History of Dutch orthography
Encyclopedia
The History of Dutch Orthography covers the changes in spelling of Dutch
both in the Netherlands
itself and in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders
in Belgium
.
. During this period there was no standardization of grammar. Authors generally wrote in their own dialects. Very often it is possible to tell from the language whether a text comes from Limburg
, Brabant
, or Holland. There was a lot of variation in the spelling. Words were often written as they were pronounced: lant (land), hi vint (he finds). The sound determined the spelling, irrespective of the basic word. This is no longer the case with modern Dutch where land, has a voiceless ‘d’, but is written thus because the infinitive is landen, and hij vindt (he finds) has dt as it is 3rd person singular, thus stem (vind) +t
.
From the very start of its written history, Dutch used the Latin alphabet
. At first there were 23 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, y, z. It was not until later that the j, u, and w were added.
A problem with the Latin alphabet was that it was not easy to make a distinction between long and short vowels (a - aa). Various solutions were found. At the beginning of the 13th century the word jaar (year) was spelt jar but other variants soon appeared: jaer and jair and later jaar or even yaer and iaer.
Another feature of Middle Dutch is that articles or prepositions were often joined on to the word they belonged to: tjaer (the year) and dlant (the land), as in the accompanying fragment from Karel ende Elegast
. The text translates: “I will tell you a marvelous story, and a true one. Listen! One evening Charles was sleeping in Ingelheim on the Rhine. All the land you could see was his.”
There were also regional differences. Thus a clerk in Amsterdam
in the 14th century would usually write lant, but in Utrecht
he would write land. The modern system of double consonants for shortening the vowels was also known: compare tellen (short e) with slapen (long a) in the extract.
The invention of printing led to a more standardized approach.
pervading all areas of thought, attempts were made to unify Dutch spelling and grammar
. Matthijs Siegenbeek, professor at Leiden was officially asked in 1801 to draw up a uniform spelling; the priest
Petrus Weiland was asked to write a grammar book. A few years later Siegenbeek published his spelling in Verhandeling over de Nederduitsche spelling ter bevordering van de eenparigheid in dezelve (Treatise on Lower Dutch spelling to promote uniformity herein) (1804) and a Woordenboek voor de Nederduitsche spelling (Dictionary for the Dutch Spelling) (1805). The government of the Batavian Republic
officially introduced Siegenbeek's spelling on 18 December 1804.
Siegenbeek thought that the spelling should reflect refined Dutch pronunciation, taking into account the uniformity, etymology
, and analogy. From the Siegenbeek spelling reforms, we get the modern Dutch ij (called lange ij (long y) as distinct from the usually identically pronounced ei, called korte ei (short ei)). The word for iron ijzer used to be written yzer. Other spellings from Siegenbeek include: berigt (modern Dutch: bericht / report), blaauw (blauw / blue), Dingsdag (dinsdag / Tuesday), gooijen (gooien / to throw), magt (macht / power), kagchel (kachel / stove), koningrijk (koninkrijk /kingdom), muzijk (muziek / music) and zamen (samen / together).
Siegenbeek's spelling never achieved real popularity. In particular the poet
Willem Bilderdijk
fought against it, largely out of personal spite. He produced some of his own spellings which were popular in the 1830s and 1840s including the modern kachel (stove), plicht (instead of pligt /duty) and gooien (to throw). However, other spellings of his did not last: andwoord (antwoord / answer), hair (haar /hair/her), ontfangen (ontvangen / to receive), thands (thans / at present) and wareld (wereld / world).
In 1836, the Belgian government offered a reward for a proposal for a new spelling. In the end, the jury, headed by Jan Frans Willems
, produced their own suggestion in 1839 which remained quite close to the Siegenbeek spelling in use in the Netherlands. They retained their own spelling of a few words such as kaes (cheese), ryden (to ride) and vuerig (fiery). The Willems spelling was given royal approval on January 9, 1844.
at which both the Netherlands and Flanders were represented. The project aimed to produce a large dictionary: Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT) (Dictionary of the Dutch Language), incorporating vocabulary of the past centuries.
There was a problem with this project: which spelling was to be used for the dictionary? There were three spelling systems in use at the time: the Willems spelling in Belgium, the Siegenbeek spelling in the Netherlands, and several variants of Bilderdijk’s system. It would have been unacceptable to have used a mixture of these systems. In addition, the Siegenbeek system did not address certain issues such as when compounds were to be written as one word or the interpolation of letters in between. It was proposed to create a special dictionary spelling.
