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131-754: The Labour Party ( Dutch : Partij van de Arbeid [pɑrˈtɛi vɑn də ˈʔɑrbɛit] , abbreviated as PvdA [ˌpeːveːdeːˈjaː, -deːˈʔaː] or P van de A [ˌpeː vɑn də ˈʔaː] ) is a social democratic political party in the Netherlands . The party was founded in 1946 as a merger of the Social Democratic Workers' Party , the Free-thinking Democratic League and the Christian Democratic Union . Prime Ministers from

262-467: 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

393-490: 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

524-465: 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

655-466: A deepened collaboration. A merger has also been discussed. The Wiardi Beckman Foundation has voiced its opposition to this. Despite the fact that the two parties (PvdA and GroenLinks) separately participate in a European Political Group, Groenlinks as a member of Greens–European Free Alliance and PvdA as a member of the Party of European Socialists , the parties campaigned together as GroenLinks-PvdA for

786-640: 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

917-586: 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

1048-501: 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

1179-527: 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

1310-670: 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

1441-508: A national election since 1998 . Ahead of the 2021 general election , Asscher resigned from the party leadership due to his part in the childcare benefits scandal . He was replaced as leader and lead candidate by Lilianne Ploumen , who became the party's first permanent female leader. Following the election, the PvdA participated unsuccessfully in the 2021 Dutch cabinet formation in conjunction with Green Left . Ploumen later left, claiming she

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1572-460: A new international network for social democratic political parties, at its founding event on 22 May 2013. Historically, the PvdA has co-operated in cabinets with the Christian democratic Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), Political Party of Radicals (PPR), Catholic People's Party (KVP), Anti-Revolutionary Party (ARP), Christian Historical Union (CHU) and ChristianUnion (CU) parties and

1703-580: A new moderate social democratic party, Democratic Socialists '70 (DS'70). Under the New Left, the PvdA started a strategy of polarisation, striving for a cabinet based on a progressive majority in parliament. In order to form that cabinet, the PvdA allied itself with smaller progressive parties such as the Democrats '66 (D'66) and the Political Party of Radicals (PPR). The alliance was called

1834-420: 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

1965-495: 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

2096-579: 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

2227-450: A progressive outlook on ethical questions and promises of political reform. Kok became a very popular Prime Minister; he was not a partisan figure but combined successful technocratic policies with the charisma of a national leader. In the 1998 general election , the cabinet was rewarded for its stewardship of the economy. The PvdA and the VVD increased their seat counts, at the expense of D66;

2358-509: 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

2489-665: 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

2620-522: 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

2751-479: A somewhat different development since the late Middle Ages. Two dialect groups have been given the official status of regional language (or streektaal ) in the Netherlands. Like several other dialect groups, both are part of a dialect continuum that continues across the national border. The Dutch Low Saxon dialect area comprises the provinces of Groningen , Drenthe and Overijssel , as well as parts of

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2882-424: 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,

3013-552: 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

3144-458: A very short period. Meanwhile, Wouter Bos , Undersecretary in the Second Kok cabinet, was elected leader of the PvdA in a ballot among PvdA members, being elected closely to Jouke de Vries . He started to democratise the party organisation and began an ideological reorientation. In the 2003 general election , Wouter Bos managed to regain almost all seats lost in the previous election, and

3275-513: 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

3406-537: 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

3537-471: Is Sranan Tongo , spoken natively by about a fifth of the population. Freedom Party (Netherlands) The PvdV was founded on 23 March 1946 by a group around the young liberal Korthals and the director of Heineken . After the foundation they were joined by the rest of the top of the pre- war Liberal State Party . The party was supposed to be less conservative and more modern that its predecessor. In 1948 it merged with social liberal dissidents from

3668-544: 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

3799-791: 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

3930-537: 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

4061-587: 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

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4192-627: 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

