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132-605: Some Dutch Burghers on the East Coast in Batticaloa do not speak English as their first language but instead a Portuguese-Tamil creole that is still spoken in households. The reason for this is due to the original Dutch settlers there mixing heavily with Portuguese Burgher women centuries ago, hence resulting in Burghers with Dutch surnames (e.g., Barthelot) who speak Portuguese Creole. The Dutch Burghers largely descend from

264-504: A host of men, a band of comrades as well as a swarm or flock of animals. In Classical Greek , the word took on a meaning comparable to the concept now expressed by "ethnic group", mostly translated as " nation , tribe, a unique people group"; only in Hellenistic Greek did the term tend to become further narrowed to refer to "foreign" or " barbarous " nations in particular (whence the later meaning "heathen, pagan"). In

396-469: A 1970 inquiry, West Frisians identified themselves more with the Dutch than with East Frisians or North Frisians . A study in 1984 found that 39% of the inhabitants of Friesland considered themselves "primarily Frisian," although without precluding also being Dutch. A further 36 per cent claimed they were Dutch, but also Frisian, the remaining 25% saw themselves as only Dutch. A 2013 study showed that 45% of

528-614: A Dutch surname is never capitalised (e.g. V an d en Berg ). The first affix in a Dutch surname is only capitalised if it is not preceded by a first name, initial or other surname. For example Vincent v an Gogh , V. v an Gogh, mr. V an Gogh, V an Gogh and V. v an Gogh- v an d en Berg are all correct, but Vincent V an Gogh is wrong. Many surnames of Dutch diaspora (mainly in the English-speaking world and Francophonie ) are adapted, not only in pronunciation but also in spelling. For example, by merging and capitalising

660-614: A brief period during the 13th or 14th century it lay more towards the east, when various eastern towns and cities aligned themselves with the emerging Hanseatic League . The entire Northern Dutch cultural area is located in the Netherlands , its ethnically Dutch population is estimated to be just under 10,000,000. Northern Dutch culture has been less under French influence than the Southern Dutch culture area. Frisians, specifically West Frisians , are an ethnic group present in

792-481: A congregation, Protestant-(influenced) values and customs are present. Generally, it can be said that the Northern Dutch are more pragmatic , favor a direct approach, and display a less-exuberant lifestyle when compared to Southerners. On a global scale, the Northern Dutch have formed the dominant vanguard of the Dutch language and culture since the fall of Antwerp , exemplified by the use of "Dutch" itself as

924-516: A dialect still closely resembling Common Germanic . Following the end of the migration period in the West around 500, with large federations (such as the Franks , Vandals , Alamanni and Saxons ) settling the decaying Roman Empire , a series of monumental changes took place within these Germanic societies. Among the most important of these are their conversion from Germanic paganism to Christianity ,

1056-465: A difference in religious situations. Contemporary Dutch, according to a 2017 study conducted by Statistics Netherlands, are mostly irreligious with 51% of the population professing no religion. The largest Christian denomination with 24% are the Roman Catholics , followed by 15% Protestants . Furthermore, there are 5% Muslims and 6% others (among others Buddhists). People of Dutch ancestry in

1188-421: A focus on the interface between groups. "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries", therefore, is a focus on the interconnectedness of ethnic identities. Barth writes: "...   categorical ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of mobility, contact, and information, but do entail social processes of exclusion and incorporation whereby discrete categories are maintained despite changing participation and membership in

1320-563: A lengthy and complex process. Though the majority of the defining characteristics (such as language, religion, architecture or cuisine) of the Dutch ethnic group have accumulated over the ages, it is difficult (if not impossible) to clearly pinpoint the exact emergence of the Dutch people. In the first centuries CE, the Germanic tribes formed tribal societies with no apparent form of autocracy (chiefs only being elected in times of war), had religious beliefs based on Germanic paganism and spoke

1452-461: A majority of Catholics. Linguistic (dialectal) differences (positioned along the Rhine/Meuse rivers) and to a lesser extent, historical economic development of both regions are also important elements in any dissimilarity. On a smaller scale cultural pluriformity can also be found; be it in local architecture or (perceived) character. This wide array of regional identities positioned within such

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1584-503: A mercurial character. Ronald Cohen concluded that ethnicity is "a series of nesting dichotomizations of inclusiveness and exclusiveness". He agrees with Joan Vincent's observation that (in Cohen's paraphrase) "Ethnicity   ... can be narrowed or broadened in boundary terms in relation to the specific needs of political mobilization." This may be why descent is sometimes a marker of ethnicity, and sometimes not: which diacritic of ethnicity

1716-594: A national level. This is partly caused by the popular stereotypes in the Netherlands as well as Flanders, which are mostly based on the "cultural extremes" of both Northern and Southern culture, including in religious identity. Though these stereotypes tend to ignore the transitional area formed by the Southern provinces of the Netherlands and most Northern reaches of Belgium, resulting in overgeneralisations. This self-perceived split between Flemings and Dutch, despite

1848-519: A preoccupation with scientists, theologians, and the public. Religious institutions asked questions about whether there had been multiple creations of races (polygenesis) and whether God had created lesser races. Many of the foremost scientists of the time took up the idea of racial difference and found that white Europeans were superior. The ethnicity theory was based on the assimilation model. Park outlined four steps to assimilation: contact, conflict, accommodation, and assimilation. Instead of attributing

1980-412: A process known as ethnogenesis, a period of several generations of endogamy resulting in common ancestry (which is then sometimes cast in terms of a mythological narrative of a founding figure ); ethnic identity is reinforced by reference to "boundary markers" – characteristics said to be unique to the group which set it apart from other groups. Ethnicity theory argues that race

2112-474: A relatively small area, has often been attributed to the fact that many of the current Dutch provinces were de facto independent states for much of their history, as well as the importance of local Dutch dialects (which often largely correspond with the provinces themselves) to the people who speak them. Northern Dutch culture is marked by Protestantism , especially Calvinism . Though today many do not adhere to Protestantism anymore, or are only nominally part of

