (dreams)

duif (dove) = duiven (doves)

 

ends with ‘-s’

jongen (boy) = jongens (boys)

sleutel (key) = sleutels (keys)

telefoon (phone) = telefoons (phones)

lapel (spoon) = lapels (spoons)

parel (pearl) = parels (pearls)

 

irregular form endings

kind (child) = kinderen (children)

stad (city) = steden (cities)

ei (eggs) = eieren (eggs)

Articles

de (the - masculine/feminine)

de man (the man)

de vrouw (the woman)

 

het (the - neuter)

het kind (the child)

het kantoor (the office)

 

een (a or an)

Ik heb een boek gelezen. (I have read a book.)

Verb Tenses

Dutch has only two tenses — Present and Past. However, there are a few other semi-tenses by an interaction of present and past tenses, aspect and mood.

There are altogether 8 basic tenses:

 

Present	Ik werk	I work
Simple past	Ik werkte	I worked
Perfect	Ik heb gewerkt	I have worked
Pluperfect	Ik had gewerkt	I had worked
Future	Ik zal werken	I will work
Conditional	Ik zou werken	I would work
Future Perfect	Ik zal hebben gewerkt	I will have worked
Conditional Perfect	Ik zou hebben gewerkt	I would have worked

Cardinal and Ordinal Numbers

No.	Cardinal	Ordinal	No.	Cardinal	Ordinal
1	één	eerste	11	elf	elfde
2	twee	tweede	12	twaalf	twaalfde
3	drie	derde	13	dertien	dertiende
4	vier	vierde	14	veertien	veertiende
5	vijf	vijfde	15	vijftien	vijftiende
6	zes	zesde	16	zestien	zestiende
7	zeven	zevende	17	zeventien	zeventiende
8	acht	achtste	18	achttien	achttiende
9	negen	negende	19	negentien	negentiende
10	tien	tiende	20	twintig	twintigste

 

No.	Cardinal	Ordinal
21	eenentwintig	eenentwintigste
22	tweeëntwintig	tweeëntwintigste
23	drieëntwintig	drieëntwintigste
24	vierentwintig	vierentwintigste
25	vijfentwintig	vijfentwintigste
26	zesenentwintig	zesenentwintigste
27	zevenentwintig	zevenentwintigste
28	achtentwintig	achtentwintigste
29	negenentwintig	negentwintigste
30	dertig	dertigste

40	veertig	veertigste
50	vijftig	viftigste
60	zestig	zestigste
70	zeventig	zeventigste
80	tachtig	tachtigste
90	negentig	negentigste
100	hondred	honderdste
1000	duizend	duizendste

Days of the Weeks, Months, and the Seasons

Days	dagen	Months	maanden
Monday	maandag	January	januari
Tuesday	dinsdag	February	februari
Wednesday	woensdag	March	maart
Thursday	donderdag	April	april
Friday	vrijdag	May	mei
Saturday	zatertag	June	juni
Sunday	zontag	July	juli
Seasons	seizoenen	August	augustus
Winter	winter	September	september
Spring	lente	October	oktober
Summer	zomer	November	november
Autumn	herfst	December	december