4323-491: 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

4454-748: Is part of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats . During the German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II , a group of prominent Dutchmen of all democratic political ideologies were interned as hostages in Kamp Sint-Michielsgestel by the German occupation authorities. They came to the consensus that the pre-war fragmentation of Dutch political life, known as " Pillarisation ", should be overcome after

4585-569: 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

4716-585: 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

4847-584: 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 ,

4978-595: 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

5109-414: 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

5240-404: 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

5371-530: 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,

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5502-531: 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

5633-467: The 2024 European Parliament election . PvdA has seven members in the Senate. PvdA has formed a parliamentary group with GroenLinks in the Senate. 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

5764-455: 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

5895-481: 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

6026-601: 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

6157-679: The Labour Party , led by Pieter Oud , to become the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). In the 1946 elections it received six seats and it was confined to a minor position in opposition. The PvdV was classical liberal party with progressive leanings, committed to individual freedom and free market economics. This table shows the PvdV's results in elections to the House of Representatives , Senate and States-Provincial , as well as

6288-591: 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

6419-603: 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

6550-531: 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

6681-457: The Second Kok cabinet was formed. Kok retired from politics, leaving the leadership of the party to his preferred successor Ad Melkert . The PvdA was expected to perform very well in the 2002 general election ; however, the political rise of Pim Fortuyn frustrated these hopes. The PvdA lost the 2002 election, and the party's parliamentary representation fell from 45 seats to 23. The loss

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6812-543: 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

6943-471: 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

7074-434: 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

7205-547: The first Beel cabinet was formed with the Catholic People's Party (KVP) and the PvdA ( Roman/Red ). In 1948, some of the left-liberal members, led by former VDB leader Pieter Oud , left the PvdA after concluding it had become too socialist for their liking. Together with the Freedom Party , they formed the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), a conservative liberal party. Between 1948 and 1958,

7336-518: 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

7467-538: 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

7598-470: The CDA. Kok became Deputy Prime Minister to CDA leader Ruud Lubbers . The PvdA accepted the major economic reforms of the previous Lubbers cabinets, including privatisation of public enterprises and reform of the welfare state . They continued these policies in this cabinet. The cabinet faced heavy protest from the unions and saw major political conflict within the PvdA itself. In the 1994 general election ,

7729-417: 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

7860-490: 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

7991-548: 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

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8122-415: 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

8253-531: 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

8384-408: 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

8515-756: 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

8646-407: 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,

8777-402: The Labour Party have been Willem Drees (1948–1958), Joop den Uyl (1973–1977) and Wim Kok (1994–2002). From 2012 to 2017, the PvdA formed the second-largest party in parliament and was the secondary partner in the Second Rutte cabinet with the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy . The party fell to nine seats in the House of Representatives at the 2017 general election , making it

8908-403: 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

9039-472: 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

9170-412: 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

9301-467: 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,

9432-544: The Progressive Accord (PAK). In the 1971 and 1972 general elections , these three parties promised to form a cabinet with a radical common programme after the elections. They were unable to gain a majority in either election. In 1971, they were kept out of cabinet, and the party of former PvdA members, DS'70, became a coalition partner in the First Biesheuvel cabinet . In the 1972 elections, neither

9563-623: The PvdA and its allies nor the KVP and its allies were able to gain a majority. The two sides were forced to work together. Joop den Uyl , the leader of the PvdA, led the cabinet. The cabinet was an extra-parliamentary cabinet composed of members of the three progressive parties, the KVP and the ARP. The cabinet attempted to radically reform government, society and the economy, and a wide range of progressive social reforms were enacted during its time in office, such as significant increases in welfare payments and

9694-399: The PvdA led centre-left coalition governments with the KVP, and combinations of VVD, ARP and CHU, with the PvdA's Willem Drees as prime minister. The KVP and the PvdA together had a large majority in parliament. Under his leadership the Netherlands recovered from the war and began to build its welfare state , and Indonesia became independent . After the cabinet crisis of 1958, the PvdA

