Language Making in early modern mono- and multilingual grammars and textbooks in the Low Countries

What is it about?

Names for the languages we speak often strike as somewhat peculiar. How is it that in the Netherlands (or Holland, as it is often referred to abroad), they speak ‘Dutch’, which they call ‘Nederlands’, whereas the Germans speak ‘German’, which they, in turn, call ‘Deutsch’? In the 17th century, both languages could actually be referred to as ‘Duits’, and the term ‘Nederlands’ hardly existed. In fact, the concept of ‘language’, as a defined entity, was only just beginning to emerge in this time period. This paper examines how this process of demarcating Dutch from other European languages, and in particular German, took place in Dutch grammars and multilingual textbooks from the early modern period.

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Photo by Ian on Unsplash

Photo by Ian on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Our findings show that a separate, delimited Dutch language was certainly being constructed in this time period, both in name, in reference to other vernacular languages, as well as in what it entailed, but that its boundaries were still, and perhaps not unwantingly, fuzzy, reflecting the multilingual reality of the early modern Low Countries.