Netherlands (terminology)
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The Netherlands is known under various terms both in English and other languages. These are used to describe the different overlapping geographical, linguistic and political areas of the Netherlands. This is often a source of confusion for people from other parts of the world. In English the country is called 'the Netherlands' (or frequently 'Holland'), while the people and the language are called 'Dutch'. Note that in Dutch the official (and predominant) terms for these are 'Nederland' for the country, 'Nederlanders' for the people and 'Nederlands' for the language, although they are occasionally (colloquially) called 'Holland', 'Hollanders' and 'Hollands' respectively.
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[edit] The Netherlands
"Netherlands" literally means "Low countries" or "Lowlands". Although the name of the country is singular in its native language (Netherland, or "Low country"), the English language uses a plural form. This plural convention is actually archaic, referring to the period 1581 to 1795 when the Dutch Republic was a loose confederation of seven provinces. The Dutch name for the Dutch Republic is Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden (Republic of Seven United Low Countries) or Nederlanden ("Low countries") for short.
The origin of the word Netherlands is Germanic. Between 1348 and 1566 the Netherlands formed part of the duchy of Burgundy (as the Burgundian Netherlands) and later the Habsburg Empire (as the Seventeen Provinces). The Southern Provinces were known as the Spanish Netherlands or later as the Austrian Netherlands. From 1815-1830 the United Kingdom of the Netherlands existed, but then Belgium broke loose and 'Holland' kept the name of "the Netherlands".
[edit] Kingdom of the Netherlands
Outside the Kingdom of the Netherlands, "Netherlands" may be used as the conventional short form to describe the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The latter encompasses the Netherlands, a constituent country within the Kingdom, the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba. In Dutch common practice, however, the Kingdom of the Netherlands is shortened to "Kingdom" and not to "Netherlands", as that may confuse the Kingdom with the constituent country. The Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands also shortens the Kingdom of the Netherlands to Kingdom rather than "Netherlands".[1]
Historically Suriname and Indonesia were also part of Kingdom of the Netherlands.
[edit] Netherlandish
The adjective "Netherlandish" denotes both a period and a place, the latter being the Low Countries. Most common is the use of this adjective when referring to paintings produced before about 1530–1570 anywhere in the Low Countries, which are referred to as Early Netherlandish painting (in Dutch Vlaamse primitieven, Flemish primitives—also common in English before the mid 20th century). From around the 16th century onwards, art or artists from the southern Catholic provinces are usually referred to as "Flemish" and from the northern Protestant provinces as Dutch, but art historians sometimes refer to Netherlandish art for art produced in both areas between 1400 and 1830.
[edit] Holland
In languages other than Dutch, including English, "Holland" is often used as a common synonym for the Netherlands as a whole. Strictly speaking, it refers only to the central-western part of the country, which consists of two of the country's twelve provinces: North Holland and South Holland. Such use of a part to designate its whole, which also occurs elsewhere, is called pars pro toto, from Latin. Examples include Russia for the (former) Soviet Union or the Russian federation, and England for the United Kingdom (see also British Isles terminology).
Historically Holland was the most powerful province of the Netherlands: the counts of Holland were also counts of Hainaut, Friesland and Zeeland between the 1200s and 1400s. During the period of the Dutch Republic the stadtholder of Holland was the most powerful politician in the Netherlands, who often also was stadtholder in other provinces; the cities in Holland were important trading cities, for instance of the six cities that made up the Dutch East India Company, five were in Holland. The two provinces making up Holland still remain demographically dominant - they house 37% of the Dutch population. The full name of the republican province was Holland and West Friesland, so it can be argued that "Holland" does not even indicate the whole area of the two provinces. After the demise of the Dutch Republic under Napoleon, the country became the Kingdom of Holland (1806-1810).
The name "Holland" for the Netherlands is also used colloquially by the Dutch themselves, especially in relation to football, where the national team is sometimes cheered on with "Holland!" The term is also used for promotional purposes, because the name "Holland" is the best known worldwide.
