164-438: The Bank of Amsterdam or Wisselbank ( Dutch : Amsterdamsche Wisselbank , lit. 'Exchange Bank of Amsterdam') was an early bank, vouched for by the city of Amsterdam, and established in 1609. It was the first public bank to offer accounts not directly convertible to coin. As such, it has been described as the first true central bank , even though that view is not uniformly shared. The Amsterdam Wisselbank
328-578: A common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to the Grimm's law and Verner's law sound shifts, which originated in the Proto-Germanic language and define the basic features differentiating them from other Indo-European languages. This is assumed to have taken place in approximately the mid-first millennium BCE in
492-467: A schwa . The Middle Dutch dialect areas were affected by political boundaries. The sphere of political influence of a certain ruler often also created a sphere of linguistic influence, with the language within the area becoming more homogenous. Following the contemporary political divisions they are in order of importance: A process of standardisation started in the Middle Ages , especially under
656-601: A synod taking place in Corbridge , England , where the decisions are being written down " tam Latine quam theodisce " meaning "in Latin as well as common vernacular". According to a hypothesis by De Grauwe, In northern West Francia (i.e. modern-day Belgium) the term would take on a new meaning during the Early Middle Ages , when, within the context of a highly dichromatic linguistic landscape, it came to be
820-527: A "reserve currency" status on the bank florin. Bills of exchange drawn on Amsterdam were a liquid form of short-term credit readily available in most European commercial cities. The bank florin was a reference unit of account for commercial transactions over much of Europe, and top-quality bills payable through the Bank were a reliable and liquid store of value. The annual production of silver hardly changed between 1660 and 1720. It grew steadily, with some lapses, in
984-606: A 'bill of exchange protest' and 'insinuations' (demands for a desired action). The bank was administered by a committee of city government officials concerned to keep its affairs secret. It initially operated on a deposit-only basis, but later it allowed depositors to overdraw their accounts, and it lent large sums to the Municipality of Amsterdam (the Society of Surinam and the East India Company). Initially this
1148-420: A 5% premium or agio versus the circulating guilder; this receipt may trade at a slightly different market agio reflecting supply and demand for bank receipts versus coin. The bank allowed no withdrawal except by means of a receipt. There was, however, more bank money available than the combined value of all receipts – because some receipts have been allowed to expire, but the bank money, or credit, remained in
1312-461: A central bank today: Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch is the native language of most of the population of
1476-408: A certain kind of coin from the bank, he had only to buy a receipt. The receipts offered the bank the potential of a new means of competition in the international struggle for precious metal supplies. The receipts enabled account holders to cover themselves ... to systematically hedge against the market's volatility. The Bank of Amsterdam introduced a form of fiat money that successfully competed with
1640-576: A comparison between the West Germanic languages, see the sections Phonology, Grammar, and Vocabulary. Dutch dialects are primarily the dialects that are both related with the Dutch language and are spoken in the same language area as the Dutch standard language . Although heavily under the influence of the standard language, some of them remain diverse and are found in the Netherlands and in
1804-523: A compulsory loan, to be paid for by the 55 richest inhabitants of the city. They protested vehemently, but in vain. They just had to pay. Fortunately for them, with the support of the Staatsbewind (the council of the Republic), money was raised which was soon used to pay off the loan. In 1802, the bank's liabilities were once again entirely backed by 'metallique specie' , and from that point forward,
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#17328009624931968-467: A consequence evolve (along with Alemannic , Bavarian and Lombardic ) into Old High German. At more or less the same time the Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law, moving over Western Europe from west to east, led to the development of Old English (or Anglo-Saxon), Old Frisian and Old Saxon . Hardly influenced by either development, Old Dutch probably remained relatively close to the original language of
2132-698: A decade. In 1689, Albert Geelvinck took a seat on the city council, the Dutch West India Company, the Society of Surinam and as commissioner at the Wisselbank; his brother Joan Geelvinck (1644–1707) , the former commissioner, became manager of the VOC. In 1693, Joan Huydecoper , one of the Heren XVII , succeeded his brother-in-law Joan Coymans as commissioner. Cornelis Bors van Waveren ,
2296-445: A good system to determine exchange rates did not exist. At the bank, people could exchange their coins for fully-fledged and widely accepted trade currencies . The Wisselbank protected foreign creditors by settling debts through the bank and offering depositors its own coins that were not debased. The bank was given a fourfold task: The management of the Bank of Amsterdam was in the hands of three, later four commissioners elected by
2460-410: A holder of bank money found himself in need of bullion, he could buy a receipt. Receipts and credit were thus freely bought and sold. When a holder of a receipt wished to take out the bullion for which it stood, he had to purchase enough bank credit to do so. The holder of a receipt, when he purchased bank money, purchased the power of taking out a quantity of bullion, denominated in bank guilder which had
2624-593: A majority of the money supply. During times of financial crisis , bank customers will withdraw their funds in cash, leading to a drop in demand deposits and a shrinking of the money supply. Economists have speculated that this effect contributed to the severity of the Great Depression . This did not happen, however, in the financial crisis that began in 2008. In fact, demand deposits in the U.S. increased dramatically, from around $ 310 billion in August 2008 to
2788-572: A manager of the WIC and of the Society of Surinam, was appointed as commissioner. Around 1700, the top 25 account holders were generating nearly 25% of the business. More and more, the European trade in precious metals concentrated in Amsterdam. Amsterdam's combination of steady exchange rates, absence of capital controls, and low interest rates allowed its markets to flourish, and conferred something of
2952-582: A minority language in Germany and northern France's French Flanders . Though Belgium as a whole is multilingual, three of the four language areas into which the country is divided ( Flanders , francophone Wallonia , and the German-speaking Community ) are largely monolingual, with Brussels being bilingual. The Netherlands and Belgium produce the vast majority of music , films , books and other media written or spoken in Dutch. Dutch
3116-670: A minority) and the province of Walloon Brabant . Brabantian expands into small parts in the west of Limburg while its strong influence on the East Flemish of East Flanders and eastern Zeelandic Flanders weakens towards the west. In a small area in the northwest of North Brabant ( Willemstad ), Hollandic is spoken. Conventionally, the Kleverlandish dialects are distinguished from Brabantian, but there are no objective criteria apart from geography to do so. Over 5 million people live in an area with some form of Brabantian being
3280-494: A new lending window that accepted bullion between 4–15 August. The amount of bullion went up in the next few weeks. After the Seven Years' War the stock of precious metals held by the Wisselbank was never as large as in the years 1763–1765, that is, 31 million guilders, of which no less than 25 million were made up of Spanish specie, and sent from Hamburg. In the course of the 18th century, English and French competition on
3444-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to
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#17328009624933608-499: A ocho or " pieces of eight " and marked with a VOC stamp. (Weight 1960 grams and 98.7% pure silver.) In ten years time the VOC owed 22.5 million gulden to the Wisselbank. The Dutch had very little to offer in Asia but silver and gold. Therefore, the VOC ships had to sail to Asia with silver bars and gold coins to pay for Asian goods. Once in Asia these ingots were melted down and minted again into coins such as rupees , that could be used in
