La Flandre flamingante

Département du Nord: over the quarter of a century that I’ve lived ‘abroad’, although my visits are always transitory, I must have passed through this region a hundred or more times on my way to and from the channel ports. This windswept, dune-fringed coastline – which forms part of the exotically named Côte d’Opale – has a hinterland of polders and small rural communities and would seem to have more in common with the Low Countries than the landscapes we typically associate with France. Every self-respecting village may have its own épicerie, boulangerie and marchand de vins, but placenames like Ghyvelde, Hazebrouck, Spycker and Zuydcoote, seem to belie a Gallic past.

Indeed Gijvelde, Hazebroek, Spijker and Zuidkote were once bastions of a Flemish-speaking community that formerly existed in this far northern corner of France but which has now all but vanished. Over the centuries, the age-old dividing line between speakers of Germanic (Flemish) and Romance (French) dialects has been pushed slowly northwards, its de jure boundary now synonymous with the border of the Département du Nord and the Belgian (Flemish) province of West-Vlaanderen.

Up until the turn of the 18th century, the de facto language of literature and administration in French Flanders, which roughly equated to the current départements of Pas de Calais and Nord, was Flemish. But since the middle ages, and certainly after its incorporation into France proper in 1713, Flemish had been steadily losing ground to the Romance dialects of Picardy which were encroaching from the south. So in the middle ages, the language divide would have been much further south and stretched along the whole of the Pas de Calais coastline, beyond Calais (Kales) and as far down as Boulogne (Bonen). In the east of the region, Lille (Rijssel) marked the northern outpost of the French-speaking community.

Because of the overwhelming dominance of French above all other (minority) languages or dialects in Metropolitan France, Flemish has all but disappeared in French Flanders. The French government affords no legal status to Flemish and it is recognised by neither central nor regional institutions or given any educational facilities. There are no newspapers written in Flemish and no television station broadcasting programmes in the language. The Radio Uylenspiegel radio station, based in Cassel (Kassel) broadcasts 10% of its programmes in Flemish. This independent radio station originally operated illegally, until it gained legal status in 1982.

As a consequence, the Flemish dialect has been virtually wiped out. Flemish speakers are more or less confined to the Arrondissement de Dunkerque (Duinkerke), also known as Maritime Flanders, or the Westhoek. It is estimated that 20,000 people still speak the dialect of the region on a daily basis, with a further 40,000 speaking it occasionally, this out of a total population in the arrondissement of 375,000. These numbers of course, hide the fact that it is predominantly the elderly population that speaks the language. 

According to one study 23 years ago (Röhrig, 1987, Die Sprachkontaktsituation im Westhoek), the generation of grandparents divided into 36% French-speakers, 38% Flemish-speakers and 26% using both languages, whereas the generation of parents divided into 75% French-speakers, 25% Flemish-speakers and 25% using both languages. Younger people used the languages in the proportions of 99% French, 1% Flemish and 8% both. That was a generation ago.

The future of the local language does not look bright. Standard Dutch is being offered in French primary and secondary schools in the region, but classes are never taught through the medium of Dutch and support from the national and regional authorities is lukewarm to say the least, so the authentic indigenous form of the language, French Flemish, will continue to lose even more ground.

Other links:

Dutch/Flemish in the North of France

Flemish in France

Dutch/Flemish names in French Flanders

English doesn't always work*

The use of English in Dutch adverts only has a positive effect on those under the age of 30, and only then when the message can be readily understood. These are the conclusions arrived at in a Master's thesis written by Floortje Westerburgens who recently graduated from the University of Tilburg.

As part of her research, she presented 160 persons with adverts which used either a Dutch or English slogan. They were asked to assess the ads for their appeal, suitability and comprehensibility. The results of the survey would seem to be at odds with the trend of using more English in Dutch adverstisements. "Advertisers assume that the use of English makes the message more attractive and convincing", Westerburgen concludes. But that's only partly the case.

Neither does English in job advertisements always come up to the mark, another study shows. Last November, Frank van Meurs received a doctorate from the University of Nijmegen for his thesis in which he contended that English job descriptions in Dutch job ads don't necessarily raise the status of the position. However, when readers see an English job title in isolation, they seem to value the status of the job more highly. For example, they seem to think a 'maintenance engineer' earns more than an onderhoudstechnicus.

More info:

http://www.tekstblog.nl/engels-in-nederlandse-advertenties-willen-we-met-of-zonder/

http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-73849126/english-dutch-commercials-not.html

http://www.stjerome.co.uk/tsa/abstract/9290/

         

* Translation of article in Onze Taal, December 2010

Living on the edge II

If I forget to switch my mobile phone to silent, it may suddenly spring into life when my telecom provider decides to welcome me by text message to Germany. It’s slightly bizarre, since Rolduc Abbey - where I occasionally perform guided tours to English-speaking visitors - is actually in Kerkrade in the Netherlands. But only just. 

