As a traditionally oral language spoken in areas with a literacy-based culture, Romani provides a unique case for the study of orality and literacy. In a mixed-methods approach, this work investigates attitudes of Romani speakers towards the modalities, their communicative functions and use, and editing behaviour in writing texts. Importantly, it allows a direct comparison of spoken and written language use of individuals. Thus, while Romani writing has been studied before, this book adds unique data and aspects of metalinguistic knowledge to the discussion. Moreover, broadening the empirical coverage of smaller languages within experimental research, it comprises the first study on implicit attitudes towards the Romani language. This makes it possible for insights from minority languages to bear on theories of orality and literacy. Beyond Romani linguistics, the book will appeal to researchers interested in minority language research, variability, language attitudes, and frameworks of spoken and written language.
This book offers two new perspectives on language attitudes and ideologies. First, it compares language commentary from two thus far relatively neglected time periods: the 19th and 21st centuries. Second, it draws on non-traditional, dialogic sources to explore not only the well-studied “expert” views on language but also the perspectives of the “audience” engaging with these texts. Using France and the French language as its case study, the book explores the areas of stability and change in questions of linguistic authority, insecurity, and correctness. It sheds new light on the evolution of the long-established genre of language commentary and deepens our understanding of the language attitudes and ideologies that shape how language is viewed, discussed and judged. This book will appeal to linguists interested in language attitudes and ideologies in both historical and contemporary contexts.
The seventeenth century was a period of thriving Dutch-Polish bilingualism. This chapter explores this understudied subject by examining how people in the United Provinces and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth encountered and learned each other’s languages, as well as by analysing places and communities in which Dutch-Polish bilingualism was particularly prevalent. It argues that, despite an apparent lack of relevant education infrastructures, Dutch-Polish bilingualism flourished in (1) Gdańsk, which attracted hundreds if not thousands of Netherlandish migrants, (2) Franeker, where numerous Calvinists from Poland-Lithuania came to study, (3) Leiden, which welcomed even more Polish students, including Socinians/Polish Brethren, and (4) Amsterdam, which became a home for several dozen Socinian families and hundreds of Jews from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The main catalyst for Dutch-Polish bilingualism was migration, which was in turn fuelled by economic interests, intellectual pursuits, religious persecutions, and social relations. The chapter finishes by offering various future lines of inquiry.
Within heritage language linguistics, a recent paradigm shift has emanated from the field of (historical) sociolinguistics, investigating (1) the influence of extra-linguistic factors and (2) heritage languages in the past (see Brown 2019 ). Drawing inspiration from these new directions, this chapter investigates the language beliefs of Flemish emigrants in the United States with particular attention to the pre- and post-migration sociolinguistic ecology. To achieve this, a discourse analysis was conducted using three Flemish-American newspapers dating from 1890 until 1959, specifically focusing on discourse surrounding the use of Dutch and English. Results show that, while Flemish emigrants hold favorable attitudes toward English, their stance regarding societal multilingualism differs in the New Country compared to the Old Country.
A Sprachbund refers to a region where languages, despite lacking common ancestry, exhibit similarities due to contact influence, as seen with Standard Average European (SAE). Colonialism spread European languages globally, resulting in creole languages and intercontinental varieties. Languages like Afrikaans, although geographically outside the SAE Sprachbund, may share features with SAE languages due to contact. This study examines how Afrikaans and Dutch express anticausative meanings, such as “the ice melts” versus “the sun is melting the ice.” While both share SAE’s anticausative feature, Afrikaans simplifies morphologically related pairs and favours analytical structures, likely due to language contact. Unlike Dutch, Afrikaans lacks reflexive anticausatives, instead using constructions like “the disease spreads,” suggesting further contact influences. This study highlights language divergence within the Sprachbund and the impact of contact on language evolution.
This chapter examines ingressive (‘begin’) and prospective (‘about to’) cognate constructions in Afrikaans and Dutch through the lens of language contact. We propose a theoretical account of the conceptual link between these aspectual viewpoints that generates predictions on their selectional restrictions. These predictions are tested using corpus data and interpreted within Diasystematic Construction Grammar: shared diachronic development aligns with equivalent selectional behavior ( diaconstructions ), diachronic divergence leads to distributional differences ( idioconstructions ). Our findings reveal a mix of diaconstructions and idioconstructions. For example, ingressive gaan ‘go’ distributes differently across Afrikaans and Dutch, whereas begin(nen te) ‘begin (to)’ patterns similarly. The results support a conceptual distinction between two types of prospective aspect and ingressive aspect, differentiated by respective restrictions on telicity and dynamicity.
