Lesson 4

Listen to The Dutch Anthem - 'Voiceless E' - The Article - Vocabulary (Clothing) - Numbers 20-100 (#1) - The Dutch Revolt

The Dutch Anthem is about the leader of the Dutch Revolution William of Orange, born William of Nassau, the Dutch George Washington. His father was the count of Nassau in present-day Germany, and he inherited the 'principality' of Orange in present-day France, which gave him the title of 'prince.' - More at the end of today's lesson.
The song is in 16th-century Dutch, when many words still had endings according to their function in the sentence. Luckily, almost all of that has disappeared from modern Dutch - so don't worry about a thing.

The Dutch Anthem		Het Wilhelmus
Wilhelmus van Nassouwe Ben ik van Duitsen bloed Den Vaderland getrouwe Blijf ik tot in den doet Een prinse van Oranje Ben ik, vrij, onverveerd Den konink van Hispanje Heb ik altijd geëerd (please rise)		I am William of Nassau A man of our people Loyal to the Fatherland I'll remain to my dying day I am a prince of Orange Free and without fear The king of Spain I have always respected

'Wilhelmus' is a Latinized version of German 'Wilhelm.' English 'William,' Dutch: Willem .
There are various interpretations of 'van Duitsen bloed.' In modern Dutch, it would read as 'of German blood,' and one opinion is that it points to William's German descent. I think the 'Duits' means 'us, our tribe, we the people: I am a man of our people' - as I said in the second lesson, from an old Germanic word, 'theudo,' ('diutisc' in old High German), which the Germanic tribes used to refer to themselves, like we would say 'of our nation, our people.' This word is the root of English 'Dutch,' and these three words that mean 'German:' Dutch 'Duits,' German 'Deutsch,' and Italian 'Tedesci.'

'Voiceless E'

Dutch double E is always long - Kees

(boys' name) - but single E can be pronounced in three (3) different ways: long, short and voiceless. Linguists call voiceless E the 'schwa.'

'long E'

'short E'

- 2

'voiceless E'

snertkerel (bad or useless guy)
short / long / voiceless berenvel (bear skin)
long / voiceless / short hernemen ('to retake')
short / long / voiceless reservedeken (spare blanket)
voiceless / short / voiceless / long / voiceless

snel eten (eat fast)
short / long / voiceless deze weg (this road)
long / voiceless / short het hele meer (the whole lake)
short / long / voiceless / long

Single E is voiceless (

) in the prefixes (beginnings of words) be-, ge-, te- and ver-

belet gered terecht verlet

Single E is voiceless in the suffixes (word endings) -en, -er and -e

helden helder helde

- sterke werken echter

One-syllable words don't have voiceless E prefixes and suffixes as described above, but there a single E is short:
bes Ger tel ver

- pen den der ster

- except for the -e ending which remains voiceless: je te we

Single E is short ( - 2 ) like other short vowels as explained in the previous lesson:

when followed by two or more consonants,
at the end of a word followed by one (or more) consonants;
again, unless it's a prefix or suffix as described above.

Single E is long ( ) when followed by one consonant and another vowel - unless it's a prefix or suffix as described above. (Words divide in syllables, and in Dutch a single consonant usually goes to the second syllable.) English 'silent E' works somewhat like this: man/mane, can/cane.

Compare:		`vel`	`hek`	`ben`	`het`			`felle`	`redden`	`vette`	`leggen`	- 2		'short'
Compare:		`vele`	`hekel`	`benen`	`heten`			`vele`	`reden`	`vete`	`legen`			'long'

E is short in the prefixes her- and ter-
tergend herverdelen terdege hernemen
The ending -el is almost always voiceless:
egel edel wezel - enkel engel grendel stremsel greppel - 2

Many words are in the pattern: prefix with voiceless E / stressed syllable / suffix with voiceless E.
The vowel of the 'stressed sylable' will be 'long' or 'short,' for instance: bederven bedreven - 2
vervelen beleden genezen benemend - vervellen bedenken gewesten - 2
As you hear the words on my site, pay attention to how the vowels are pronounced.

The basic words that make up compound words keep their orininal spelling and pronunciation - as your vocabulary grows you'll recognize more and more of these building blocks. Also note that the stress in compound words can be in more than one syllable. zeester - 2 ('starfish') - meeëter ('acne pimple') - the double dots (Dutch: trema ) on top of the E indicate a syllable break before this letter. It may look like the German Umlaut but its function is completely different.