The towns of Herzogenrath (in Germany) and Kerkrade (in the Netherlands) are separated by an international border. This hasn’t always been the case. As far back as the 12th century the towns formed a single geographic and administrative entity, known as the Land of Rode. Back then, it was ruled by the Counts of Saffenburg, who resided in Burg Rode, which survives to this day in the centre of modern-day Herzogenrath.

Through the ages, the map of the region was subject to constant change, like the ebb and flow of the tide. The wider region was a confused collection of duchies, fiefdoms and manors, which were likely to change hands without warning. The local rulers might lose their lands at the throw of a dice, or have them given away as a dowry: that’s if they hadn’t already been invaded by enemy troops. Despite the tumultuous times, Kerkrade and Herzogenrath nevertheless managed to remain united under the name of Landes Herzogenrath.

Rode, -rath, -rade are suffixes which can be found in many place names throughout the southern Netherlands and the Rhineland. They originate from the Dutch word rooien (German = roden), which means to clear land from forest (for example, for cultivation and settlement). Herzogenrath, Kerkrade and Klosterrath would have started out life as clearings in the forest.

In 1804, the jumbled patchwork of lands which included the Land of Rode, were abolished and the whole region was incorporated into Napoleon’s Greater French Empire. Rode-le-duc, or Rolduc, became the French name for Herzogenrath - nowadays this name refers exclusively to the abbey of the same name which had been founded in 1104, and known locally as Klosterrath, now in present-day Kerkrade.

When Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, the borders were once again redrawn and the Land of Rode was split asunder. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, new borders were seemingly arbitrarily drawn. The border between the Netherlands and Prussia sliced the Land of Rode in two, with Rolduc (i.e. the abbey) and Kerkrade falling into Dutch hands, and Burg Rode (in Herzogenrath) being assigned to Prussia. Kerkrade became part of the Netherlands, and Herzogenrath Prussia, thus wiping the Land van Rode from the map in one fell swoop after seven centuries of unity.

 

Even after the division of lands following the Napoleonic wars, the border between the two towns never presented much of an obstacle to normal contact between citizens on either side. Life went on much as before: citizens on both sides spoke the same dialect, pursued the same cultural and social activities, and inter-married across the newly created divide.

This situation only changed with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. For the first time ever, a physical barrier was thrown up on the Nieuwstraat/Neustraβe, a road that runs along the border between Kerkrade and Herzogenrath. A curtain, or wall, around 2 metres in height, was constructed along the central reservation. The border was hermetically sealed and patrolled day and night by armed troops. They must have been tense times.

Things must have been equally fraught during the Second World War, when the Netherlands was occupied by Nazi Germany. For one month in late 1944, the residents of Kerkrade were hemmed in on the front line - in a kind of no-man's-land - between American and German troops. Fighting was fierce, because this was the region where the homelands of the Third Reich were first breached by the advancing Allied Forces.       

The two world wars left their scars, in the sense that both towns initially adopted an inward-looking mentality, with their backs to each other: Herzogenrath looked increasingly towards Germany, and Kerkrade towards the Netherlands.

After the end of the Second World War, right up until 1995, a physical border of sorts remained in place, albeit in slowly diminishing degrees. In the course of the intervening decades the two-metre high border fence was replaced by a friendlier-looking wire-netting partition of more modest proportions – just 1.20 metres high. In the sixties, this, in turn, gave way to a 60 cm high wall of concrete blocks.

Only after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the opening of Europe’s internal borders, was the wall dismantled on the Nieuwstraat/Neustraβe. Instead of separate two-way thoroughfares on either side of the border, a single road was brought about, one carriageway on the Dutch side and one on the German side, with no central reservation. In fact, if it weren’t for the different coloured post-boxes on either side of the street, you might be forgiven for thinking this was any other street in the Netherlands or Germany, not an international border. 

Apart from the post-boxes, there’s not an awful lot to distinguish the two towns from each other. They share a common dialect and culture, and the coal reserves buried deep underground on both sides have made an indelible mark on the region’s industrial and economic past. Fortunately, both sides no longer adopt an inward-looking mentality. If a fire breaks out in Kerkrade for example, the fire brigade from Herzogenrath will be first on the scene. There are an increasing number of cross-border services, including international business parks at Avantis and Eurode, and an hourly Euregiobahn train service that travellers between the major conurbations of Parkstad (in South Limburg) and Aachen (in the Rhineland) and places beyond.

