The flyboat (also spelled fly-boat or fly boat) was a European light vessel of Dutch origin developed primarily as a mercantile cargo carrier, although many served as warships in an auxiliary role because of their agility. These vessels could displace between 70 and 200 tons, and were used in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The name was subsequently applied to a number of disparate vessels which achieved high speeds or endurance. At the beginning of the 17th century, they were replaced by the fluyt , which in England was also known as a fly-boat.
155-720: The name "flyboat" is derived from Dutch vlieboot , a boat with a shallow enough draught to be able to navigate a shallow vlie or river estuary , such as the Vlie . Armed flyboats were used by the naval forces of the Dutch rebels, the Watergeuzen , in the beginning of the Eighty Years' War , and comprised the Dutch contribution to the English Armada . The type resembled a small carrack and had two or at most three masts,
310-425: A flight such as at Caen Hill Locks . Where the gradient is very steep, a set of staircase locks are sometimes used, like Bingley Five Rise Locks . At the other extreme stop locks have little or no change in level but were built to conserve water where one canal joined another. An interesting example is King's Norton Stop Lock which was built with guillotine gates . Canal aqueducts are structures that carry
465-467: 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
620-438: 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 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
775-606: A canal across a valley, road, railway, or another canal. Dundas Aqueduct is built of stone in a classical style. Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is an iron trough on tall stone piers. Barton Swing Aqueduct opens to let ships pass underneath on the Manchester Ship Canal. Three Bridges, London is a clever arrangement allowing the routes of the Grand Junction Canal, a road, and a railway line to cross each other. Boat lifts are mechanical elevators that raise
930-538: A canal boat vertically in one motion, rather than being raised by a series of locks. Examples are the Anderton Boat Lift , Falkirk Wheel and Combe Hay Caisson Lock . Inclined planes raise a canal boat up a hill on a track, powered by a pulley mechanism. Examples are the Hay Inclined Plane , Foxton Inclined Plane and Worsley Underground Incline . Tunnels take canal boats horizontally through
1085-524: 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
1240-640: A differentiation with the Central and High Franconian in Germany. The latter would as 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
1395-614: A drop in wages. Flyboat working (see § Boats below) virtually ceased, as it could not compete with the railways on speed and the boatmen found they could only afford to keep their families by taking them with them on the boats. This became standard practice across the canal system, often with families with several children living in tiny boat cabins, creating a considerable community of boat people. Though this community ostensibly had much in common with Gypsies , both communities strongly resisted any such comparison, and surviving boat people feel deeply insulted if described as "water gypsies". By
1550-586: 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 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
1705-471: 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 was replaced by Afrikaans , a separate but partially mutually intelligible daughter language of Dutch. Afrikaans, depending on
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#17327913500411860-660: A high board, and a dozen iron cannons. Small, inexpensive, and manoeuvrable, it was ideal for privateering activities in the European coastal waters, and was soon imitated by privateers or pirates of other nations. The Dutch navy, and their enemies, the Dunkirkers , at first extensively employed flyboats. In 1588, the army of Alexander Farnese was blocked in Dunkirk by a fleet of 30 Dutch flyboats commanded by Lieutenant Admiral Justin of Nassau , preventing him from joining
2015-501: 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 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
2170-522: A lock is a fixed chamber whose water-level can be changed. For reasons of economy and the constraints of 18th-century engineering technology, the early canals were built to a narrow width. The standard for the dimensions of narrow canal locks was set by Brindley with his first canal locks, those on the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1776. These locks were 72 feet 7 inches (22.12 m) long by 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) wide. The narrow width
2325-414: A method of providing services into rival railway territory. The design of the hull lines was finer and more streamlined than other narrowboats, limiting cargo capacity but increasing top speed. Being operated by the canal owners, these express services had priority over all other traffic when encountering congestion such as at locks . Time-sensitive cargoes such as cheese and other valuable produce paid
2480-527: 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
2635-670: 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
2790-420: 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
2945-495: 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 the course of fifteen centuries. During that period, they forced Old Frisian back from
3100-647: A place of manufacture, and finished goods to be transported to consumers, more quickly and cheaply than by a land based route. The canal network was extensive and included feats of civil engineering such as the Anderton Boat Lift , the Manchester Ship Canal , the Worsley Navigable Levels and the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct . In the post-medieval period, some rivers were canalised for boat traffic. The Exeter Ship Canal
