Re: Bedrading elektrische stoel naast de bestuurder

Guenter Scholz wrote:
In article <4629aefa$0$25093$e4fe514c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
The Spanish Inquisition <ximinez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Guenter Scholz wrote:

In article <462903c4$0$14667$e4fe514c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
The Spanish Inquisition <ximinez@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Dori A Schmetterling wrote:

That's a bit rude...?...
Hey, I even showed him the way to a Dutch-speaking mechanics site, which is actually quite good.

Still rude nevertheless :-) if he wants to post in Dutch, let him. He's probably looking for another Dutchman, like yourself, who might answer
him. Now, inquiring minds want to know: why isn't it Netherlander or better
still Nederlander rather than 'Dutchman ..... what the heck is 'Dutch' anyway?
Is it someone, like an American or Brit, who at some point in histlry screwed
up Dutch and Deutsch?? I wonder
I'll tell you what's rude as well. Leaving your e-mail address for replies. That's not participating in a group, that's just using it. I'm pretty sure he won't be back anyway.

Truly multi-lingual newsgroups die out anyway. Nobody cares enough to pick out the messages they can read/reply. Ever heard of Babylon?

The Dutch part is historic. Early Dutch language was referred to as 'Diets' in the Middle Ages. The English (with whom we always had an intensive relationship - look at the four Dutch - English wars) probably stuck to that old term. We just call ourselves Nederlanders or Hollanders, although Holland is technically only a part of the country. We call the Germans 'Duits' or 'Duitsers'.

Ximinez, thanks for that... I've learned something that I probably
should have known already. Of course your answer just leads to another
question... why the similarity between Diets and Duits ... sound pretty
much just like a difference in dialect more than anything else. I guess if
we go back far enough even english will meld into Diets and Duits. Remids
me of reading Chaucer where I recognized a fair bit of the olde english via
german ....

The German and Dutch languages are clearly from the same roots. I used to know a Dutch/German couple who just spoke to each other in their own language. That worked pretty well for household stuff. Philosophy and technology discussions would be a wholly different matter, but they weren't much interested in that anyway.

In the Middle Ages, what is now Germany was a collection of small independent states. If things had gone differently (and I'm not talking about WWII) Holland might perhaps have ended up as a German province. Dutch probably just started as one of the Germanic dialects.

As to the relationship between German, English and Dutch, you shouldn't leave out the role of the Frisian language (spoken by people in the northern Friesland province of the Netherlands). Apparently, linguists have discovered that the Frisian language is linguistically the closest language to English.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frisian_language

From that article, some interesting word transformations from German to Dutch to Frisian to English:

zurück -> terug -> tebek -> back
Schafe -> schapen -> skiep -> sheep

Fascinating stuff...

Ximinez
--
Our three weapons are fear, surprise, and ruthless efficiency...
and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope....
http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/paulfitz/spanish/t1.html
.

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