201 Dutch Verbs Fully Conjugated in all the Tenses [antikvár]

Preface Dutch is the native language of more than 18 million people. It is the official language of the Netherlands and, along with French, one of the official languages of Belgium. Somewhat more than one-half of the population of Belgium speaks Dutch as its native language, the term Flemish being frequendy applied to the Dutch language in Belgium. Belgian Dutch does differ in some respects from that of the Netherlands, but no more than any regional variation differs from a standard language, and is thus in its essentials the same language. There is perhaps a tendency to regard Dutch as a minor language. This is due partiy to the location of the Dutch-speaking area. It is surrounded and dwarfed by three of the world's major languages: English, German, and French. Perhaps the principal reason that relatively few people study Dutch is that the Dutch themselves are among the world's best linguists, and this obviates the need for others to learn their language. The Low Countries have long been one of the world's major centers of commerce—Rotterdam, for example, is the world's busiest port—and Dutch-speaking businessmen and traders gladly learn the languages of their trading partners. It is rare that an educated Dutch person cannot speak either English, German, or French—usually he or she will manage quite well in all three! This, of course, does httle to propagate the Dutch language in the world. And yet Dutch is a language eminentiy worth learning. The Low Countries look back upon an unbroken literary tradition of 800 years, and for centuries they have been the meeting place of Western European culture. The literary masterpieces in the Dutch language are not inconsiderable, and the accomplishments of Dutch art are of world stature. In recent history we have come to regard the Low Countries as models of enlightened, tolerant, and humane government. And if we assign importance to a language by virtue of sheer numbers, we must bear in mind that there are several milhon more speakers of Dutch than there are of Danish or Swedish, of Czech or Bulgarian, or of Greek or Hungarian. Students cannot fail to notice the similarities between English, Dutch, and German. The reason is quite simply that these languages, along with the Scandinavian languages, share a common source and, to a greater or lesser degree, a common development. The proximity of the English, Dutch, and German speech areas has fostered a particularly close relationship between these three languages. The geographical middle position of the Low Countries is reflected in the relationship of Dutch to the other two Germanic languages. It tends to occupy a middle position linguistically as well—Dutch is closer to English than is German and closer to German than is English. On the most basic level hundreds of examples from the word stock of each language could be adduced to demonstrate this kinship. To learn Dutch is to come a little closer to our past, for Dutch is not a foreign language but a cousin tongue with which we do well to reestablish ties. Henry R. Stern Asheville, North Carolina