3255-579: 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
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#17327913500413410-790: A port, and as early as 1790 this was linked to the national network via the River Thames and the Oxford Canal. A more direct route between London and the national canal network, the Grand Junction Canal , opened in 1805. Relatively few canals were built in London itself. South West England had several east–west cross-country canals, which connected the River Thames to the River Severn and the River Avon , allowing
3565-575: A premium for the fast delivery, which survived until the outbreak of World War I . One 1906 fly-boat from the Shropshire Union Canal , Saturn , survives in preservation today and is used for historical trips and education. Dutch (language) Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as
3720-408: A railway . This was vigorously opposed by competing rail interests, and so failed to gain the necessary acts of Parliament. Canal companies could not compete against the speed of the new railways, and in order to survive, they had to slash their prices. This put an end to the huge profits that canal companies had enjoyed before the coming of the railways, and also had an effect on the boatmen who faced
3875-462: A railway on the line of the canal. A notable example of this is the Croydon Canal . Some larger canal companies survived independently and continued to make profits. The canals survived through the 19th century largely by occupying the niches in the transport market that the railways had missed, or by supplying local markets such as the coal-hungry factories and mills of the big cities. During
4030-509: 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
4185-603: 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 a common ancestor with languages such as English, German, and the Scandinavian languages . All Germanic languages are subject to
4340-525: A rock formation. In winter, special icebreaker boats with reinforced hulls would be used to break the ice. The engineers who designed and built the canals included: Henry Berry , James Brindley , James Dadford , John Dadford , Thomas Dadford , Thomas Dadford Jr. , William Jessop , James Green , Sir Edward Leader Williams , Thomas Telford and John Rennie the Elder . The boats used on canals were usually derived from local coasting or river craft, but on
4495-522: 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
4650-479: 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
4805-424: 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,
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4960-604: A time; one horse could tow more than ten times the amount of cargo that was possible with a cart. The Bridgewater Canal reduced the price of coal in Manchester by nearly two-thirds within a year of its opening. The canal was a huge financial success and repaid the cost of its construction within just a few years. The 19th century saw some major new canals such as the Caledonian Canal and the Manchester Ship Canal . The new canals proved highly successful. The boats on
5115-542: A token traffic was left. The Transport Act 1968 required the British Waterways Board to keep commercial waterways fit for commercial use, and cruising waterways fit for cruising. However, these obligations were subject to the caveat of being by the most economical means. There was no requirement to keep them in a navigable condition; they were to be treated in the most economic way possible, which could mean abandonment. British Waterways could also change
5270-552: 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
5425-530: A wage depending on the distance travelled, and the amount of cargo. Many different varieties of boats were used on the canals. They included cabin cruisers , fly-boats , Humber Keels , Mersey Flats , narrowboats , trows , sloops and tub boats . Waterway restoration organisations have returned many hundreds of miles of abandoned and remainder canals to use, and work is still ongoing to save many more. Many restoration projects have been led by local canal societies or trusts, who were initially formed to fight
5580-513: 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 ") 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
5735-537: 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
5890-643: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. History of the British canal system#Railway competition and decline The canal network of the United Kingdom played a vital role in the Industrial Revolution . The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network which, at its peak, expanded to nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometres) in length. The canals allowed raw materials to be transported to
6045-544: Is a monocentric language , at least what concerns its written form, with all speakers using the same standard form (authorised by the Dutch Language Union ) based on a Dutch orthography defined in the so-called " Green Booklet " authoritative dictionary and employing the Latin alphabet when writing; however, pronunciation varies between dialects. Indeed, in stark contrast to its written uniformity, Dutch lacks
6200-791: 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 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
6355-537: 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
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6510-587: 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
6665-627: 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 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
6820-491: 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 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
6975-569: 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
7130-585: 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
7285-637: 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 ,
7440-595: 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