9825-405: The PvdA suffered the biggest defeat in Dutch electoral history, receiving only 5.7% of the votes and losing 29 of its 38 seats. Asscher did not resign from his post, claiming the defeat was his predecessor's responsibility. The party experienced a degree of revival in 2019, obtaining the most votes in that year's European Parliament election . This marked the first time the PvdA had finished first in

9956-418: The PvdA was once again the second largest party in the Netherlands, only slightly smaller than the CDA. Personal and ideological conflicts between Bos and the CDA leader Jan Peter Balkenende prevented the formation of a CDA–PvdA cabinet. Instead, the PvdA was kept out of government by the formation of cabinet of the CDA, the VVD, and D66, the latter being former allies of PvdA. In the 2006 municipal elections ,

10087-549: The PvdA–CDA coalition lost its majority in parliament; the PvdA, however, emerged as the biggest party. Kok formed a government together with the conservative liberal VVD and social liberal D66. This so-called purple government was a political novelty, because it was the first since 1918 without any ministers from the CDA or its predecessors. The First Kok cabinet continued the Lubbers-era economic reforms, but combined this with

10218-607: 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

10349-403: The VVD under Mark Rutte , with Labour's Lodewijk Asscher becoming Deputy Prime Minister. Opinion polls suggested that popular support for the PvdA fell into a gradual decline in the years after the 2012 election. The party was polled as low as 5% by Peil on 8 May 2016. In December 2016, Samson was defeated by Lodewijk Asscher in a party leadership election. In the 2017 general election ,

10480-586: The VVD, PvdA and D66 – but talks broke down and the PvdA entered opposition. Cohen resigned as leader in February 2012. Diederik Samsom was subsequently elected the party leader. In the 2012 general election , the Labour Party won 38 seats, a gain of eight, defying initial predictions that the Socialist Party would overtake it. Following the election the party entered a governing coalition with

10611-621: 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

10742-624: 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 )

10873-479: 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

11004-631: 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

11135-540: 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

11266-602: 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

11397-474: 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

11528-489: 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,

11659-687: The fall of the Cals cabinet over economic policy . Meanwhile, a younger generation was attempting to gain control of the PvdA. A group of young PvdA members, calling themselves the New Left , changed the party. The New Left believed the party should become oriented towards the new social movements , adopting their anti-parliamentary strategies and their issues, such as women's liberation , environmental conservation and Third World development. Prominent New Left members were Jan Nagel , André van der Louw and Bram Peper . One of their early victories followed

11790-480: The fall of the Cals cabinet. The party Congress adopted a motion that made it impossible for the PvdA to govern with the KVP and its Protestant allies. In response to the growing power of the New Left group, a group of older, centrist party members, led by Willem Drees' son, Willem Drees Jr. , founded the New Right. They split in 1970, after it was clear that they had lost the conflict with the New Left, and founded

11921-572: The governance of the second and third Balkenende cabinet , the Socialist Party and GreenLeft were calling for closer cooperation with the PvdA, calling to form a shadow government against the Balkenende cabinet, PvdA leader Bos held this off. The PvdA has strong ties with GreenLeft . In the 2021 Dutch cabinet formation , the parties unsuccessfully combined. Prominent members including Frans Timmermans and Marjolein Moorman have called for

12052-441: The government, Wouter Bos announced he would leave politics to spend more time with his wife and two daughters. The then-mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen , took his place as leader of the PvdA. In the 2010 general election , the PvdA won 30 seats, a loss of three, and was narrowly overtaken by the VVD. After the election, a 'purple-plus coalition' was considered, which would have required the participation of GroenLinks , in addition to

12183-475: The idea of a voting bloc on the left. It did, however, join the fourth Balkenende cabinet on 22 February 2007, in which Wouter Bos became minister of Finance . In the aftermath of the lost elections, the entire party executive stepped down on 26 April 2007. On Saturday 20 February 2010, the Labour Party withdrew from the government after arguments over the Dutch role in Afghanistan . After withdrawing from

