174-488: The Hofstad Network ( Dutch : Hofstadnetwerk or Hofstadgroep ) was an Islamic terror group composed mostly of Dutch citizens, and mainly young men between the ages of 18 and 32. The name "Hofstad" was originally the codename the Dutch secret service AIVD used for the network and leaked to the media. The name likely refers to the nickname of the city of The Hague , where some of the suspected terrorists lived. The network
348-578: 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
522-467: 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
696-601: 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
870-669: A 14-hour siege at a house in The Hague . During these events, the name Hofstad Network became public and the media has continued to use this moniker when referring to the organization. In the months after the siege, a number of other suspected members of the organization were arrested. On 5 December 2005, the Hofstad court case against 14 suspected members began. Samir Azzouz, Jermaine Walters —suspected but not incarcerated— and another five members were arrested on suspicion of preparing an attack against (yet unnamed) national politicians and
1044-471: A Dutch judge ruled that Hirsi Ali had to abandon her current secure house at a secret address in the Netherlands. Her neighbors had complained that she created an unacceptable security risk, but the police had testified that this neighborhood was one of the safest places in the country, as they had many personnel assigned to it for Hirsi Ali's protection. In an interview in early 2007, Hirsi Ali noted that
1218-616: A September 2002 interview published in the political magazine HP/De Tijd . and in an interview in the VARA gids (2002). Hirsi Ali asserted in her 2006 autobiography (2007 in English) Infidel that she had already made full disclosure of the discrepancy to VVD officials back when she was invited to run for parliament in 2002. On the issue of her name, she applied under her grandfather's surname in her asylum application ('Ali' instead of what had till then been 'Magan'), to which she
1392-574: A Somali war zone, the MP had been living comfortably in upper middle-class conditions safely in Kenya with her family for at least 12 years before she sought refugee status in the Netherlands in 1992. In her version of events, she had fled civil war in Somalia, was forced into an arranged marriage with a man whom she had never met and was not present at her own wedding. Upon escaping she was forced into hiding in
1566-524: 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
1740-467: 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
1914-518: A critic of the Muslim faith. In 2005, Time magazine named Ali as one of the 100 most influential people in the world . Her outspoken criticism of Islam made her a controversial figure in Dutch politics. Following a political crisis related to the validity of her Dutch citizenship , she left Parliament and ultimately the Netherlands. Moving to the United States, Ali established herself as
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#17327870463392088-459: A focus on the humanities and science. Further, these witnesses allege that her brother attended a Christian school, that she lied to the Dutch immigration service about coming from Somalia in order not to be sent back to Kenya, and that she met her husband a few days before her wedding. After several meetings with him, they allege she agreed to the marriage, even though her mother said Ayaan should finish her education so she could afford to leave him if
2262-575: A frequent speaker on television news programs and in public debate forums. She discussed her ideas at length in a book titled De zoontjesfabriek ( The Son Factory ) (2002). In this period, she first began to receive death threats. Cisca Dresselhuys , editor of the feminist magazine Opzij , introduced Hirsi Ali to Gerrit Zalm , the parliamentary leader of the centre-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and party member Neelie Kroes , then European Commissioner for Competition. At their urging, Hirsi Ali agreed to switch to their party of
2436-511: A group is not denied". Working with writer and director Theo van Gogh , Hirsi Ali wrote the script and provided the voice-over for Submission (2004), a short film that criticised the treatment of women in Islamic society . Juxtaposed with passages from the Qur'an were scenes of actresses portraying Muslim women suffering abuse. An apparently nude actress dressed in a semi-transparent burqa
2610-428: A handgun eight times, first from a distance and then at short range as the director lay wounded on the ground. He was already dead when Bouyeri cut his throat with a large knife and tried to decapitate him. Bouyeri left a letter pinned to Van Gogh's body with a small knife; it was primarily a death threat to Hirsi Ali. The Dutch secret service immediately raised the level of security they provided to Hirsi Ali. Bouyeri
2784-479: A leading figure in the Somali Revolution . Shortly after she was born, her father was imprisoned due to his opposition to Siad Barre ’s Communist government. Hirsi Ali's father was an intellectual, a dissident and a devout Muslim who had studied abroad and he was opposed to female genital mutilation ; while he was imprisoned, Hirsi Ali's grandmother had a man perform the procedure on her, when Hirsi Ali
2958-605: A letter titled " MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism ". Among the eleven other signatories was Salman Rushdie; as a teenager, Hirsi Ali had supported the fatwa against him. The letter was published in response to protests in the Islamic world surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark , and it supported freedom of press and freedom of expression. On 27 April 2006,
3132-770: A loss to the VVD and not be a loss to the House of Representatives ". He said that Hirsi Ali was a brave woman, but that her opinions were polarizing. Former parliamentary leader of the VVD, Jozias van Aartsen , said that it is "painful for Dutch society and politics that she is leaving the House of Representatives". Another VVD MP, Bibi de Vries , said that if something were to happen to Hirsi Ali, some people in her party would have "blood on their hands". United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick said in May 2006, "we recognise that she
