LL-L "Resources" 2007.10.30 (05) [E]

Tue Oct 30 23:04:26 UTC 2007

L O W L A N D S - L  -  30 October 2007 - Volume 05
Song Contest: lowlands-l.net/contest/ (- 31 Dec. 2007)
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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2007.10.30 (03) [E]

Hi Jorge

Haha, funny, learning Dutch by comics!
Yeah, I know Haagse Harry, but actually the The Hague dialect is very
close to standard Dutch, it's more like an accent than a real dialect.
My brother-in-law is a real "Hagenees" so I know the accent quite well.
Just the way how it is written in these comics makes it a bit difficult.
For what I remember from about 10 years ago when I read Haagse Harry:

Dutch r [r] or [R] becomes a very guttural Haags r [G] is written g, from
Dutch g [G] or [x].
Word finally, -r is [9] like in German or Southern British English, e.g.
Dutch boer [bu:r] will be written boeah [bu:9].
Diphthongs become monophthongs: Dutch ee [e.I] becomes Haags ei [EI], oo
[o.U] becomes ou [OU].
Dutch ij / ei [EI] become èè [E:], ui becomes èù [9:], ou / au [aU] become
[Q:].

And he uses a lot of street language, slang and local idiom, to make it
more difficult. But as I said, Haags is close to standard Dutch, much
closer than most regional dialects are, maybe you can compare it a bit
with Cockney in the UK.

Have fun
Ingmar

Btw I think there is a Haagse Harry website, you can also look at the Onze
Taal site.

Jorge Potter:

Dear Ron/Lowlanders,

I have a fabulous linguistic opportunity. A Dutch friend has been on
sabbatical since the beginning of the present academic year and has loaned
me his collection of *stripboeken* (comic books like Asterix, Robbedoes,
etc.) --about 400-450 of them! For my weird mind this is extremely
stimulating material to use studying the Dutch language, since it has so
much colloquial usage.

Well, it turns out that Hans is from the Hague and included two of the
*Haagse
Harry* series in the books he loaned me. His wife, raised in Amsterdam,
speaking German preschool, learning Dutch (main language), French and
English in school, just cannot read the *Haagse taal! *
**
My question is, is there anything on Lowlands-L to help me read the Hague
dialect? Or does anyone know another source on the internet?

Preliminarily I observe there is quite a quite a bit of diphthongization,
similar to English and Mennonite Low Saxon.

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From: Ingmar Roerdinkholder <ingmar.roerdinkholder at WORLDONLINE.NL>
Subject: LL-L "Resources" 2007.10.30 (03) [E]

In addition to this, a few more, interesting Den Haag Zuid-Holland Dutch
features came to my mind:

The people of The Hague are sometimes called "tea thieves", theedieven in
Dutch, because final t in consonant clusters is usually dropped.

Acht => ach, last => las, drift => drif, klapt => klap etc.

Dutch dimunitives ending in -je, end in -ie in Haags:

kopje => koppie, hakje => hakkie, mesje => messie.
Btw -tje does not change: hartje = hartje.

Both characteristics are found also in Afrikaans, too, and in many more
Hollandic accents. But not in Zeelandic, which once more proves wrong that
Afrikaans would be from Zeelandic, a widespread hypothesis in the
Netherlands. But apart from the above, Zeelandic drops initial h-, unlike
Afrikaans and Hollandic, and Zeelandic doesn't have ui and ij but uu and
ie, unlike Afrikaans and Hollandic.

Ingmar

Hi Jorge