The Guardian Children's Fiction Prize or Guardian Award was a literary award that annual recognised one fiction book written for children or young adults (at least age eight) and published in the United Kingdom. It was conferred upon the author of the book by The Guardian newspaper, which established it in 1965 and inaugurated it in 1967. It was a lifetime award in that previous winners were not eligible. At least from 2000 the prize was £1,500. The prize was apparently discontinued after 2016, though no formal announcement appears to have been made.
147-510: Guardian Children's Fiction Prize Watership Down is an adventure novel by English author Richard Adams , published by Rex Collings Ltd of London in 1972. Set in Hampshire in southern England, the story features a small group of rabbits . Although they live in their natural wild environment, with burrows , they are anthropomorphised , possessing their own culture, language , proverbs , poetry, and mythology . Evoking epic themes,
294-626: A Dutch edition was also published that year by Het Spectrum . In the Sandleford warren , Fiver, a runty young rabbit who is a seer , receives a frightening vision of his warren's imminent destruction. He and his brother Hazel fail to convince the Threarah, their Chief Rabbit, of the need to evacuate; they then try to convince the other rabbits, but only succeed in gaining nine followers, all bucks (males) and no does (females). Captain Holly of
441-578: 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
588-467: 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
735-601: 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
882-528: A 2003 survey of the British public, it was voted the forty-second greatest book of all time. The 1993 Puffin Modern Classics edition of the novel contains an afterword by Nicholas Tucker , who wrote that stories such as Watership Down "now fit rather uneasily into the modern world of consideration of both sexes". He contrasted Hazel's sensitivity to Fiver with the "far more mechanical" attitude of
1029-455: A Thousand Enemies . In other countries the album was released as Music Inspired by Watership Down . In 1978 Martin Rosen wrote and directed an animated film adaptation of Watership Down . The voice cast included John Hurt , Richard Briers , Harry Andrews , Simon Cadell , Nigel Hawthorne , and Roy Kinnear . The film featured the song " Bright Eyes ", sung by Art Garfunkel . Released as
1176-627: A buck from the hutch. Hazel is wounded in the leg by the farmer's shotgun and presumed dead; Fiver's visions prompt him and Blackberry to return and rescue Hazel. When the embassy to Efrafa returns soon after, Hazel and his rabbits learn that Efrafa is a police state run by the ferocious despot General Woundwort, who refuses to allow anyone to leave his warren. Holly and his three companions have managed to escape with little more than their lives. While they were imprisoned in Efrafa, Holly's group had met an Efrafan doe named Hyzenthlay, who wishes to leave
1323-475: A changed rabbit, and, after telling the others that Fiver's terrible vision has come true, he offers to join Hazel's band in whatever way they will have him. Although Watership Down is a peaceful habitat, Hazel realizes that, with all buck rabbits and no does, the warren will soon die out. With the help of their useful new friend, a black-headed gull named Kehaar, they discover a nearby warren called Efrafa, which
1470-469: A child", with "engaging characters and fast-paced action [that] make it readable." This echoed Nicholas Tucker 's praise for the story's suspense in the New Statesman : "Adams ... has bravely and successfully resurrected the big picaresque adventure story, with moments of such tension that the helplessly involved reader finds himself checking whether things are going to work out all right on
1617-440: A children's list, it is one of the few titles for which the ubiquitous claim of 'crossover' is not a gimmick. It genuinely has equal, though different, appeal to all readers – 15-year-old Christopher Boone's narrative voice is at once childlike in its observations, and adult in its profundity." In 2007, Pullman's Northern Lights was named "Carnegie of Carnegies" for the award's 70-year celebration. The Young Critics competition
SECTION 10
#17328018801061764-576: 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
1911-654: A condemned Efrafan prisoner named Blackavar. Woundwort and his officers pursue them, but the Watership rabbits and the escapees use a punt to float away down the Test and escape. Downriver, the punt strikes a bridge, killing one doe. Once the rabbits are back on shore, they begin the long journey home, losing one more doe to a fox along the way. As they near Watership, they come across Captain Campion and his Efrafan patrol, who have been tracking them. Blackavar advises Hazel that
2058-467: 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
2205-582: 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
2352-670: 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
2499-597: A new animated series based on the book and in April 2016 that the series would be a co-production between the BBC and Netflix , consisting of four one-hour episodes, with a budget of £20 million. The four episode serial premiered on the BBC and Netflix on 23 December 2018, with the voices of James McAvoy as Hazel, John Boyega as Bigwig, and Ben Kingsley as General Woundwort. It received generally positive reviews, with praise for
2646-420: 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
2793-579: 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
2940-413: 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
3087-509: 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