3772-407: A payout of 10.16 g fine silver for each bank gulden deposited. While initially successful in halting the depreciation of the Dutch currency, the Wisselbank was tested from the 1630s, when the provinces tried to further raise the gulden equivalent of coins imported from the southern Spanish Netherlands : the patagon of 24.55 g silver raised from 48 to 50 stuivers (or 9.82 g per gulden), and later on
3936-579: A political border, because the traditional dialects are strongly influenced by the national standard varieties. While a somewhat heterogeneous group of Low Franconian dialects, Limburgish has received official status as a regional language in the Netherlands and Germany, but not in Belgium. Due to this official recognition, it receives protection by chapter 2 of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . Afrikaans , although to
4100-474: A popular destination for Chinese merchants. The depositor received a "récépissé" drawn on the bearer, entitling him to take out the money deposited, at any time within six months, upon paying one-eighth percent, and upon re-depositing in the bank that amount of bank money which was credited to him when the deposit was made. This receipt system had been adopted in Amsterdam for a short time in 1638, and 1656; after 1683, it proved permanent. If anyone wished to have
4264-663: A reduced silver content, Friedrich d'or and fake coins in an attempt to compete with the Austrian and Dutch trade coin . The silver required for the minting of inferior money was largely obtained from Amsterdam and Hamburg. The mint masters in Prussia imported each year 100–200 tons of silver throughout the Seven Years' War, which was paid for in Amsterdam mainly by bills of exchange, and in Hamburg by Kriegsgeld ." Part of it
4428-413: A result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century, the term " Diets " was revived by Dutch linguists and historians as well, as a poetic name for Middle Dutch and its literature . Old Dutch can be discerned more or less around the same time as Old English (Anglo-Saxon), Old High German , Old Frisian , and Old Saxon . These names are derived from
4592-509: A result, when West Flemings try to talk Standard Dutch, they are often unable to pronounce the g-sound, and pronounce it similar to the h-sound. This leaves, for example, no difference between " held " (hero) and " geld " (money). Or in some cases, they are aware of the problem, and hyper-correct the "h" into a voiced velar fricative or g-sound, again leaving no difference. The West Flemish variety historically spoken in adjacent parts in France
4756-458: A scarcity of both silver and gold. Consequently, John Law introduced paper money , which remained in circulation until his adversaries attempted a widespread conversion of their notes into precious metals. In 1721, the English and Dutch drew more money from Spain than France did. In 1721, there were 2,918 account holders, the highest number in two centuries of banking history. One of main bankers
4920-522: A significant degree mutually intelligible with Dutch, is usually not considered a dialect but instead a separate standardised language . It is spoken in South Africa and Namibia. As a daughter language of 17th-century Dutch dialects, Afrikaans evolved in parallel with modern Dutch, but was influenced by various other languages in South Africa. West Frisian ( Westerlauwers Fries ), along with Saterland Frisian and North Frisian , evolved from
5084-479: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of
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5248-424: A source language, mainly for law and history students. In Indonesia this involves about 35,000 students. Unlike other European nations, the Dutch chose not to follow a policy of language expansion amongst the indigenous peoples of their colonies. In the last quarter of the 19th century, however, a local elite gained proficiency in Dutch so as to meet the needs of expanding bureaucracy and business. Nevertheless,
5412-580: A stable silver bank currency for the Dutch Republic 's burgeoning international trade which was immune from the numerous depreciations which occurred after its independence from Spain, as its constituent provinces kept wringing out more stuivers (worth 1 ⁄ 20 guilder) from a fixed quantity of silver. After 1618, it was able to fix the Dutch rijksdaalder of 25.4 g fine silver at 2 1 ⁄ 2 Dutch guilders or 50 stuivers , guaranteeing
5576-552: A unique prestige dialect and has a large dialectal continuum consisting of 28 main dialects, which can themselves be further divided into at least 600 distinguishable varieties. In the Netherlands, the Hollandic dialect dominates in national broadcast media while in Flanders Brabantian dialect dominates in that capacity, making them in turn unofficial prestige dialects in their respective countries. Outside
5740-537: Is kantor , handdoek "towel" in Indonesian is handuk , or bushalte "bus stop" in Indonesian is halte bus . In addition, many Indonesian words are calques of Dutch; for example, rumah sakit "hospital" is calqued on the Dutch ziekenhuis (literally "sickhouse"), kebun binatang "zoo" on dierentuin (literally "animal garden"), undang-undang dasar "constitution" from grondwet (literally "ground law"). These account for some of
5904-431: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Bank money Demand deposits or checkbook money are funds held in demand accounts in commercial banks . These account balances are usually considered money and form the greater part of the narrowly defined money supply of a country. Simply put, these are deposits in the bank that can be withdrawn on demand, without any prior notice. In
6068-466: Is a calque of the aforementioned Roman province Germania Inferior and an attempt by early Dutch grammarians to give their language more prestige by linking it to Roman times. Likewise, Hoogduits ("High German") and Overlands ("Upper-landish") came into use as a Dutch exonym for the various German dialects used in neighboring German states. Use of Nederduytsch was popular in the 16th century but ultimately lost out over Nederlands during
6232-544: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks
6396-537: Is also an official language of several international organisations, such as the European Union , Union of South American Nations and the Caribbean Community . At an academic level, Dutch is taught in about 175 universities in 40 countries. About 15,000 students worldwide study Dutch at university. In Europe, Dutch is the majority language in the Netherlands (96%) and Belgium (59%) as well as
6560-587: Is found in the Salic law . In this Frankish document written around 510 the oldest Dutch sentence has been identified: Maltho thi afrio lito ("I say to you, I free you, serf") used to free a serf. Another old fragment of Dutch is Visc flot aftar themo uuatare ("A fish was swimming in the water"). The oldest conserved larger Dutch text is the Utrecht baptismal vow (776–800) starting with Forsachistu diobolae ... ec forsacho diabolae (litt.: "Forsake you
6724-471: Is mostly Germanic; it incorporates slightly more Romance loans than German, but far fewer than English. In Belgium, the Netherlands and Suriname, the native official name for Dutch is Nederlands (historically Nederlandsch before the Dutch orthographic reforms ). Sometimes Vlaams (" Flemish ") is used as well to describe Standard Dutch in Flanders , whereas Hollands (" Hollandic ")
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6888-487: Is occasionally used as a colloquial term for the standard language in the central and northwestern parts of the Netherlands. English uses the adjective Dutch as a noun for the language of the Netherlands and Flanders. The word is derived from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz . The stem of this word, *þeudō , meant "people" in Proto-Germanic, and *-iskaz was an adjective-forming suffix, of which -ish
7052-569: Is so distinct that it might be considered as a separate language variant, although the strong significance of language in Belgian politics would prevent the government from classifying them as such. An oddity of the dialect is that, the voiced velar fricative (written as "g" in Dutch) shifts to a voiced glottal fricative (written as "h" in Dutch), while the letter "h" becomes mute (like in French). As