3306-582: 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
3480-670: 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
3654-420: A number of closely related, mutually intelligible dialects spoken in the former Old Dutch area. Where Old Dutch fragments are very hard to read for untrained Modern Dutch speakers, the various literary works of Middle Dutch are somewhat more accessible. The most notable difference between Old and Middle Dutch is in a feature of speech known as vowel reduction , whereby vowels in unstressed syllables are leveled to
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#17327870463393828-579: 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
4002-674: A public letter to the SPLC asking them to retract the listings. In April 2018, the SPLC retracted the "Anti-Muslim Extremist" list in its entirety after Nawaz threatened legal action over his inclusion on the list. In April 2017, she cancelled a planned tour of Australia. This followed the Facebook release of a video by six Australian Muslim women who accused her of being a "star of the global Islamophobia industry" and of profiting from "an industry that exists to dehumanize Muslim women" but did not call for her to cancel her trip. Ali responded that
4176-413: 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
4350-509: 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
4524-542: A review of her statements that was carried out in response to protests by the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and lobbying by Joseph E. B. Lumbard , Head of the Islamic Studies Department, other faculty members and several student groups that accused Hirsi Ali of " hate speech ". University president Frederick M. Lawrence said that "certain of her past statements" were inconsistent with
4698-403: A short film with Theo van Gogh , titled Submission , which depicted the oppression of women under fundamentalist Islamic law and was critical of the Muslim canon itself. The film led to death threats, and Van Gogh was murdered shortly after the film's release by Mohammed Bouyeri , a Moroccan-Dutch Islamic terrorist , driving Hirsi Ali into hiding. At this time, she became more outspoken as
4872-522: 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
5046-419: 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
5220-424: 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,
5394-399: A suspended prison sentence. Hirsi Ali went into hiding, aided by government security services, who moved her among several locations in the Netherlands. They moved her to the United States for several months. On 18 January 2005, she returned to parliament. On 18 February 2005, she revealed where she and her colleague Geert Wilders were living. She demanded a normal, secured house, which she
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5568-552: 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
5742-431: A writer, activist, and public intellectual. Her books Infidel: My Life (2007), Nomad: From Islam to America (2010) and Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (2015) became bestsellers. In Heretic , Ali called for reformation of Islam by countering Islamism and supporting reformist Muslims , though previously she had said Islam was beyond reform. In the United States, Ali has founded an organisation for
5916-537: 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
6090-456: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Ayaan Hirsi Ali Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lady Ferguson (born 13 November 1969) is a Somali -born Dutch-American writer, activist, conservative thinker and former politician. She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women , opposing forced marriage , honour killing , child marriage , and female genital mutilation . At
6264-466: 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
6438-544: 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
6612-557: Is a very courageous and impressive woman and she is welcome in the US." On 23 May 2006, Ayaan Hirsi made available to The New York Times some letters she believed would provide insight into her 1992 asylum application. In one letter her sister Haweya warned her that the entire extended family was searching for her (after she had fled to the Netherlands), and in another letter her father denounced her. Christopher DeMuth , president of
6786-537: 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
6960-564: Is beyond the pale of legitimate inquiry ... that such a decision is particularly appalling for a university president, for a campus is precisely the place to encourage free discussion even on controversial matters." In October 2016, the Southern Poverty Law Center accused Ayaan, and the Muslim activist Maajid Nawaz , of being "anti-Muslim extremists", which caused protests in several prominent newspapers. The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights & Justice wrote
7134-785: Is disproportional." Her stated reason for resigning immediately was the increasing media attention. Since a Dutch court had ruled in April 2006, that she had to leave her house by August 2006, she decided to relocate to the United States in September 2006. After a long and emotional debate in the Dutch Parliament, all major parties supported a motion requesting the Minister to explore the possibility of special circumstances in Hirsi Ali's case. Although Verdonk remained convinced that
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7308-549: Is ecumenical and strongly pro-religious". The university was distinguishing between an open intellectual exchange, which could occur if Hirsi Ali came to campus for a dialogue and appearing to celebrate her with an honorary degree. A Brandeis spokesperson said that Ali had not been invited to speak at commencement but simply to be among honorary awardees. She claimed to have been invited to speak and expressed shock at Brandeis's action. Hirsi Ali said CAIR's letter misrepresented her and her work, but that it has long been available on