7595-404: 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
7750-530: 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,
7905-531: The 2006 New Zealand census , 26,982 people, or 0.70 percent of the total population, reported to speak Dutch to sufficient fluency that they could hold an everyday conversation. In contrast to the colonies in the East Indies , from the second half of the 19th century onwards, the Netherlands envisaged the expansion of Dutch in its colonies in the West Indies . Until 1863, when slavery was abolished in
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#17327913500418060-455: 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
8215-481: The Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of the official languages. In Asia, Dutch was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About
8370-808: The Fens Waterways Link and the Bedford and Milton Keynes Waterway . The Rochdale Canal, the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the Droitwich Canals have all been restored to navigation since 2000. The bulk of the canal system was built in the industrial Midlands and the north of England , where navigable rivers most needed extending and connecting, and heavy cargoes of manufactured goods, raw materials or coal most needed carrying. The great manufacturing cities of Manchester and Birmingham were major economic drivers. Most of
8525-644: The Grand Union Canal in the 1930s. Thus, almost uniquely in Europe, many of the UK's canals remain as they have been since the 18th and 19th centuries: mostly operated with narrowboats. An exception to this stagnation was the Manchester Ship Canal, newly built in the 1890s using the existing River Irwell and River Mersey, to take ocean-going ships into the centre of Manchester via its neighbour Salford . The 20th century brought competition from road haulage, and
8680-601: 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 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
8835-591: 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
8990-886: The Manchester Bolton & Bury Canal and the Grantham Canal . There has also been a movement to redevelop canals in inner city areas, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Salford and Sheffield, which have both numerous waterways and urban blight. In these cities, waterways redevelopment provides a focus for successful commercial/residential developments such as Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, Castlefield Basin and Salford Quays in Manchester, Victoria Quays in Sheffield. However, these developments are sometimes controversial. In 2005 environmentalists complained that housing developments on London's waterways threatened
9145-485: 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 the time are generally split into three dialect groups: Ingvaeonic (North Sea Germanic), Istvaeonic (Weser–Rhine Germanic) and Irminonic (Elbe Germanic). It appears that
9300-431: The Oxford-Burcot Commission , which began to improve the system of locks and weirs on the River Thames , which were opened between Oxford and Abingdon by 1635. In 1635 Sir Richard Weston was appointed to develop the River Wey Navigation , making Guildford accessible by 1653. In 1670 the Stamford Canal opened, indistinguishable from 18th century examples with a dedicated cut and double-door locks. In 1699 legislation
9455-476: 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
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#17327913500419610-409: The Seine . An "express boat" service was started on the Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal in 1830. One of its employees, William Houston, was guiding an empty horse-drawn boat when the horse took fright and bolted. Expecting the horse soon to tire, he hung on, but was amazed when the boat rose up onto its bow wave and shot off along the canal at high speed. Mr Houston was canny enough to realise
9765-406: 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
9920-459: The Spanish Armada to invade England . In the early 17th century, the warship type became obsolete by the invention by the Dunkirkers of the frigate , then a small galleon type, although flyboats continued to be adapted in wartime for naval use until the 1670s. However, civilian Dutch vlieboten continued to be built and evolved during the 18th century into much larger cromsters ( kromstevens ), then flat coastal cargo ships up to 1200 tons. At
10075-412: The Stroudwater Navigation for the M5, A38, A419, and Dr. Newton's Way. Separately, old canal beds were used as landfill sites , destroyed by flood relief work on nearby rivers , or simply built over during the post-war housing boom . Under the Transport Act 1962, the surviving canals were transferred in 1963 to the British Waterways Board (BWB), which later became British Waterways . In the same year
10230-471: 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
10385-434: 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
10540-459: 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
10695-476: 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
10850-463: The 1850s the railway system had become well established, and the amount of cargo carried on the canals had fallen by nearly two-thirds, lost mostly to railway competition. In many cases struggling canal companies were bought out by railway companies. Sometimes this was a tactical move by railway companies to gain ground in their competitors' territory, but sometimes canal companies were bought out either to close them down and remove competition, or to build
11005-413: The 1950s. A report in 1955 by the British Transport Commission placed the canals into three categories according to their economic prospects: waterways to be developed, waterways to be retained, and waterways having insufficient commercial prospects to justify their retention for navigation. During the 1950s and 1960s freight transport on the canals declined rapidly in the face of mass road transport. Coal