7216-585: Is sometimes called French Flemish and is listed as a French minority language . However, only a very small and aging minority of the French-Flemish population still speaks and understands West Flemish. Hollandic is spoken in Holland and Utrecht , though the original forms of this dialect (which were heavily influenced by a West Frisian substratum and, from the 16th century on, by Brabantian dialects ) are now relatively rare. The urban dialects of
7380-637: Is spoken in Limburg (Belgium) as well as in the remaining part of Limburg (Netherlands) and extends across the German border. West Flemish ( Westvlaams ) is spoken in West Flanders , the western part of Zeelandic Flanders and also in French Flanders , where it virtually became extinct to make way for French. The West Flemish group of dialects, spoken in West Flanders and Zeeland ,
7544-595: Is taught in various educational centres in Indonesia, the most important of which is the Erasmus Language Centre (ETC) in Jakarta . Each year, some 1,500 to 2,000 students take Dutch courses there. In total, several thousand Indonesians study Dutch as a foreign language. Owing to centuries of Dutch rule in Indonesia, many old documents are written in Dutch. Many universities therefore include Dutch as
7708-662: Is the Modern English form. Theodiscus was its Latinised form and used as an adjective referring to the Germanic vernaculars of the Early Middle Ages . In this sense, it meant "the language of the common people". The term was used as opposed to Latin , the non -native language of writing and the Catholic Church . It was first recorded in 786, when the Bishop of Ostia writes to Pope Adrian I about
7872-404: Is the case with the ( standardised ) West Frisian language . It is spoken alongside Dutch in the province of Friesland . Dutch dialects and regional languages are not spoken as often as they used to be, especially in the Netherlands. Recent research by Geert Driessen shows that the use of dialects and regional languages among both Dutch adults and youth is in heavy decline. In 1995, 27 percent of
8036-448: Is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as a second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of
8200-530: Is the sole official language, and over 60 percent of the population speaks it as a mother tongue . Dutch is the obligatory medium of instruction in schools in Suriname, even for non-native speakers. A further twenty-four percent of the population speaks Dutch as a second language . Suriname gained its independence from the Netherlands in 1975 and has been an associate member of the Dutch Language Union since 2004. The lingua franca of Suriname, however,
8364-531: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in
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#17328009624938528-578: The Bergakker inscription , found near the Dutch city of Tiel , which may represent a primary record of 5th-century Frankish. Although some place names recorded in Roman texts such as vadam (modern Dutch: wad , English: "mudflat"), could arguably be considered as the oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of
8692-455: The Brussels and Flemish regions of Belgium . The areas in which they are spoken often correspond with former medieval counties and duchies. The Netherlands (but not Belgium) distinguishes between a dialect and a streektaal (" regional language "). Those words are actually more political than linguistic because a regional language unites a large group of very different varieties. Such is
8856-697: The Fourth Anglo-Dutch War , when the Dutch East India Company defaulted on large unsecured advances from the bank. Despite several attempts to recapitalize, confidence in the bank never recovered. During the last decade of the Republic of the United Provinces , in 1790, the premium on the bank's money disappeared, and by the end of the year, it had declared itself insolvent . The City of Amsterdam assumed control of
9020-554: The High German consonant shift , does not use Germanic umlaut as a grammatical marker, has largely abandoned the use of the subjunctive , and has levelled much of its morphology , including most of its case system . Features shared with German, however, include the survival of two to three grammatical genders – albeit with few grammatical consequences – as well as the use of modal particles , final-obstruent devoicing , and (similar) word order . Dutch vocabulary
9184-493: The Low Countries , its meaning being largely implicitly provided by the regional orientation of medieval Dutch society: apart from the higher echelons of the clergy and nobility, mobility was largely static and hence while "Dutch" could by extension also be used in its earlier sense, referring to what today would be called Germanic dialects as opposed to Romance dialects , in many cases it was understood or meant to refer to
9348-536: The Low Franconian languages, paired with its sister language Limburgish or East Low Franconian. Its closest relative is the mutually intelligible daughter language Afrikaans. Other West Germanic languages related to Dutch are German , English and the un-standardised languages Low German and Yiddish . Dutch stands out in combining some Ingvaeonic characteristics (occurring consistently in English and Frisian and reduced in intensity from west to east over
9512-580: The Netherlands and Flanders (which includes 60% of the population of Belgium ). Dutch was one of the official languages of South Africa until 1925, when it was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on the definition used, may be considered a sister language , spoken, to some degree, by at least 16 million people, mainly in South Africa and Namibia , and evolving from Cape Dutch dialects. In South America, it
9676-531: The Randstad , which are Hollandic dialects, do not diverge from standard Dutch very much, but there is a clear difference between the city dialects of Rotterdam , The Hague , Amsterdam and Utrecht . In some rural Hollandic areas more authentic Hollandic dialects are still being used, especially north of Amsterdam. Another group of dialects based on Hollandic is that spoken in the cities and larger towns of Friesland , where it partially displaced West Frisian in
9840-543: The Southern Netherlands (now Belgium and Luxembourg), developments were different. Under subsequent Spanish , Austrian and French rule , the standardisation of Dutch language came to a standstill. The state, law, and increasingly education used French, yet more than half the Belgian population were speaking a variety of Dutch. In the course of the 19th century, the Flemish Movement stood up for
10004-497: The antonym of *walhisk (Romance-speakers, specifically Old French ). The word, now rendered as dietsc (Southwestern variant) or duutsc (Central and Northern Variant), could refer to the Dutch language itself, as well as a broader Germanic category depending on context. During the High Middle Ages " Dietsc / Duutsc " was increasingly used as an umbrella term for the specific Germanic dialects spoken in
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#173280096249310168-438: The bank price (the credit that the bank gave for deposits of bullion) to the mint price, and to the market price of bullion were always nearly the same. A person could generally sell his receipt for the difference between the mint price of bullion and the market price . As a receipt was nearly always worth something, it was only rarely that deposits were allowed to fall to the bank through the expiration of receipts (which means
10332-471: The continental West Germanic plane) with dominant Istvaeonic characteristics, some of which are also incorporated in German. Unlike German, Dutch (apart from Limburgish) has not been influenced at all by the south to north movement of the High German consonant shift and had some changes of its own. The cumulation of these changes resulted over time in separate, but related standard languages with various degrees of similarities and differences between them. For
10496-434: The differences in vocabulary between Indonesian and Malay. Some regional languages in Indonesia have some Dutch loanwords as well; for example, Sundanese word Katel or "frying pan" origin in Dutch is " ketel ". The Javanese word for "bike/ bicycle " " pit " can be traced back to its origin in Dutch " fiets ". The Malacca state of Malaysia was also colonized by the Dutch in its longest period that Malacca
10660-427: The ducaton of 30.69 g silver from 60 to 63 stuivers (or 9.74 g per gulden). Fearing the loss of its Europe-wide reputation if 2.5-gulden rijksdaalders were repaid with cheaper 2.5-gulden patagons, the Wisselbank firmly upheld the original gulden banco of 10.16 g fine silver as distinct from the lower-valued circulating gulden: so the bank accepted the patagon only at 48 stuivers , and the ducaton at 60. In 1659,