When the Dutch migrated to continents outside of Europe in the 17th century, they encountered entirely new habitats. Confronted with the new flora and fauna, they faced the task of assigning names. They had three options: adopt the native name, coin a new Dutch name, or transfer an existing Dutch name of a similar animal or plant to the native species. This chapter aims to describe the Dutch names given to native animal species on overseas continents. The focus is on how the Dutch language was adapted and utilized in these new environments; therefore names borrowed from native languages are excluded. The objective of this chapter is to identify differences in naming practices and in the quantity of newly-coined Dutch names across continents, and to provide explanations for these variations. Despite differences between the continents, it turns out that in the past there existed a special variety of ‘overseas Dutch’. 1
In this chapter, I analyse the two Dutch non-finite causal constructions want X ‘because X’ and omdat X ‘because X’ from historical and comparative perspectives. I particularly focus on the relationship between language-internal and language-external factors in their development. To that end, I show how these constructions have developed in Dutch from causal clauses while also discussing their use in the multilingual context of computer-mediated communication. Against this backdrop, I conclude that they cannot be explained solely as resulting from processes within Dutch nor as merely structural borrowings from other languages, such as English. Instead, these constructions should be analysed as multiple-source constructions. In other words, language contact as a factor cannot be ignored and must always be considered.
This chapter examines the appearance of Dutch loanwords in Ternate, a Papuan language spoken on a small volcanic island in the North Moluccas that was at the centre of the clove trade at the time of European arrival in the region. The Dutch maintained a near continuous presence in Ternate from 1606 and although communities of Dutch speakers here were at all times small, a number of loanwords bear witness to their presence and influence. We catalogue the Dutch loanwords that are peculiar to Ternate, and their dispersal into other languages of the region in order to create a picture of the dynamics and chronology of lexical borrowing from Dutch in eastern Indonesia. We argue that loanwords from Dutch indicate that Ternate was an important contact language in the early period of the Dutch presence in the Moluccas, a fact that is easily overlooked given the subsequent dominance of Malay.
The seventeenth century was a period of thriving Dutch-Polish bilingualism. This chapter explores this understudied subject by examining how people in the United Provinces and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth encountered and learned each other's languages, as well as by analysing places and communities in which Dutch-Polish bilingualism was particularly prevalent. It argues that, despite an apparent lack of relevant education infrastructures, Dutch-Polish bilingualism flourished in (1) Gdansk, which attracted hundreds if not thousands of Netherlandish migrants, (2) Franeker, where numerous Calvinists from Poland-Lithuania came to study, (3) Leiden, which welcomed even more Polish students, including Socinians/Polish Brethren, and (4) Amsterdam, which became a home for several dozen Socinian families and hundreds of Jews from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The main catalyst for Dutch-Polish bilingualism was migration, which was in turn fuelled by economic interests, intellectual pursuits, religious persecutions, and social relations. The chapter finishes by offering various future lines of inquiry.
This chapter examines ingressive ('begin') and prospective ('about to') cognate constructions in Afrikaans and Dutch through the lens of language contact. We propose a theoretical account of the conceptual link between these aspectual viewpoints that generates predictions on their selectional restrictions. These predictions are tested using corpus data and interpreted within Diasystematic Construction Grammar: shared diachronic development aligns with equivalent selectional behavior (diaconstructions), diachronic divergence leads to distributional differences (idioconstructions). Our findings reveal a mix of diaconstructions and idioconstructions. For example, ingressive gaan 'go' distributes differently across Afrikaans and Dutch, whereas begin(nen te) 'begin (to)' patterns similarly. The results support a conceptual distinction between two types of prospective aspect and ingressive aspect, differentiated by respective restrictions on telicity and dynamicity.
A Sprachbund refers to a region where languages, despite lacking common ancestry, exhibit similarities due to contact influence, as seen with Standard Average European (SAE). Colonialism spread European languages globally, resulting in creole languages and intercontinental varieties. Languages like Afrikaans, although geographically outside the SAE Sprachbund, may share features with SAE languages due to contact. This study examines how Afrikaans and Dutch express anticausative meanings, such as "the ice melts" versus "the sun is melting the ice." While both share SAE's anticausative feature, Afrikaans simplifies morphologically related pairs and favours analytical structures, likely due to language contact. Unlike Dutch, Afrikaans lacks reflexive anticausatives, instead using constructions like "the disease spreads," suggesting further contact influences. This study highlights language divergence within the Sprachbund and the impact of contact on language evolution.
This contribution on language contact in the Malay archipelago starts from the discovery around 1520 of Malay by Pigafetta and its ensuing contact with Portuguese. A century later, Dutch was added to the mix by De Houtman in his Malay-Dutch guide of 1603. Exploring such contacts I'll take my cue from the Dutch linguist Gonda and his 1941 survey of Indonesian multilingualism and its diversity. In the Capita Selecta that follow - covering both the Dutch VOC period (1602-1799) and the Dutch Kingdom (1816-1950) - I'll be pursuing such questions as: What about early Malay scholars like Werndly and their achievements in grammar, dictionary making and bible translation?, How did Radermacher's New Vocabulary (1780) revolutionize the study of contemporary trilingualism?, What new discoveries on the mixed Malayo-Portuguese formerly spoken in Batavia did Schuchardt add in his Creole Studies (1890)?, What insights have these and other linguists contributed on Dutch-Indonesian language mixing and its varieties?