7482-587: 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
7656-522: 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 ")
7830-470: Is no tradition of honor killing in Somalia. Hirsi Ali had already admitted to friends and VVD party colleagues that she had lied about her full name, date of birth, and the manner in which she had come to the Netherlands in her asylum application, but persisted in saying it was true that she was trying to flee a forced marriage. In her first book, The Son Factory (2002), she had already provided her real name and date of birth, and she had also stated these in
8004-618: Is not taught in the Middle East. She said, "Before I came to Europe, I'd never heard of the Holocaust. That is the case with millions of people in the Middle East. Such a conference should be able to convince many people away from their denial of the genocide against the Jews." She also said that what some have described as "Western values" of freedom and justice were universal. But she thought that Europe has done far better than most areas of
8178-487: 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
8352-569: 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
8526-585: 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
8700-637: 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 ,
8874-595: 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
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#17327870463399048-662: 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
9222-404: 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
9396-632: 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 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
9570-448: Is the native language of the majority of the population of Suriname , and spoken as a second or third language in the polyglot Caribbean island countries of Aruba , Curaçao and Sint Maarten . All these countries have recognised Dutch as one of their official languages, and are involved in one way or another in the Dutch Language Union . The Dutch Caribbean municipalities ( St. Eustatius , Saba and Bonaire ) have Dutch as one of
9744-530: 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,
9918-538: The 2003 Casablanca bombings . The group was influenced by the ideology of Takfir wal-Hijra , a militant offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood . Redouan al-Issar , also known as "The Syrian", was the suspected spiritual leader of the group. Most media attention was attracted by Mohammed Bouyeri , sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering film director Theo van Gogh in 2004 and by Samir Azzouz , suspected of planning terrorist attacks on
10092-531: 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
10266-499: The American Enterprise Institute (AEI), said that the asylum controversy would not affect the appointment. He stated that he was still looking forward to "welcoming her to AEI, and to America." On 27 June 2006, the Dutch government announced that Hirsi Ali would keep her Dutch citizenship. On the same day a letter was disclosed in which Hirsi Ali expressed regret for misinforming Minister Verdonk. Hirsi Ali
10440-578: 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
10614-455: 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
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#173278704633910788-492: The Dutch parliament and several strategic targets such as the national airport and a nuclear reactor . The group was also suspected of planning to kill several members of government and parliament. In 2002, the Hofstad group was discovered by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD). The intelligence gathered in the first years after the group was discovered was limited, revealing that
10962-554: 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
11136-493: 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
11310-591: 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
11484-539: The Nancy Drew series, with modern heroine archetypes who pushed the limits of society. Also, remembering her grandmother refusing soldiers entry into her house, Hirsi Ali associated with Somalia "the picture of strong women: the one who smuggles in the food, and the one who stands there with a knife against the army and says, 'You cannot come into the house.' And I became like that. And my parents and my grandmother don't appreciate that now—because of what I've said about
11658-531: 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
11832-543: 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
12006-454: The Supreme Court quashed the contested judgments and referred the cases to the Amsterdam Court of Appeal. On 17 December 2010, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal sentenced Mohamed El Morabit, Yousef Ettoumi, Ahmed Hamdi, Mohamed Fahmi Boughabe and Nouredine el Fahtni to prison terms of 15 months, for participating in a terrorist criminal organization. Ismail Akhnikh and Jason Walters were guilty also of possessing four hand grenades. Ismail Akhnikh
12180-431: 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
12354-471: 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
12528-434: 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
12702-642: 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
12876-454: The " Taliban " by many in his neighborhood. In 2004, the group was under heavy surveillance by the AIVD, which dampened the group's activities. On 18 May 2004, authorities received a tip that a grocery store worker had been involved in preparing for a terror attack. A couple weeks later, the Dutch secret service had arrested this man after capturing him on security cameras taking measurements of
13050-518: 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
13224-538: 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
13398-688: 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