2244-546: A series of sound shifts. The Anglo-Frisian nasal spirant law and Anglo-Frisian brightening resulted in certain early Germanic languages evolving into what are now English and West Frisian, while the Second Germanic sound shift resulted in what would become (High) German. Dutch underwent none of these sound changes and thus occupies a central position in the West Germanic languages group. Standard Dutch has

2376-532: A set of demands. The subsequently issued Great Privilege met many of these demands, which included that Dutch, not French, should be the administrative language in the Dutch-speaking provinces under Burgundian rule (i.e. Flanders, Brabant and Holland) and that the States-General had the right to hold meetings without the monarch's permission or presence. The overall tenor of the document (which

2508-742: A shared cultural heritage , ancestry, origin myth , history , homeland , language , dialect , religion, mythology , folklore , ritual , cuisine , dressing style , art , or physical appearance . Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with some groups having mixed genetic ancestry. By way of assimilation , acculturation , amalgamation , language shift , intermarriage , adoption , and religious conversion , individuals or groups may over time shift from one ethnic group to another. Ethnic groups may be divided into subgroups or tribes , which over time may become separate ethnic groups themselves due to endogamy or physical isolation from

2640-644: A sound inventory of thirteen vowels, six diphthongs and twenty-three consonants, of which the voiceless velar fricative ( hard ch ) is considered a well known sound, perceived as typical for the language. Other relatively well known features of the Dutch language and usage are the frequent use of digraphs like Oo , Ee , Uu and Aa , the ability to form long compounds and the use of slang, including profanity . The Dutch language has many dialects. These dialects are usually grouped into six main categories; Hollandic , West-Flemish / Zeelandic , East Flemish , Brabantic and Limburgish . The Dutch part of Low Saxon

2772-519: A stand-in for "paganism" in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an "ethnic character" (first recorded 1953). The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972. Depending on context, the term nationality may be used either synonymously with ethnicity or synonymously with citizenship (in a sovereign state). The process that results in emergence of an ethnicity

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2904-541: Is a West Germanic language spoken by around 29 million people. Old Frankish, a precursor of the Dutch standard language, was first attested around 500, in a Frankish legal text, the Lex salica , and has a written record of more than 1500 years, although the material before around 1200 is fragmentary and discontinuous. As a West Germanic language, Dutch is related to other languages in that group such as West Frisian , English and German . Many West Germanic dialects underwent

3036-548: Is a group of people who identify with each other on the basis of perceived shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include a people of a common language , culture , common sets of ancestry , traditions , society, religion , history, or social treatment. The term ethnicity is sometimes used interchangeably with the term nation , particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism . Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by

3168-592: Is a mix of Sri Lankan and Western influence, and many embrace their heritage through participation in the Dutch Burgher Union . The Burgher population worldwide is approximated to be around 100,000, concentrated mostly in the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia and New Zealand . A large community of Sri Lankans exists in Australia today, of which many are descendants of the migration over

3300-443: Is a social category and is only one of several factors in determining ethnicity. Other criteria include "religion, language, 'customs', nationality, and political identification". This theory was put forward by sociologist Robert E. Park in the 1920s. It is based on the notion of "culture". This theory was preceded by more than 100 years during which biological essentialism was the dominant paradigm on race. Biological essentialism

3432-522: Is also referred to by the colloquialism " below/above the great rivers " as the rivers Rhine and Meuse roughly form a natural boundary between the Northern Dutch (those Dutch living North of these rivers), and the Southern Dutch (those living South of them). The division is partially caused by (traditional) religious differences, with the North used to be predominantly Protestant and the South still having

3564-423: Is called ethnogenesis , a term in use in ethnological literature since about 1950. The term may also be used with the connotation of something unique and unusually exotic (cf. "an ethnic restaurant", etc.), generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, who arrived after the dominant population of an area was established. Depending on which source of group identity is emphasized to define membership,

3696-420: Is called ethnogenesis. Members of an ethnic group, on the whole, claim cultural continuities over time, although historians and cultural anthropologists have documented that many of the values, practices, and norms that imply continuity with the past are of relatively recent invention. Ethnic groups can form a cultural mosaic in a society. That could be in a city like New York City or Trieste , but also

3828-655: Is not a noun in Britain. In effect there are no "ethnics"; there are only "ethnic relations". In the U.S., the OMB says the definition of race as used for the purposes of the US Census is not "scientific or anthropological" and takes into account "social and cultural characteristics as well as ancestry", using "appropriate scientific methodologies" that are not "primarily biological or genetic in reference". Sometimes ethnic groups are subject to prejudicial attitudes and actions by

3960-422: Is often referred to with the terms autochtoon and allochtoon . These legal concepts refer to place of birth and citizenship rather than cultural background and do not coincide with the more fluid concepts of ethnicity used by cultural anthropologists. As did many European ethnicities during the 19th century, the Dutch also saw the emerging of various Greater Netherlands - and pan -movements seeking to unite

4092-442: Is salient depends on whether people are scaling ethnic boundaries up or down, and whether they are scaling them up or down depends generally on the political situation. Kanchan Chandra rejects the expansive definitions of ethnic identity (such as those that include common culture, common language, common history and common territory), choosing instead to define ethnic identity narrowly as a subset of identity categories determined by

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4224-553: Is sometimes also viewed as a dialect of Dutch as it falls in the area of the Dutch standard language. Of these dialects, Hollandic and Dutch Low Saxon are solely spoken by Northerners. Brabantic, East Flemish, West-Flemish / Zeelandic and Limburgish are cross border dialects in this respect. Lastly, the dialectal situation is characterised by the major distinction between 'Hard G' and 'Soft G' speaking areas (see also Dutch phonology ). Some linguists subdivide these into approximately 28 distinct dialects. Dutch immigrants also exported

