If you follow the etymology, Dutchland is just Deutschland, which is how you say Germany in German. Of course, it has been like 500 years since it was reasonable to say that the Netherlanders are just anothers group of Germans like the Bavarians or Saxons.
That is not a reason they are called Dutch though. According to AI: People from the Netherlands are called Dutch because the term evolved from the Old High German word "diutisc" or Middle English "diets," meaning "of the people". In the Middle Ages, this term was used to distinguish the "common people's" language from more formal languages like Latin. Over time, "Dutch" came to specifically refer to the people and language of the Netherlands, while "Deutsch" remained as the German word for German.
This is the kind of thing people tell themselves about all kinds of behaviors to justify those behaviors but it’s usually not the case. We just tend to assume everyone does what we do, it’s a really common cognitive dissonance reduction tool.
“People say you shouldn’t do X. I do X. I’m not a bad person. Everyone else is also doing X and just pretending they don’t.”
I don't think the downvotes you're getting are from people who themselves use LLMs, that would be quite hypocritical don't you think ?
I think this is a case where you ought to look up an encyclopedia. Trusting these LLMs because they look and sound like natural language produced by a person is a mistake.
The English word for the people from the Netherlands ('Dutch') and German word for German ('Deutsch) have exactly the same root. Back then the word referred to a much larger group of people. Over time these languages became more distinctly different languages (as opposed to different versions of a similar language) and the English decided to give the German language a new name and not the Dutch.
Looking back it would have made more sense to continue calling German Dutch because it is more similar to the German word. We use Nederland (Netherland) as name for our country and Nederlands (Netherlandish / Netherlandic) as name for our language.
That info is a mess, and doesn't really apply to the topic. It's also misleading.
The root of the word afaik is found in exactly one word each of the three relevant languages: "deutsch", "duits", "dutch".
"deutsch" is german and means german.
"duits" is dutch and means german.
"dutch" is english and means dutch.
So if you literally translate "dutch land" using their closest equivalents based on word history into any germanic language, you will obtain "german land" i.e. germany.
No idea what english was doing here, but every germanic language can agree the word-family of dutch should have it mean german.
Maybe the netherlands were the only relevant country to england so they just called those particular duitsmen the only duits and then had to replace the original meaning of the word with german when duits was changed.
Either way, the etymology of the word "þiudiskaz" is definitely not the reason the dutch are called that in english, the reason for that must be in english itself probably in the last 500 years somewhere. It is a uniquely english and relatively modern phenomenon, forming the meme of this post since it neither makes sense nor matches and of the actual nations or native languages involved.
you know, the AI answer is not that bad, but I have to wonder why you didn't think about it. the peoples who would later become the Dutch and Germans used to refer to themselves using a similar term that meant 'of the people' because they saw themselves, collectively, as broadly similar peoples. OP is not wrong that English people use the word Dutch (rather than something like netherlandish) because there wasn't much distinction made between German and Dutch at the time. That is, when a broader grouping than city or town was thought of at all.
When I was in Japan, I asked a receptionist if England-language was okay. Japanese has a word for "English", it just didn't exist in my head in that second. I still think about this 12 years later.
(Also, everything else is country-language too, France-language, Germany-language, China-language, Japan-language, why does England-language get to be special, why, Japanese people, why?!)
It's because "England" has a Japanese style adjective-country formation (英国), which then follows the native pattern for language (英語). By contrast, "Germany" (ドイツ) and "France" (フランス) are borrowed phonetically.
To your complaint about "Japan-language", note that Japan's official name is 日本国.
What I can't explain is why 国 comes along for the ride when it's China. (中国語)
I was going to defend why it's like that, but then I realized that I'm woefully under-qualified to defend any aspect of modern English as something well-understood, thought-out, or otherwise consistent with the rest of the language. Either you're at the top of this field, or a rank amateur - there is no in-between. If I'm going to get skewered on the internet today, I'd rather it be in a Trek forum or something.
Pretty sure they are complaining about the Japanese language here. In Japanese, the words for languages are generally just a compound word of “Nation + character for language”. So French is “France Language” if you took it literally.