13572-586: The American Enterprise Institute. On 16 May Hirsi Ali resigned from Parliament after admitting that she had lied on her asylum application. In a press conference she said that the facts had been publicly known since 2002, when they had been reported in the media and in one of her publications. She also restated her claim of seeking asylum to prevent a forced marriage, stating: "How often do people who are seeking refuge provide different names? The penalty of stripping me of my Dutch citizenship
13746-595: The Arab world", saying she promotes the notion of a Western " civilizing mission ". Ali is married to Scottish-American historian Niall Ferguson . The couple are raising their sons in the United States, where she became a citizen in 2013. Ayaan was born in Mogadishu , Somalia, in 1969. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse , was a prominent member of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and
13920-696: The District Court in Rotterdam awarded them compensation (in total € 300.182,04). Seven cases have been appealed to the Court of Appeal in The Hague. On 23 January 2008, the Court of Appeal acquitted those convicted in the first instance of participation in a criminal organization. According to the Court of Appeal, the Hofstad Group had insufficient organizational substance to conclude that there
14094-417: 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
14268-490: 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
14442-590: The Dutch immigration and naturalization service (IND, Immigratie- en Naturalisatiedienst ). While working for the IND, she became critical of the way it handled asylum seekers. Hirsi Ali speaks six languages: English, Somali , Arabic , Swahili , Amharic , and Dutch . After gaining her degree, Hirsi Ali became a Fellow at the Wiardi Beckman Stichting (WBS), a think tank of the center-left Labour Party (PvdA). Leiden University Professor Ruud Koole
14616-458: The Dutch newspaper Trouw , she said that by Western standards, Muhammad as represented in the Qu'ran would be considered a pedophile . A religious discrimination complaint was filed against her on 24 April 2003 by Muslims who objected to her statements. The Prosecutor's office decided not to initiate a case, because her critique did "not put forth any conclusions in respect to Muslims and their worth as
14790-411: The Dutch secret service headquarters. Upon his arrest, police found maps as well as weapons that could be used to carry out the terror attacks. On 29 August 2004, Van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali created a short film, Submission , that contained scenes of Quranic verses being painted onto semi-naked women. This was the catalyst for the group's radicalization and Bouyeri's justification to kill Van Gogh for
14964-415: 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
15138-531: 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
15312-482: The Dutch state had spent about €3.5 million on her protection; threats against her produced fear, but she believed it important to speak her mind. While regretting Van Gogh's death, she said she was proud of their work together. A private trust, the Foundation for Freedom of Expression , was established in 2007 in the Netherlands to help fund protection of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other Muslim dissidents. In May 2006,
15486-408: 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
15660-541: The English-language Muslim Girls' Secondary School. By the time she reached her teens, Saudi Arabia was funding religious education in numerous countries and its religious views were becoming influential among many Muslims. A charismatic religious teacher, trained under this aegis, joined Hirsi Ali's school. She inspired the teenaged Ayaan, as well as some fellow students, to adopt the more rigorous Saudi Arabian interpretations of Islam, as opposed to
15834-602: 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
16008-471: The Hofstad Network were brought to trial before the District Court in Rotterdam. During the trial, the presiding judge admitted that he felt as if it was obvious that arrest leading to the hearing had created a spectacle and that the group members ideologies were being greatly scrutinized. The lawyers who defended that group labeled the trial as a "witch trial". It was clear that the ideological threat
16182-514: The Hofstad group had posed stirred the emotions of the public. The Court ruled that in the case of the Hofstad group there was a clear distinction between peaceful and harmful extremism. The Court acquitted four of the defendants because they showed no attempt for violence but only held extremist ideas. The Court also ruled that the group was not a terror organization. Nadir Adarraf, Rachid Belkacem , Mohamed El Bousklaoui, Zakaria Taybi and Jermaine Walters were acquitted and set free. On 7 November 2006
16356-645: The Internet. She said that the "spirit of free expression" has been betrayed and stifled. David Bernstein , a law professor at George Mason University, criticised the Brandeis decision as an attack on academic values of freedom of inquiry and intellectual independence. Lawrence J. Haas, the former communications director and press secretary for Vice President Al Gore , published an open letter saying that Brandeis's president had "succumbed to political correctness and interest group pressure in deciding that Islam
16530-576: 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
16704-412: 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
16878-478: The Netherlands arrested five Hofstad associates, including three who had traveled abroad and were in contact with extremists in Morocco and Syria. In 2003, Mohammed Bouyeri , the man who murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh , was radicalized. He withdrew from mainstream Dutch society by quitting his job and distancing himself from all friends and family who were non-religious. During this time, he became known as
17052-497: The Netherlands", but were released soon after. Azzouz was eventually tried in this case, but acquitted for lack of evidence in 2005: he did possess what he thought to be a home-made bomb, but having used the wrong type of fertilizer , the device would never have exploded. At the beginning of 2003, a Hofstad member and his friend tried to join an Islamic rebel group in Chechnya , but were discovered by authorities and arrested. During