SECTION 20
#17328018801063234-473: 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 the official languages. In Asia, Dutch
3381-471: A seductive home at Cowslip's Warren (Land of the Lotus Eaters )? Rateliff goes on to compare the rabbits' battle with Woundwort's Efrafans to Aeneas's fight with Turnus 's Latins . "By basing his story on one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance , Adams taps into a very old myth: the flight from disaster, the heroic refugee in search of a new home, a story that was already over
3528-522: 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
3675-553: A single winner. The longlist was the foundation for a summer program of reading, reviewing, and discussion. The U.K. publishers of eligible books entered them for the prize with a fee, although the chair may call for submission. The publication year is August to July of the current year, but May, June, and July books must be submitted in advance. Books originally published in another language were eligible in English translation for five years. Routinely, eligible books were entered for
3822-491: A single, the song became a UK number one hit although Richard Adams said that he hated it. Although the essentials of the plot remained relatively unchanged, the film omitted several side plots. Though the Watership Down warren eventually grew to seventeen rabbits with the additions of Strawberry, Holly, Bluebell, and three hutch rabbits liberated from the farm, the movie includes a band of only eight. Rosen's adaptation
3969-479: 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
4116-424: 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,
4263-509: A story I told to my little girls." Instead, he explained, the "let-in" religious stories of El-ahrairah were meant more as legendary tales, similar to a rabbit Robin Hood , and these stories were interspersed throughout the book as humorous interjections to the often "grim" tales of the "real story". The Economist heralded the book's publication, saying "If there is no place for Watership Down in children's bookshops, then children's literature
4410-526: A thousand years old when Virgil told it in 19 BC." When asked in a 2007 BBC Radio interview about the religious symbolism in the novel, Adams said the story was "nothing like that at all". He said the rabbits in Watership Down did not worship; however, "they believed passionately in El-ahrairah." Adams explained that he meant the book to be "only a made-up story ... in no sense an allegory or parable or any kind of political myth. I simply wrote down
4557-399: A total of 39 episodes over three seasons. Although the story was broadly based on the novel and most characters and events retained, some of the story lines and characters (especially in later episodes) were entirely new. In 2003, the second season was nominated for a Gemini Award for Best Original Music Score for a Dramatic Series. In July 2014, it was announced that the BBC would be airing
Watership Down - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-552: 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
4851-745: A winner and a shortlist. In 2001, the award cycle was rescheduled to conclude in the fall rather than the spring. At the same time, a longlist of seven books was instituted with a shortlist of four to six books. Six books have won both the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and the Carnegie Medal (inaugurated 1936), which annually recognizes an outstanding book for children or young adults. (Dates are years of U.K. publication, which were Carnegie award dates before 2006.) In 2001, The Seeing Stone by Kevin Crossley-Holland won
4998-537: 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
5145-506: 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 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
5292-466: 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
5439-522: Is a fictional language created by author Richard Adams for the novel, where it is spoken by the rabbit characters. The language was again used in Adams's 1996 sequel, Tales from Watership Down , and has appeared in both the film and television adaptations . The language fragments in the books consist of a few dozen distinct words, used mainly for the naming of rabbits, their mythological characters, and objects in their world. The name "Lapine" comes from
5586-473: 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
5733-537: 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
5880-417: Is an allegory." John Rowe Townsend notes that the book quickly achieved such a high popularity despite the fact that it "came out at a high price and in an unattractive jacket from a publisher who had hardly been heard of." Fred Inglis, in his book The Promise of Happiness: Value and meaning in children's fiction , praises the author's use of prose to express the strangeness of ordinary human inventions from
6027-425: Is dead." Peter Prescott , senior book reviewer at Newsweek , gave the novel a glowing review: "Adams handles his suspenseful narrative more dextrously than most authors who claim to write adventure novels, but his true achievement lies in the consistent, comprehensible and altogether enchanting civilisation that he has created." Kathleen J. Rothen and Beverly Langston identified the work as one that "subtly speaks to
Watership Down - Misplaced Pages Continue
6174-587: 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
6321-522: 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 ")
6468-487: 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