Except the word for English which gets to be different
I was indeed complaining about Japanese. At least English is consistently weird whereas Japanese makes you lower your defenses with its VERY regular grammar and then hits you over the head with different politeness-levels. ;)
And the English are from Englishland and the Spanish are from Spanishland, and the Portuguese are from Portugueseland, and the Chinese are from Chineseland
The Netherlands (literally the low lands) began as a group of provinces ('lands') banding together. The most famous one (on a global scale I mean) is Holland , because that's were Amsterdam is and the VOC is from for example. Another big player back then was Zeeland (you likely only know New Zeeland, but this is the og one). Aside from Holland and Zeeland there are other lands in The Netherlands and the people from those regions typically prefer The Netherlands over Holland. Nobody cares enough that they would take issue with it, but many care enough to want to explain it to you.
If you follow the etymology, Dutchland is just Deutschland, which is how you say Germany in German. Of course, it has been like 500 years since it was reasonable to say that the Netherlanders are just anothers group of Germans like the Bavarians or Saxons.
That is not a reason they are called Dutch though. According to AI: People from the Netherlands are called Dutch because the term evolved from the Old High German word "diutisc" or Middle English "diets," meaning "of the people". In the Middle Ages, this term was used to distinguish the "common people's" language from more formal languages like Latin. Over time, "Dutch" came to specifically refer to the people and language of the Netherlands, while "Deutsch" remained as the German word for German.
Thank you for disclosing that you used ai
Notice the number of downvotes I received - PERSONAL RECORD - YES BRING IT ON ! 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽 Ironically, everybody is doing it, but nobody will admit it 🤭
This is the kind of thing people tell themselves about all kinds of behaviors to justify those behaviors but it’s usually not the case. We just tend to assume everyone does what we do, it’s a really common cognitive dissonance reduction tool.
“People say you shouldn’t do X. I do X. I’m not a bad person. Everyone else is also doing X and just pretending they don’t.”
Why did I imagine your hands were flailing horizontally while reading the last line
I don’t know, but I can kind of see it. 🤣
I don't think the downvotes you're getting are from people who themselves use LLMs, that would be quite hypocritical don't you think ?
I think this is a case where you ought to look up an encyclopedia. Trusting these LLMs because they look and sound like natural language produced by a person is a mistake.
I'm not. ChatGPT is trained on my Reddit posting history so it sounds like me half the time...
LOL, fuck off.
No. We’re not all doing it, only the douchebags.
I find it correlates to critical thought ability. The less you have, the more you use it.
In my experience personality doesn't come into it otherwise.
The English word for the people from the Netherlands ('Dutch') and German word for German ('Deutsch) have exactly the same root. Back then the word referred to a much larger group of people. Over time these languages became more distinctly different languages (as opposed to different versions of a similar language) and the English decided to give the German language a new name and not the Dutch.
Looking back it would have made more sense to continue calling German Dutch because it is more similar to the German word. We use Nederland (Netherland) as name for our country and Nederlands (Netherlandish / Netherlandic) as name for our language.
That info is a mess, and doesn't really apply to the topic. It's also misleading.
The root of the word afaik is found in exactly one word each of the three relevant languages: "deutsch", "duits", "dutch".
"deutsch" is german and means german.
"duits" is dutch and means german.
"dutch" is english and means dutch.
So if you literally translate "dutch land" using their closest equivalents based on word history into any germanic language, you will obtain "german land" i.e. germany.
No idea what english was doing here, but every germanic language can agree the word-family of dutch should have it mean german.
Maybe the netherlands were the only relevant country to england so they just called those particular duitsmen the only duits and then had to replace the original meaning of the word with german when duits was changed.
