To Those From Holland...

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I have a couple of questions for people concerning Holland/Netherlands, and since the only Dutch people I know are from these Boards, well...

1. The differentiation between the name Holland and Netherlands. As I understand it, Holland is technically part of Netherlands, but I have no idea how the histories, ethnicities, and/or culture of the people who are officially from Holland differ from those of the Netherlands, if at all. If all people who live in Holland live in Netherlands, but not all people who live in Netherlands live in Holland, who are the people who make up the latter of the two groups? A wikipedia seach tells me that Holland refers only to two of Netherlands 12 provinces (which are named North and South Holland), but it fails to tell me why the distinction exists in common parlance.

2. Why are the people from Holland/Neatherlands referred to as Dutch? This one I'm clueless on. Usually when referring to people from a certain country, the adjective bears some semblance to the name of the nation. People from America are American, people from England are English, people from Germany are German, etc. One would expect the adjective for the poeple from Holland/Netherlands to be a derivative of one of the two words - like Netherlander or Hollish or something of the like. Where the heck does Dutch come from?

I realize that this is probably common knowledge throughout Europe - chalk me up as an ignorant American on this one - but I am genuinely curious.

 

1. Holland and The Netherlands are mostly used interchangeably, even in Holland/The Netherlands. Holland isn't seen as a distinct part of The Netherlands, North Holland and South Holland are, but they are never referred to as Holland around here. When Dutch say Holland, they mean the whole country.
Historically speaking, the County of Holland was an area that consists of what is now more or less North Holland and South Holland. I think (but I'm certainly no expert on the matter), the name Holland stuck when The Netherlands formed, because the centers of power were in Holland (The Hague, Amsterdam, Rotterdam).

2. Dutch probably comes from the old word Duytsch or Diets. Both are old words not in use anymore, but I can imagine they stuck in the English language. Just like the Germans are referred to as Germans in English, but they refer to themselves as Deutsch and we refer to them as Duits.
See the similarity or Duits/Deutsch/Duytsch? I think they came from the same word, which isn't unlikely since Dutch is a Germanic language. I can imagine, when both languages were still a whole lot similar that both referred to themselves as Duytsch (or some other form of it). The word probably survived in German as Deutsch, but there isn't any form of it in modern Dutch.
Duytsch/Diets simply means something like "the people" or "of the people".
We actually refer to ourselves as Nederlanders or Hollanders. So we do use a derivative of our country name ourselves.

Now, about you being an ignorant American... I doubt many people from Europe know these things... I doubt a whole lot of Dutch know these things (I don't even know for sure). I hope this makes things a bit clearer, but if it doesn't, please feel free to ask more questions and I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities

 

Ack! Then why doesn't the rest of the world? I like the sound of Hollanders, but if I use it, I'll surely get some smarty-pants telling me, "No, they're called Dutch!"

 

I think that the english use the word Holland because we were the most sea-dominant province or the United Provinces. The changes of meeting a Dutch ship from Holland, was larger than meeting one from, say, Zeeland.

That's not exactly true. As someone from South Holland, I use Holland to refer to the two provinces and Nederland to refer to the whole country. I also go on rambling how North Brabant only consists of Spanish collaborators and that Utrecht is still the enemy. I also blame Friesland for the death of Count William II, who would have become the first Holy Roman Emperor from Holland.

 

Holland = WONDERFUL country. Absolutely brilliant place. The people are friendly, they all speak English and they appreciate beer, football and drugs. Love the place. I reckon Britain and the Dutch have always got on so well, because we're so alike.

I always thought that Netherlands was just the Dutch word for Holland to be honest! I didn't realise they meant different things.

 

Not that alike. The English aren't that friendly and speak almost exclusively one language, while the Dutch are far less prone to violent tempers when they're appreciating beer, football and drugs

 

Well there were those 4 Anglo-Dutch wars during the 17th and 18th centuries. You even tried - and failed - to royally stab us in the back by making an alliance with the French. That act left the entire European mainland dumbstruck. You even declared war on us for because we were the first country to acknowledge the sovereignity of the U.S. The score at this moment is 2 - 2

Don't forget, even we are German, Hell, even the French are but it'll be freezing in hell before they'll admit that. The Dutch (except for the Friesians) and the French both come from the Frankish German tribe. The Dutch stopped using the word Diets after the second world war because that was something that the local collaborationist party (NSB) used to refer to ourselves. The word became something of a taboo and it was eventually forgotten.

 

It's not worth our time to learn another language. It's just the fruits of once having a big empire .

We've helped each other loads in the past, though! Against Spanish, French etc.!

 

I don't know if this story is true, but in high school I heared that Dutch was awfully close to being the world language. "Unfortunately", English became it

 

Well Morgoth, you're the first person I've met who does this. I'd imagine somebody from Limburg would perhaps make this distinction, but not somebody from South Holland.

Ok, so *we* are not German, *you* are German. I'm Frisian

Wow, I didn't know that. I always thought diets was abandoned way before that.

 

Vlaanderen de Leeuw! Sorry, couldn't resist. BTW, I heard your peroxide politician thinks Flanders and The Netherlands should become one again...ain't he adorable.

Holland, The Netherlands...and then you have The Low Countries, which means "the netherlands" again...pretty confusing indeed. Over here, "Holland" is actually rarely used, we almost always say "Nederland"...we do say "(H)ollander", though.

I agree with Morgoth on the Diets thing.

 

It might have. It is quite obvious that the Germans (and any fascist party) were advertising the German ancestral history (Third Reich, rituals involving spears - German means spearman in some old language -, aryans, swastika's and Thule, the German version of Atlantis.) So, it would not be a surprise when the word diets was also something that they dug up.
IIRC, at the start of the 20th century, Europe was very much looking back to pre-roman ages (some still are, think celtic mysticism and Enya ) It's, I think, a natural reaction when the modern world is too detached.

Then we finally control Antwerp and the diamond industry again muhahah

And don't forget, WW2 and the Glorious Revolution

 

I think all languages except English refer to people from the Netherlands/Holland as Hollanders/Netherlanders or some linguistic variation thereof. The English just have to be different.

 

Who, or what, are Friesians/Frisians?

 

It's a language spoken in some parts of Germany and Holland I reckon mate.

Have you never heard of the Friesland area?

 

Indeed, Barmy. Friesland is a province of the Netherlands, where people have their own language, Frisian. It's quite a bit different from Dutch, having quite some influences from the Scandinavian languages (Norwegian, Swedish and Danish).

A funny anecdote about the Holland/Netherlands thing is when the world (European?) championship football was held in Switserland/Austria (don't know exactly which) a couple of years back, some people in the street were asked who would win in a match between Holland and the Netherlands. We had a lot of laughs at work, listening to people argueing seriously that Holland would clearly win from the Netherlands, and vice versa. And this is from a country only 700 km away, with only Germany in between.

 

Let me just add to the confusion a bit by saying that the Frisian spoken in Germany is a different language (not just a different dialect) than the Frisian spoken in The Netherlands. They probably both came from an older Frisian language, but nowadays they differ as much as German and Dutch.

 

Obviously not.

Bloody hell! There all Frisian, but they live in different countries and speak different languages?

Are you kidding me? *sigh* WTF? Before I started this topic I didn't even know what a Frisian was. And I'm not sure that statement doesn't still apply.