6615-405: Is overcrowded. At Hazel's request, Holly leads a small embassy to Efrafa to present their request for does. Hazel and Pipkin (the smallest rabbit) decide to scout out the nearby Nuthanger Farm, where they find a rabbit hutch. Despite their uncertainty about living wild, the four hutch rabbits are willing to come to Watership. Two nights later, Hazel leads a raid on the farm, which frees two does and
6762-569: 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
6909-585: 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
7056-637: 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 ,
7203-595: 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
7350-662: 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
7497-404: 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
SECTION 50
#17328018801067644-530: 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,
7791-531: 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
7938-578: 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
8085-455: 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
8232-554: 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
8379-493: 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
8526-536: 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
8673-531: 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
8820-543: 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
8967-618: The Tir na n-Og Award , best English-language book for young people with "authentic Welsh background". In 2003, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon won the 2003 Whitbread Awards as the year's best novel (not children's book) and the "Book of the Year" across all five categories. The Guardian children's book editor Eccleshare wrote, "Published on both an adult and
SECTION 60
#17328018801069114-497: 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
9261-471: 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
9408-434: 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
9555-400: The epic poem Odyssey . Kenneth Kitchell declared, "Hazel stands in the tradition of Odysseus , Aeneas , and others". Tolkien scholar John Rateliff calls Adams's novel an Aeneid "what-if" book: what if the seer Cassandra (Fiver) had been believed and she and a company had fled Troy (Sandleford Warren) before its destruction? What if Hazel and his companions, like Odysseus, encounter
9702-491: The hills . The group eventually finds and settles in a beech hanger (a wooded hill) on Watership Down. While digging the new warren, they are joined by Captain Holly and his friend Bluebell. Holly is severely wounded, and both rabbits are ill from exhaustion, having escaped both the violent destruction of the Sandleford Warren by humans and an attack by Cowslip's rabbits along the way. Holly's ordeal has left him
9849-642: 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
9996-518: 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
10143-538: 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
10290-565: The 1972 Carnegie Medal from the Library Association , recognising the year's best children's book by a British subject . He also won the annual Guardian Children's Fiction Prize , a similar award that authors may not win twice. In 1977 California schoolchildren selected it for the inaugural California Young Reader Medal in the Young Adult category, which annually honours one book from the last four years. In The Big Read ,
10437-593: The 2000 prize, announced 28 March, it recognised one book published in the UK during the preceding calendar year. Between the 1999/2000 and 2000/2001 cycles, the prize schedule was rearranged to culminate in October during Booktrust Children's Book Week. "[F]iction for children aged seven and above, published in the UK between January 2000 and September 2001" (21 months) was eligible for the 2001 prize. Publishers were required to submit no more than ten entries by April 30. At
10584-688: 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
10731-504: The Adams estate's legal fees totalling £28,000. In the early 1970s Bo Hansson was introduced to the book by his then girlfriend. This gave him an idea to create a new album in the same style as his Lord of the Rings album. In 1977 he released the all instrumental El-Ahrairah . The title was taken directly from the pages of Watership Down , with El-Ahrairah being the name of a trickster, folk-hero/deity rabbit, known as The Prince with
10878-457: The Cold War, fascism, extremism ... a protest against materialism, against the corporate state. Watership Down can be Ireland after the famine, Rwanda after the massacres." Kadish has praised both the fantasy genre and Watership Down for its "motifs [that] hit home in every culture ... all passersby are welcome to bring their own subplots and plug into the archetype." Adams won
11025-417: 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
11172-490: 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
11319-415: 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
11466-531: 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
11613-408: 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
11760-562: The Efrafan officers, fervently believes the General must have survived. After releasing the dog, Hazel is attacked by Tab, one of the farmhouse cats . He is saved by young Lucy, the former owner of the escaped hutch rabbits, who shows him to the local doctor before releasing him. Upon returning to Watership, Hazel effects a lasting peace and friendship between the remaining Efrafans and the Watership rabbits. Some time later, Hazel and Campion,
11907-602: 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