This spelling was established by the linguists Matthias de Vries and L.A. te Winkel. In 1863 Te Winkel published the results in De grondbeginselen der Nederlandsche spelling. Ontwerp der spelling voor het aanstaande Nederlandsch Woordenboek (The foundations of Dutch spelling. Project for the spelling of the forthcoming Dutch Dictionary). The spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel combined elements of the three current systems, providing a much needed solution to the chaos. By 21 November royal decree in Belgium had accepted the decision. In 1866 De Vries and Te Winkel produced Woordenlijst voor de spelling der Nederlandsche taal (Vocabulary for the spelling of the Dutch language), which can be seen as a precursor of today’s Groene Boekje (Green Booklet).
The Netherlands were slower in accepting the De Vries and Te Winkel spelling. Schools continued to use the Siegenbeek spelling until 1870, and in government circles it was not until 1883 that the new spelling started to be used. The De Vries and Te Winkel spelling eventually led to a large degree of uniformity of spelling in the Netherlands and Belgium.
. Why lezen (single vowel word meaning read) but heeten (double vowel word meaning called)? There were etymological reasons for this, but it was hard to teach as it did not reflect pronunciation. R.A. Kollewijn produced an article in 1891 Onze lastige spelling. Een voorstel tot vereenvoudiging (Our awkward spelling: a proposal for simplification). He emphasized the need for spelling to relate to pronunciation, therefore mensch (person/human) and Nederlandsch ought to become mens and Nederlands, Russisch (Russian) he thought should be spelt Russies and moeilijk (difficult) moeilik. Heeten would be written heten, but lezen would stay the same.
In 1916, a Dutch commission looked into the possibility of a compromise between De Vries and Te Winkel and the Kollewijn spelling. This gradually led to adaptations: on 1 September 1934, the minister for Education, Marchant, accepted most of Kollewijn’s proposals. The Netherlands and Belgium were starting to diverge once again.
The Marchant spelling included:
The endings '-isch' (as in logisch (logical)) and '-lijk' (mogelijk (possible)) remained unchanged. Kollewijns proposals '-ies' and '-lik' remain popular in some circles as a "progressive" spelling to the present day.
the governments of the Netherlands and Flanders decided to look for a way to restore the unification of spelling based on De Vries and Te Winkel. This led to the introduction of a simplification of the Marchant spelling being introduced in Flanders in 1946 and in the Netherlands the following year. A Flemish-Dutch committee compiled a vocabulary which was published in 1954 in a green volume entitled “Woordenlijst van de Nederlandse taal
” (Vocabulary of the Dutch language), which became known as “het Groene Boekje” (the Green Booklet).
In 1994, after much discussion, the Committee of Ministers of the Nederlandse Taalunie which had been founded in 1980 issued a new spelling decree. In the new Groene Boekje which they published the alternative “progressive” spellings were abolished (it was now actie) and there were new rules about the n linking the compounds of words (pannekoek (pancake) became pannenkoek and bessesap (currant juice) became bessensap). This came into force in 1996.
Apart from this there were a few individual changes. Here are some of the most important ones:
Although government and educational establishments are required to conform, some newspapers and other publications in the Netherlands are refusing to use the new spelling and have released Het Witte Boekje (The White Booklet
) as an alternative to the latest edition of Het Groene Boekje. This "white spelling" allows more than one spelling in several cases, e.g. presence or absence of linking ns, hyphens and capitalisation. It has, in return, been accused of being even more inconsistent than Het Groene Boekje. In Flanders, the white spelling is not used by any large media.
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
both in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
itself and in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...
in Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
.
Dutch spelling in the Middle Ages
The Dutch spoken between 1150 and 1500 is referred to as Middle DutchMiddle Dutch
Middle Dutch is a collective name for a number of closely related West Germanic dialects which were spoken and written between 1150 and 1500...
. During this period there was no standardization of grammar. Authors generally wrote in their own dialects. Very often it is possible to tell from the language whether a text comes from Limburg
Limburg (Netherlands)
Limburg is the southernmost of the twelve provinces of the Netherlands. It is located in the southeastern part of the country and bordered by the province of Gelderland to the north, Germany to the east, Belgium to the south and part of the west, andthe Dutch province of North Brabant partly to...
