Re: Official language question!

 --- Thomas Leigh skrzypszy:

> I was in a second-hand book shop yesterday afternoon and came across a copy
> of the old "Teach Yourself Dutch" for $2, so I bought it. Not a bad deal, I
> thought! Anyway, the first chapter, which deals with pronunciation and
> spelling, makes reference to a spelling reform in 1947 which cleaned up the
> "cumbersome and old-fashioned" spelling which had been used up until that
> time. That piqued my curiosity, so I was wondering if any of our Dutch
> listmembers would be able to give any details of that old orthography, and
> how it differs from the current one.
Yes. My apologies for this terribly belated reply, but I have been a bit too
busy lately. I found a nice little booklet about the New Spelling of 1946, and
I'll quote the details below.

 --- Rob Nierse skrzypszy:

> To start with, words that ended in */sk/ (in Proto-Germanic) ended up
> in [sX] and eventually (nowadays) in [s]. Nevertheless, the [sX] was
> still written as 'sch', e.g. 'visch' "fish", which is now just 'vis' [vIs].
>
> Also, there were many double vowels written in situations where one
> vowel could do: 'zoo' [zo] "so" has become 'zo'.
That's correct, but let me elaborate a bit.
I have a little booklet in front of me, called "De Nieuwe Spelling 1946 in een
half uur". It was published in order to explain and promote the changes.
Actually, it is quite simple. If you compare it, the spelling reform that we
had seven (?) years ago was much farther-reaching.

This is what happened:

1.
At the end of an open syllable, double _ee_ and _oe_ become _e_ and _o_. This
was already the case for _a_ and _u_:
"heeten" > "heten"
"eenige" > "enige"
"kampeeren" > "kamperen"
"oogen" > "ogen"
"droomen" > "dromen"
"zoo" > "zo"

Exceptions:
- the _ee_ at the end of a word ("zee", "twee")
- the _oo_ before _ch_ ("goochelen").

2.
When _sch_ was pronounced /s/, it became _s_:
"mensch" > "mens", "tusschen" > "tussen", "dagelijksch" > "dagelijks"

Exceptions:
- words ending on _isch_ kept their old spelling: "telefonisch", "Belgisch"

3.
Declension of "een", "geen", and the possessive pronouns became optional. That
was not a big change, since in practice these weren't declined anymore, anyway.

4.
The _-n_ for accusatives and datives became optional too:
"De vliegmachine stortte op de grond" (instead of: "op den grond")
"Ik bedoel niet de voortste, maar de achterste jongen" (instead of: "Ik bedoel
niet den voorsten, maar den achtersten jongen")

> I think these are the most important reforms.
> Maybe Jan knows some more or can correct m eif I am wrong?
I think this was quite complete.

 --- Roger Mills skrzypszy:

> Wasn't there also an old practice-- if a 1-syl form had a long (double)
> vowel, that was also written in derived forms. e.g. laat - laater??? I
> could be wrong, but I cut my Dutch teeth, so to speak, on an 1850s book,
> using a 1930s dictionary, and it was quite confuzzing.
Yes, but the example you give is wrong. The combination "laat - later" was
already written like that before 1946. I don't know what exactly happened
before the 20th century. Possibly, it could have been written "laet - laeter"
until the early 19th century, but that is just a rough guess.

 --- Rob Nierse skrzypszy:

> >>>
> One bit of strangeness I still remember: 1853 ligchaam, modern lichaam
> 'body'
> <<<
>
> Looks even weirder, but you actually read it! In the past a lot of strange
> spelling occurred, so I can imagine that you have trouble with it.
> Even to our generation (well, at least to me) we have to make an effort
> to read *and* understand books older than 150 years
It looks a bit strange indeed, but not impossible. The word "lichaam" (Middle
Dutch "lichâme", Ohd. lîhhamo) consists of two roots: "lîka-" (Modern Dutch
"lijk" = dead body), and "xaman-" (Mod. Dutch "haam" = net), and is of course
cognate to German "leichnam". This spelling, "ligchaam", could very well give
an indication of the origins of the word, although it seems to me that this
spelling should have been obsolete by 1853.
I don't know when Dutch spelling became standardised.

Jan

=====
"Originality is the art of concealing your source." - Franklin P. Jones

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