12054-462: The French word for rabbit. Watership Down has been described as an allegory , with the labours of Hazel, Fiver, Bigwig, and Silver "mirror[ing] the timeless struggles between tyranny and freedom, reason and blind emotion, and the individual and the corporate state." Adams draws on classical heroic and quest themes from Homer and Virgil , creating a story with epic motifs. The book explores
12201-576: 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
12348-412: 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
12495-539: 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,
12642-483: The Rabbit in which the rabbit world is matriarchal, and new warrens are initiated by dissatisfied young females. In similar vein, literary critic Jane Resh Thomas said Watership Down "draws upon ... an anti-feminist social tradition which, removed from the usual human context and imposed upon rabbits, is eerie in its clarity". Thomas also called it a "splendid story" in which "anti-feminist bias ... damages
12789-495: The Sandleford Owsla, the warren's military caste , accuses the group of fomenting dissension against the Threarah. He tries to stop them from leaving, but is driven off. Once out in the world, the traveling group of rabbits finds itself following the leadership of Hazel, who had been considered an unimportant member of the warren. The group travels far through dangerous territory. Bigwig and Silver, both former Owsla and
12936-674: 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
13083-621: 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
13230-661: 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
13377-682: The author's exposure to the works of mythologist Joseph Campbell , especially his study of comparative mythology , The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), and in particular, Campbell's " monomyth " theory, also based on Carl Jung 's view of the unconscious mind, that "all the stories in the world are really one story." The concept of the hero has invited comparisons between Watership Down's characters and those in Homer 's Odyssey and Virgil 's Aeneid . Hazel's courage, Bigwig's strength, Blackberry's ingenuity and craftiness, and Dandelion's and Bluebell's poetry and storytelling all have parallels in
13524-624: 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 )
13671-427: The bucks towards the does portrayed as "little more than passive baby-factories". In a 1974 New York Times Book Review essay "Male Chauvinist Rabbits", Selma G. Lanes alleges that the does are only "instruments of reproduction to save his male rabbits' triumph from becoming a hollow victory." Lanes argued that this view of female rabbits came from Adams rather than his source text, Ronald Lockley's The Private Life of
13818-479: 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
13965-553: 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
14112-413: 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
14259-540: 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
14406-603: 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
14553-474: 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
14700-489: 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,
14847-484: The film. Rosen had entered into adaptation contracts worth more than $ 500,000 (£400,000), including licences for an audiobook adaptation and the 2018 television adaptation. In his ruling, Judge Richard Hacon ordered Rosen to pay over $ 100,000 in damages for copyright infringement, unauthorised licence deals, and denying royalty payments to the Adams estate. Rosen was also directed to provide a record of all licence agreements involving Watership Down , and pay court costs and
14994-415: 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
15141-711: 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
15288-463: The intelligent new chief of Efrafa, send rabbits to start a new warren at Caesar's Belt, to relieve the effects of overcrowding at both their warrens. As time goes on, the three warrens on the downs prosper under Hazel, Campion and Groundsel (their respective chiefs). General Woundwort is never seen or heard from again; he becomes a legend among the rabbits, and a sort of bogeyman to frighten rabbit kits. Kehaar rejoins his colony, but continues to visit
15435-563: 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
15582-526: The latest winner. The Guardian described the prize as the only children's book award winner selected by peers. The newspaper's children's book editor Julia Eccleshare participated (from 2000 to 2016) in selection of the longlist and thereafter chaired the panel of final judges. In years to 2016, a longlist of eight books was announced in May or June, a shortlist of no more than four announced in September, and
15729-629: 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
15876-492: The longlist books to the winners. Up to 30 students from the winning school also get a day at one Guardian site.(2012 Young Critics) The Young Critics contests are judged by Eccleshare, who also helps select the longlist, and another Guardian editor. Beside the competition there is a summer book club that features one longlist book each week, with author interviews and discussion. Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] )
16023-463: The major London publishers; but," she continued, "it was also dazzlingly brave and intuitive." Collings had little capital and could not pay an advance but "he got a review copy onto every desk in London that mattered." Adams wrote that it was Collings who gave Watership Down its title. There was a second edition in 1973. Macmillan USA , then a media giant, published the first U.S. edition in 1974 and
16170-437: 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