, Brabant
Duchy of Brabant
The Duchy of Brabant was a historical region in the Low Countries. Its territory consisted essentially of the three modern-day Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant, Walloon Brabant and Antwerp, the Brussels-Capital Region and most of the present-day Dutch province of North Brabant.The Flag of...
, or Holland. There was a lot of variation in the spelling. Words were often written as they were pronounced: lant (land), hi vint (he finds). The sound determined the spelling, irrespective of the basic word. This is no longer the case with modern Dutch where land, has a voiceless ‘d’, but is written thus because the infinitive is landen, and hij vindt (he finds) has dt as it is 3rd person singular, thus stem (vind) +t
.
| Karel ende Elegast (lines 1-6) |
|---|
| Fraeye historie ende al waer Mach ic v tellen hoort naer Het was op enen auontstont Dat karel slapen begonde Tengelem op den rijn Dlant was alle gader sijn. |
From the very start of its written history, Dutch used the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet
The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most recognized alphabet used in the world today. It evolved from a western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumaean alphabet, which was adopted and modified by the Etruscans who ruled early Rome...
. At first there were 23 letters: a, b, c, d, e, f, g, h, i, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, v, x, y, z. It was not until later that the j, u, and w were added.
A problem with the Latin alphabet was that it was not easy to make a distinction between long and short vowels (a - aa). Various solutions were found. At the beginning of the 13th century the word jaar (year) was spelt jar but other variants soon appeared: jaer and jair and later jaar or even yaer and iaer.
Another feature of Middle Dutch is that articles or prepositions were often joined on to the word they belonged to: tjaer (the year) and dlant (the land), as in the accompanying fragment from Karel ende Elegast
Elegast
Elegast is the hero and noble robber in the poem Karel ende Elegast, a Medieval Dutch epic poem that has been translated into English as Charlemagne and Elbegast. In the poem, he possibly represents the King of the Elves. He appears as a knight on a black horse, an outcast vassal of Charlemagne...
. The text translates: “I will tell you a marvelous story, and a true one. Listen! One evening Charles was sleeping in Ingelheim on the Rhine. All the land you could see was his.”
There were also regional differences. Thus a clerk in Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
in the 14th century would usually write lant, but in Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
he would write land. The modern system of double consonants for shortening the vowels was also known: compare tellen (short e) with slapen (long a) in the extract.
The invention of printing led to a more standardized approach.
The Siegenbeek spelling (1804, the Netherlands)
With the spirit of the French RevolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
pervading all areas of thought, attempts were made to unify Dutch spelling and grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
. Matthijs Siegenbeek, professor at Leiden was officially asked in 1801 to draw up a uniform spelling; the priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
Petrus Weiland was asked to write a grammar book. A few years later Siegenbeek published his spelling in Verhandeling over de Nederduitsche spelling ter bevordering van de eenparigheid in dezelve (Treatise on Lower Dutch spelling to promote uniformity herein) (1804) and a Woordenboek voor de Nederduitsche spelling (Dictionary for the Dutch Spelling) (1805). The government of the Batavian Republic
Batavian Republic
The Batavian Republic was the successor of the Republic of the United Netherlands. It was proclaimed on January 19, 1795, and ended on June 5, 1806, with the accession of Louis Bonaparte to the throne of the Kingdom of Holland....
officially introduced Siegenbeek's spelling on 18 December 1804.
Siegenbeek thought that the spelling should reflect refined Dutch pronunciation, taking into account the uniformity, etymology
Etymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
, and analogy. From the Siegenbeek spelling reforms, we get the modern Dutch ij (called lange ij (long y) as distinct from the usually identically pronounced ei, called korte ei (short ei)). The word for iron ijzer used to be written yzer. Other spellings from Siegenbeek include: berigt (modern Dutch: bericht / report), blaauw (blauw / blue), Dingsdag (dinsdag / Tuesday), gooijen (gooien / to throw), magt (macht / power), kagchel (kachel / stove), koningrijk (koninkrijk /kingdom), muzijk (muziek / music) and zamen (samen / together).
Siegenbeek's spelling never achieved real popularity. In particular the poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
Willem Bilderdijk
Willem Bilderdijk
Willem Bilderdijk , Dutch poet, the son of an Amsterdam physician. When he was six years old an accident to his foot incapacitated him for ten years, and he developed habits of continuous and concentrated study...
fought against it, largely out of personal spite. He produced some of his own spellings which were popular in the 1830s and 1840s including the modern kachel (stove), plicht (instead of pligt /duty) and gooien (to throw). However, other spellings of his did not last: andwoord (antwoord / answer), hair (haar /hair/her), ontfangen (ontvangen / to receive), thands (thans / at present) and wareld (wereld / world).
