The Dutch Topic

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MUBA
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Post by MUBA »

linguoboy wrote:
MUBA wrote:Isn't that what is called ablaut? Or am I completely wrong here?
Completely. Hopefully, this Wikipedia article should help clarify matters.
To me, umlaut is the "-diacritic.
It can be that, but that is not its only--or, indeed, even its primary--meaning.
Alright. (As you have guessed,) I didn't know that. Thanks for the information.

Unfortunately, I'm unable to answer your question, then. Hopefully someone else can?
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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by Echobeats »

muccimas wrote:
MUBA wrote:Onvoltooid Tegenwoordig (present imperfect)
Active: Ik ben slaande - I am hitting
Onvoltooid Verleden (past imperfect)
Active: Ik was slaande - I was hitting
Onvoltooid Toekomend (future imperfect)
A: Ik zal slaande zijn - I will be hitting
Onvoltooid Verleden Toekomend (past future imperfect)
A: Ik zou slaande zijn - I would be hitting
Have you ever heard of someone using that? :roll:

It is better to say 'Ik ben aan het slaan' and 'Ik was aan het slaan' for the first two. The 'onvoltooid toekomend actief' en 'onvoltooid verleden toekomend actief' is really nonsense in Dutch! (ik zal slaande zijn, whaha! :P )
That's exactly what I thought, but I didn't want to argue with the native speaker. Have you been thinking in English too much? :D

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Post by Space Dracula »

My dad mentions going to Amsterdam after his Afrikaans learning and trying to use it with the locals, to show off to friends.

When he said something in Afrikaans, they gave him a weird look and said, "Why don't you just speak English!?"

Is this a typically Dutch reaction>
<Dudicon> i would but you're too fat to fit in my mouth!!

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Post by Junes »

Space Dracula wrote:My dad mentions going to Amsterdam after his Afrikaans learning and trying to use it with the locals, to show off to friends.

When he said something in Afrikaans, they gave him a weird look and said, "Why don't you just speak English!?"

Is this a typically Dutch reaction>
Maybe. Some say it's hard for English-speaking foreigners to learn Dutch, because everytime you give it a try, people will just respond in English. Also, Afrikaans certainly isn't easy for Dutch people to understand. I like Afrikaans very much, especially the sound and the spelling. In Dutch ears however, it can sound a bit childish: it has some really funny compounds, like 'hijsbakkie' (little pulling tray, elevator) or 'schommelmelk' (swing milk, milkshake). Well, it's certainly more colourful than Dutch loans 'lift' and 'milkshake'.

By the way, there was something in the papers yesterday about spelling reforms by the Taalunie (language union). Some years ago they introduced the 'tussen-n' or 'medial n' for compounds like 'pannekoek' (pancake), which became 'pannenkoek'. There were some exceptions however, like 'zonnevlek' (sun spot) because 'zonnen' would suggest that there is more than one sun. But now the exception for which nobody really understood why it was an exception, goes out of the window in 2006: compunds with the name of an animal first and then the name of plant ('paardebloem', 'horse flower') will be spelled like other compounds ('paardenbloem').
And some new words will be included in the Groene Boekje (Little Green Book, the authority on spelling): antrax, sms'en, e-mailen, and various loans like handknie (Surinam Dutch, literally 'handknee', elbow) and bollebof (from the Jiddisch apparently, meaning 'boss'. Cool word.)

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Post by linguoboy »

Junes wrote:bollebof (from the Jiddisch apparently, meaning 'boss'. Cool word.)
Sure about the f? The American English version is balebos, from the Yiddish pronunciation of Hebrew ba?al ha-bayith "master [of] the house". (Incidentally, this has the purely and unmistakably Yiddish feminine form baleboste.)

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Post by Junes »

linguoboy wrote:
Junes wrote:bollebof (from the Jiddisch apparently, meaning 'boss'. Cool word.)
Sure about the f?
Yes, a Google search seems to indicate so. We have 'bolleboos' as well by the way, from the same Yiddish word, meaning 'smart person'.

