Results for “language”

Have you ever heard of “suburban Flemish” and “Polderdutch”? Editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere about the tension between dying dialects, weird "in-between-languages" and overpowering standard languages.

Words become outlawed, and people with different opinions soon accuse the other party of engaging in ‘framing’. Are the language police just round the corner?

The Dutch in the East Indies inserted a lot of words of the languages they encountered into their own language.

The United Kingdom and The Netherlands' shared history has a big and often funny impact on each other's language.

Studying Dutch abroad signifies considerable economic and cultural added value. But are the Dutch and Flemish politicians truly aware of this untapped potential?

Emperor Charles V embodied the complex linguistic situation in the Low Countries.

For centuries, the Dutch language in Belgium had to pave the way for French. And yet, editor-in-chief Luc Devoldere, a Fleming, wouldn’t miss French for the world.

We translated excerpts from 'Declaration of Love to the Dutch Language' in which Mira Feticu describes her struggle to learn Dutch.

Substantially declining student numbers, reduced social status, dropping budgets: Dutch studies is encountering heavy weather.

While cycling and snarling, linguist Fieke van der Gucht might spur a change in language.

Liberian-born writer Vamba Sherif recognises himself in Feticu's book about her difficult conquest of the Dutch language.

In the book Wie zegt wat waar? (Who Says What Where?) the reader is presented with a more accurate picture of the regional languages in the Netherlands and Flanders than in many other reference works.

In our book 'Standing Tall in Babel. Languages in Europe' (2007) Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk wrote an essay on her mother tongue, Polish. Or is it her father tongue?

The anxieties around the status of the language we speak, find a precedent in the nineteenth-century Netherlands.

Linguist Fieke Van der Gucht doesn't like teachers who complain about the decline in students' language skills.

We need to decolonise our language, states scriptwriter and opinion former Raf Njotea. Raising awareness is the first step.

There are still numerous historical references to the Dutch language in Guyana.

Our best language stories of 2019, handpicked by the editor.

Our best language stories of 2020, handpicked by the editor.

Join us in bidding goodbye to 2022 with seven of the finest language stories we published this year that are worth re-reading or listening to again.

Dairy cows are social beings that communicate with each other and with humans. However, sociolinguistics has paid little attention to this kind of interaction. Leonie Cornips aims to shed light on this through her language research on cows.

Luc Devoldere states that we have no choice in Europe, but to become as multilingual as possible.

Linguist Fieke Van der Gucht declares her love to a comma.

The English language knows 'they' for one person. But in Dutch a gender-neutral alternative to 'he' and 'she' is still a long way off. This may have to do with a grammatical rule that Dutch speakers consider important.

Luc Devoldere rejects the existence of a bond between language and ethnicity – or Blut und Boden. Instead, he suggests the term ‘territory’.