16317-603: The more graphic scenes. Numerous rabbits die in bloody fights, while one gets choked by a snare and another is snatched by a bird of prey." From 1999 to 2001, the book was also adapted as an animated television series, broadcast on CITV in the UK and on YTV in Canada. Only the first two series were aired in the UK, while all three series were aired in Canada. It was produced by Martin Rosen and starred several well-known British actors, including Stephen Fry , Rik Mayall , Dawn French , John Hurt , and Richard Briers , running for
16464-543: The next page before daring to finish the preceding one." D. Keith Mano , a science fiction writer and conservative social commentator writing in the National Review , declared that the novel was "pleasant enough, but it has about the same intellectual firepower as Dumbo." He pilloried it further: " Watership Down is an adventure story, no more than that: rather a swashbuckling crude one to boot. There are virtuous rabbits and bad rabbits: if that's allegory, Bonanza
16611-465: The novel follows the rabbits as they escape the destruction of their warren and seek a place to establish a new home (the hill of Watership Down ), encountering perils and temptations along the way. Watership Down was Richard Adams's debut novel . It was rejected by several publishers before Collings accepted the manuscript ; the published book then won the annual Carnegie Medal (UK), annual Guardian Prize (UK), and other book awards. The novel
16758-403: The novel in only a minor way". Adams's 1996 sequel, Tales from Watership Down includes stories where the female rabbits play a more prominent role in the Watership Down warren. On 27 May 2020, the high court in London ruled that Martin Rosen , the director of the 1978 film adaptation, had wrongly claimed that he owned all rights to the book, as well as terminating his contract for rights to
16905-533: 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
17052-467: The patrol must be killed to prevent them from reporting to Woundwort, but Hazel spares them and sends them off. A few weeks later, the Owsla of Efrafa, led by Woundwort, unexpectedly arrives to destroy the warren at Watership Down and take back the escapees. Fiver experiences another vision, which gives Hazel the solution to the problem. While Bigwig fights and injures Woundwort in a narrow tunnel, preventing
17199-455: The performances of its voice cast, but received criticism for its tone and the quality of the computer animation . Guardian Children%27s Fiction Prize The prize was established in 1965 as the "only children's book award made to writers by their fellow authors" (2005 shortlist) and inaugurated by the 1967 award to Leon Garfield for Devil in the Fog ( Constable & Co. , 1966). Through
17346-527: 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
17493-402: The prize by their UK publishers, as many as ten books each (2000) although chair Eccleshare also called for particular submissions. Through 2016, 52 prizes were awarded in 49 years covering 1966 to mid-2015 publications. There were co-winners in 1992 and 1996. (US title, The Golden Compass ) Until 2000, books published in the previous year were eligible for the award, and the award included
17640-411: 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
17787-403: The rabbits and shoots all the predators. Fiver senses death and deception in the new warren, but the rest of Hazel's group, enjoying the peace and good food, decide to ignore Fiver's warnings and the strange and evasive behaviour of the new rabbits. Later, Bigwig is caught in a snare , only surviving the ordeal thanks to Blackberry and Hazel's quick thinking. Fiver deduces the truth, and admonishes
17934-514: The rabbits every winter. He refuses to search for Woundwort, showing that even he still fears him. Years later, on a cold March morning, an elderly Hazel is visited by El-ahrairah, the legendary rabbit folk hero and spiritual Prince of the Rabbits. He invites Hazel to join his Owsla, reassuring Hazel of Watership's future success and prosperity. Leaving his friends and his physical body behind, Hazel departs Watership Down with El-ahrairah. "Lapine"
18081-516: The rabbits of the Watership Down warren. "To Juliet and Rosamund, remembering the road to Stratford-on-Avon " —Dedication, Watership Down "Master Rabbit I saw" — Walter de la Mare —Line quoted in Watership Down ; the poem can be seen as a possible source of inspiration. The story began as tales that Richard Adams told his young daughters Juliet and Rosamund during long car journeys. He recounted in 2007 that he "began telling
18228-438: The rabbits' perspective. Watership Down' s universal motifs of liberation and self-determination have been identified with by readers from a diversity of backgrounds; the author Rachel Kadish , reflecting on her own superimposition of the founding of Israel onto Watership Down , has remarked "Turns out plenty of other people have seen their histories in that book ... some people see it as an allegory for struggles against
18375-403: The rest in a wild lecture; the farmer feeds and protects the rabbits so he can harvest them for meat and skins, and Cowslip's rabbits invited the guests into their warren to increase their own odds of survival. The Sandleford rabbits, badly shaken, continue on their journey. They are joined by Strawberry, a buck who deserts Cowslip's warren. Fiver's visions instruct the rabbits to seek a home atop
18522-499: The rest of the Efrafans from getting any further into the burrows, Hazel, Dandelion and Blackberry return to Nuthanger Farm. They release Bob, the farmer's Labrador , and lure him back to Watership Down. Bob attacks the Efrafans, who flee in terror, leaving Woundwort to stubbornly stand his ground unobserved. Following the fight, Bob returns to Nuthanger Farm with a few wounds, but there is no sign of Woundwort's body. Groundsel, one of