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Post by linguoboy »

Junes wrote:Yes, a Google search seems to indicate so. We have 'bolleboos' as well by the way, from the same Yiddish word, meaning 'smart person'.
Excellent! I'm going to have to use that next chance I get.

I wonder how much Yiddish vocabulary is common to Dutch, German, and English. For instance, the latter two both have reflexes of Hebrew chutspah "insolence" (respectively, Chuzpe and chutzpah). What about Dutch? Or meschugge and meshuggah "crazy" (Heb. m@shugga?)?

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Post by Junes »

linguoboy wrote:I wonder how much Yiddish vocabulary is common to Dutch, German, and English. For instance, the latter two both have reflexes of Hebrew chutspah "insolence" (respectively, Chuzpe and chutzpah). What about Dutch? Or meschugge and meshuggah "crazy" (Heb. m@shugga?)?
Yes: 'gotspe' and 'mesjogge'. A lot of Yiddish loans went into Bargoens, a Dutch thieves' cant, and from there into standard Dutch. Some others are mainly used in the Amsterdam dialect (Amsterdam used to have a sizeable Jewish community before WWII).
So we have words like 'jatten' (hands, to steal, from Hebrew 'jad'), 'mazzel' (luck, also commonly used in greetings by young people, as in 'de mazzel') and 'temeier' (prostitute, from Hebrew 'temea', unclean).

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Post by linguoboy »

Junes wrote:So we have words like 'jatten' (hands, to steal, from Hebrew 'jad'), 'mazzel' (luck, also commonly used in greetings by young people, as in 'de mazzel') and 'temeier' (prostitute, from Hebrew 'temea', unclean).
I don't know any of those, except mazel appears in compounds like shlimazzel/Schlimmasel "unlucky fellow" (Yid. shlim mazel "bad luck") and mazel tov "good luck!" (expressing congratulations or a wish for success, though it is often used ironically, cf. "Good going!", "Nice job!", etc.).

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Post by cojaro »

Dutch is alot like German, but with some quirky spelling and some franch/nordic influences (like "het" for "it", which probably comes from "det" in swedish/norsk/dansk)

also, beware false cognates
for example, in german, "to like" is "m?gen" (1st-mag, 2nd, magst, 3rd, mag) and "to be allowed, may" in dutch is "mogen" (1st-3rd is mag)

it teaching myseld dutch anyways, and it should be relatively easy since i already know a lot of german
Red sky at night; shepards delight
Red sky in morning; Sheep are on fire
-----------------------------------------
blah
-----------------------------------------
sj?vhetl?sy nattra gehun emer v?
f?r je dr?m ?r dim, ennor m

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Post by linguoboy »

cojaro wrote:Dutch is alot like German, but with some quirky spelling and some franch/nordic influences (like "het" for "it", which probably comes from "det" in swedish/norsk/dansk)
Doubt it, given that hit is attested in 9th century Anglo-Saxon. Most likely it's German that's the odd man out on this. "Hit" even survives in some Appalachian dialects as a stressed alternative to "it".

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Post by Jashan »

Just FYI for those learning Dutch or lacking easily-accessible Dutch audio sources (e.g., Dutchophones living out of the Lowlands areas).

I went searching for audio stuff to listen to on my commute to and from the university, and found all sorts of helpful stuff:

Als u begrijpt wat ik bedoelt..., a blog archive page about audio materials in different languages (Dutch primary, and English secondary). Links to lots of free audio podcasts and online MP3 stuff like children's stories.

Sprookjes en (kinder)verhalen - Fairytales, fables, and children's stories, all downloadable in MP3 format for free, ranging from 4 minutes up to 30 minutes in length. Over 90!

Audioboeken van VPRO - Adult literary works made into free audiobooks, downloadable.