It is well known that Dutch loanwords can be found in various languages. The aim of this contribution is to give a brief characterization of Dutch loanwords in Polish and Czech and to compare their usage in these two West Slavic languages. According to the Dutch database Uitleenwoordenbank (Van der Sijs 2015), there are more than 380 Dutch loanwords in Polish and more than one hundred Dutch loanwords in Czech. Why do we find more of these words in Polish than in Czech? How did these words get from Dutch into these two languages? What sort of words are these actually and how have they been adapted? What role does language contact play here? It has been noted that the majority of Dutch loanwords in both Polish and Czech were borrowed through other languages. The Polish language, however, contains many more words related to shipbuilding and seafaring.
When the Dutch migrated to continents outside of Europe in the 17th century, they encountered entirely new habitats. Confronted with the new flora and fauna, they faced the task of assigning names. They had three options: adopt the native name, coin a new Dutch name, or transfer an existing Dutch name of a similar animal or plant to the native species. This chapter aims to describe the Dutch names given to native animal species on overseas continents. The focus is on how the Dutch language was adapted and utilized in these new environments; therefore names borrowed from native languages are excluded. The objective of this chapter is to identify differences in naming practices and in the quantity of newly-coined Dutch names across continents, and to provide explanations for these variations. Despite differences between the continents, it turns out that in the past there existed a special variety of 'overseas Dutch'.(1)
This chapter deals with the influence of the Dutch Statenbijbel and its language on a 17th-century Lithuanian Bible translation, the Chylinski Bible. In its language it differs from that of Chylinski's forerunner, the Lutheran Bretkunas, and from Vilentas' Gospels and Epistles, which were used in Protestant churches. The difference was one of translation source as well as of dialect: Lutherans were active in Prussian Lithuania, whereas the Calvinists' centre was in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL). It was not until 2003 that research established that Chylinski's translation source was the Statenbijbel, and that many linguistic features of the Dutch translation shine through in the Lithuanian text. The influence of the Statenbijbel is manifest from the formal features of the text, and also from linguistic features. Besides bequeathing us a Lithuanian translation of the Statenbijbel, the Reformed Protestants of the GDL also started work on a Polish translation, which was never completed.
In this chapter, I analyse the two Dutch non-finite causal constructions want X 'because X' and omdat X 'because X' from historical and comparative perspectives. I particularly focus on the relationship between language-internal and language-external factors in their development. To that end, I show how these constructions have developed in Dutch from causal clauses while also discussing their use in the multilingual context of computer-mediated communication. Against this backdrop, I conclude that they cannot be explained solely as resulting from processes within Dutch nor as merely structural borrowings from other languages, such as English. Instead, these constructions should be analysed as multiple-source constructions. In other words, language contact as a factor cannot be ignored and must always be considered.
The Old Colony Mennonite residents of Salamanca, Mexico, are descendants of Anabaptists from the 16th-century Netherlands. Their everyday language is Plautdietsch, an East-Low German variety that exhibits notable Dutch influence, particularly in its lexicon. The Plautdietsch first names (call names) and corresponding hypocoristic forms in these communities suggest a Dutch linguistic legacy. The Mennonites' naming traditions - personal names, colony names, and street village names - serve as acts of memory preservation, reflecting their diasporic history from the Netherlands into the Americas. Language use and name-giving may be safeguarding continuity in the Old Colony archipelago. However, fieldwork from Chihuahua shows that increased exposure to modernity can significantly impact naming traditions. For now, the legacy embedded in the Plautdietsch call names of Salamanca's Mennonites remains a living testament to their Dutch history.
This chapter provides an overview of linguistic variation and stability of heritage Dutch in seven parts of the world. In the context of research on first and second language acquisition strategies in Dutch as well as on other heritage languages, we contextualize and interpret observations taken from existing research gathered using diverse methods such as the analysis of letters, recordings, and standardized tests. The chapter ends by discussing the implications of the results for the study of contact linguistics in general and for Dutch in particular and by identifying loose ends and directions for future research.
Within heritage language linguistics, a recent paradigm shift has emanated from the field of ( historical) sociolinguistics, investigating (1) the influence of extra-linguistic factors and (2) heritage languages in the past (see Brown 2019). Drawing inspiration from these new directions, this chapter investigates the language beliefs of Flemish emigrants in the United States with particular attention to the pre- and post-migration sociolinguistic ecology. To achieve this, a discourse analysis was conducted using three Flemish-American newspapers dating from 1890 until 1959, specifically focusing on discourse surrounding the use of Dutch and English. Results show that, while Flemish emigrants hold favorable attitudes toward English, their stance regarding societal multilingualism differs in the New Country compared to the Old Country.
