Re: Beating the Dutch

 --- John Cowan wrote:

> I also meant, but forgot, to praise Andreas (I think it was) for
> introducing the word "Dutchistan" to our vocabulary.  It is so perfectly
> inelegant as to be quite elegant in its multicultural way.
Agreed. Perhaps I will borrow it once, especially when a rightist,
populist, bald-headed freak might become prime minister.

> Is there any language but English in which "Dutch" survives as the
> ethnonym/language name?
Not as such. But the root (originally from PIE *teut- "people"), exists in
several variations: for German ("Duits" in Dutch, "Deutsch" in German,
"Tysk" in Danish), for Dutch (but only in English), and last but not least,
for the Teutonic knights. There is also the term "Diets", a rather vague
concept, that sort of promotes the merger of the Dutch and the Flemish into
one people. It has a certain political load in it, and is popular only in
ultra-nationalist circles, chiefly in Belgium. I'm afraid this is were the
English got the term "Dutch" for something that should have been called
"Netherlanders" or "Hollanders" instead.

Jan

=====
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought,
wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that
happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great
comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe." --- J.
Michael Straczynski

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