4356-431: Is the belief that some races, specifically white Europeans in western versions of the paradigm, are biologically superior and other races, specifically non-white races in western debates, are inherently inferior. This view arose as a way to justify enslavement of African Americans and genocide of Native Americans in a society that was officially founded on freedom for all. This was a notion that developed slowly and came to be

4488-461: The Roelantslied and Van den vos Reynaerde (1200) were widely enjoyed. The various city guilds as well as the necessity of water boards (in charge of dikes, canals, etc.) in the Dutch delta and coastal regions resulted in an exceptionally high degree of communal organisation. It is also around this time, that ethnonyms such as Diets and Nederlands emerge. In the second half of

4620-706: The Burghers grew, speaking Portuguese or Dutch. Burgher means "citizen" in Dutch , hence was originally used to differentiate the Dutch from the other Europeans in Ceylon. "Burgher" is now used to describe the Eurasians (of mixed European and Asian ancestry) from Sri Lanka. Being hybrids themselves, Burghers assimilated into Sri Lankan society and have intermarried with Sinhalese and Tamils. The Burghers established their own culture and have contributed linguistically to

4752-463: The Caribbean and South Asia . Max Weber maintained that ethnic groups were künstlich (artificial, i.e. a social construct ) because they were based on a subjective belief in shared Gemeinschaft (community). Secondly, this belief in shared Gemeinschaft did not create the group; the group created the belief. Third, group formation resulted from the drive to monopolize power and status. This

4884-538: The Dutch East India Company fleeing Catholicism. Hence, names from Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and so forth are common (e.g., Schockman, Slemmermann, Piachaud, and Sansoni). However, some names have since become extinct (or are on the verge of extinction) in Sri Lanka due to migration following independence and Sinhala-only nationalist movements forbidding Burghers, whose vernacular language

5016-594: The Dutch Revolt . The Dutch provinces, though fighting alone now, for the first time in their history found themselves fighting a common enemy. This, together with the growing number of Dutch intelligentsia and the Dutch Golden Age in which Dutch culture , as a whole, gained international prestige, consolidated the Dutch as an ethnic group. By the middle of the 16th century an overarching, 'national' (rather than 'ethnic') identity seemed in development in

5148-582: The Dutch language . Dutch people and their descendants are found in migrant communities worldwide, notably in Aruba , Suriname , Guyana , Curaçao , Argentina , Brazil , Canada , Australia , South Africa , New Zealand and the United States . The Low Countries were situated around the border of France and the Holy Roman Empire , forming a part of their respective peripheries and

5280-401: The Dutch people , with mixtures of Dutch and Sri Lankans (either a Dutch father and a Sri Lankan mother, or a Dutch father and a Portuguese Burgher mother; when a Dutch man marries a Sri Lankan woman, their children are Burgher). However, direct Dutch ancestry is not always the case. Many Dutch Burghers can also claim lineage from other European Protestants who moved to the Netherlands and joined

5412-622: The European Union , and the Union of South American Nations (due to Suriname being a member). In South Africa and Namibia , Afrikaans is spoken, a daughter language of Dutch, which itself was an official language of South Africa until 1983. The Dutch, Flemish and Surinamese governments coordinate their language activities in the Nederlandse Taalunie (' Dutch Language Union '), an institution also responsible for governing

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5544-881: The Frankish Empire of Charlemagne . However, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia , was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part (i.e. the Rhineland , the Low Countries and Northern France ) of the Empire. Eventually,

5676-581: The Franks , themselves a union of multiple smaller tribes (many of them, such as the Batavi , Chauci , Chamavi and Chattuarii , were already living in the Low Countries prior to the forming of the Frankish confederation), began to incur the northwestern provinces of the Roman Empire . Eventually, in 358, the Salian Franks , one of the three main subdivisions among the Frankish alliance, settled

5808-455: The New World were multi-ethnic from the onset, as they were formed as colonies imposed on existing indigenous populations. In recent decades, feminist scholars (most notably Nira Yuval-Davis) have drawn attention to the fundamental ways in which women participate in the creation and reproduction of ethnic and national categories. Though these categories are usually discussed as belonging to

5940-605: The Southern Netherlands . Apart from a brief reunification from 1815 until 1830, within the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (which included the Francophones / Walloons ) the Dutch have been separated from the "Flemings" to this day. The border between the Netherlands and Belgium is purely contingent, simply reflecting the 1648 cease-fire line. There is a perfect dialect continuum. The Dutch colonial empire ( Dutch : Het Nederlandse Koloniale Rijk ) comprised

6072-752: The Union of Utrecht , which roughly corresponded to the Dutch-speaking part of the Spanish Netherlands, was unreachable. The Northern provinces were free, but during the 1580s the South was recaptured by Spain, and, despite various attempts, the armies of the Republic were unable to expel them. In 1648, the Peace of Münster , ending the Eighty Years' War , acknowledged the independence of the Dutch Republic , but maintained Spanish control of

6204-589: The demonym for the country in which they form a majority; the Netherlands . Linguistically, Northerners speak any of the Hollandic , Zeelandic , and Dutch Low Saxon dialects natively, or are influenced by them when they speak the Standard form of Dutch. Economically and culturally, the traditional centre of the region have been the provinces of North and South Holland , or today; the Randstad , although for

6336-474: The 11th and 12th centuries, were instrumental in breaking down the already relatively loose local form of feudalism. As they became increasingly powerful, they used their economic strength to influence the politics of their nobility. During the early 14th century, beginning in and inspired by the County of Flanders, the cities in the Low Countries gained huge autonomy and generally dominated or greatly influenced

6468-609: The 14th century, the dukes of Burgundy gained a foothold in the Low Countries through the marriage in 1369 of Philip the Bold of Burgundy to the heiress of the Count of Flanders. This was followed by a series of marriages, wars, and inheritances among the other Dutch fiefs and around 1450 the most important fiefs were under Burgundian rule, while complete control was achieved after the end of the Guelders Wars in 1543, thereby unifying