Living on the edge

When Google Street View comes to a sudden halt at De Locht, on the Netherlands’ south-eastern rim, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is where the world ends, which, in the minds of many people, it probably does. Centrality and peripherality are concepts that pervade the national psyche, the idea being that the metropolitan area is the vibrant heartbeat of the nation and the provinces the frost-bitten extremities.

This view is perhaps best encapsulated in Saul Steinberg’s depiction of the world as seen from New York’s 9th Avenue, which first appeared on the front cover of the New Yorker magazine in 1976. The image shows Manhattan’s 9th Avenue, 10th Avenue, and the Hudson River, while the top half depicts the rest of the world. The rest of the United States is drawn as a square, with a thin brown strip along the Hudson representing New Jersey, the names of five cities (Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Kansas City, and Chicago) and three states (Texas, Utah and Nebraska) are scattered among a few rocks for the U.S. beyond New Jersey. Whilst taken to an extreme in this example, this metropolitan self-image (and self-importance) persists, not just in the States, but in countries like the Netherlands too.

Not long ago, I was at a translator’s conference near Amsterdam, 250 kilometres from where I live on the Dutch-German border. It’s always interesting to observe how people react when - in my quaint Limburg accent - I tell them about my domicile in the nethermost region of the Netherlands. Some are vaguely aware that Heerlen is close to Maastricht, the southernmost outpost of the realm, whilst others just offer detached, condescending looks, as if to point out the inconsequentiality of my marginal existence. This swaggering self-assurance of the world’s metropolists is a readily identifiable trait, not only amongst the Ranstedelingen of Holland, but amongst Londoners, Berliners, Parisians and Madrileños too. In fact, in itself this characteristic has a curious, inverted kind of quaintness to it. Coming from an island, I can perhaps more readily accept it. After all, the remote corners of the British mainland are extremities by definition: once you get to Land’s End or John o’Groats, you simply drop off the cliff edge.

But De Locht on the other hand, which lies 4 kilometres south of my home, is a different kettle of fish. Here, the cliff edge may be an imaginary one, but in the minds of those who have been conditioned to think in terms of centrality and peripherality is perhaps no less real. At the edge of my cliff however, is the historic city of Aachen - just a cycle ride away - where the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire once held sway. The city of Aachen may have lost its imperial lustre over the centuries, but its current population is still comparable in size to that of Utrecht, the Netherlands’ fourth largest city. Its university, the RWTH – with more students than any similar such institution in the Netherlands - has been independently rated as Germany’s top centre of learning and attracts students from all over the world. In the other direction, beyond Maastricht, is the French-speaking cultural centre of Belgium, Liège, at the heart of a major industrial conurbation whose population dwarfs that of The Hague. (Dutch holidaymakers will be familiar with Liège as the first major settlement they come to as they trundle south with their caravans in tow.) It should also be remembered that the region between Liège and Aachen was the first to be developed industrially on the European mainland. Cologne, Düsseldorf and Brussels too, are within easy striking distance, so from my perspective it’s strange to think that some in the Randstad perceive Limburg as being beyond the pale.      

‘Population potential’ is a tool that geographers use to quantify the centrality and peripherality of any given geographical location. It measures the proximity of a point in space to other centres of population. If the Netherlands were to be seen in isolation from the rest of Europe, then Limburg, and Heerlen in particular, would - in relation to the high-density regions of the Randstad - be seen as an outlier, scoring low on centrality and high on peripherality. But the world does not end at De Locht, as Google Street View would have us believe. In fact, if we look at population potential at a European level, the picture changes considerably. The isopleths shown in the title map clearly show that the population potential of Limburg is on a par with that of most of the Randstad, so the notion of it being ‘remote’ doesn’t really wash.

Centres of power - more or less synonymous with metropolitan areas - will always be at the forefront of political, economic and cultural development. If you're running a nation state, it's the most efficient way - geographically speaking - to manage it. And of course, the notion of centrality, within the national context, is reinforced by a centralised media on a day-to-day basis. Nevertheless, if not held in check, it brings about an unhealthy level of mono-culturalism and one-dimensional mentality which obscures the world beyond.

If you ask me, I’m really quite happy living  a ‘marginal’ existence, being able take my pick of three cultures instead of just one. And if that weren't good enough – to make all Randstedelingen green with envy – I enjoy petrol prices (across the border) which are 10 cents cheaper than their own.

Perplexing placenames

English placenames and surnames can sometimes be frustrating for the uninitiated, as Prof Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld discovered in the third book of the von Igelfeld trilogy, At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, written by Alexander McCall Smith. Whilst working as a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, he is completely mystified when he is introduced to the Chairman of the Fellows’ Committee, Dr ‘Plank’:

“I should warn you that you will not find Dr Plank’s name in any college lists should you try to look for it,” remarked Dr Wood, “and that is not because he is not a member of the college.”