The Article

The definite article ('the') has two forms in Dutch: de

and het

; in spoken Dutch, het is often shortened to 't

(note the vowel change from 'short E' to 'voiceless E.')

de man
de vrouw
het kind
't mannetje
hear

the man
the woman
the child
'the little man'

There are only a few useful rules about what are 'de'-words and what are 'het'-words. It has little to do with the apparent 'gender' of words. A majority of Dutch words are 'de'-words, probably 60-75%, and all diminutives (words ending in -je) are 'het' words. Most of my words list give the 'de' or 'het' with the word, and I'm afraid it's just something you'll have to memorize when learning words. Plurals always get 'de.'

The indefinite article ('a') in Dutch is een,

which in a rare exception to spelling rules is pronounced as 'voiceless E' - it is sometimes more correctly written as 'n. For emphasis, you could say één

('one')

de / het / 't

(the)

een, 'n

- 2

(a, an)

één

(one)

Words

(de) rok

(de) jurk

- 2

(de) blouse

(het) overhemd

(de) trui

(het) vest

(het) vestje

(de) broek

- 2

(de) spijkerbroek

(het) pak

[denim jacket and jeans, a 'denim suit']

(het) spijkerpak

= (het) inspraakpak

(de) sokken

- 2

(de) schoenen

(de) jas

(de) das

= (de) sjaal

(de) hoed

(de) pet

- 2

Spijker

in spijkerbroek ('blue jeans') means 'carpentry nail.'
'Inspraak' is 'co-decision,' the staff councils set up in the late sixties, where workers were supposed to get a voice in the running of companies and offices.
more clothes

Numbers (3)

20
twintig

30
dertig

40
veertig

50
vijftig

60
zestig

70
zeventig

80
tachtig

90
negentig

100
honderd

Note the T added to 80: 'tachtig,' and not 'achtig.'
In Dutch, we just say honderd

(100) - not something like 'one hundred' or 'a hundred' as in English.
Sharp listeners may have noted that the -IG ending is pronounced with voiceless E, and not the expected short I. It is one of a few exceptions. I'll list pronunciation exceptions in one of the next lessons.

The Dutch Revolt

In the late Middle Ages, present-day Holland and Belgium were a collection of small territories ruled by counts, dukes and bishops. It was part of the 'German Empire,' which further roughly included present-day Germany, Switzerland, The Czech Republic ('Bohemia'), Austria and some of Northern Italy. The German emperor (called 'Roman Emperor') was elected by a few of the more powerful rulers. Maps: 1000 AD - 1650 AD
Through marriages, lack of heirs and wars, in the early 1400s most of present-day Holland and Belgium passed on to the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy, and in the early 1500s to Charles V of Habsburg, who was also king of Spain. Charles V and later his son Philip II tried to suppress Protestantism, but together with their attempts to limit local privileges, high taxation and an economic downturn this led to the Dutch Revolt. It took 80 years (1568-1648) for the Spanish to recognize Dutch independence: De Tachtigjarige Oorlog

- 2 ("The Eighty-Years' War")
A few years before the Revolt, a group of Dutch nobles asked the Spanish Governor for greater tolerance of Protestantism, but they were dismissed by an adviser as 'just a bunch of beggars,' "Ils ne sont que des gueux," as he said in French. The revolutionaries proudly took a Dutchified form of that word as their name, Geuzen

. Their first success was the capture of the port city of Den Briel

('Brill') on April 1, 1572. After that Spanish troops rampaged through Holland, but after some initial successes they left in 1574, and never returned to the Dutch heartland.
The Dutch Revolt was led by William of Orange, Willem van Oranje

nicknamed 'William The Silent' Willem de Zwijger

and after his 1584 assassination by his sons Maurits

and Frederik Hendrik

.
The Orange-Nassau family only became royal rulers after the French occupation (1797-1813.) At first they were stadhouders

a kind of heriditary presidents. The word has nothing to do with Dutch stad

('town, city') but more with English 'instead:' instead of the King.
The new country was called the Republic (Republiek

- 2) of De Verenigde Provinciën

('The United Provinces,') a federal government as already pioneered by the Swiss, and followed again 130 years later by another great nation. Also: De Zeven (7) Provinciën

Present-day Belgium stayed in Spanish hands, and was passed on to Austria in the 1700s. After a brief union with the Northern Netherlands from 1813 Belgium became independent in 1838.

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Don't be a dief (thief) / dievegge (female thief) - diefstal (theft) - stelen (to steal) - heler (dealer in stolen goods) - hear Dutch - 2