10824-642: The pre-Roman Northern European Iron Age . The Germanic languages are traditionally divided into three groups: East (now extinct), West , and North Germanic. They remained mutually intelligible throughout the Migration Period . Dutch is part of the West Germanic group, which also includes English, Scots , Frisian , Low German (Old Saxon) and High German . It is characterised by a number of phonological and morphological innovations not found in North or East Germanic. The West Germanic varieties of
10988-518: The 14th to 15th century onward, its urban centers ( Deventer , Zwolle , Kampen , Zutphen and Doesburg ) have been increasingly influenced by the western written Dutch and became a linguistically mixed area. From the 17th century onward, it was gradually integrated into the Dutch language area. Dutch Low Saxon used to be at one end of the Low German dialect continuum . However, the national border has given way to dialect boundaries coinciding with
11152-538: The 16th century and is known as Stadsfries ("Urban Frisian"). Hollandic together with inter alia Kleverlandish and North Brabantian , but without Stadsfries, are the Central Dutch dialects . Brabantian is named after the historical Duchy of Brabant , which corresponded mainly to the provinces of North Brabant and southern Gelderland , the Belgian provinces of Antwerp and Flemish Brabant , as well as Brussels (where its native speakers have become
11316-516: The 1730s and 1740s, as more a recent study shows. After a hundred years the annual production of silver doubled between 1761–1780, according to William Arthur Shaw . The bank's metal stock was increased by large purchases at favorable times or by offering higher prices than the competition. Following the Spanish War of Succession , Spanish mints inundated Spain with devalued silver. The debts incurred by King Louis XIV of France also contributed to
11480-504: The 1730s, until the impressive sum of over 15 million guilders was reached in January 1737. Unlike at the beginning of the 1720s, when French gold dominated the bank's total metal supply, by the middle of the century it consisted mainly of Spanish specie. The Spanish dollar superseded the gold ducat as the dominant currency of world trade. During the eighteenth century, the VOC no longer obtained their required gold and silver directly from
11644-688: The 7th century. It was replaced in France by Old French (a Romance language with a considerable Old Frankish influence). However, the Old Franconian language did not die out at large, as it continued to be spoken in the Low Countries, and subsequently evolved into what is now called Old Low Franconian or Old Dutch in the Low Countries. In fact, Old Frankish could be reconstructed from Old Dutch and Frankish loanwords in Old French. The term Old Dutch or Old Low Franconian refers to
11808-509: The Cadiz trade increased considerably so that the Dutch merchants, who used to occupy the first place, were pushed back to the third place. In January 1773, after the credit crisis of 1772 , the Wisselbank funded a city-operated loan facility for distressed merchants. Deposits of coin constituted but a small part of bank capital. Most of the bank's capital originated from deposits of gold and silver bullion, intrinsically of higher value as bullion
11972-468: The Coymans company both deposited sums exceeding 3.5 million guilders with the Wisselbank. From 1666 the Wisselbank is quite actively purchasing millions of silver. In August 1672 , the bank was stormed by private account holders who wanted to withdraw their money. Johan Huydecoper , Joan Geelvinck, and his father Cornelis Geelvinck were commissioners in the year of disaster. In the following year
12136-599: The Dutch Republic issued its own versions of the Spanish Netherlands coins, the silver ducat (patagon) of 24.36 g fine silver and the silver rider (ducaton) of 30.45 g fine silver, worth respectively 50 and 62.5 stuivers as currency, and 48 and 60 stuivers in the Wisselbank: hence, 9.67 g per gulden currency and 10.15 g per gulden banco (5% premium or agio ) as computed from the ducaton. From 1683,
12300-417: The Dutch adult population spoke a dialect or regional language on a regular basis, but in 2011, that was no more than 11 percent. In 1995, 12 percent of children of primary school age spoke a dialect or regional language, but in 2011, that had declined to four percent. Of the officially recognised regional languages Limburgish is spoken the most (in 2011 among adults 54%, among children 31%) and Dutch Low Saxon
12464-490: The Dutch government remained reluctant to teach Dutch on a large scale for fear of destabilising the colony. Dutch, the language of power, was supposed to remain in the hands of the leading elite. After independence, Dutch was dropped as an official language and replaced by Indonesian , but this does not mean that Dutch has completely disappeared in Indonesia: Indonesian Dutch , a regional variety of
12628-415: The Dutch standard language is largely absent, and speakers of these Dutch dialects will use German or French in everyday speech. Dutch is not afforded legal status in France or Germany, either by the central or regional public authorities, and knowledge of the language is declining among younger generations. As a foreign language , Dutch is mainly taught in primary and secondary schools in areas adjacent to
12792-531: The Dutch standard language, it is not mutually intelligible with Dutch and considered a sister language of Dutch, like English and German. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide: Dutch is an official language of the Netherlands proper (not enshrined in the constitution but in administrative law ), Belgium, Suriname, the Dutch Caribbean municipalities (St. Eustatius, Saba and Bonaire), Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . Dutch
12956-408: The Dutch, was still spoken by about 500,000 half-blood in Indonesia in 1985. Yet the Indonesian language inherited many words from Dutch: words for everyday life as well as scientific and technological terms. One scholar argues that 20% of Indonesian words can be traced back to Dutch words, many of which are transliterated to reflect phonetic pronunciation e.g. kantoor "office" in Indonesian
13120-704: The East India Company could at any time have at its disposal 1,700,000 bank guilders. In 1683, Christoffel van Swoll was appointed as governor-general of the East Indies; he had good connections as his father was an attendant (usher?) of the bank between 1656 and 1678. The Qing dynasty became somewhat more receptive to foreign trade after gaining control of Taiwan in 1683 following its conquest. Until then few people in China were engaged in coastal and foreign trade, but soon Batavia (and Manila) would become
13284-658: The East. In the period 1726–1751, the mint houses produced silver ducatons bearing the monogram of the VOC. In 1729, Dutch traders were allowed in a neighborhood of Canton , then eight, later Thirteen Factories . Despite some restrictions, silver continued to drive trade through its popularity in Europe. This, combined with a high demand for Chinese tea , silk, cotton, and Chinese ceramics , created chronic trade deficits for European governments, which were forced to risk silver deficits to supply merchants in Asia. Between 1736 and 1745,
13448-428: The English bank acted as a driving force for the economy and had contributed to the rapid industrialization of England. In the Netherlands, such an institution was lacking, and companies that wanted to attract new money for investments could still only turn to private individuals. Consequently, the Dutch invested little in industry or industrialization in those times. Around 1814, the Wisselbank moved to Oude Turfmarkt, but
13612-602: The Franks. However, the language did experience developments of its own, such as very early final-obstruent devoicing . In fact, the find at Bergakker indicates that the language may already have experienced this shift during the Old Frankish period. Attestations of Old Dutch sentences are extremely rare. The language is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and loan words from Old Dutch in other languages. The oldest recorded
13776-576: The Netherlands and Flanders . In French-speaking Belgium , over 300,000 pupils are enrolled in Dutch courses, followed by over 23,000 in the German states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia , and about 7,000 in the French region of Nord-Pas-de-Calais (of which 4,550 are in primary school). At an academic level, the largest number of faculties of neerlandistiek can be found in Germany (30 universities), followed by France (20 universities) and