Either way, the etymology of the word "þiudiskaz" is definitely not the reason the dutch are called that in english, the reason for that must be in english itself probably in the last 500 years somewhere. It is a uniquely english and relatively modern phenomenon, forming the meme of this post since it neither makes sense nor matches and of the actual nations or native languages involved.
you know, the AI answer is not that bad, but I have to wonder why you didn't think about it. the peoples who would later become the Dutch and Germans used to refer to themselves using a similar term that meant 'of the people' because they saw themselves, collectively, as broadly similar peoples. OP is not wrong that English people use the word Dutch (rather than something like netherlandish) because there wasn't much distinction made between German and Dutch at the time. That is, when a broader grouping than city or town was thought of at all.
Please tell me you aren't just saying "Holland".
Pays-Bas ?
"Never Netherlands "
When I was in Japan, I asked a receptionist if England-language was okay. Japanese has a word for "English", it just didn't exist in my head in that second. I still think about this 12 years later.
(Also, everything else is country-language too, France-language, Germany-language, China-language, Japan-language, why does England-language get to be special, why, Japanese people, why?!)
It's because "England" has a Japanese style adjective-country formation (英国), which then follows the native pattern for language (英語). By contrast, "Germany" (ドイツ) and "France" (フランス) are borrowed phonetically.
To your complaint about "Japan-language", note that Japan's official name is 日本国.
What I can't explain is why 国 comes along for the ride when it's China. (中国語)
I vaguely remember from Japanese class that China's name means "middle country"
But i dunno about that "go" character specifically. It might have a different meaning in this context?
Which still leaves the question why 英国 is treated differently from, say, 独国, 仏国 and 米国 ;D
I was going to defend why it's like that, but then I realized that I'm woefully under-qualified to defend any aspect of modern English as something well-understood, thought-out, or otherwise consistent with the rest of the language. Either you're at the top of this field, or a rank amateur - there is no in-between. If I'm going to get skewered on the internet today, I'd rather it be in a Trek forum or something.
TL;DR: English is a mess.
Pretty sure they are complaining about the Japanese language here. In Japanese, the words for languages are generally just a compound word of “Nation + character for language”. So French is “France Language” if you took it literally.
Except the word for English which gets to be different
I was indeed complaining about Japanese. At least English is consistently weird whereas Japanese makes you lower your defenses with its VERY regular grammar and then hits you over the head with different politeness-levels. ;)
And the French are from Frenchland, right?
And the English are from Englishland and the Spanish are from Spanishland, and the Portuguese are from Portugueseland, and the Chinese are from Chineseland
I don’t see the problem here
Americanland! Let's not forget that one.
I keep trying but Trump won't let me.
Franzosen aus Frankreich
You know the worst part? The Dutch don’t even care.
As long as you don't call us holland we're happy
Netherrealmers
Holländare -> Holland
Easy as that
I'm Dutch but not from Holland. There's dozens of us.
And no one from Sweden is going to acknowledge the difference, here Holland = Netherlands
You're not special, we're just as simple in Germany too.
Niederlande?
Although, it's very common across the world to call the Netherlands Holland for some reason
"Niederlande" certainly exists, but it's not used much colloquially. Kinda awkward to say, phonetically, IMO.
The Netherlands (literally the low lands) began as a group of provinces ('lands') banding together. The most famous one (on a global scale I mean) is Holland , because that's were Amsterdam is and the VOC is from for example. Another big player back then was Zeeland (you likely only know New Zeeland, but this is the og one). Aside from Holland and Zeeland there are other lands in The Netherlands and the people from those regions typically prefer The Netherlands over Holland. Nobody cares enough that they would take issue with it, but many care enough to want to explain it to you.
After we tried to do our best to save Saab this is what you get.
We don't really care about that, we can't understand you any way :p.
Limburg?
Drenthe actually.
Oh, sorry then.
Shhhhhhh! I live in the black hole as well! Do not mention this Bermuda Triangle in Nederland! Hihi
Deutschland, obviously
Holland, obviously!
Nedder landers via Flanders.
Homer hates the Dutch.
skilllanguage issue.D….Dutch…DÜTCHNTOWN?
https://youtu.be/-csGDoSSZyc
https://youtu.be/eE_IUPInEuc
All you need to know! The problem is remembering it...
It's not a word, my dude.