12314-502: The ideological and personal conflict between Van Agt and Den Uyl prevented the formation of a new centre-left cabinet. After very long cabinet formation talks, the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), itself a new Christian democratic political formation composed of KVP, CHU and ARP, formed a government, based on a very narrow majority, with the VVD. The PvdA was left in opposition. In the 1981 general election ,

12445-415: 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

12576-470: The incumbent CDA–VVD cabinet lost its majority. The CDA remained the largest party, but it was forced to co-operate with the PvdA and D'66 (the PPR had left the alliance, after losing in the 1977 election). In the new cabinet led by Van Agt, Den Uyl returned to cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister. The personal and ideological conflict between Van Agt and Den Uyl culminated in the fall of the cabinet just months after it

12707-524: The indexation of benefits and the minimum wage to the cost of living. The PvdA also faced economic decline and was riddled with personal and ideological conflicts. The relationship between Prime Minister Den Uyl and the KVP Deputy Prime Minister Dries Van Agt was particularly problematic. These conflict culminated when the cabinet fell just before the 1977 general election . The PvdA came first in that election, but

12838-711: 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

12969-588: 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

13100-629: 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

13231-471: The liberal parties Democrats 66 (D66) and People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). Between 1971 and 1977, PvdA was allied with D66 and the PPR. After 1977 until 1989, it was closely allied to D66. Since 2003, the relationship between the PvdA and D66 has considerably worsened, at first because PvdA was in opposition to the Second Balkenende cabinet , in which D66 had co-operated. During

13362-497: The major trading cities Amsterdam and Rotterdam , the rich municipalities around Hilversum and The Hague and in northern rural provinces, like Groningen and Drenthe . The PvdV lacked a real system of pillarized organisations around it. 'Neutral' organisations, which were not linked to a pillar, often had friendly relations with the PvdV. This included the general broadcasting association AVRO ( Algemene Verenigde Radio Omroep , General United Radio Broadcasting Organisation),

13493-495: The more progressive members of the Protestant Christian Historical Union (CHU). The founding convention was chaired by NVB member Willem Banning . Despite its ambitions to force a breakthrough, the electorate returned to their pillars. Lead by Willem Drees in the 1946 general election , it won 29 seats, two less than its predecessors had won in 1937 . During the 1946 cabinet formation ,

13624-619: 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

13755-627: 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

13886-517: The party board, decides the order of candidates on electoral lists for the Senate, House of Representatives and European Parliament and has the final say over the party programme. Since 2002, a referendum of all members has partially replaced the Congress. Both the lead candidate of the House of Representatives candidate list, who is the political leader of the party, and the party chairman, who leads

14017-560: The party organisation, are selected by such a referendum. In 2002, Wouter Bos won the PvdA leadership election . As of 2024, PvdA has 43,675 members. They are organised in over 500 municipal branches. Rood is the party periodical. It appears eight times a year. The Young Socialists is the youth organisation of the PvdA. It is a member of Young European Socialists and the International Union of Socialist Youth . They publish

14148-488: The party's political leadership: the fractievoorzitter , is the chair of the parliamentary party and the lead candidate is the party's top candidate in the general election, these posts are normally taken by the party's leader. The PvdV mainly received support from atheists or latitudinarian Protestants from higher classes : businessmen, civil servants, wealthy farmers, and voters with free professions (such as lawyers and doctors). The party performed particularly well in

14279-550: The periodical Lava . The scientific institute (or think tank ) of the PvdA is the Wiardi Beckman Foundation . It publishes the periodical Socialisme & Democratie . The PvdA participates in the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy , a democracy assistance organisation of seven Dutch political parties. During the period of strong pillarisation the PvdA had strong links with

14410-527: 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

14541-411: 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

14672-441: The renewed PvdA performed very well. The PvdA became by far the largest party nationally, while the three governing parties lost a considerable number of seats in municipal councils. The PvdA lost the race for Prime Minister to the CDA after suffering a loss of nine seats in the 2006 general election . The PvdA now held only 33 seats, losing many votes to the Socialist Party (SP). The PvdA had previously distanced themselves from

