DUTCH TREAT.

August 22, 2003 by languagehat Leave a Comment

Marco Schuffelen has a “Linguistics for Laypeople” page featuring Germanic material, especially Schuffelen’s native Dutch; besides a very interesting collection of Hebrew words that entered Dutch via Yiddish (occasionally quite different in meaning from parallel forms in English, eg gotspe ‘insolent brutality’ vs chutzpah), there is the excellent Dutch Pronounced!, which gives mp3 files for just about any Dutch name you might want to hear: Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, Pieter Bruegel, Huygens, Van Leeuwenhoek, Pim Fortuyn, Guus Hiddink, Edsger Dijkstra, Johan Cruyff, Max Euwe, ‘s Gravenhage, Waterloo… There are even names not borne by Dutchmen that you might be curious to hear a Dutchman say: Roosevelt, Van Buren, Richard Posthumus. A useful service indeed, considering the difficulty of correctly pronouncing Dutch vowels (even with this aid, I despair of ever getting the -uy- diphthong right). Thanks for the Hebrew/Dutch link go to the always worthwhile Taccuino di traduzione.

Speak Your Mind

Commented-On Language Hat Posts (courtesy of J.C.; contains useful Random Link feature)

E-mail:
languagehat AT gmail DOT com

My name is Steve Dodson; I’m a retired copyeditor currently living in western Massachusetts after many years in New York City.

If your preferred feed is Twitter, you can follow @languagehat to get
links to new posts here as they appear. (I don’t otherwise participate
in Twitter.)

If you’re feeling generous:
my Amazon wish list

And you can support my book habit without even spending money on me by following my Amazon links to do your shopping (if, of course, you like shopping on Amazon); As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases (I get a small percentage of every dollar spent while someone is following my referral links), and every month I get a gift certificate that allows me to buy a few books (or, if someone has bought a big-ticket item, even more). You will not only get your purchases, you will get my blessings and a karmic boost!

If your comment goes into moderation (which can happen if it has too many links or if the software just takes it into its head to be suspicious), I will usually set it free reasonably quickly… unless it happens during the night, say between 10 PM and 8 AM Eastern Time (US), in which case you’ll have to wait. And occasionally the software will decide a comment is spam and it won’t even go into moderation; if a comment disappears on you, send me an e-mail and I’ll try to rescue it. You have my apologies in advance. Also, my posts should be taken as conversation-starters; there is no expectation of “staying on topic,”and some of the best threads have gone in entirely unexpected directions. I have strong opinions and sometimes express myself more sharply than an ideal interlocutor might, but I try to avoid personal attacks, and I hope you will do the same.

All comments are copyright their original posters. Only messages signed “languagehat” are property of and attributable to languagehat.com. All other messages and opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily state or reflect those of languagehat.com. Languagehat.com does not endorse any potential defamatory opinions of readers, and readers should post opinions regarding third parties at their own risk. Languagehat.com reserves the right to alter or delete any questionable material posted on this site.