6600-428: The 19th and 20th centuries never really caught on in the Netherlands. The (re)definition of Dutch cultural identity has become a subject of public debate following the increasing influence of the European Union and the influx of non-Western immigrants in the post- World War II period. In this debate typically Dutch traditions have been put to the foreground. In sociological studies and governmental reports, ethnicity

6732-569: The 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of "peculiar to a tribe, race, people or nation", in a return to the original Greek meaning. The sense of "different cultural groups", and in American English "tribal, racial, cultural or national minority group " arises in the 1930s to 1940s, serving as a replacement of the term race which had earlier taken this sense but was now becoming deprecated due to its association with ideological racism . The abstract ethnicity had been used as

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6864-467: The Dutch Standard language, for example in matters of orthography . The origins of the word Dutch go back to Proto-Germanic, the ancestor of all Germanic languages, * theudo (meaning "national/popular"); akin to Old Dutch dietsc , Old High German diutsch , Old English þeodisc and Gothic þiuda all meaning "(of) the common ( Germanic ) people". As the tribes among

6996-402: The Dutch is Christianity , encompassing both Catholicism and Protestantism . However, in contemporary times, the majority no longer adhere to a particular Christian denomination. Significant percentages of the Dutch are adherents of humanism , agnosticism , atheism or individual spirituality . As with all ethnic groups, the ethnogenesis of the Dutch (and their predecessors) has been

7128-567: The Dutch language. Dutch was spoken by some settlers in the United States as a native language from the arrival of the first permanent Dutch settlers in 1615, surviving in isolated ethnic pockets until about 1900, when it ceased to be spoken except by first generation Dutch immigrants. The Dutch language nevertheless had a significant impact on the region around New York . For example, the first language of U.S. president Martin Van Buren

7260-558: The Dutch people. However, the centralist policies of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, at first violently opposed by the cities of the Low Countries, had a profound impact and changed this. During Charles the Bold 's many wars, which were a major economic burden for the Burgundian Netherlands, tensions slowly increased. In 1477, the year of Charles' sudden death at Nancy , the Low Countries rebelled against their new liege, Mary of Burgundy , and presented her with

7392-404: The Dutch-speaking peoples across the continent, while trying to counteract Pan-Germanic tendencies. During the first half of the 20th century, there was a prolific surge in writings concerning the subject. One of its most active proponents was the historian Pieter Geyl , who wrote De Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche stam ('The History of the Dutch tribe/people') as well as numerous essays on

7524-631: The English language used (the contemporary form of) Dutch to refer to any or all of the Germanic speakers on the European mainland (e.g. the Dutch, the Frisians and the Germans). Gradually its meaning shifted to the Germanic people they had most contact with, both because of their geographical proximity, but also because of the rivalry in trade and overseas territories: the people from the Republic of

7656-713: The Franks in Northern France were assimilated by the general Gallo-Roman population, and took over their dialects (which became French ), whereas the Franks in the Low Countries retained their language, which would evolve into Dutch. The current Dutch-French language border has (with the exception of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais in France and Brussels and the surrounding municipalities in Belgium) remained virtually identical ever since, and could be seen as marking

7788-419: The Germanic peoples began to differentiate its meaning began to change. The Anglo-Saxons of England for example gradually stopped referring to themselves as þeodisc and instead started to use Englisc , after their tribe. On the continent * theudo evolved into two meanings: Diets or Duuts meaning "Dutch (people)" (archaic) and Deutsch ( German , meaning "German (people)"). At first

7920-610: The Greeks. Herodotus (8.144.2) gave a famous account of what defined Greek (Hellenic) ethnic identity in his day, enumerating Whether ethnicity qualifies as a cultural universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen ,

8052-488: The Habsburg Netherlands, when inhabitants began to refer to it as their 'fatherland' and were beginning to be seen as a collective entity abroad; however, the persistence of language barriers, traditional strife between towns, and provincial particularism continued to form an impediment to more thorough unification. Following excessive taxation together with attempts at diminishing the traditional autonomy of

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8184-508: The Netherlands and Belgium have a number of common characteristics, with a mostly shared language , some generally similar or identical customs , and with no clearly separate ancestral origin or origin myth . However, the popular perception of being a single group varies greatly, depending on subject matter, locality, and personal background. Generally, the Flemish will seldom identify themselves as being Dutch and vice versa, especially on

8316-727: The Netherlands were now part of the Habsburg lands. Further centralised policies of the Habsburgs (like their Burgundian predecessors) again met with resistance, but, peaking with the formation of the collateral councils of 1531 and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 creating the Seventeen Provinces , were still implemented. The rule of Philip II of Spain sought even further centralist reforms, which, accompanied by religious dictates and excessive taxation, resulted in

8448-516: The Netherlands, an oft-used adage used for indicating this cultural boundary is the phrase boven/onder de rivieren (Dutch: above/below the rivers), in which 'the rivers' refer to the Rhine and the Meuse . Southern Dutch culture has been influenced more by French culture, as opposed to the Northern Dutch culture area. Within the field of ethnography , it is argued that the Dutch-speaking populations of

8580-506: The Netherlands, the Dutch. In the Dutch language , the Dutch refer to themselves as Nederlanders . Nederlanders derives from the Dutch word Neder , a cognate of English Nether both meaning " low ", and " near the sea " (same meaning in both English and Dutch), a reference to the geographical texture of the Dutch homeland; the western portion of the North European Plain . Although not as old as Diets ,

8712-413: The Republic the first series of large-scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place. The traditional arts and culture of the Dutch encompasses various forms of traditional music , dances , architectural styles and clothing, some of which are globally recognisable. Internationally, Dutch painters such as Rembrandt , Vermeer and Van Gogh are held in high regard. The predominant religion among

8844-462: The United States that the ethnicity theory was exclusively based on the immigration patterns of the white population and did take into account the unique experiences of non-whites in the United States. While Park's theory identified different stages in the immigration process – contact, conflict, struggle, and as the last and best response, assimilation – it did so only for white communities. The ethnicity paradigm neglected

