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发表于 2-6-2006 09:59 AM
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In English, '(the) Netherlands' is the official name of the European part of the 'Kingdom of the Netherlands'. 'Holland' is commonly used as a synonym for the Netherlands, but the word Holland derives from a district in the west of the country that currently makes up two of the twelve provinces, namely North Holland and South Holland. The country's people and language are called 'Dutch'. 'Netherlanders' can be used for the people and 'Netherlandic' or 'Netherlands' as adjectives, but they are uncommon. In most languages, the name for the country literally means 'low lands' or is a transliteration of 'Nederland' or 'Holland'.
The name "Holland", or derivations of it, is commonly used for the Netherlands both in Dutch and in most other languages and can even be the official name of the country, e.g., Holland (הולנד (Hebrew), Holland (荷兰) (Chinese), and Oranda (オランダ) (Japanese). Strictly speaking, though, 'Holland' is the name of a region within the Netherlands, which was the economic powerhouse during the time of the United Provinces (1581-1795). Using 'Holland' for 'the Netherlands' is thus comparable to the use of 'England' for 'the United Kingdom'. Some Dutch people, especially those from provinces other than North Holland and South Holland, object to the use of the name of 'Holland' for the entire Netherlands.
The plural form ("Netherlands" is not commonly used in Dutch any more, but instead a singular form of de Nederlanden: Nederland. The people are referred to as Nederlanders ("Dutch" in English) and the language is called Nederlands (again, "Dutch" in English). The plural form Nederlanden is mainly used when referring to the entire Kingdom (het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden), which includes the Netherlands Antilles and Aruba.
A new phenomenon among some English-speakers is the practice of referring to residents of the Netherlands and the language spoken in the Netherlands not as "Dutch", but rather as "Hollandish" as the term is more accurate in relation to other foreign languages in which "Dutch" or "Deutsch" refers to the German language and people. [citation needed] Another proposed naming convention is to refer to residents of the Netherlands as "Netherlanders" and to call the language "Netherlandish." Although these last terms are not as pleasing to the ear, they are the most accurate of the proposed terms, and are more similar to how residents refer to themselves ("Nederlanders".
The English word "Dutch" is akin to the German word Deutsch and has the same etymological origin. Both these terms derive from what in Germanic was known as theodisca, which meant "(language) of the (common) people". During the early Middle Ages, it was the elite that mostly used Latin and the common people used their local languages. An older Dutch term for the language of the Netherlands is Diets or Nederdietsch. |
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