13940-412: The Netherlands and Belgium, the dialect spoken in and around the German town of Kleve ( Kleverlandish ) is historically and genetically a Low Franconian variety. In North-Western France, the area around Calais was historically Dutch-speaking (West Flemish), of which an estimated 20,000 are daily speakers. The cities of Dunkirk , Gravelines and Bourbourg only became predominantly French-speaking by
14104-539: The Netherlands, although there are recognisable differences in pronunciation, comparable to the pronunciation differences between standard British and standard American English. In 1980 the Netherlands and Belgium concluded the Language Union Treaty . This treaty lays down the principle that the two countries must gear their language policy to each other, among other things, for a common system of spelling. Dutch belongs to its own West Germanic sub-group,
14268-700: The Republic. The relative scarcity of silver in England and the silver glut in the Republic also explain why the English East India Company sought to satisfy its silver needs in the Amsterdam market. From 1713 onwards, the bank reported on their profits. After the Treaty of Utrecht , it took several more years before the bank's specie supply returned to a normal level, thanks to an increased supply of Spanish-American silver money. Around 1714/1715,
14432-529: The Stadsbank van Lening were open until two o'clock that night to accept gold and silver, which had never happened before. The Bank of Amsterdam's improvised solution to the crisis was for the bank to expand its receipt window (much like a modern repo facility) to include unminted silver bullion , a form of collateral that was in abundant supply after the Prussian demonetization . The Wisselbank introduced
14596-674: The United Kingdom (5 universities). Despite the Dutch presence in Indonesia for almost 350 years, as the Asian bulk of the Dutch East Indies , the Dutch language has no official status there and the small minority that can speak the language fluently are either educated members of the oldest generation, or employed in the legal profession such as historians, diplomats, lawyers, jurists and linguists/polyglots, as certain law codes are still only available in Dutch. Dutch
14760-644: The United States, demand deposits arose following the 1865 tax of 10% on the issuance of state bank notes; see history of banking in the USA . In the U.S., demand deposits only refer to funds held in checking accounts (or cheque offering accounts) other than NOW accounts ; however, in a 1970s and 1980s response to the 1933 promulgation of Regulation Q in the U.S., demand deposits in some cases came to allow easier access to funds from other types of accounts (e.g. savings accounts and money market accounts ). For
14924-400: The VOC borrowed almost f 50 million from the bank. The Wisselbank proved to be one of the most important sources for cash requirements in Asia. In the mid-eighteenth century 85 percent of VOC precious metal (gold and silver) went to India. This reduced the amount remaining in Europe. "The Bank of Amsterdam has for these many years past been the great warehouse of Europe for bullion, for which
15088-621: The West Indies, slaves were forbidden to speak Dutch, with the effect that local creoles such as Papiamento and Sranan Tongo which were based not on Dutch but rather other European languages, became common in the Dutch West Indies. However, as most of the people in the Colony of Surinam (now Suriname ) worked on Dutch plantations, this reinforced the use of Dutch as a means for direct communication. In Suriname today, Dutch
15252-592: The Wisselbank are available, the firm Coymans was the largest account holder at the bank with a turnover of over 4 million guilders. In July 1647, more than half a year before the conclusion of the peace treaty in Münster, the Spanish government made a proposal aimed at making Amsterdam the staple market for Spanish silver. In October the States General decided to authorize the admiralties to issue passports for
15416-504: The Wisselbank as a central bank was adapted throughout Europe, including the Bank of Sweden (1668) and the Bank of England (1694). David Hume praised the Bank of Amsterdam for its policy of 100 percent specie-backed deposit reserves. The bank's full-reserve policy relaxed over time as it lent money to finance overseas trade and to support the Dutch economy, but it remained liquid by requiring good collateral on its loans. This changed with
15580-656: The Wisselbank booked a loss. On 17 August 1657, the bank began to advance money on loan to the East India Company. Silver coins such as the rijksdaalder and the coveted Spanish dollar were in high demand in Old Batavia , prized on the Spice Islands , and sought after in Southeast Asia, ultimately proving to be lucrative exports. At first, the city had to give special permission for each loan. Later on, loans were made easier, and by decree of 5 October 1682,
15744-417: The Wisselbank but instead obtained it through the mediation of private assayers and mint masters. In January 1711, Anthoni and Johannes Grill (III) were appointed as assayers, specializing in coin testing, but also dealing in copper plates and iron. They supplied the Dutch East India Company , between 1722 and 1731, with silver ingots , which were made from melted coins, mainly Spanish American reales de
15908-454: The Wisselbank introduced a system of receipts with the gulden banco's agio allowed to float at 4 to 5% subject to supply and demand for banco vs currency. Both types of gulden were on the silver standard , with gold coins and bars quoted at fluctuating exchange rates. Lucien Gillard calls it the European guilder ( le florin européen ), and Adam Smith devoted many pages to explaining how
16072-404: The Wisselbank was to correctly estimate the value of coins and thus make debasement less profitable. It had a global impact on money and credit. It occupied a central position in the financial world of its day, providing an effective, efficient and trusted system for national and international payments, and introduced the first-ever international reserve currency , the bank guilder . The model of
16236-456: The accountants had his own specific task: the first took the written orders for payment receipt, the second held in the journal , the third balanced the book, and the fourth took care of the ledger . In 1715 there were five and a year later six commissioners, the number the bank kept until the end of the eighteenth century. From the beginning till the end of the 18th century the average age of commissioners dropped from 46 to 33 years. Two-thirds of
16400-661: The area known as the Low Countries goes back further in time, with the Romans referring to the region as Germania Inferior ("Lower" Germania). It is a reference to the Low Countries' downriver location at the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta near the North Sea . From 1551, the designation Nederlands received strong competition from the name Nederduytsch (literally "Low Dutch", Dutch being used in its archaic sense covering all continental West Germanic languages). It
16564-510: The bad small coins (or change); they were supported by the bankers and cashiers. In 1747, and 1750, Maria Theresa reduced the metal content of all her coins. The commissioners sanctioned, by the decree of 27 June 1749, the private trade in specie, and even ordered that the regulation of the values of the coins had to be fixed by commercial agreement. From 1750, Frederick the Great attracted precious metals, used for producing Prussian thalers with
16728-690: The bank and guaranteed the deposits, derived from it a considerable revenue, but was responsible for the losses too. The bank seems to have hardly supported the Dutch West India Company ; but in 1637, the Stadsbank van Lening did so. It provided the Admiralty of Amsterdam and the mint masters in Enkhuizen , Harderwijk , Kampen , Medemblik , Zwolle and Utrecht with funds booked as private loans. In 1645, for which year ledgers of
16892-411: The bank guilder worked. The modern practice of corporate governance has its roots in the 17th-century Dutch Republic . The first recorded corporate governance dispute in history took place in 1609, between the shareholders /investors (most notably Isaac Le Maire ) and the directors of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), the world's first formally listed public company. In 1609, and 1611, Le Maire