And in iTunes, if you select the Belgium store (listed as "Belgique" for me), try the following free podcasts:

Hoorspelcast - (Semi?)-Professionally done radio-theatre, attempting to bring the art back in a podcast format.

De Volkskrant 1600 - 4pm news stories, updated every day.

inTecht - Dutch-language technology podcast

Radioboeken - Radio....books.

There's also a lot of free video podcasts, but I can't play those on my iPod, so I won't list them here :)

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by Sacemd »

MUBA wrote:
chris_notts wrote:Very well. Want a throat sweet? :P I'm just joking.... I don't know enough about Dutch to know what to ask. What Tenses, Aspects, Moods and Persons do Dutch verbs mark?
Tenses and aspects
Ok, here I go. I just try to translate the English names literally to English.

Onvoltooid Tegenwoordig (present imperfect)
Active: Ik ben slaande - I am hitting
Passive: Ik word geslagen - I am being hit

Onvoltooid Verleden (past imperfect)
Active: Ik was slaande - I was hitting
Passive: Ik werd geslagen - I was being hit

Onvoltooid Toekomend (future imperfect)
A: Ik zal slaande zijn - I will be hitting
P Ik zal geslagen worden - I will be being hit

Onvoltooid Verleden Toekomend (past future imperfect)
A: Ik zou slaande zijn - I would be hitting
P: Ik zou geslagen worden - I would be being hit

Voltooid Tegenwoordig (present perfect)
A: Ik heb geslagen - I have hit
P: Ik ben geslagen - I am hit

Voltooid Verleden (past peftect)
A: Ik zal geslagen hebben - I will have hit
P: Ik was geslagen - I was hit

Voltooid Toekomend (future perfect)
A: Ik zal geslagen hebben - I will have hit
P: Ik zal geslagen zijn - I will be hit

Voltooid Verleden Toekomend (Past future perfect)
A: Ik zou geslagen hebben - I would have hit
P: Ik zou geslagen zijn - I would have been hit


Moods
There is indicative: I hit :)
There is imperative: Hit him!
There is subjunctive: Long live the queen, God be with us
And of course infinitive: to hit
Note that Dutch is extremely uncareful in marking tense/mood/aspect in its verbs: only the simple present (Ik sla) simple past/present perfect (ik sloeg/ik heb geslagen) (Often interchangeable. There are situations where a simple past sounds awkward, but I can't think of one right now) and imperative are common in everyday use. The future (Ik zal/ga slaan) (I will/go hit, note similarity with French "je vais frapper" in the second case) is rare, and used only used if clarity is necessary. "Ik bel je morgen" and "Ik zal je morgen bellen" (I'll call you tomorrow) are both possible and non-awkward, although the first one is far more likely to be heard in normal speech.
Continuous tenses can be formed, either with "zijn" (to be)+"aan" (on)+gerund: "Ik ben aan het slapen" (I am sleeping). (Gerund= het (neuter article)+infinitive), or with a verb which is some sort of background action + infinitive: these are verbs like "lopen" (walk), "zitten" (sit), "liggen" (lie (on a surface)) and "staan" (stand): "ik sta te wachten" (I stand to wait=I am waiting) "ze ligt te slapen" (She lies to sleep=she's sleeping), "hij zit te frunniken" (he sits to fidget= he is fidgeting). But mostly when English uses a continuous tense, Dutch uses a simple tense.
Sacemd wrote:I'm merely starting this thread so I can have a funny quote in my signature.

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by Drydic »

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Formerly known as Drydic.

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by Sacemd »

Boe! ("Boo!")
Sacemd wrote:I'm merely starting this thread so I can have a funny quote in my signature.

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by sirdanilot »

Yes the post about Dutch tense/aspect is ridiculous. Nobody uses the gerund forms 'ik ben slapende' anyway. I know it's from 2005 but I don't think that post deserves a place in the L&L museum. The guy who made that post is probably not a linguist, it looks like he just tried to literally calque the English aspects/tenses into Dutch.