11160-609: The 1970s, increasing numbers of closed canals were restored by enthusiast volunteers. The Canal and River Trust maintains a list of the sites it believes are the most important; it is called the Seven Wonders of the Waterways . The list includes: During the Atlantic Slave Trade , some canals were also used to carry cotton, tobacco and sugar produced by slaves. Moses Benson , a Liverpool slaver, invested in
11315-429: The 19th century the canal systems of many European countries such as France, Germany and the Netherlands were modernised and widened to take much larger boats. This did not happen on a large scale in the UK, mainly because of the power of the railway companies, who owned most of the canals and saw no reason to invest in a competing form of transport. The only significant exception to this was the modernisation carried out on
11470-457: The BWB decided to formally cease most of its narrowboat operations and transfer them to a private operator called Willow Wren Canal Transport Services. By then the canal network had shrunk to 2,000 miles (3,200 km), half the size it was at its peak in the early 19th century. However, the basic network was still intact; many of the closures were of duplicate routes or branches. By the mid-1960s only
11625-417: 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
11780-490: 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
11935-548: 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 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
12090-415: 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
12245-531: 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
12400-408: 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
12555-620: The Forth and Clyde and on the Shropshire Union Canal flyboats with single horse-pulled, 22-ton loads at 10 mph as late as 1847. They were also called "swift boats" or "gig boats". Occurring a year after the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway , this development sparked enormous interest in the canal world. Books were published by Sir William Armstrong Fairburn and Sir John Benjamin Macneill . The latter records experiments on
12710-756: 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 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
12865-407: 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 a result, Nederduits no longer serves as a synonym for the Dutch language. In the 19th century,
13020-737: The Grand Union Canal until 1996. The establishment in 1946 of a group called the Inland Waterways Association by L. T. C. Rolt and Robert Aickman helped revive interest in the UK's canals to the point where they are a major leisure destination. In the 1960s the infant canal leisure industry was only just sufficient to prevent the closure of the remaining canals, but then the pressure to maintain canals for leisure purposes increased. Although out of commercial or leisure use, many canals survived because they formed part of local water supply and drainage networks. From
13175-581: The Lancaster Canal, which subsequently had a dramatic effect on the economy of Preston . Other slavers like Lowbridge Bright sat on the board of Thames and Severn Canal Company. George Hyde Dyke was a shareholder in the Peak Forest Canal Company. William Carey owned shares in the Grand Junction Canal. Locks are the most common means of raising or lowering a boat from one water level to another. The distinguishing feature of
13330-511: The Liverpool monopoly on coastal trade by converting a section of the Irwell into the Manchester Ship Canal , which opened in 1894, turning Manchester into an inland port in its own right. The industrial revolution saw Yorkshire towns and cities such as Leeds, Sheffield and Bradford develop large textile and coal mining industries, which required an efficient transport system. As early as
13485-462: 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 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
13640-576: 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
13795-412: 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
13950-539: 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,
14105-560: The Paddington Canal in London attended by Thomas Telford and Charles Babbage . They hoped that steamboats running on the canals would be able to attain these high speeds, thus fighting off the threat of the railways. A series of experiments conducted by the young John Scott Russell , for which he eventually received the gold medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and initiated research in solitons , demonstrated that
14260-601: The Remainder Waterway as a Cruising Waterway or entering into an agreement for another body to maintain the waterway. Today the great majority of canals in England and Wales are managed by the Canal & River Trust which, unlike its predecessor British Waterways, tries to have a more positive view of canal restoration and in some cases actively supports ongoing restoration projects such as the restoration projects on
14415-607: 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
14570-482: The United Kingdom. British Waterways began to see the economic and social potential of canalside development, and moved from hostility towards restoration, through neutrality, towards a supportive stance. While British Waterways was broadly supportive of restoration, its official policy was that it would not take on the support of newly restored navigations unless they came with a sufficient dowry to pay for their ongoing upkeep. In effect, this meant either reclassifying
14725-621: 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
14880-516: The beginning of the 20th century the road network became progressively more important; canals became uneconomic and were abandoned. In 1948, much of the network was nationalised . Since then, canals have been increasingly used for recreation and tourism. Different types of boat used the canals: the most common was the traditional narrowboat . At the outset the boats were towed by horses, but later they were driven by diesel engines. Some closed canals have been restored, and canal museums have opened. In
