Some linguistic features of New Dutch - Part 1
We will now read a passage from Joost van den Vondel's (>link), #Aenleidinge ter Nederduitsche dichtkunste (Introduction to Dutch Poetry) which expresses some startlingly new ideas. It was published in 1650 and demonstrates that Dutch poets had begun to take great pride in their own mother tongue: It was no longer necessary to resort to the classical languages (Latin, Greek, Hebrew) if you wanted to write something important.New Dutch:
Natuur baert den Dichter; de Kunst voedt hem op, dies geraekt niemant tot volmaektheit, dan die de natuur te baet heeft, waer uit de kunst haren zwier en leven schept. Neemt hy vóor in Nederduitsch, zijn moederlijke tale, te zingen; des hoeft hy zich zoo luttel te schamen als de Hebreen, Grieken, Latijnen, de geburen der Latijnen, en zoo vele andere uitheemsche volken.
Modern Dutch:
Natuur baart de Dichter; de Kunst voedt hem op, dus geraakt niemand tot volmaaktheid dan hij die de natuur te baat heeft, waaruit de kunst haar zwier en leven schept. Neemt hij zich voor in het Nederlands, zijn moedertaal, te zingen, zo hoeft hij zich net zo luttel [weinig] te schamen als de Hebreeërs, Grieken, Latijnen, de geburen der [van de] Latijnen, en zo vele andere uitheemse volkeren.
English translation:
Nature gives birth to the Poet, Art raises him, so no one will reach perfection except he who is favoured by nature from which art creates its drive and life. If he resolves to sing in Dutch, his mother tongue, then he needs to be ashamed as little as the Hebrews, Greeks, Latins, the neighbours of the Latins, and so many other foreign people.
When we compare the above fragment to a text in Middle Dutch, we notice that some further developments have taken place. Let us begin by concentrating on what is absent in Vondel's lines. The New Dutch passage contains not a single example of enclisis or proclisis. Occasionally, these can still be found in texts from the seventeenth century, but they become rarer. The same applies to the use of double negatives. For instance, Vondel uses no 'ne/en' element when he writes 'niemant': 'dies geraeckt niemant'. A medieval scribe would have written 'dies en geraeckt niemant'.
Question 13:
A fourteenth-century text (Van den neghen besten) has the phrase 'vulmaecthede' (perfection). Compare this to Vondel's 'volmaektheid' and identify the type of language change that has occurred.
Check your answer (>link)
The spelling of some sounds also tells us something about a major change that took place around that time. In the Middle Ages, a word like '(Neder)duitsch', another medieval name for Dutch used alongside Diets (>link), was likely to be spelt '(Neder)duutsch'. In the sixteenth century, however, the pronunciation of some long vowel sounds (including the 'uu') changed: they became diphthongs (>link). This means that the articulation begins as for one vowel but then glides towards another (e.g. the diphthong in the English word 'sigh' starts with an 'ah'-like sound and then moves towards an 'i'-like sound). In New Dutch these changes are reflected in the spelling: i/ii › ei/ij/ey/y and u/uu '› ui/uy.
Middle Dutch
min
uutNew Dutch
myn, mijn
uyt, uitEnglish translation
mine/my
out
Another indicator that confirms that this is a New Dutch text is the presence of the new form of the *reflexive pronoun 'zich': 'des hoeft hy zich zoo luttel te schamen'. A Middle Dutch text would have had 'hi hem so luttel te scamen'. The translators working on the Statenbijbel made a conscious decision to use this new form (which is German in origin).
Question 14:Why have so many Flemish and Dutch dialects retained the older forms of the reflexive pronoun ('hem/haar' in the singular, 'hen' in the plural; e.g. 'Ze wast haar' instead of standard Dutch 'Ze wast zich')?
Check your answer (>link)
The phrase 'de Kunst voedt hem op' contains the definite article 'de' which developed from Middle Dutch 'die'. By this stage, Middle Dutch 'dat' had become 'het'. The forms 'die' and 'dat' still exist in Dutch, but they are demonstrative pronouns ('die vis' [this fish], 'dat huis' [that house], 'die deuren' [these doors]).
Click (>link) to continue with your study of New Dutch.