17056-432: The bank in 1791. The Nederlandsche Bank was established in 1814, and took over money issue duties for the new Kingdom of the Netherlands , while the Wisselbank entered liquidation in 1819. Established on 31 January 1609, the Bank of Amsterdam played a pivotal role in the 17th and 18th-century financial center of Amsterdam. 500 different coins – legal or illegal – from a wide variety of countries and regions circulated, but
17220-401: The bank received many old French coins, like the gold pistole . In 1722, the total value of precious metals stored in the bank amounted to 26 million guilders. Pistoles were melted into ingots and sold at a profit. Until 1725, on average, nearly half of the bank profits were attributable to the activities of ten assayers. This was followed by a sharp increase in the supply of specie from Spain in
17384-427: The bank's books. In times of peace, a client who wished to withdraw his deposit had no trouble purchasing a receipt and making a withdrawal. In times of distress, however, as during the French invasion in 1672 , the price of receipts could be pushed upwards by demand. Based on The Father of Economics Adam Smith 's The Wealth of Nations : While this was not its original aim, the Bank of Amsterdam proved profitable to
17548-624: The borders of other standard language areas. In most cases, the heavy influence of the standard language has broken the dialect continuum . Examples are the Gronings dialect spoken in Groningen as well as the closely related varieties in adjacent East Frisia (Germany). Kleverlandish is a dialect spoken in southern Gelderland , the northern tip of Limburg , and northeast of North Brabant (Netherlands), but also in adjacent parts of North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany). Limburgish ( Limburgs )
17712-399: The bullion deposited in it, not even that part for which the receipts expired, and which could not generally be claimed. The Bank accepted trade coins, foreign and domestic coins. It did not accept local coins. Based on Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations , and obliged to Henry Hope : When a holder of a receipt found himself in need of coinage, he could sell his receipt. Alternatively, when
17876-479: The case with the Gronings dialect , which is considered a variety of the Dutch Low Saxon regional language, but it is relatively distinct from other Dutch Low Saxon varieties. Also, some Dutch dialects are more remote from the Dutch standard language than some varieties of a regional language are. Within the Netherlands, a further distinction is made between a regional language and a separate language, which
18040-406: The city council. They were often former schepenen or members of the city council . Two of the commissioners had to be present daily at the office: they had the oversight of four accountants, two clerks with one servant, four counter bookkeepers, three receivers together with another servant, ushers and an assayer (assay-master), who knew the secrets of trade in precious metals and minting. Each of
18204-487: The city which provided for it. In addition to the keeping fee mentioned above, each person, upon first opening an account, paid a fee of ten guilders; and three guilders three " stuivers " for each additional account. Two stuivers (or 1 ⁄ 10 guilder) were paid for each transaction, excepting those of less than three hundred guilders, for which six stuivers were paid, to discourage a high volume of small transactions. A person who neglected to balance his account twice in
18368-553: The close of the 18th century, with (Hoog)Duytsch establishing itself as the Dutch exonym for German during this same period. In the 19th century Germany saw the rise of the categorisation of dialects, with German dialectologists terming the German dialects spoken in the mountainous south of Germany as Hochdeutsch ("High German"). Subsequently, German dialects spoken in the north were designated as Niederdeutsch ("Low German"). The names for these dialects were calqued by Dutch linguists as Nederduits and Hoogduits . As
18532-440: The coinage of the time. After 1683, the bank was able to conduct more regular and aggressive policy interventions, from a virtually nonexistent capital base. By a decree of 16 April 1684, the bank commissioners secured the monopoly of the trade in silver and silver coins. The few exceptions made here were in favor of goldsmiths and silversmiths and merchants, who received the metal from foreign countries. The export of uncoined metal
18696-400: The commissioners and the archive stayed in the former town hall. The history of the Bank of Amsterdam holds significance beyond the realm of historians. According to the economists and financial historians Steve Quinn ( Texas Christian University ) and Will Roberds ( Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta ), it offers three valuable lessons that remain pertinent in assessing the financial stability of
18860-402: The commissioners were explicitly prohibited from extending credit to 'any private person, corporation or constituted authority, by whatever name'. In 1808, a new entrance was established due to Louis Bonaparte's decision to repurpose the town hall as his palace, necessitating the separation of the bank from the palace . A royal palace with a bank inside was considered a novelty and was unique in
19024-552: The commissioners were merchants or bankers – which the other account holders trusted. Some of the commissioners had ties with the Dutch East India Company (13%) or the West India Company (15%), both account holders. Whoever did business with the VOC was obliged to do so via this Wisselbank [which always resulted in large turnovers]. The main objective of the Wisselbank's establishment was to maintain
19188-413: The course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from the western coast to the north of the Low Countries, and influenced or even replaced Old Saxon spoken in the east (contiguous with the Low German area). On the other hand, Dutch has been replaced in adjacent lands in present-day France and Germany. The division into Old, Middle and Modern Dutch is mostly conventional, since
19352-540: The declaration of independence of Indonesia, Western New Guinea , the "wild east" of the Dutch East Indies , remained a Dutch colony until 1962, known as Netherlands New Guinea . Despite prolonged Dutch presence, the Dutch language is not spoken by many Papuans, the colony having been ceded to Indonesia in 1963. Dutch-speaking immigrant communities can also be found in Australia and New Zealand. The 2011 Australian census showed 37,248 people speaking Dutch at home. At
19516-402: The deficits out of their own pockets. An official committee examined this proposal and concluded that it was unfair and impracticable. The regents might have acted imprudently, but not criminally. Lending to the VOC was against the rules, but it was also an old tradition. The liability would have to go back a few generations, and that was not feasible. Eventually, the council decided to institute
19680-465: The deposit period. Fees were higher for gold since the bank's unit of account was fixed to silver, with gold fluctuating in price. If a depositor did not claim his deposit back after six months, it fell to the bank, and the depositor was left with the credit he received in compensation. The terms of deposit were such that deposits of bullion were most commonly made when the price was somewhat lower than usual, and taken out again when it rose. The ratios of
19844-437: The depositor neither paid additional keeping fees nor removed his deposit from the bank). This happened more frequently with regard to gold, due to its higher storage fee. The bank also took in coin, granting credit and receipts in exchange, and charging 0.25% for the storage. These receipts were often of no value, however, and the deposit was allowed to fall to the bank. The bank maintained that it did not lend onwards any of
20008-603: The development of a separate Dutch language. It was spoken by the descendants of the Salian Franks who occupied what is now the southern Netherlands , northern Belgium , part of northern France, and parts of the Lower Rhine regions of Germany. The High German consonant shift, moving over Western Europe from south to west, caused a differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as
20172-474: The devil? ... I forsake the devil"). If only for its poetic content, the most famous Old Dutch sentence is probably Hebban olla vogala nestas hagunnan, hinase hic enda tu, wat unbidan we nu ("All birds have started making nests, except me and you, what are we waiting for"), is dated to around the year 1100, written by a Flemish monk in a convent in Rochester , England . Since the sentence speaks to