17226-539: 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,
17400-412: The Netherlands, for her ex-husband and father's brothers would have been by Somali custom, required to perform an honor killing. The accounts of various witnesses varied greatly from hers. According to them, she left Somalia prior to any mass violence and led a comfortable, upper-middle class life in neighboring Kenya, where she attended a Muslim girls' school and received a full western-style education with
17574-542: The Netherlands, gaining Dutch citizenship five years later. In her early 30s, Hirsi Ali renounced the Islamic faith of her childhood, began identifying as an atheist, and became involved in Dutch centre-right politics, joining the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In 2003, Ali was elected to the lower house of the States General of the Netherlands . While serving in parliament, she collaborated on
17748-552: The Qur'an. I have become them, just in a different way." Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. That year she had travelled from Kenya to visit her family in Düsseldorf and Bonn , Germany , and gone to the Netherlands to escape an alleged forced marriage. Once there, she requested political asylum and obtained a residence permit. She used her paternal grandfather's early surname on her application and has since been known in
17922-549: The TV programme Zembla reported that Hirsi Ali had given false information about her name, her age, and her country of residence when originally applying for asylum, in a documentary called "The Holy Ayaan". In her asylum application, she had claimed to be fleeing a forced marriage, but the Zembla coverage featured interviews with her family, who denied that claim. The program alleged that, contrary to Hirsi Ali's claims of having fled
18096-674: 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
18270-657: The United States. On 25 April 2013, she became a citizen of the United States. She was a Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at The Harvard Kennedy School from 2016 to 2019. In 2010, Anwar al-Awlaki published a hit list in his Inspire magazine, including Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Geert Wilders and Salman Rushdie along with cartoonists Lars Vilks and three Jyllands-Posten staff members: Kurt Westergaard , Carsten Juste , and Flemming Rose . The list
18444-611: The VVD and stood for election to Parliament. Between November 2002 and January 2003, she lived abroad while on the payroll as an assistant of the VVD. In 2003, aged 33, Hirsi Ali successfully fought a parliamentary election. She said that the Dutch welfare state had overlooked abuse of Muslim women and girls in the Netherlands and their social needs, contributing to their isolation and oppression. During her tenure in Parliament, Hirsi Ali continued her criticisms of Islam and many of her statements provoked controversy. In an interview in
18618-621: 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
18792-625: The West as Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She received a residence permit within three or four weeks of arriving in the Netherlands. At first, she held various short-term jobs, ranging from cleaning to sorting post. She worked as a translator at a Rotterdam refugee center which, according to a friend interviewed in 2006 by The Observer newspaper, marked her deeply. As an avid reader, in the Netherlands she found new books and ways of thought that both stretched her imagination and frightened her. Sigmund Freud 's work introduced her to an alternative moral system that
18966-573: The activist deserved the death sentence but should be tried and judged in an Islamic country. On 25 September 2007, Hirsi Ali received her green card . In October 2007, she returned to the Netherlands, continuing her work for AEI from a secret address. The Dutch minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin had informed her of his ruling that, as of 1 October 2007, the Dutch government would no longer pay for her security abroad. That year she declined an offer to live in Denmark, saying she intended to return to
19140-556: The age of five, following local traditions in Somalia, Ali underwent female genital mutilation organized by her grandmother. Her father —a scholar, intellectual, and a devout Muslim—was against the procedure but could not stop it from happening because he was imprisoned by the Communist government of Somalia at the time. Her family moved across various countries in Africa and the Middle East, and at 23, she received political asylum in
19314-429: The applicable law did not leave her room to consider such circumstances, she decided to accept the motion. During the debate, she said that Hirsi Ali still had Dutch citizenship during the period of reexamination. Apparently the "decision" she had announced had represented the current position of the Dutch government. Hirsi Ali at that point had six weeks to react to the report before any final decision about her citizenship
19488-661: 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
19662-433: The attack had happened. After the attack, the police spent the following 10 days arresting the group members. One group member who acted as the religious teacher for the group fled the country the day of Van Gogh's murder and entered Syria illegally. Shortly after the murder of Van Gogh, the organization gained the attention of national media when an attempt to arrest suspected members Jason Walters and Ismail Akhnikh led to
19836-768: The attacks, she wrote, "I picked up the Qur'an and the hadith and started looking through them, to check. I hated to do it, because I knew that I would find Bin Laden's quotations in there." During this time of transition, she came to regard the Qur'an as relative—it was a historical record and "just another book." Reading Atheïstisch manifest ("Atheist Manifesto") of Leiden University philosopher Herman Philipse helped to convince her to give up religion. She renounced Islam and acknowledged her disbelief in God in 2002. She began to formulate her critique of Islam and Islamic culture , published many articles on these topics, and became