15035-624: 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 )
15190-414: The canal, pay back initial loans and pay dividends to their shareholders. From about 1840, the railway network gained greater importance. With the transition from short-distance horse-drawn tramways to increasingly practical, powerful steam locomotives , trains could not only carry more than the canals, but could transport people and goods far more quickly than the walking pace of the canal boats. Most of
15345-403: The canals were horse-drawn with a towpath alongside the canal for the horse to walk along. This horse-drawn system proved to be highly economical and became standard across the British canal network. Commercial horse-drawn canal boats could be seen on the UK's canals until as late as the 1950s, although by then diesel powered boats, often towing a second unpowered boat, had become standard. During
15500-479: 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
15655-828: The cities of Bristol and Bath to be connected to London. These were the Thames and Severn Canal which linked to the Stroudwater Navigation , the Kennet and Avon Canal and the Wilts and Berks Canal , which linked to these three rivers. Within Scotland, the Forth and Clyde Canal and the Union Canal connected the major cities in the industrial Central Belt ; they also provide a short cut for boats to cross between
15810-597: The classification of an existing waterway. All or part of the canals could be transferred to local authorities; this allowed roads to be built over them, mitigating the need to build expensive bridges and aqueducts. The last regular long distance narrowboat commercial contract, transporting coal from Atherstone to the Kearley and Tonge jam factory at Southall in west London, ended in 1971. Lime juice continued to be carried between Brentford and Boxmoor until 1981. Substantial tonnages of aggregates were carried by narrowboat on
15965-541: The closure of a remainder waterway or to save an abandoned canal from further decay. They now work with local authorities and landowners to protect historic routes or proposed future diversions from being built over, develop restoration plans, and secure funding. The physical work is sometimes done by contractors, sometimes by volunteers. In 1970 the Waterway Recovery Group was formed to co-ordinate volunteer efforts on canals and river navigations throughout
16120-631: 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 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
16275-563: The construction in 1566 of a new channel, the Exeter Canal . Simple flash locks were provided to regulate the flow of water and allow loaded boats to pass through shallow waters by admitting a rush of water, but these were not purpose-built canals as we understand them today. The transport system that existed before the canals were built consisted of coastal shipping and horses and carts struggling along mostly unsurfaced mud roads (although there were some surfaced turnpike roads). There
16430-540: 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
16585-602: 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 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
16740-474: 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
16895-489: 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,
17050-411: The experience of building long multi-level cuts with their own locks gave rise to the idea of building a "pure" canal, a waterway designed on the basis of where goods needed to go, not where a river happened to be. The UK was the first country to develop a nationwide canal network. The canals caused a great change in the economy of Britain. They supported the industries that allowed the country to become
17205-415: 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
17360-711: 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
17515-537: The investment that had previously gone into canal building was diverted into railway building. By the second half of the 19th century, many canals were owned by railway companies or competing with them, and many were in decline, with decreases in mile-ton charges to try to remain competitive. After this, the less successful canals (particularly narrow-locked canals, whose boats could only carry about thirty tons ) failed quickly. Faced with decline, there were at least two attempts by canal owners to convert their canal to
17670-588: 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 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
17825-708: The late 17th century, the Aire and Calder and Calder and Hebble navigations had been canalised, allowing navigation from Leeds to the Humber Estuary , whereas the River Don Navigation connected Sheffield to the Humber. Later in the 18th century, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal was constructed, creating an east–west link, giving access to the port at Liverpool allowing export of finished goods. London has
17980-419: The latter part of the 19th century the boat decoration of Roses and Castles began to appear. In this period, whole families lived aboard the boats. The period between the 1770s and the 1830s is often referred to as the "Golden Age" of British canals. During this period of canal mania , huge sums were invested in canal building. The canal system expanded to nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometres) in length. At
18135-629: 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
18290-564: The modern, leisure-dominated era. A fly-boat is also a narrowboat which works all day and all night (24/7) on the English canal system without mooring. All-male professional crews, chosen for their skill and experience, slept in different watches at night and day to keep progress as fast as possible. They became common around 1834 and later attempted to emulate the railways by running to timetables so that deliveries could be assured. Some of these boats were operated by railway companies , as