8976-668: The United States and South Africa are generally more religious than their European counterparts; for example, the numerous Dutch communities of western Michigan remain strongholds of the Reformed Church in America and the Christian Reformed Church , both descendants of the Dutch Reformed Church . One cultural division within Dutch culture is that between the formerly Protestant North and

9108-994: The added value of being able to describe the commonalities between systems of group identity in both tribal and modern societies. Cohen also suggested that claims concerning "ethnic" identity (like earlier claims concerning "tribal" identity) are often colonialist practices and effects of the relations between colonized peoples and nation-states. According to Paul James , formations of identity were often changed and distorted by colonization, but identities are not made out of nothing: Categorizations about identity, even when codified and hardened into clear typologies by processes of colonization, state formation or general modernizing processes, are always full of tensions and contradictions. Sometimes these contradictions are destructive, but they can also be creative and positive. Social scientists have thus focused on how, when, and why different markers of ethnic identity become salient. Thus, anthropologist Joan Vincent observed that ethnic boundaries often have

9240-504: The affixes and main parts of the surnames (e.g. A. van der Bilt becomes A . Vanderbilt ). Dutch names can differ greatly in spelling. The surname Baks , for example is also recorded as Backs , Bacxs , Bax , Bakx , Baxs , Bacx , Backx , Bakxs and Baxcs . Though written differently, pronunciation remains identical. Dialectal variety also commonly occurs, with De Smet and De Smit both meaning Smith for example. There are several main types of surnames in Dutch: Prior to

9372-443: The area's Southern lands as foederati ; Roman allies in charge of border defense. Linguistically Old Frankish gradually evolved into Old Dutch , which was first attested in the 6th century, whereas religiously the Franks (beginning with the upper class ) converted to Christianity from around 500 to 700. On a political level, the Frankish warlords abandoned tribalism and founded a number of kingdoms, eventually culminating in

9504-423: The arrival of Christianity, the ancestors of the Dutch adhered to a form of Germanic paganism augmented with various Celtic elements . At the start of the 6th century, the first ( Hiberno-Scottish ) missionaries arrived. They were later replaced by Anglo-Saxon missionaries , who eventually succeeded in converting most of the inhabitants by the 8th century. Since then, Christianity has been the dominant religion in

9636-449: The belief of common descent. Jóhanna Birnir similarly defines ethnicity as "group self-identification around a characteristic that is very difficult or even impossible to change, such as language, race, or location." Different approaches to understanding ethnicity have been used by different social scientists when trying to understand the nature of ethnicity as a factor in human life and society. As Jonathan M. Hall observes, World War II

9768-406: The cities and estates in the Low Countries, followed by the religious oppression after being transferred to Habsburg Spain , the Dutch revolted, in what would become the Eighty Years' War . For the first time in their history, the Dutch established their independence from foreign rule. However, during the war it became apparent that the goal of liberating all the provinces and cities that had signed

9900-467: The common language, may be compared to how Austrians do not consider themselves to be Germans , despite the similarities they share with southern Germans such as Bavarians . In both cases, the Catholic Austrians and Flemish do not see themselves as sharing the fundamentally Protestant-based identities of their northern counterparts. Ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group

10032-573: The context of European colonial expansion, when mercantilism and capitalism were promoting global movements of populations at the same time that state boundaries were being more clearly and rigidly defined. In the 19th century, modern states generally sought legitimacy through their claim to represent "nations". Nation-states , however, invariably include populations who have been excluded from national life for one reason or another. Members of excluded groups, consequently, will either demand inclusion based on equality or seek autonomy, sometimes even to

10164-422: The course of individual life histories." In 1978, anthropologist Ronald Cohen claimed that the identification of "ethnic groups" in the usage of social scientists often reflected inaccurate labels more than indigenous realities: ... the named ethnic identities we accept, often unthinkingly, as basic givens in the literature are often arbitrarily, or even worse inaccurately, imposed. In this way, he pointed to

10296-526: The cultural traits of such groups have no demonstrated genetic connection with racial traits. Because serious errors of this kind are habitually committed when the term "race" is used in popular parlance, it would be better when speaking of human races to drop the term "race" altogether and speak of "ethnic groups". In 1982, anthropologist David Craig Griffith summed up forty years of ethnographic research, arguing that racial and ethnic categories are symbolic markers for different ways people from different parts of

10428-499: The current CBS definition (both parents born in the Netherlands), resulting in an estimated 16,000,000 Dutch people, or by the sum of all people worldwide with both full and partial Dutch ancestry , which would result in a number around 33,000,000. Approximate distribution of native Dutch speakers worldwide. People of (partial) Dutch ancestry outside the Netherlands. Dutch is the main language spoken by most Dutch people. It

10560-451: The distant past. Perspectives that developed after the 1960s increasingly viewed ethnic groups as social constructs , with identity assigned by societal rules. The term ethnic is ultimately derived from the Greek ethnos , through its adjectival form ethnikos , loaned into Latin as ethnicus . The inherited English language term for this concept is folk , used alongside

10692-452: The distinctions of ethnicity and race that function to set off categories of workers from one another. It is, nevertheless, the process of labor mobilization under capitalism that imparts to these distinctions their effective values. According to Wolf, racial categories were constructed and incorporated during the period of European mercantile expansion , and ethnic groupings during the period of capitalist expansion . Writing in 1977 about

10824-523: The emergence of a new political system, centered on kings, and a continuing process of emerging mutual unintelligibility of their various dialects. The general situation described above is applicable to most if not all modern European ethnic groups with origins among the Germanic tribes , such as the Frisians, Germans, English and the Nordic (Scandinavian) peoples. In the Low Countries, this phase began when

10956-696: The end of the Dutch Revolt, it became clear the Habsburgs were unable to reconquer the North, while the North's military was too weak to conquer the South, which, under the influence of the Counter-Reformation , had started to develop a political and cultural identity of its own. The Southern Dutch, including Dutch Brabant and Limburg, remained Catholic or returned to Catholicism. The Dutch dialects spoken by this group are Brabantic , Kleverlandish , Limburgish and East and West Flemish . In