The Willems spelling (1844, Belgium)
In the Dutch-speaking areas in the south of the Netherlands, the Siegenbeek spelling was always unpopular. After Belgium declared independence in 1830, the spelling was denounced as “Hollandish” and “Protestant”. The spelling situation was quite chaotic with much discussion about whether to use a or ae, oo or oó, ee or eé, ei or ey, ui or uy, ambt or ampt, u or ue, and about the spelling of verbs.In 1836, the Belgian government offered a reward for a proposal for a new spelling. In the end, the jury, headed by Jan Frans Willems
Jan Frans Willems
Jan Frans Willems , Flemish writer and father of the Flemish movement.Willems was born in the Belgian city of Boechout, while that was under French occupation. He started his career in the office of a notary in Antwerp....
, produced their own suggestion in 1839 which remained quite close to the Siegenbeek spelling in use in the Netherlands. They retained their own spelling of a few words such as kaes (cheese), ryden (to ride) and vuerig (fiery). The Willems spelling was given royal approval on January 9, 1844.
The De Vries and Te Winkel spelling (1864, Belgium; 1883, The Netherlands)
The spelling used today both in the Netherlands and in Flanders (Dutch-speaking Belgium) is based on an orthography originally intended only for use in a dictionary. An ambitious project was proposed in 1851 at the Taal- en Letterkundig Congres (Linguistic and Literary Congress) in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
at which both the Netherlands and Flanders were represented. The project aimed to produce a large dictionary: Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal (WNT) (Dictionary of the Dutch Language), incorporating vocabulary of the past centuries.
There was a problem with this project: which spelling was to be used for the dictionary? There were three spelling systems in use at the time: the Willems spelling in Belgium, the Siegenbeek spelling in the Netherlands, and several variants of Bilderdijk’s system. It would have been unacceptable to have used a mixture of these systems. In addition, the Siegenbeek system did not address certain issues such as when compounds were to be written as one word or the interpolation of letters in between. It was proposed to create a special dictionary spelling.
This spelling was established by the linguists Matthias de Vries and L.A. te Winkel. In 1863 Te Winkel published the results in De grondbeginselen der Nederlandsche spelling. Ontwerp der spelling voor het aanstaande Nederlandsch Woordenboek (The foundations of Dutch spelling. Project for the spelling of the forthcoming Dutch Dictionary). The spelling of De Vries and Te Winkel combined elements of the three current systems, providing a much needed solution to the chaos. By 21 November royal decree in Belgium had accepted the decision. In 1866 De Vries and Te Winkel produced Woordenlijst voor de spelling der Nederlandsche taal (Vocabulary for the spelling of the Dutch language), which can be seen as a precursor of today’s Groene Boekje (Green Booklet).
The Netherlands were slower in accepting the De Vries and Te Winkel spelling. Schools continued to use the Siegenbeek spelling until 1870, and in government circles it was not until 1883 that the new spelling started to be used. The De Vries and Te Winkel spelling eventually led to a large degree of uniformity of spelling in the Netherlands and Belgium.
The Marchant spelling (1934, The Netherlands)
Teachers and linguists continued to object to certain features of the spelling. It was thought that too great an emphasis was being given to etymologyEtymology
Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time.For languages with a long written history, etymologists make use of texts in these languages and texts about the languages to gather knowledge about how words were used during...
. Why lezen (single vowel word meaning read) but heeten (double vowel word meaning called)? There were etymological reasons for this, but it was hard to teach as it did not reflect pronunciation. R.A. Kollewijn produced an article in 1891 Onze lastige spelling. Een voorstel tot vereenvoudiging (Our awkward spelling: a proposal for simplification). He emphasized the need for spelling to relate to pronunciation, therefore mensch (person/human) and Nederlandsch ought to become mens and Nederlands, Russisch (Russian) he thought should be spelt Russies and moeilijk (difficult) moeilik. Heeten would be written heten, but lezen would stay the same.
In 1916, a Dutch commission looked into the possibility of a compromise between De Vries and Te Winkel and the Kollewijn spelling. This gradually led to adaptations: on 1 September 1934, the minister for Education, Marchant, accepted most of Kollewijn’s proposals. The Netherlands and Belgium were starting to diverge once again.