20010-447: The blasphemy of Islam. Theo van Gogh's murder was the first terrorist attack claimed by the Hofstad group. In September 2004, authorities received a tip from an email that warned of two Hofstad group members preparing a terror attack. The anonymous source also admitted to being recruited by these men to carry out the planned terrorist attacks with particular targets. On 2 November of that year, Mohammed Bouyeri killed Van Gogh when he
20184-624: 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 )
20358-531: The building of the General Intelligence and Security Agency AIVD on 14 October 2005. In a case known as Piranha case , six individuals were brought to court, one of them was Noureddine El Fahtni . On 1 December 2006, the District Court of Rotterdam sentenced Azzouz to 8 years in prison for preparing a terrorist attack. Noureddine El Fahtni and Mohammed Chentouf to 4 years each, Soumaya Sahla to 3 years and Brahim Harhour to 3 months. One suspect
20532-479: 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
20706-553: 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
20880-413: 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
21054-540: 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
21228-496: The defendants, Jason Walters, to a prison term of 15 years for the attempted murder of members of an arrest team of the police in The Hague and possession of hand grenades. A second suspect, Ismail Akhnikh, was sentenced to 15 months in prison for complicity in possession of hand grenades. The Public Prosecution Service lodged an appeal in cassation against the judgments of the Court. Jason Walters also lodged an appeal in cassation against his conviction (08/00695). On 2 February 2010,
21402-541: The defense of women's rights, the AHA Foundation . She has taken roles at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University , the American Enterprise Institute , and at Harvard Kennedy School as a senior fellow at the Future of Democracy Project. Since 2021, she has served as a columnist for UnHerd , a British online magazine; since 2022, she has also hosted The Ayaan Hirsi Ali Podcast . Ali
21576-603: 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
21750-474: 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
21924-489: 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,
22098-648: The fall of the second Balkenende cabinet . In 2006, Hirsi Ali took a position at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.; as the Dutch government continued to provide security for her, this required an increase in their effort and costs. On 17 April 2007, the local Muslim community in Johnstown, Pennsylvania , protested Hirsi Ali's planned lecture at the local campus of the University of Pittsburgh . Pittsburgh imam Fouad El Bayly said that
22272-661: The five former suspects requested compensation as referred to in Article 89 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. On 7 November 2006, the District Court of Rotterdam (Raadkamer) decided on their requests. On 18 May 2006, a group of four young men delivered flowers to the Dutch public broadcaster VARA . The flowers included a note, "greetings, the Hofstadgroup," which was a 'thank you' for the VARA Zembla documentary broadcast
22446-474: The group had only been meeting together. These were informal living-room meetings held by a Syrian asylum-seeker. By the end of 2002, the AIVD began to suspect that the organization was developing extremist views and discussing mass casualty events. On 14 October 2003, Samir Azzouz, Ismail Akhnikh, Jason Walters and Redouan al-Issar were put under arrest for planning a (according to the AIVD) "terrorist attack in
22620-415: 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
22794-711: 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
22968-563: 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
23142-629: 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
23316-521: The marriage should prove unsuccessful. They also allege that Hirsi Ali was present at the wedding, something her brother later denied, and according to several witnesses appeared to be enjoying herself. Hirsi Ali denies all of this. On her way to Canada, she says she travelled to the Netherlands by train during a stopover in Germany and applied for political asylum. During her stay in the Netherlands, she regularly received letters from her father. The documentary also quoted several native Somalis as saying there
23490-437: 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
23664-539: The more relaxed versions then current in Somalia and Kenya. Hirsi Ali said later that she had long been impressed by the Qur'an and had lived "by the Book, for the Book" throughout her childhood. She sympathised with the views of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood , and wore a hijab with her school uniform. This was unusual at the time but has become more common among some young Muslim women. At
23838-501: The official languages. In Asia, Dutch was used in the Dutch East Indies (now mostly Indonesia ) by a limited educated elite of around 2% of the total population, including over 1 million indigenous Indonesians, until it was banned in 1957, but the ban was lifted afterwards. About a fifth of the Indonesian language can be traced to Dutch, including many loan words . Indonesia's Civil Code has not been officially translated, and
24012-470: The original Dutch language version dating from colonial times remains the authoritative version. Up to half a million native speakers reside in the United States, Canada and Australia combined, and historical linguistic minorities on the verge of extinction remain in parts of France and Germany. Dutch is one of the closest relatives of both German and English, and is colloquially said to be "roughly in between" them. Dutch, like English, has not undergone
24186-527: 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
