LL-L: "Help needed" LOWLANDS-L, 11.AUG.2001 (02) [E]

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From:  "W. Jaap Engelsman" <engelsma at euronet.nl>
Subject: LL-L: "Help needed" LOWLANDS-L, 11.AUG.2001 (01) [E]

Dear Lowlanders,

Pat Reynolds wrote

>In Haslinghuis' _Bouwkundige Termen_, interestingly enough, 'herve' is
>said to be an English word, glossed by the Dutch 'rib'.  'Herve' doesn't
>appear in the full OED, so I'm guessing it may be very dialectal in
>English, and dialectal in Dutch too.

No doubt this is a typo for _nerve_ , on which the OED says:

7. Arch. (See quots.)
A French sense, perh. never in actual English use.
1727­38 Chambers Cycl. s.v., Nerves, in architecture, denote the mouldings
of projecting arches of vaults.
1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 589 Nerves, the mouldings of the groined
ribs of Gothic vaults.
1850 Parker Gloss. Archit. (ed. 5) 325 Nerves, a term sometimes applied to
the ribs and mouldings on the surface of a vault, but it is not technical.

Haslinghuis' translations should be treated critically in general. Apart
from that, its Dutch vocabulary is a mixture of common and unusual words
(at least in my 1986 edition; there is a later, revised edition). It is a
difficult field, of course, as all this old terminology is often
ill-defined. Dutch _rib_ in this sense is a perfectly ordinary word, not
dialectal.

As to the earlier matter:

>Een yugelyck [read: yegelyck] mach tymmeren ende metsen opt duyterste
>van synder erven, ende soe nae eens anders erve alst hem belieft, maer
>moet alsdan up [read: op] syn vuyterste erve bliven, syn ankerhoodt binnen

>synen muere houden ende entrecken [read: intrecken]
(corrections from WNT on cd-rom)

>Do you have any ideas about 'erve(en)'?
>I had translated it in my mind as 'beam' as I went along, but
>'erf/erven' only appears in my dictionary as 'inheritence' and 'yard',
>neither of which make any sense here.

Frans Buter wrote:

>It looks like the same is meant with duyterste and vuyterste. Maybe it's a

>grammatical difference? It must mean "uiterste" (utter/utmost). "Metsen"
>isn't modern Dutch. It's common in Flanders and some bordervillages
>in Zeeuws-Vlaanderen and is synonymous with then ABN-word "Metselen".
>Similar with the profession, in ABN: "Metselaar", in Flanders: "Metser".

I would say _duyterste_ is indeed a contraction of _de uiterste_ (modern
spelling) "the farthest, the extreme".
_vuyterste_ is simply _uiterste_.
_erve_ must be "parcel, lot, piece of land" (modern Dutch _perceel_).

The whole should probably be translated something like:

Anyone may put up wooden constructions and masonry at the furthest end (the

border) of his parcel, and as near another's parcel as he pleases, but he
must then keep to the furthest end of his parcel, keep his _muuranker_
(clamp?) within his wall, and retract it.

>If anyone knows of a 'Get By in Early Modern Dutch'
>course (book or a real course somewhere), I'd be very grateful!

All I can suggest is:

P.G.J. van Sterkenburg, "Een glossarium van zeventiende-eeuws Nederlands",
tweede, herziene en uitgebreide druk (Wolters-Noordhoff, Groningen 1977;
there may be later editions). This treats briefly the main differences in
meaning between 17th-century and modern Dutch, not flooding the user in the

way of the Woordenboek der Nederlandsche Taal. On the other hand, there is
little technical vocabulary, nor is there space for all those contractions,

and variations in spelling. No _duyterste_ or _vuyterste_ here.

Good luck!

Jaap Engelsman

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