Hidden Dutch roots

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MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Myrna Brown.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. 

Next up, George Grant on the Dutch fingerprints you may not realize are all over the English language. 

Here is Word Play for the month of May.

GEORGE GRANT: I have just returned from a ministry trip to the Netherlands—a land I have always loved visiting. 

Once again, I was struck by the close relation between the Dutch and the English languages. 

Like English, the roots of Dutch can be traced to the West Germanic dialects of the Angles, Saxons, and Frisians. English and Dutch are essentially linguistic first cousins. While Latinate French was introduced into Old English following the Norman conquest in 1066, even then, almost a third of William the Conqueror’s army were Flemish and Dutch.

Then, over the course of the next few centuries, the Hanseatic League, a dominating commercial network of merchant guilds and market towns across northern Europe, adopted Dutch as its lingua franca. 

The inevitable influence of Dutch on our language was thus dramatic.

The result is that a significant percentage of our everyday English vocabulary is comprised of Dutch loan words. From bicker, boss, and bully, to dollar, drill, and drum. From easy, elope, and excise to filibuster frolic, and forlorn. From gas, golf, and grab to leak, loiter, and luck. From mannequin, measles, and mud, to Santa, spray, and stove. From tackle, trek, and tub to walrus, wagon, and wiggle, English is replete with words drawn from Dutch.

The Dutch were among the first European settlers in North America—indeed, Manhattan Island was once called New Amsterdam. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that a host of familiar place names have Dutch origins: Brooklyn, Coney Island, Flushing, Harlem, Hoboken, Knickerbocker, Rhode Island, Rikers Island, Schenectady, Staten Island, Yonkers, and Zeeland. Even the most common nickname for Americans abroad, "Yankee," is Dutch.

From the Dutch colonial past we also inherited words like aardvark, Afrikaans, aloof, bamboo, batik, Boer, blunderbuss, iceberg, knapsack, onslaught, plunder, and quartermaster. 

And the Dutch seafaring tradition gifted us with a rich nautical vocabulary: aboard, anchor, and aweigh, sail, ship, and swab, bulwark, bow, and buoy, captain, commodore, and cruise all share a Dutch etymology—as do deck and dock, flag and freight, maelstrom and mast, skipper and starboard, and even tattoo and yacht.

The Dutch not only gave us Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Van Gogh, they also gave us the words to describe their artistic craft: easel and etch, landscape and layout, still life and sketch.

Even our culinary vocabulary borrows heavily from the Dutch. Common food and drink terms like booze, brandy, buckwheat, coleslaw, gin, pickle, and scone have Dutch origins. My favorite Dutch treat is a confection called a stroopwaffle. It is part cookie and part waffle. Appropriately, both of those words also are Dutch.

Avast, me hearties! It seems English has pirated Dutch booty at every turn. Shiver me timbers!

I’m George Grant.

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