20336-399: The end of July 1763 was triggered when Leendert Pieter de Neufville had to pay his obligations to Johann Ernst Gotzkowsky . On Monday 1 August, the Wisselbank refused to transfer any money and De Neufville suspended payment the next day. The shocking failure of De Neufville caused the market to contract its lending to bankers; bankers to stop accepting bills; and creditors to stop lending on
20500-489: The end of the 19th century. In the countryside, until World War I , many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch, and the Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the catechism in Dutch in many parishes. During the second half of the 19th century, Dutch was banned from all levels of education by both Prussia and France and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. In both Germany and France,
20664-446: The exchange of Silver was subject to much fraud, and this caused several Kingdoms to establish Mints to certify by a public coinage the true quantity of silver that each coin contains and to return to individuals who bring bars or ingots of Silver to it the same quantity in coins bearing a stamp or certificate of the true quantity of Silver they contain. The History of all times shows that when Princes have debased their money, keeping it at
20828-479: The expense of management. The archive of the Amsterdam Wisselbank is one of the few archives that yields data comparable over a fairly long period for a large number of merchants. The current accounts of the customers were kept in the series of ledgers. Each merchant had one or more pages, the smaller merchants a part of a page. Often the same pages were kept for several years. An alphabetical list of
20992-492: The export of silver imported from Spain, Andries Bicker was involved in the request. Amsterdam became a recognized staple market for Spanish silver from the New World. After the Treaty of Munster between Spain and the Dutch Republic, a lot of silver from Cadiz and Potosí arrived in Amsterdam. From the beginning, the bank had to supply the provincial and the various local mints with silver. While trading silver in stock
21156-445: The failure of Neufville led to a general loss of market funding. On August 4, six prominent Amsterdam bankers proposed the idea of depositing their silver and gold bars at the Wisselbank, opting for this approach over using coins. On 5 August, the banks were closed and all bills drawn on Amsterdam were returned without acceptance or "protested". A run on the cashiers ( bank tellers ) followed on Saturday, 6 August. The Bank of Amsterdam and
21320-478: The historical basis of the distinction between demand deposits and NOW accounts in the U.S., see Negotiable order of withdrawal account . Demand deposits are usually considered part of the narrowly defined money supply , as they can be used, via checks and drafts, as a means of payment for goods and services and to settle debts. The money supply of a country is usually defined to consist of currency plus demand deposits. In most countries, demand deposits account for
21484-415: The imagination, it is often erroneously stated as the oldest Dutch sentence. Old Dutch naturally evolved into Middle Dutch . The year 1150 is often cited as the time of the discontinuity, but it actually marks a time of profuse Dutch writing; during this period a rich Medieval Dutch literature developed. There was at that time no overarching standard language ; Middle Dutch is rather a collective name for
21648-593: The influence of the Burgundian Ducal Court in Dijon ( Brussels after 1477). The dialects of Flanders and Brabant were the most influential around this time. The process of standardisation became much stronger at the start of the 16th century, mainly based on the urban dialect of Antwerp . The 1585 fall of Antwerp to the Spanish army led to a flight to the northern Netherlands, where the Dutch Republic declared its independence from Spain. This influenced
21812-563: The language now known as Dutch. In the Low Countries Dietsch or its Early Modern Dutch form Duytsch as an endonym for Dutch gradually went out of common use and was gradually replaced by the Dutch endonym Nederlands . This designation (first attested in 1482) started at the Burgundian court in the 15th century, although the use of neder , laag , bas , and inferior ("nether" or "low") to refer to
21976-629: The least (adults 15%, children 1%). The decline of the West Frisian language in Friesland occupies a middle position (adults 44%, children 22%). Dialects are most often spoken in rural areas, but many cities have a distinct city dialect. For example, the city of Ghent has very distinct "g", "e" and "r" sounds that greatly differ from its surrounding villages. The Brussels dialect combines Brabantian with words adopted from Walloon and French . Some dialects had, until recently, extensions across
22140-571: The merchants and their current account pages can be found in the index. In the ledgers, a record was kept of the amounts written in and out. The entries and exits were not always in coin, but very often in bills of exchange. The operation of this system is well illustrated in the Notarial Archives, which are also kept in the Amsterdam City Archives . There, bills of exchange change hands, are paid or not paid, resulting in
22304-437: The modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while a perfect West Germanic dialect continuum remained present; the division reflects the contingent future contribution dialect groups would have to the later languages. The early form of Dutch was a set of Franconian dialects spoken by the Salian Franks in the 5th century. These happened to develop through Middle Dutch to Modern Dutch over
22468-459: The money could not be arrested, etc. Especially following the release of the Bank of Exchange's financial report in March 1795, its role within the payment system gradually diminished. Amsterdam's new city council published the Wisselbank's unfavorable balance sheet figures. For the first time in two centuries, the bank's duty of secrecy was broken, causing a great deal of commotion. Trust in the bank
22632-501: The official languages. In Asia, Dutch was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and
22796-470: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone
22960-527: The predominant colloquial language out of the area's 22 million Dutch-speakers. Limburgish , spoken in both Belgian Limburg and Netherlands Limburg and in adjacent parts in Germany, is considered a dialect in Belgium, while having obtained the official status of regional language in the Netherlands. Limburgish has been influenced by the Ripuarian varieties like the Colognian dialect , and has had
23124-411: The provinces of Gelderland , Flevoland , Friesland and Utrecht . This group, which is not Low Franconian but instead Low Saxon and close to neighbouring Low German, has been elevated by the Netherlands (and by Germany) to the legal status of streektaal ( regional language ) according to the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages . It is regarded as Dutch for a number of reasons. From
23288-548: The receipts are very seldom allowed to expire, or, as they express it, to fall to the bank" as Adam Smith wrote. According to Nicholas Magens , the French and the Dutch gave more gold for silver than their neighbors. Forged Dutch ducats secretly minted in their millions at the Saint Petersburg Mint became widely known from 1735. In 1746, the mint masters asked for strict measures to be taken with regard to all
23452-515: The rest of the text lack any consensus. The Franks emerged in the southern Netherlands ( Salian Franks ) and central Germany ( Ripuarian Franks ), and later descended into Gaul . The name of their kingdom survives in that of France. Although they ruled the Gallo-Romans for nearly 300 years, their language, Frankish , became extinct in most of France and was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around
23616-423: The rights of Dutch speakers, mostly referred to as "Flemish". However, the dialect variation was a serious disadvantage in the face of the standardised francophony . Since standardisation is a lengthy process, Dutch-speaking Belgium associated itself with the standard language that had already developed in the Netherlands over the centuries. Therefore, the situation in Belgium is essentially no different from that in