18669-515: 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
18816-423: 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
18963-524: 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
19110-452: The same time, a summer program was inaugurated, using the newspaper's educational website and featuring a longlist announced in July. The program initially comprised merely an opportunity to vote for longlist favourites, comments by the judges to guide summer reading, and advice on "how to build a classic library of children's books".(2001 longlist) A version of the ongoing Young Critics contest
19257-402: 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
19404-521: The story of the rabbits ... improvised off the top of [his] head, as [they] were driving along". The daughters insisted he write it down—"they were very, very persistent". After some delay he began writing in the evenings and completed it 18 months later. The book is dedicated to the two girls. Adams's descriptions of wild rabbit behaviour were based on The Private Life of the Rabbit (1964), by British naturalist Ronald Lockley . The two later became friends, embarking on an Antarctic tour that became
19551-543: The strongest rabbits among them, protect the others, helped by Hazel's good judgement and the ingenuity of the clever rabbit Blackberry. Along the way, they cross the River Enborne , and evade a badger, a dog, a crow, and a car. Hazel and Bigwig also stop three rabbits from attempting to return to the Sandleford warren. A rabbit named Cowslip invites Hazel's group to join his warren, where a farmer leaves food for
19698-517: The subject of a co-authored book, Voyage Through the Antarctic (A. Lane, 1982). In his autobiography, The Day Gone By , Adams wrote that he based Watership Down and the stories in it on his experiences during Operation Market Garden , the Battle of Arnhem , in 1944. The character of Hazel, the leader of the group of rabbits, was modelled on Adams's commanding officer, Major John Gifford. He gave
19845-475: The themes of exile, survival, heroism, leadership, political responsibility, and the "making of a hero and a community". Joan Bridgman's analysis of Adams's works in The Contemporary Review identifies the community and hero motifs: "[T]he hero's journey into a realm of terrors to bring back some boon to save himself and his people" is a powerful element in Adams's tale. This theme derives from
19992-545: 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
20139-466: 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
20286-484: 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
20433-551: The warren and can recruit other does to join in the escape. Hazel and Blackberry devise a plan to rescue Hyzenthlay's group and bring them to Watership Down. Bigwig infiltrates Efrafa in the guise of a 'hlessi' (a wandering rabbit unattached to any warren). He is recruited into the Efrafan Owsla by Woundwort, while Hazel and several other Watership rabbits hide across the nearby River Test . With help from Kehaar, Bigwig manages to free Hyzenthlay and nine other does, as well as
20580-734: The warrior Bigwig the personality of Captain Desmond Kavanagh, who is buried at the Airborne Cemetery in Oosterbeek , The Netherlands. Watership Down was rejected seven times before it was accepted by Rex Collings. The one-man London publisher Collings wrote to an associate, "I've just taken on a novel about rabbits, one of them with extra-sensory perception. Do you think I'm mad?" The associate did call it "a mad risk," in her obituary of Collings, to accept "a book as bizarre by an unknown writer which had been turned down by
20727-424: Was adapted into an 2D animated feature film in 1978 and a 2D animated children's television series from 1999 and 2001. In 2018, the novel was adapted again, this time into a 3D animated series , which both aired in the UK and was made available on Netflix . Adams completed a sequel almost 25 years later, in 1996, Tales from Watership Down , constructed as a collection of 19 short stories about El-ahrairah and
20874-426: Was inaugurated in 2002 and is still underway. The newspaper solicited 200-word reviews of books on the longlist from children 16 and younger, with the prize being "a day editing and printing up their reviews".(retrospective by CA, 23 Sep 2002) Ten years later there are dual competitions for children 17 and younger, one for individuals and one for teams of at least four schoolmates. There are cash prizes and free sets of
21021-401: Was inaugurated in 2002 and the program has expanded since then to include online discussion and author interviews and appearances. Meanwhile, announcement of the longlist has advanced to late May or early June and announcement of the winner has retreated to November. The shortlist of no more than four books and the winner were selected by three children's fiction writers, almost always including
21168-515: Was praised for "cutting through Adams' book ... to get to the beating heart". The film has also seen some positive critical attention. In 1979 the film received a nomination for the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation . Additionally, British television station Channel 4 's 2006 documentary 100 Greatest Cartoons named it the 86th greatest cartoon of all time. But, "lovable bunnies notwithstanding, younger children might be troubled by
21315-500: 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 is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as
21462-472: 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
21609-461: 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
#105894