24360-597: The problems of the modern world. She has received several awards, including a free speech award from the centre-right Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten , the Swedish conservative Liberal Party 's Democracy Prize, and the Moral Courage Award for commitment to conflict resolution, ethics, and world citizenship. Critics have accused Ali of being Islamophobic or neo-orientalist and question her scholarly credentials "to speak authoritatively about Islam and
24534-411: 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
24708-515: 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
24882-423: 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
25056-524: 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
25230-455: 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
25404-497: The summer, two Hofstad group members traveled to Pakistan where they received paramilitary training. In September, the two men returned and it was discovered by authorities that these same men could be traced to having talked to a man having ties to the Casablanca bombings earlier that year. On 14 October of that year, the Spanish authorities arrested a Moroccan man who was suspected to be involved in suspicious activity. Police in
25578-545: 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
25752-467: The time, she agreed with the fatwa proclaimed against British Indian writer Salman Rushdie in reaction to the portrayal of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in his novel The Satanic Verses . After completing secondary school, Hirsi Ali attended a secretarial course at Valley Secretarial College in Nairobi for one year. As she was growing up, she also read English-language adventure stories, such as
25926-417: 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
26100-511: The university's "core values" because they were " Islamophobic ". Others expressed opinions both for and against this decision. The university said she was welcome to come to the campus for a dialogue in the future. The university's withdrawal of its invitation generated controversy and condemnation among some. But, The Economist noted at the time that Hirsi Ali's "wholesale condemnations of existing religions just aren't done in American politics." It said that "the explicit consensus in America
26274-420: 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
26448-444: The week prior, on the topic of Ayaan Hirsi Ali 's asylum background. Jermaine Walters was said to be one of the men. Dutch language Dutch ( endonym : Nederlands [ˈneːdərlɑnts] ) is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family , spoken by about 25 million people as a first language and 5 million as a second language and is the third most spoken Germanic language. In Europe, Dutch
26622-458: The women in question were "carrying water" for the causes of radical Islamists and stated that "Islamophobia" is a manufactured word. She said that the cancellation was due to organisational problems. Hirsi Ali joined the VVD political party in 2002; it combines "classically liberal" views on the economy, foreign policy, crime and immigration with a liberal social stance on abortion and homosexuality. She says that she admires Frits Bolkestein ,
26796-417: The world in providing justice, as it has guaranteed the freedom of thought and debate required for critical self-examination. She said communities cannot reform unless "scrupulous investigation of every former and current doctrine is possible." Hirsi Ali was nominated as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize the same month by Norwegian parliamentarian Christian Tybring-Gjedde . In March 2006, she co-signed
26970-410: Was a central figure in New Atheism since its beginnings. She was strongly associated with the movement, along with Christopher Hitchens , who regarded Ali as "the most important public intellectual probably ever to come out of Africa". Writing in a column in November 2023, Ali announced her conversion to the Christian faith, claiming that in her view the Judeo-Christian tradition is the only answer to
27144-442: Was acquitted. The Court ruled that the six individuals had not formed a terrorist organization. In appeal, the Court in The Hague convicted all defendants to more severe sentences. On 2 October 2008, Samir Azzouz was sentenced to 9 years in prison, Nouriddin El Fahtni was sentenced to 8 years, Mohammed Chentouf was sentenced to 6;6 years in prison, Soumaya Sahla was sentenced to 4 years in prison. In 2005, fourteen alleged members of
27318-404: Was active throughout the 2000s. The group was made up of Muslim immigrants living in the Netherlands, second and third generation immigrants to the Netherlands, and Dutch converts. The majority of these immigrants came from Morocco. The network was said to have links to networks in Spain and Belgium . Among their contacts was Abdeladim Akoudad , also known as Naoufel , one of the suspects of
27492-421: Was allowed to retain her name. Dutch immigration rules allowed asylum seekers to use grandparents' names. Her grandfather had used the last name Ali until his thirties and then switched to Magan, which was her father's and family's surname. This grandfather's birth year of 1845 had complicated the investigation. (Hirsi Ali's father Hirsi Magan Isse was the youngest of his many children and born when her grandfather
27666-431: Was an organization as referred to in Articles 140 and 140a of the Criminal Code. The court ruled that the cooperation of the suspects was not sufficiently structured to justify their conviction. In the opinion of the court, there was also no question of incitement to hatred. The Court ruled that the legislator only intended to criminalize incitement to hatred against vulnerable minority groups. The Court has sentenced one of
27840-544: Was close to 90). Later the same day Hirsi Ali, through her lawyer and in television interviews, stated that she had signed the resignation letter, drafted by the Justice Department, under duress. She felt it was forced in order for her to keep her passport, but she had not wanted to complicate her pending visa application for the US. As of 2006 she still carried her Dutch passport. In a special parliamentary session on 28 June 2006, questions were raised about these issues. The ensuing political upheaval on 29 June ultimately led to