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by Astraios »

I didn't know Dutch had so much Hebrew in it. That's fun.

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by sirdanilot »

Dutch from the Amsterdam area has lots of Jiddisch (and, often, ultimately Hebrew) loanwords yes. Some of that has gotten into standard usage, though not nearly all. There used to be a special criminal argot (Bargoens) which consisted nearly entirely of Yiddish lexical items with Dutch grammar and function words, but that has died out. There seem to be new criminal argots, but mostly with lexical items from other languages (sranan, turkish, morroccan arabic/berber etc.). Youth languages also borrow from the latter sources.

Other than that I don't think there's a lot of Hebrew in Dutch. Yes if you read the old Bible translation (Statenvertaling) from the 18th century, you will see arhaic cDutch which is basically a calque of the original Hebrew text. Both the archaic nature of the text (think King James English) and the weird structures because the text is a near litteral calque make it hard to comprehend for those who weren't brought up with this ancient Bible translation (it is sometimes regarded virtually Divinely Inspired, like the KJV in King James Only congregations). It is still used regularly in the most fundie/orthodox protestant churches. I find it a very, very handy tool when trying to interpret the Hebrew texts.

1 Sam 16:
Toen zeide de HEERE tot Samuël: Hoe lang draagt gij leed om Saul, dien Ik toch verworpen heb, dat hij geen koning zij over Israël?
then said the LORD to Samuël: how long carriest thou sorrow about Saul; that I interjection thrown.out have, that he no king be over Israel
Vul uw hoorn met olie, en ga heen; Ik zal u zenden tot Isaï, den Bethlehemiet; want Ik heb Mij een koning onder zijn zonen uitgezien.
Fill thy horn with oil, and go forth; I shall thee send to Isai, the Bethlehemian; because I have Me a king under his sons seen

16:1 וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־שְׁמוּאֵל עַד־מָתַי אַתָּה מִתְאַבֵּל אֶל־שָׁאוּל וַאֲנִי מְאַסְתִּיו מִמְּלֹךְ עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל מַלֵּא קַרְנְךָ שֶׁמֶן וְלֵךְ אֶֽשְׁלָחֲךָ אֶל־יִשַׁי בֵּֽית־הַלַּחְמִי כִּֽי־רָאִיתִי בְּבָנָיו לִי מֶֽלֶךְ׃

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by jal »

sirdanilot wrote:then said the LORD to Samuël: how long carriest thou sorrow about Saul; that I interjection thrown.out have, that he no king be over Israel
"toch" is not an interjection, but an adverb or adverbial particle or whatnot.
Sacemd wrote:Note that Dutch is extremely uncareful in marking tense/mood/aspect in its verbs
"uncareful" is not quite NPOV, to use a Wikipedia term. The fact that a language doesn't mark its TAM doesn't mean it's "uncareful". One could also call it "efficient".
Sacemd wrote:There are situations where a simple past sounds awkward
A simple past sounds akward in all those sitations that it isn't called for, perhaps? In short, the simple past is used for ongoing actions, the past perfect for finished ones (note: that's "ongoing" and "finished" in the (past) frame of reference):

Ik reed de bocht om en werd aangereden
I took/was taking a turn and was hit - hit while taking the turn

Ik ben de bocht omgereden en werd aangereden
I took the turn and was hit - hit after taking the turn


JAL

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by sirdanilot »

Yes what is 'toch' exactly? It's one of the words I miss in English (just like 'wel', which is kinda the opposite of 'niet' (not) in Dutch ).

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Re: The Dutch Topic

Post by jal »

sirdanilot wrote:Yes what is 'toch' exactly?
toch is one of these pesky Dutch words with a gazillion meanings, mostly modal (just like wel when it doesn't mean the opposite of niet, even and a number of others).

Ik zei het toch?
Dat heb ik toch gedaan.
Toch maar even kijken dan.
Nee toch?!
etc.

Only in the second sentence it's easily translatable, as "anyway", but those others...


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