11088-503: The entire Nazi occupation, the Germans denied any assistance to Greater Dutch ethnic nationalism , and, by decree of Hitler himself, actively opposed it. The 1970s marked the beginning of formal cultural and linguistic cooperation between Belgium (Flanders) and the Netherlands on an international scale. The total number of Dutch can be defined in roughly two ways. By taking the total of all people with full Dutch ancestry, according to

11220-530: The extent of complete political separation in their nation-state. Under these conditions   when people moved from one state to another, or one state conquered or colonized peoples beyond its national boundaries – ethnic groups were formed by people who identified with one nation but lived in another state. In the 1920s, Estonia introduced a flexible system of ethnicity/nationality self-choice for its citizens, which included Estonians Russians, Baltic Germans and Jews. Multi-ethnic states can be

11352-414: The fact that identification of an ethnic group by outsiders, e.g. anthropologists, may not coincide with the self-identification of the members of that group. He also described that in the first decades of usage, the term ethnicity had often been used in lieu of older terms such as "cultural" or "tribal" when referring to smaller groups with shared cultural systems and shared heritage, but that "ethnicity" had

11484-528: The fallen monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire or the United States. Current topics are in particular social and cultural differentiation, multilingualism, competing identity offers, multiple cultural identities and the formation of Salad bowl and melting pot . Ethnic groups differ from other social groups, such as subcultures , interest groups or social classes , because they emerge and change over historical periods (centuries) in

11616-420: The fiefs of the Low Countries under one ruler. This process marked a new episode in the development of the Dutch ethnic group, as now political unity started to emerge, consolidating the strengthened cultural and linguistic unity. Despite their growing linguistic and cultural unity, and (in the case of Flanders , Brabant and Holland ) economic similarities, there was still little sense of political unity among

11748-596: The following types of (often mutually overlapping) groups can be identified: In many cases, more than one aspect determines membership: for instance, Armenian ethnicity can be defined by Armenian citizenship, having Armenian heritage, native use of the Armenian language , or membership of the Armenian Apostolic Church . Ethnography begins in classical antiquity ; after early authors like Anaximander and Hecataeus of Miletus , Herodotus laid

11880-672: The foundation of both historiography and ethnography of the ancient world c.  480 BC . The Greeks had developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes . Although there were exceptions, such as Macedonia, which was ruled by nobility in a way that was not typically Greek, and Sparta, which had an unusual ruling class, the ancient Greeks generally enslaved only non-Greeks due to their strong belief in ethnonationalism. The Greeks sometimes believed that even their lowest citizens were superior to any barbarian. In his Politics 1.2–7; 3.14, Aristotle even described barbarians as natural slaves in contrast to

12012-472: The furthest pale of gallicisation among the Franks. A dialect continuum remaining with more eastern Germanic populations, a distinct identity in relation to these only gradually developed, largely based on socio-economic and political factors. Large parts of the present Netherlands have populations using Saxon and Frisian dialects. The medieval cities of the Low Countries, especially those of Flanders, Brabant and Holland, which experienced major growth during

12144-558: The genes. Examples of various approaches are primordialism, essentialism, perennialism, constructivism, modernism, and instrumentalism. Ethnicity is an important means by which people may identify with a larger group. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf , do not consider ethnic identity to be universal. They regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. The process that results in emergence of such identification

12276-433: The kernel of a nation which must be defended in times of conflict, or in iconic figures such as Britannia or Marianne . Ethnicity is used as a matter of cultural identity of a group, often based on shared ancestry, language, and cultural traditions, while race is applied as a taxonomic grouping, based on physical similarities among groups. Race is a more controversial subject than ethnicity, due to common political use of

12408-455: The language or inhabitants of the Frisian part of the country. Historically the whole Dutch North Seacoast was known as Frisia. The Southern Dutch sphere generally consists of the areas in which the population was traditionally Catholic. During the early Middle Ages up until the Dutch Revolt , the Southern regions were more powerful, as well as more culturally and economically developed. At

12540-410: The last 50 years. Evident in the many Sri Lanka-Australia Associations, old boys’ and old girls’ school associations are maintained as a reaffirmation of their identity and wish to continue ties with their motherland, Sri Lanka. Dutch people The Dutch ( Dutch : Nederlanders ) are an ethnic group native to the Netherlands . They share a common ancestry and culture and speak

12672-654: The latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan (in the sense of disparate "nations" which did not yet participate in the Christian ecumene ), as the Septuagint used ta ethne 'the nations' to translate the Hebrew goyim "the foreign nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews". The Greek term in early antiquity ( Homeric Greek ) could refer to any large group,

12804-485: The marginalized status of people of color in the United States to their inherent biological inferiority, he attributed it to their failure to assimilate into American culture. They could become equal if they abandoned their inferior cultures. Michael Omi and Howard Winant 's theory of racial formation directly confronts both the premises and the practices of ethnicity theory. They argue in Racial Formation in

12936-432: The modernist understanding of ethnicity as proposed by Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson see nations and nationalism as developing with the rise of the modern state system in the 17th century. They culminated in the rise of "nation-states" in which the presumptive boundaries of the nation coincided (or ideally coincided) with state boundaries. Thus, in the West, the notion of ethnicity, like race and nation , developed in

13068-460: The north of the Netherlands, mainly concentrated in the province of Friesland . Culturally, modern Frisians and the (Northern) Dutch are rather similar; the main and generally most important difference being that Frisians speak West Frisian, one of the three sub-branches of the Frisian languages , alongside Dutch, and they find this to be a defining part of their identity as Frisians. According to

13200-552: The nowadays Catholic South, which encompasses various cultural differences between the Northern Dutch on one side and the Southern Dutch on the other. This subject has historically received attention from historians, notably Pieter Geyl (1887–1966) and Carel Gerretson (1884–1958). The historical pluriformity of the Dutch cultural landscape has given rise to several theories aimed at both identifying and explaining cultural divergences between different regions. One theory, proposed by A.J. Wichers in 1965, sees differences in mentality between