23780-524: The same branch of the West Germanic languages as Old English (i.e. Anglo-Frisian ) and are therefore genetically more closely related to English and Scots than to Dutch. The different influences on the respective languages, however, particularly that of Norman French on English and Dutch on West Frisian, have rendered English quite distinct from West Frisian, and West Frisian less distinct from Dutch than from English. Although under heavy influence of
23944-431: The same nominal value, all raw produce and manufacturers have gone up in price in proportion to the debasement of the coinage. The Bank of Amsterdam shut twice a year (in January and July) for two weeks to balance its books; the account holders were expected to come and check their balance; for other business, they had to pay a fee. In 1763, the bank was closed from Friday 15 July until Friday 29 July. The financial crisis at
24108-671: The security of bills. Their reaction caused financial contagion , a "run behaviour, whereby fears of widespread financial collapse lead to the withdrawal of funding from banks and other financial institutions." The immediate victims were a group of independent, private " cashiers ". (The deposits in the Wisselbank were virtually unenforceable, but everyone was free to demand the money that he had entrusted to his cashier.) The deferrals resulted in an international banking crisis in Amsterdam (38 bankruptcies), Hamburg (90–97), Berlin (33), Danzig, Leipzig, Breslau, Stockholm, and London. The bankers became unwilling to extend credit to one another, so that
24272-402: The set of Franconian dialects (i.e. West Germanic varieties that are assumed to have evolved from Frankish ) spoken in the Low Countries during the Early Middle Ages , from around the 5th to the 12th century. Old Dutch is mostly recorded on fragmentary relics, and words have been reconstructed from Middle Dutch and Old Dutch loanwords in French. Old Dutch is regarded as the primary stage in
24436-545: The time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that the Frankish tribes fit primarily into the Istvaeonic dialect group with certain Ingvaeonic influences towards the northwest, which are still seen in modern Dutch. The Frankish language itself is not directly attested, the only possible exception being
24600-466: The transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of a revolution is when the Dutch standard language emerged and quickly established itself. The development of the Dutch language is illustrated by the following sentence in Old, Middle and Modern Dutch: Among the Indo-European languages , Dutch is grouped within the Germanic languages , meaning it shares
24764-484: The urban dialects of the province of Holland . In 1637, a further important step was made towards a unified language, when the Statenvertaling , the first major Bible translation into Dutch, was created that people from all over the new republic could understand. It used elements from various, even Dutch Low Saxon , dialects but was predominantly based on the urban dialects of Holland of post 16th century. In
24928-402: The world. Following the French departure in 1813, the new Dutch King Willem I of the Netherlands sought to discontinue the Wisselbank, as it had become incapable of disbursing salaries. During his years in exile in England, he had become better acquainted with the Bank of England , a central credit institution that issued banknotes which provided a uniform medium of exchange. Willem had seen how
25092-422: The year forfeited twenty-five guilders. A person who ordered a transfer for more than was upon his account was obliged to pay 3% for the sum overdrawn. The bank made a further profit by selling foreign coin and bullion which fell to it by the expiration of receipts, and by selling bank money at 5% agio, and buying it at 4%. These sources of revenue were more than enough to pay for the wages of bank officers and defray
25256-450: Was Andries Pels , dealing with France as well as Great Britain. Great Britain moved towards a gold standard (and drew out silver in the form of crowns , shillings and sixpences). Logically, this meant a flow of gold to England and a flow of silver to the Republic, where silver could be purchased relatively inexpensively for transportation to Asia. In Asia, silver fetched a higher price and thus represented more purchasing power there than in
25420-440: Was allowed only when accompanied by a certificate given by the bank commissioners. These and many other orders were found insufficient to suppress private trade in precious metals, or private changing at Amsterdam. In October 1686, Spain devalued silver by about 20% and adopted a dual coinage standard ( plata nueva and plata vieja ). In 1688, the profits of the Wisselbank dropped considerably, and they did not recover for more than
25584-512: Was also active in the production of coins. For decades the assay master of the Bank sent out stocks of gold and silver to the various Mints in the United Netherlands to receive new coins in return. Unlike the Bank of England , established almost a century later, it neither managed the national currency nor acted as a lending institution (except to the government in emergencies); it was intended to defend coinage standard. The role of
25748-598: Was formally prohibited, its allure stemmed from the silver standard in place. (All countries of Europe began to issue large-size silver coins.) In 1652, the Wisselbank made no profit. In a fire in the town hall, many coins melted and had to be cleaned; the bank was temporarily moved to the Jan Roodenpoorts tower. In 1654 quite a few people (10%) were in debt to the Wisselbank after the First Anglo-Dutch War . In 1666, Jan de Neufville (1613–1663) and
25912-678: Was in war with France, borrowed more than one million guilders; a box with jewels was kept in the Wisselbank as a deposit. On 23 January 1795, during the Batavian Revolution , the doors of the Wisselbank were locked and the treasure sealed; within two weeks the First French Republic claimed the jewels belonging to the King of Sardinia. The Wisselbank refused to hand them over, referring to the charter of 16 December 1670, which allowed it to give credit to foreign nations, and
26076-432: Was kept confidential, but it had become public knowledge by July 1790. After 1783, the agio on the bank money dropped slowly from 4, 3, 2, 1 to almost 0%, and in 1790, the bank had to declare itself insolvent, offering to sell silver at a 10% discount to depositors. The City of Amsterdam took over direct control in 1791. Between 1792 and 1794, the bank made no profit. In June 1794, king Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia , who
26240-508: Was not debased , unlike most of the circulating coinage. The Bank of Amsterdam gave credit for deposits of gold and silver worth about 5% less than their mint price. It granted the depositor a "receipt", which allowed him to claim his deposit within 6 months, upon returning to the bank the same value of bank money for which credit had been given, and payment of a fee for the keeping —a warehouse rent of sorts— of 0.25% for silver, and 0.5% for gold. This fee could be paid every six months, extending
26404-478: Was subsequently minimal. A loan was issued to raise capital to save the Wisselbank, which was still considered vital to the Amsterdam economy, but far too few lenders signed up. The new, revolutionary, representatives of the people therefore came up with another plan. They claimed that the former regents were personally responsible for the large loans that had been made under their leadership. They wanted these former regents – and if they had died, their heirs – to settle
26568-489: Was the most important account holder at the Wisselbank. Between 1611 and 1620, the number of account holders in the Wisselbank grew from 708 to 1,202. In 1622, it was forbidden to trade in gold and silver without the authorization of the bank. After the Treaty of Bärwalde in 1631, France transferred its financial support to the Swedish army with the help of Jean Hoeufft and the Wisselbank. The city of Amsterdam, which owned
26732-527: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After
26896-880: Was used to mint 40 million new coins, which were put into circulation in Saxony and Silesia , but also in Hungary, Poland, Lithuania and Courland . In 1754, Ferdinand VI of Spain prohibited the circulation in America of all money coined in Spain; no doubt exchanging coins became an art. In 1755, Essay on the Nature of Trade in General was published twenty years after the death of the author Richard Cantillon . But as silver can be combined with Iron, Lead, Tin, Copper, etc. which are not such scarce Metals and are mined at less expense,
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