18445-458: The narrow canals the 7-foot-wide (2.1 m) narrowboat was the standard. Their 72-foot (22 m) length came from the boats used on the Mersey estuary, with their width of 7 feet (2.1 m) chosen as half that of existing boats. Packet boats carried packages up to 112 pounds (51 kg) in weight as well as passengers at relatively high speed day and night. To compete with railways, the flyboat
18600-548: The network declined further. In the 1920s and 1930s many canals in rural areas were abandoned due to falling traffic. The main network saw brief surges in use during World War I and World War II. Most of the canal system and inland waterways were nationalised in 1948 and came under the control of the British Transport Commission , whose subsidiary, the Docks and Inland Waterways Executive, managed them into
18755-619: The oldest single "Dutch" words, the Bergakker inscription yields the oldest evidence of Dutch morphology. However, interpretations of 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
18910-627: The original language of 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
19065-409: The other. On the majority of British canals, the canal-owning companies did not own or run a fleet of boats, since the acts of Parliament setting them up usually prohibited this, in order to prevent monopolies developing. Instead, they charged private operators tolls to use the canal. These tolls were regulated by the acts. From the tolls the owners would try, with varying degrees of success, to maintain
19220-525: The phenomenon could only be achieved in very shallow canals, and that steamboats needed very different conditions. Flyboats pulled by one or more horses continued to be used in Britain and Ireland for a number of years, and even in America, but ultimately the railway proved the winner . High-speed running of this kind is no longer permitted on UK canals, with a blanket speed limit of four miles per hour in
19375-679: The post-medieval period, some natural waterways were "canalised" or improved for boat traffic in the 16th century. The first act of Parliament was obtained by the City of Canterbury in 1515, Deepening River at Canterbury Act 1514 ( 6 Hen. 8 . c. 17), to extend navigation on the River Stour in Kent , followed by the River Exe , with the River Exe Act 1539 ( 31 Hen. 8 . c. 4), which led to
19530-434: The potential, and soon travellers were being hauled along the canals at high speed in an early example of planing . This canal—11 miles without locks into the centre of Glasgow—was an ideal situation for this venture. Once the boat was planing, the wash that damaged the canal banks largely disappeared, and by 1835, flat iron boats up to 65 feet made 323,290 passenger trips at 10 mph in a year. Services were established on
19685-527: 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
19840-411: 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
19995-423: 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
20150-524: 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
20305-639: The same time, the term flyboat was used for a swift fishing vessel on the Atlantic. In the 19th century, the term was used in England for canal boats, resembling small Dutch cromsters. What might be seen as a prototype of the flyboat was the fleet of war galleys that were developed by Richard the Lionheart in the 12th century. They were similar to Viking longship design and were created for fast movement and riverine warfare , and were stationed from Portsmouth to Rouen to Les Andelys and other points along
20460-431: The small loads that could be carried, supplies of essential commodities such as coal and iron ore were limited, and this kept prices high and restricted economic growth. One horse-drawn canal barge could carry about thirty tonnes at a time, faster than road transport and at half the cost. Some 29 river navigation improvements took place in the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1605, the government of King James I established
20615-660: The start of this age, canals were built by groups of private individuals with an interest in improving communications. In Staffordshire the potter Josiah Wedgwood saw an opportunity to bring bulky cargoes of clay to his factory doors, and to minimise breakages of his fragile finished goods as they travelled to market. Within just a few years an embryonic national canal network came into being. Acts of Parliament were necessary to authorise construction. Canal proposals were put forward by financial investors interested in profiting from dividends, as well as industrial businesses that wanted to move their raw materials and finished goods. There
20770-410: 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 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
20925-404: 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 the modern standard languages . In this age no standard languages had yet developed, while
21080-417: The traffic on the canal network was internal. However, the network linked with coastal port cities such as London, Liverpool , and Bristol , where cargo could be exchanged with seagoing ships for import and export. In the 19th century, Manchester's merchants became dissatisfied with the poor service and high charges offered by the Liverpool docks, and the near-monopoly of the railways. They decided to bypass
21235-484: 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
21390-512: The vitality of the canal system. Restoration projects by volunteer-led groups continue. There is now a substantial network of interconnecting, fully navigable canals across the country. In places, serious plans are in progress by the Environment Agency and the Canal & River Trust , for building new canals to expand the network, link isolated sections, and create new leisure opportunities for navigating "canal rings", for example