14803-423: 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

14934-524: 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

15065-551: The seventh-largest faction in the chamber—its worst showing ever. However, the party rebounded with a first-place finish in the 2019 European Parliament election in the Netherlands , winning six of 26 seats, with 19% of the vote. The party is a member of the European Party of European Socialists and the global Progressive Alliance . In the European Parliament , where the Labour Party has four seats, it

15196-617: The social democratic broadcasting organisation VARA Broadcasting Association , the Dutch Association of Trade Unions , and the paper Het Vrije Volk . The PvdA is a full member of the Party of European Socialists and was formerly an observer member of the Socialist International until December 2014, having previously downgraded their membership in December 2012. The PvdA joined the Progressive Alliance ,

15327-410: 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

15458-404: 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

15589-455: The upcoming 2023 general election with a common policy programme and joint electoral list. The PvdA began as a traditional social democratic party, committed to building a welfare state . During the 1970s, it included new issues in its programme such as environmental conservation, Third World development and women's liberation. During the 1990s it moderated its programme to include Third Way economic and social positions, including reform of

15720-484: 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

15851-601: The war in a so-called Breakthrough . These people formed the Dutch People's Movement (NVB) immediately after the war ended in 1945. The new movement promoted the foundation of the Labour Party on 9 February 1946 through a merger of three pre-war parties, namely the Social Democratic Workers' Party (SDAP), the social liberal Free-thinking Democratic League (VDB) and the progressive Protestant Christian Democratic Union (CDU). They were joined by individuals from Catholic resistance group Christofoor, as well as some of

15982-508: The welfare state and privatisation of public enterprise. The party adopted a new programme of principles in 2005, expressing a centre-left ideology. Its core issues are employment , social security and welfare as well as investing in public education , health care and public safety . The highest organ of the PvdA is the Congress , formed by delegates from the municipal branches. It convenes once every year. It appoints

16113-435: 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

16244-466: Was blamed on the uncharismatic new leader Melkert, the perceived arrogance of the PvdA and the inability to answer the right-wing populist issues Fortuyn raised, especially immigration and integration . Melkert resigned as party leader and was replaced by Jeltje van Nieuwenhoven . The PvdA was kept out of cabinet. The government formed by CDA, VVD and the Pim Fortuyn List (LPF) fell after

16375-401: Was formed. The VVD and the CDA together had a majority in the 1982 general election and retained this in the 1986 general election . The PvdA was left in opposition. During this period the party began to reform. Den Uyl retired from politics in 1986, appointing former trade union leader Wim Kok as his successor. After the 1989 general election , the PvdA returned to cabinet together with

16506-526: 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

16637-486: 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

16768-477: 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

16899-491: Was replaced by the VVD. The PvdA was in opposition until 1965. The electoral support of PvdA voters began to decline. In 1965, a conflict in the centre-right cabinet made continuation of the government impossible. The three confessional parties turned toward the PvdA. Together they formed the Cals cabinet , with KVP leader Jo Cals as prime minister. This cabinet too was short-lived and conflict-ridden. The conflicts culminated in

17030-527: Was under foreign control. In the 19th century, the East Indies trade started to dwindle, and with it the importance of Malacca as a trading post. The Dutch state officially ceded Malacca to the British in 1825. It took until 1957 for Malaya to gain its independence. Despite this, the Dutch language is rarely spoken in Malacca or Malaysia and only limited to foreign nationals able to speak the language. After

17161-468: Was unsuited for the leadership. Ploumen was replaced as parliamentary leader by Attje Kuiken . Following the 2023 Senate election in 30 May 2023, PvdA and GroenLinks deepened their co-operation by forming a joint parliamentary group in the senate, becoming the second-largest group behind the Farmer–Citizen Movement . On 17 July 2023, the party and Green Left announced that they would contest

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