Many linguists describe the language as sharing characteristics between German and English. The Dutch language is closely related to both German and English. The more you learn about the pronunciation of each individual letter, the more you will understand about the language as a whole. However, the pronunciation of Dutch letters will need to be practiced before you will be able to pronounce words properly. The Dutch alphabet contains the same 26 letters as the English alphabet. The Dutch language has a relatively high proportion of doubled letters, both vowels and consonants, like oo in boom (”tree”) and uu in muur (”wall”) or ee in veel (”a lot.”)Īn example of five consecutive doubled letters is voorraaddoos (”supply box”).ĭutch is a language that is spoken by about 20 million people, primarily in the Netherlands and Belgium. There are some letter combinations you won’t find in English, such as ‘oe’ in the word boek, (”book.”) They sound the same but are spelled differently.Īnother combo is ij and ei they both sound like “y.” The three missing letters were the j,u, and w. Nowadays the Dutch alphabet, based on the Latin alphabet, counts twenty-six characters. Through this bookprinting the unity of spelling was promoted. In the period 1450-1500 they started to print with separated letters. It took a lot of time to make the printblock. One whole page was printed at a time this is called Blockprint. Already in the year 1000, a way of printing had been invented. In the fifteenth century the art of printing was invented. So the books in libraries were worth a fortune. For example the word “country,” in Dutch, land, in Amsterdam was always written with a ‘t’ and in Utrecht with a ‘d.’ The spelling was phonetic, meaning you write like you hear it. Like Joost van den Vondel and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.įrom the twelfth to the fourteenth century the writing depended which the region you lived in. Later there came people who had the job of writer and also the scientists needed to write. The monks in the monasteries were the only ones who could write. The oldest examples of written Dutch are mostly religious books. The alphabet we use in the Netherlands is based on the Latin alphabet. The Dutch writing systems uses the Alphabet.
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