21545-494: 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 the transition between them was very gradual. One of the few moments when linguists can detect something of
21700-444: The width (beam) of the boats (which came to be called narrowboats ), and thus limited the quantity of the cargo they could carry to around thirty tonnes. This meant that in later years the canal network was economically uncompetitive for freight transport, and by the mid 20th century it was no longer possible to work a thirty-tonne load economically. Where a large height difference has to be overcome, locks are built close together in
21855-637: The world's first industrial power and created the wealth that led to the British Empire in the Victorian Era . The canals were built because they offered the most economic and reliable way to transport goods and commodities in large quantities. The navigable water network grew rapidly at first and became an almost completely connected transport network. In addition to the building of new canals, older canals were improved. They were given new embankments, tunnels, aqueducts and cuttings. However, there
22010-432: Was also a small amount of traffic carried along navigable rivers. In the 17th century, as early industry started to expand, this transport situation was highly unsatisfactory. The restrictions of coastal shipping and river transport were obvious, and horses and carts could only carry one or two tons of cargo at a time. The poor state of most of the roads meant that they could often become unusable after heavy rain. Because of
22165-538: Was built to replace flash locks on the River Thames between Maidenhead and Reading, beginning in 1772. The net effect of these was to bring most of England, with the notable exceptions of Birmingham and Staffordshire , within 15 miles (24 km) of a waterway. By the early 18th century, river navigations such as the Aire and Calder Navigation were becoming quite sophisticated, with pound locks and longer and longer "cuts" (some with intermediate locks) to avoid circuitous or difficult stretches of rivers. Eventually,
22320-498: Was completed in 1567. The Sankey Canal was the first British canal of the Industrial Revolution, opening in 1757. The Bridgewater Canal followed in 1761 and proved to be highly profitable. The majority of the network was built in the "Golden Age" of canals, between the 1770s and the 1830s. From 1840 the canals began to decline, because the growing railway network was a more efficient means of transporting goods. From
22475-526: 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 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
22630-405: Was introduced, cargo-carrying boats working day and night. These boats were crewed by three men, who operated a watch system whereby two men worked while the other slept. Horses were changed regularly. When steam boats were introduced in the late nineteenth century, crews were enlarged to four. The boats were owned and operated by individual carriers, or by carrying companies who would pay the captain
22785-486: 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 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
22940-543: Was often fierce opposition to the building. The Sankey Canal was the first British canal of the Industrial Revolution, opening in 1757. It connected St Helens with Spike Island in Widnes. The canal fuelled the growth of the chemical industry in Widnes, which subsequently became the centre of the industry in England. In the mid-18th century the 3rd Duke of Bridgewater built the Bridgewater Canal . Its purpose
23095-409: Was often out-and-out financial speculation . Speculators would try to buy shares in a newly floated company to sell them on for a profit, regardless of whether the canal was ever profitable, or even built. Rival canal companies were formed, and competition was rampant. For many years, a dispute about tolls meant that goods travelling through Birmingham had to be moved from boats in one canal to boats in
23250-408: Was passed to permit the Aire and Calder Navigation which was opened 1703, and the Trent Navigation which was built by George Hayne and opened in 1712. Subsequently, the Kennet built by John Hore opened in 1723, the Mersey and Irwell opened in 1725, and the Bristol Avon in 1727. John Smeaton was the engineer of the Calder and Hebble which opened in 1758, and a series of eight pound locks
23405-400: Was perhaps chosen because he could only build Harecastle Tunnel to accommodate 7 feet (2.1 m) wide boats. His next locks were wider. He built locks 72 feet 7 inches (22.12 m) long by 15 feet (4.6 m) wide when he extended the Bridgewater Canal to Runcorn , where the canal's only locks lowered boats to the River Mersey. The narrow locks on the Trent and Mersey limited
23560-413: Was replaced by later forms of the language throughout Luxembourg and Germany in around 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
23715-453: Was still being delivered to waterside factories that had no other convenient access. But many factories that had formerly used coal either switched to using other fuels, often because of the Clean Air Act 1956 , or closed completely. This period was the most destructive for former waterways. The rise in road transport, and enthusiasm for development of new urban trunk roads and motorways , led to many routes being built over, such as parts of
23870-460: Was to transport coal from his mines to the industrialising city of Manchester . He commissioned the engineer James Brindley to build the canal; the design included an aqueduct carrying the canal over the River Irwell . The aqueduct was an engineering wonder which attracted tourists. Its construction was funded entirely by the Duke. It opened in 1761 and was the longest canal constructed in Britain to that date. Canal boats could carry thirty tons at
24025-417: 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
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