13332-629: The overseas territories and trading posts controlled and administered by Dutch chartered companies (mainly the Dutch West India Company and the Dutch United East India Company ) and subsequently by the Dutch Republic (1581–1795), and by the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands after 1815. Many Dutch people ( Nederlanders ) will object to being called Hollanders as a national denominator on much

13464-551: The parent group. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a panethnicity and may eventually merge into one single ethnicity . Whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis . Although both organic and performative criteria characterise ethnic groups, debate in the past has dichotomised between primordialism and constructivism. Earlier 20th-century "Primordialists" viewed ethnic groups as real phenomena whose distinct characteristics have endured since

13596-530: The population of Friesland saw themselves as "primarily Frisian", again without precluding the possibility of also identifying as Dutch. Frisians are not disambiguated from the Dutch people in Dutch official statistics . In the Netherlands itself "West-Frisian" refers to the Hollandic dialect, with a Frisian substrate, spoken in the northern part of the province of North-Holland known as West-Friesland, as well as "West-Frisians" referring to its speakers, not to

13728-682: The preferred destination. At the 1981 Census, the Burghers (Dutch and Portuguese) numbered almost 40,000 (0.3% of the population of Sri Lanka). Many Burghers emigrated to other countries following nationalist movements and language revivals post-independence. With English being replaced by Sinhala, universities and jobs were no longer accessible to minorities like the Burghers who spoke English. While numbers of Burghers are placed at around 40,000 some argue that Burghers who still practice their original culture and customs have dwindled to about 15,000 mostly concentrated in Colombo. Dutch Burghers' lifestyle

13860-450: The problem of racism became the sole responsibility of already disadvantaged communities. It was assumed that if a Black or Latino community was not "making it" by the standards that had been set by whites, it was because that community did not hold the right values or beliefs, or were stubbornly resisting dominant norms because they did not want to fit in. Omi and Winant's critique of ethnicity theory explains how looking to cultural defect as

13992-433: The public, political sphere, they are upheld within the private, family sphere to a great extent. It is here that women act not just as biological reproducers but also as "cultural carriers", transmitting knowledge and enforcing behaviors that belong to a specific collectivity. Women also often play a significant symbolic role in conceptions of nation or ethnicity, for example in the notion that "women and children" constitute

14124-623: The rebellion and make the Low Countries a Catholic region once more. The Protestants in the southern Low Countries fled North en masse . Most of the Dutch Protestants were now concentrated in the free Dutch provinces north of the river Rhine , while the Catholic Dutch were situated in the Spanish-occupied or -dominated South. After the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, Protestantism did not spread South, resulting in

14256-532: The region. In the early 16th century, the Protestant Reformation began to form and soon spread in the Westhoek and the County of Flanders, where secret open-air sermons were held, called hagenpreken (' hedgerow orations ') in Dutch. The ruler of the Dutch regions, Philip II of Spain , felt it was his duty to fight Protestantism and, after the wave of iconoclasm , sent troops to crush

14388-571: The result of inherited traits and tendencies. With Weber's introduction of the idea of ethnicity as a social construct, race and ethnicity became more divided from each other. In 1950, the UNESCO statement " The Race Question ", signed by some of the internationally renowned scholars of the time (including Ashley Montagu , Claude Lévi-Strauss , Gunnar Myrdal , Julian Huxley , etc.), said: National, religious, geographic, linguistic and cultural groups do not necessarily coincide with racial groups: and

14520-432: The result of two opposite events, either the recent creation of state borders at variance with traditional tribal territories, or the recent immigration of ethnic minorities into a former nation-state. Examples for the first case are found throughout Africa , where countries created during decolonization inherited arbitrary colonial borders, but also in European countries such as Belgium or United Kingdom . Examples for

14652-529: The same grounds as many Welsh or Scots would object to being called English instead of British , as the Holland region only comprises two of the twelve provinces, and 40% of the Dutch citizens. The same holds for the country being referred to as Holland instead of The Netherlands . In January 2020, the Dutch government officially dropped its support of the word Holland for the whole country. The ideologies associated with (Romantic) Nationalism of

14784-525: The second case are countries such as Netherlands , which were relatively ethnically homogeneous when they attained statehood but have received significant immigration in the 17th century and even more so in the second half of the 20th century. States such as the United Kingdom , France and Switzerland comprised distinct ethnic groups from their formation and have likewise experienced substantial immigration, resulting in what has been termed " multicultural " societies, especially in large cities. The states of

14916-420: The source of inequality ignores the "concrete sociopolitical dynamics within which racial phenomena operate in the U.S." It prevents critical examination of the structural components of racism and encourages a "benign neglect" of social inequality. In some cases, especially those involving transnational migration or colonial expansion, ethnicity is linked to nationality. Anthropologists and historians, following

15048-501: The southeastern, or 'higher', and northwestern, or 'lower' regions within the Netherlands, and seeks to explain these by referring to the different degrees to which these areas were feudalised during the Middle Ages. Another, more recent cultural divide is that between the Randstad , the urban agglomeration in the West of the country, and the other provinces of the Netherlands. In Dutch, the cultural division between North and South

15180-407: The state or its constituents. In the 20th century, people began to argue that conflicts among ethnic groups or between members of an ethnic group and the state can and should be resolved in one of two ways. Some, like Jürgen Habermas and Bruce Barry, have argued that the legitimacy of modern states must be based on a notion of political rights of autonomous individual subjects. According to this view,

15312-441: The state should not acknowledge ethnic, national or racial identity but rather instead enforce political and legal equality of all individuals. Others, like Charles Taylor and Will Kymlicka , argue that the notion of the autonomous individual is itself a cultural construct. According to this view, states must recognize ethnic identity and develop processes through which the particular needs of ethnic groups can be accommodated within