In some provinces, especially Friesland, Groningen and Limburg, the word Hollander is frequently used in a pejorative sense, to refer to the supposedly arrogant inhabitants of Randstad Holland. People from these provinces usually do not always appreciate being called Hollander. In Flanders as well, the word Hollander is used in this pejorative sense.
The name "Holland" ultimately stems from its Saxon name Holtland ("woodlands" or "wooded lands").
[edit] Dutch
- Further information: Dutch (ethnic group)
"Dutch" is the term used to describe the inhabitants of the Netherlands, their language, and as an adjective meaning "coming from or belonging to the Netherlands". Dutch is not only spoken in the Netherlands, but also in Belgium by the Flemish Community (in the Flemish Region and the Brussels-Capital Region), parts of northern France (around Dunkirk), Suriname, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. Its southern dialects are sometimes called Flemish. Afrikaans, spoken in South Africa and the southern part of Namibia is derived from the Dutch language.
The English word "Dutch" is a cognate to the Dutch word dietsch and the German word Deutsch. All these words have the same etymological origin. Both these terms derive from what in Common West Germanic was known as theodisca, which meant "(language) of the (common) people". During the early Middle Ages, the elite mostly used Latin and the common people used their local languages.
In the 1930s, Nazi Germany sought to "re-unite" the Dutch language area by referring to it as Dietsland.
In the United States, the term "Dutch" has in the past sometimes been used instead of Deutsch to indicate a German origin - e.g. Dutch Schultz, the Pennsylvania Dutch, and so forth.
[edit] Low Countries
The name "Low Countries" may be used to refer to the Netherlands, while it actually refers to the historical region de Nederlanden: those principalities located on and around the mostly low-lying land around the delta of the Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse rivers. This area very roughly corresponds to the countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. This region was called Greater Netherlands by irredentists who sought to unite it. This historical region also was referred to as "The Netherlands" in English.[citation needed] Between 1579 and 1794 the area comprising present Belgium, Luxembourg and parts of northern France was called the Southern Netherlands (or the "Spanish Netherlands" between 1579 and 1713, the "Austrian Netherlands" after 1713, after the main possession of their Habsburg lord).
This region was united three times, in the Seventeen Provinces as a personal union during the 16th century, in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands between 1815 and 1830 under King William I, and as the BeNeLux customs union founded in 1948.
[edit] Other languages
In most languages, the name for the country literally means "Low Countries" or is derived from Nederland or Holland.
- The name "Holland", or derivations of it, is commonly used for the Netherlands in many languages. Sometimes it is even the official name of the country, e.g., Hollanda (هولاندا) (Arabic language), Holland (הולנד) (Hebrew), Hélán (荷兰) (Chinese), and Oranda (オランダ) (Japanese), Holandia (Polish), Holandsko (Slovak), Olanda (Romanian) or Belanda (Indonesian), Hollanda (Turkish), Ollandia (Ολλανδία) (Greek), Hoà Lan (Vietnamese), Hollandia (Hungarian). This failure to distinguish between Holland and the Netherlands can lead to confusion, in these languages, when contrasting the two provinces of Holland with the rest of the country.
- Other countries use a literal translation of "the Netherlands". This often becomes indistinguishable from "the Low Countries", e.g., les Pays-Bas (French), Los Países Bajos (Spanish), I Paesi Bassi (Italian), Os Países Baixos (Portuguese), Nizozemska (Slovenian), Yr Iseldiroedd (Welsh), An Ísiltír (Irish), Els Països Baixos (Catalan).
- In Finnish, German, Czech, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, both names are used. In Finnish the country is called either Hollanti or Alankomaat, which is a translation of "the Netherlands". In German, the country is called either die Niederlande or Holland, while in the Czech Republic, the country is called either Nizozemsko which is a translation of "the Netherlands" or, unofficially, Holandsko.
- In Bengali, the name of the country is taken from the English word "Netherlands" (নেদারল্যান্ডস Nedarlênḍs), while the name of the language is taken from the French word "Hollandaise" (ওলন্দাজ Olondaj).
[edit] Netherlands-related naming issues
Abel Tasman gave the name New Holland to the continent now known as Australia, a name it retained for 150 years until the United Kingdom renamed it in 1824.