The Marchant spelling included:
- abolition of declension for cases (e.g. den heer for accusative form of “de heer” (the gentleman))
- oo and ee at the end of open syllables (zoo (so), heeten (to be called)) changed to zo and heten, but ee at the end of a word remained (zee (sea)).
- unpronounced 'ch' in words like mensch (person/human) and visch (fish) disappeared.
The endings '-isch' (as in logisch (logical)) and '-lijk' (mogelijk (possible)) remained unchanged. Kollewijns proposals '-ies' and '-lik' remain popular in some circles as a "progressive" spelling to the present day.
The spelling reform of 1946 (Flanders) and 1947 (The Netherlands)
During World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
the governments of the Netherlands and Flanders decided to look for a way to restore the unification of spelling based on De Vries and Te Winkel. This led to the introduction of a simplification of the Marchant spelling being introduced in Flanders in 1946 and in the Netherlands the following year. A Flemish-Dutch committee compiled a vocabulary which was published in 1954 in a green volume entitled “Woordenlijst van de Nederlandse taal
Wordlist of the Dutch language
The Word list of the Dutch language is a list of words in the correct official spelling of the Dutch language . It is officially established by the Dutch Language Union , and is published in dictionary style. Because of the colour of its published form, it is better known as the Green Booklet...
” (Vocabulary of the Dutch language), which became known as “het Groene Boekje” (the Green Booklet).
The spelling reform of 1996 (The Netherlands and Flanders)
There was still dissatisfaction after 1954. Uncertainty arose about many words which had alternative spellings: one version was the preferred spelling (e.g. actie (action)), the other was the permissible or progressive spelling (e.g. aktie). The Dutch generally used the former, the Belgians the latter. Another problem was the speed at which Dutch was developing new vocabulary for which the 1954 dictionary was of no help for spelling definition.In 1994, after much discussion, the Committee of Ministers of the Nederlandse Taalunie which had been founded in 1980 issued a new spelling decree. In the new Groene Boekje which they published the alternative “progressive” spellings were abolished (it was now actie) and there were new rules about the n linking the compounds of words (pannekoek (pancake) became pannenkoek and bessesap (currant juice) became bessensap). This came into force in 1996.
The spelling reform of 2006 (The Netherlands and Flanders)
In 1994 it was agreed that the vocabulary of het Groene Boekje should be revised every ten years without changing the actual rules. On 15 October 2005 the first of these revisions appeared. Only one rule concerning exceptions was made (the so-called Dandelion Rule): paardebloem (dandelion) and vliegezwam (fly agaric) became paardenbloem and vliegenzwam for consistency with other similar compounds, e.g. paardenstaart (horse-tail) and vliegenmepper (fly swatter). (Note that these 'n's are not normally pronounced.)Apart from this there were a few individual changes. Here are some of the most important ones:
- Names of population groups are now spelt with a capital letter, even if there is no geographical area connected with the name: Kelt (Celt), Azteek (Aztec), and Eskimo (Inuit) are capitalized. Exceptions are made for names which cover a number of different ethnic groups: indiaan (North American Indian, First Nations) and zigeuner (Gypsy)
- Jood/jood (Jew) is a special case. When talking about the Jewish religion it has a small initial letter, but it is capitalized if it refers to the Jewish people. Thus: joden, christenen en moslims (Jews, Christians, and Muslims); BUT: Joden, Amerikanen en Europeanen (Jews, Americans, and Europeans).
- There are changes for new English compounds: online instead of on line, full colour instead of fullcolour.
- A few rules for the hyphen have been changed: extreem-rechts (extreme right) is now spelt: extreemrechts, ikroman (novel written in first person) is now ik-roman and a few more.
- A few compounds which had still not acquired the n now conform: paddenstoel (toadstool), dronkenman and dronkenlap (drunkard).
Although government and educational establishments are required to conform, some newspapers and other publications in the Netherlands are refusing to use the new spelling and have released Het Witte Boekje (The White Booklet
White Booklet
Het Witte Boekje is the popular name for the Spelling Guide of Our Language , a publication of the Genootschap Onze Taal. The first edition was released in October 1998; the latest edition is the tenth and was released in 2004...
) as an alternative to the latest edition of Het Groene Boekje. This "white spelling" allows more than one spelling in several cases, e.g. presence or absence of linking ns, hyphens and capitalisation. It has, in return, been accused of being even more inconsistent than Het Groene Boekje. In Flanders, the white spelling is not used by any large media.