15444-512: The study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently. According to Eriksen , these debates have been superseded, especially in anthropology , by scholars' attempts to respond to increasingly politicized forms of self-representation by members of different ethnic groups and nations. This is in the context of debates over multiculturalism in countries, such as the United States and Canada, which have large immigrant populations from many different cultures, and post-colonialism in

15576-561: The subject. During World War II, when both Belgium and the Netherlands fell to German occupation , fascist elements (such as the NSB and Verdinaso ) tried to convince the Nazis into combining the Netherlands and Flanders . The Germans however refused to do so, as this conflicted with their ultimate goal, the Neuordnung ('New Order') of creating a single pan-Germanic racial state. During

15708-704: The term Nederlands has been in continuous use since 1250. Dutch surnames (and surnames of Dutch origin) are generally easily recognisable. Many Dutch surnames feature a tussenvoegsel ( lit.   ' between-joiner ' ), which is a family name affix positioned between a person's given name and the main part of their family name . The most common tussenvoegsels are van (e.g. A. van Gogh "from/of"), de / der / den / te / ter / ten (e.g. A. de Vries , "the"), het / ’t (e.g. A. ’t Hart , "the"), and van de / van der / van den (e.g. A. van den Berg , "from/of the"). These affixes are not merged, nor capitalised by default. The second affix in

15840-524: The term in social studies in the 1980s and 1990s. Barth went further than Weber in stressing the constructed nature of ethnicity. To Barth, ethnicity was perpetually negotiated and renegotiated by both external ascription and internal self-identification. Barth's view is that ethnic groups are not discontinuous cultural isolates or logical a priori to which people naturally belong. He wanted to part with anthropological notions of cultures as bounded entities, and ethnicity as primordialist bonds, replacing it with

15972-446: The term. Ramón Grosfoguel (University of California, Berkeley) argues that "racial/ethnic identity" is one concept and concepts of race and ethnicity cannot be used as separate and autonomous categories. Before Weber (1864–1920), race and ethnicity were primarily seen as two aspects of the same thing. Around 1900 and before, the primordialist understanding of ethnicity predominated: cultural differences between peoples were seen as being

16104-406: The usage of the term "ethnic" in the ordinary language of Great Britain and the United States , Wallman noted The term "ethnic" popularly connotes "[race]" in Britain, only less precisely, and with a lighter value load. In North America, by contrast, "[race]" most commonly means color, and "ethnics" are the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from non-English-speaking countries. "[Ethnic]"

16236-621: The variety of Sri Lankan English. The Burgher sub-culture, and cuisine has been portrayed effectively through popular literature, notably Carl Muller's trilogy and Michael Ondaatje 's Running in the Family . The advent of Sinhala Buddhist nationalism , many Burghers were confronted by their lack of status. Linguistically disadvantaged by the Sinhala Only Act , many Burghers lost their social status, employment and privileges. A mass exodus ensued, where many migrated, Australia being

16368-442: The various political affairs of the fief, including marriage succession. While the cities were of great political importance, they also formed catalysts for medieval Dutch culture. Trade flourished, population numbers increased dramatically, and (advanced) education was no longer limited to the clergy. Flanders, Brabant and Holland began to develop a common Dutch standard language . Dutch epic literature such as Elegast (1150),

16500-496: The various territories of which they consisted had become virtually autonomous by the 13th century. Under the Habsburgs , the Netherlands were organised into a single administrative unit, and in the 16th and 17th centuries the Northern Netherlands gained independence from Spain as the Dutch Republic . The high degree of urbanisation characteristic of Dutch society was attained at a relatively early date. During

16632-448: The ways in which race can complicate a community's interactions with social and political structures, especially upon contact. Assimilation – shedding the particular qualities of a native culture for the purpose of blending in with a host culture – did not work for some groups as a response to racism and discrimination, though it did for others. Once the legal barriers to achieving equality had been dismantled,

16764-442: The world have been incorporated into a global economy: The opposing interests that divide the working classes are further reinforced through appeals to "racial" and "ethnic" distinctions. Such appeals serve to allocate different categories of workers to rungs on the scale of labor markets, relegating stigmatized populations to the lower levels and insulating the higher echelons from competition from below. Capitalism did not create all

16896-486: Was Dutch. Most of the Dutch immigrants of the 20th century quickly began to speak the language of their new country. For example, of the inhabitants of New Zealand, 0.7% say their home language is Dutch, despite the percentage of Dutch heritage being considerably higher. Dutch is currently an official language of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (Netherlands, Aruba , Sint Maarten , and Curaçao ), Belgium, Suriname ,

17028-657: Was English from continuing the jobs they had maintained prior to independence in the civil service etc.(e.g., Blaze, Leembruggen, Kellar). In the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company took over coastal Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) from the Portuguese. During the Dutch East India Company rule, the Dutch and Portuguese descendants intermarried. In the 18th century, the Eurasian community (a mixture of Portuguese, Dutch, Sinhalese and Tamil) known as

17160-483: Was a turning point in ethnic studies. The consequences of Nazi racism discouraged essentialist interpretations of ethnic groups and race. Ethnic groups came to be defined as social rather than biological entities. Their coherence was attributed to shared myths, descent, kinship , a common place of origin, language, religion, customs, and national character. So, ethnic groups are conceived as mutable rather than stable, constructed in discursive practices rather than written in

17292-407: Was contrary to the prevailing naturalist belief of the time, which held that socio-cultural and behavioral differences between peoples stemmed from inherited traits and tendencies derived from common descent, then called "race". Another influential theoretician of ethnicity was Fredrik Barth , whose "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" from 1969 has been described as instrumental in spreading the usage of

17424-485: Was declared void by Mary's son and successor, Philip IV ) aimed for more autonomy for the counties and duchies, but nevertheless all the fiefs presented their demands together, rather than separately. This is evidence that by this time a sense of common interest was emerging among the provinces of the Netherlands. The document itself clearly distinguishes between the Dutch speaking and French speaking provinces. Following Mary's marriage to Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor ,

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