28014-410: Was entitled nonetheless; she later said it was to escape detection and retaliation by her clan for the foiled marriage. In the later parliamentary investigation of Hirsi Ali's immigration, the Dutch law governing names was reviewed. An applicant may legally use a surname derived from any generation as far back as the grandparent. Therefore, Hirsi Ali's application, though against her clan custom of names,
28188-442: Was entitled to use the name Ali because it was her grandfather's name. Verdonk moved to annul Hirsi Ali's citizenship, an action later overridden at the urging of Parliament. On 15 May 2006, after the broadcast of the Zembla documentary, news stories appeared saying that Hirsi Ali was likely to move to the United States that September. She was reported to be planning to write a book titled Shortcut to Enlightenment and to work for
28362-458: Was five years old. According to Hirsi Ali, she was fortunate that her grandmother could not find a woman to do the procedure, as the mutilation was "much milder" when performed by men. After her father escaped from prison, he and the family left Somalia in 1977, going to Saudi Arabia and then to Addis Ababa , Ethiopia , before settling in Nairobi , Kenya , by 1980. There he established a comfortable upper-class life for them. Hirsi Ali attended
28536-409: Was granted one week later. In January 2006, Hirsi Ali was recognised as "European of the Year" by Reader's Digest , an American magazine. In her speech, she urged action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons . She also said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad should be taken at his word in wanting to organise a conference to investigate objective evidence of the Holocaust , noting that the subject
28710-422: Was later expanded to include Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier , who was murdered in 2015 in a terror attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris, along with 11 other people. After the attack, Al-Qaeda called for more killings. In early 2014, Brandeis University in Massachusetts announced that Ali would be given an honorary degree at the graduation ceremony. In early April, the university rescinded its offer following
28884-547: Was legal under Dutch law. The question of her age was of minor concern. Media speculation arose in 2006 that she could lose her Dutch citizenship because of these issues, rendering her ineligible for parliament. At first, Minister Rita Verdonk said she would not look into the matter. She later decided to investigate Hirsi Ali's naturalisation process. The investigation found that Hirsi Ali had not legitimately received Dutch citizenship, because she had lied about her name and date of birth. However, later inquiries established that she
29058-593: Was not based on religion. During this time she took courses in Dutch and a one-year introductory course in social work at the Hogeschool De Horst in Driebergen . She has said that she was impressed with how well Dutch society seemed to function. To better understand its development, she studied at the Leiden University , where she obtained an Master's degree in political science . Between 1995 and 2001, Hirsi Ali also worked as an independent Somali-Dutch interpreter and translator, frequently working with Somali women in asylum centers, hostels for abused women, and at
29232-452: Was on his way to work in Amsterdam. The killer cycled alongside the filmmaker before shooting him several times and attempting to decapitate him. Before fleeing the scene, he left a note pinned to Van Gogh's chest that had a death threat for Hirsi Ali. After the attack, Bouyeri went to a park nearby, where he had a shootout with police before being taken into custody. Witnesses said that Bouyeri had been stalking his route for some time before
29406-456: Was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole . In 2004, a rap song about Hirsi Ali titled "Hirsi Ali Dis" was produced and distributed on the internet by a group called "The Hague Connection". The lyrics included violent threats against her life. The rappers were prosecuted under Article 121 of the Dutch criminal code because they hindered Hirsi Ali's execution of her work as a politician. In 2005 they were sentenced to community service and
29580-431: Was sentenced to 38 months. Jason Walters, who had thrown a shrapnel grenade in the direction of the arrest team in accordance with a predetermined plan, was sentenced to 13 years in prison on five counts of attempted murder. Upon the ruling, the court determined that the Hofstad group was a terror criminal organization who had the intent of committing crimes out of violence and hatred. After their acquittal on 10 March 2006,
29754-437: Was shown with texts from the Qur'an written on her skin. These texts are among those often interpreted as justifying the subjugation of Muslim women. The film's release sparked outrage among many Dutch Muslims. Mohammed Bouyeri , a 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan Islamist and member of the Muslim terrorist organisation Hofstad Group , assassinated Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street on 2 November 2004. Bouyeri shot Van Gogh with
29928-406: Was steward of the party. Hirsi Ali's writing at the WBS was inspired by the work of the neoconservative Orientalist Bernard Lewis . She became disenchanted with Islam and was shocked by the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, for which al-Qaeda eventually claimed responsibility . After listening to videotapes of Osama bin Laden citing "words of justification" in the Qur'an for
30102-463: Was taken. Verdonk was strongly criticised for her actions in such a sensitive case. In addition to her Dutch passport, Hirsi Ali retained a Dutch residency permit based on being a political refugee. According to the minister, this permit could not be taken away from her since it had been granted more than 12 years before. Reacting to news of Hirsi Ali's planned relocation to the US, former VVD leader Hans Wiegel stated that her departure "would not be
30276-417: 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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