Then Plank spoke. “The reason why there’s no Plank in the lists is not because there’s no Plank – there is – but because Plank is not spelled ‘Plank’. That is why.

“You may be aware that there are various English surnames which are spelled and pronounced in quite different ways. One of the best-known examples is ‘Featherstonehaugh’, which is pronounced ‘Fanshawe’. Then there is ‘Cholmondley’, which is simply pronounced ‘Chumley’, and of course anybody called ‘Beauchamp’ is usually ‘Beecham’.

“So how do you spell ‘Plank’?” asked Mathew Gureswitch.

“Haughland,” said Plank.

Von Igelfeld could not conceal his astonishment. Haughland?’

Of course, this is preposterous. McCall Smith is simply highlighting one of the more interesting vagaries of the English language. Placenames can be just as problematic as surnames. Most people, for example, will know that Greenwich, known for its meridian, isn’t pronounced “Green Witch” but “Gren-itch”.

But what about Alnwick and Northwich? Here are some placenames in the United Kingdom which have non-intuitive pronunciations. Can you guess their pronunciations?

Aldeburgh

Happisburgh

Hawarden

Hereford

Kingussie

Kirkcudbright

Leominster

Milngavie

Towcester

Wymondham

Answers below (approximate pronunciations):

Aldeburgh } Awl - bro

Happisburgh } Haze - burra

Hawarden } Har - den

Hereford } Herry - fud

Kingussie } Kin - youssy

Kirkcudbright } Ker – coo – bree

Leominster } Lemster

Milngavie } Mul - guy

Towcester } Toaster

Wymondham } Wind -um

Home truths

I’d been putting it off for ages. Home improvements have always made me feel nervous and emotionally vulnerable. More to the point, major renovations invariably cost an arm and a leg, so there are the financial considerations as well. However, when my veranda roof started to leak in the summer, I knew it was time to take the plunge. When it comes to DIY, I’m all fingers and thumbs, and even from the modest heights of a veranda roof  I suffer from vertigo, so I got on to the builder straightaway.

When my joiner came to look over my veranda, I had a rough idea of how much I wanted to splash out. I listened carefully as he explained all the pros and cons and the various options available to ensure my roof would keep me dry for the next two decades. Even opting for the solution that most closely suited my pocket, that is, using cheaper materials and methods, would still add an extra 50% to my ballpark figure. At the back of my mind, I flirted with the idea of using someone cheaper, but of course, there’d be no guarantees about quality. In the end, I plumped for a more expensive alternative, not least because it was the most durable solution. More than anything, it would settle my shaky home-improvement nerves and give me peace of mind.

The same cost-benefit principles are not solely restricted to the world of home improvements of course, they are pretty well universal. The principle of cutting one’s coat to suit one’s cloth applies just as equally in the translation business too. I suppose it depends on how the principles are applied.

To reduce my costs to a bare minimum, I could have decided to embark on the roofing work myself, but the time and effort - not to mention the stress - would have precluded me from doing anything economically productive. I might know the basics of how to cut with a saw or wield a paintbrush, but it doesn’t mean I have the years of training and experience to use them effectively. And to be quite honest, I would have made a complete botch job of it. Ultimately, the best and cheapest solution would be to employ a professional who’s trained and qualified to do the job, even though it might seem expensive at the time. This division of labour is a basic economic truism: I buy bread from a baker because I'm pretty useless at baking and I employ an accountant because he's much better with figures than I am. 

Sadly, when it comes to translation work, some people in business seem to think they can defy these fundamental laws of economic interdependence and take it upon themselves to do the work themselves. 

Not long ago, I was asked to give a quote for a translation job. I sent them my normal, bog-standard industry rates, only to be told by the prospective client that they were “over the odds”. Some weeks later I was contacted by the same client asking if I could revise the text they’d had translated into English themselves using … wait for it … Google Translate.  Of course, it was completely unintelligible and the subsequent costs of the revision ended up being greater than the original quote!

Another imaginative enquirer who was intent on slashing their costs told me they were unwilling to pay for highly repetitive words like “the” and “and”. Okay, I said, no problem, I’ll just leave every word of three letters or less out of the final text and you can figure out where to put them in afterwards. That would be like telling my roofer not to bother with the 200 screws or so that held down the roof, I’ll fix that myself. It would be just my hard luck if the roof panels flew off in a sudden gust of wind....

Needless to say, I never took on the translation job.

I’m sure there are examples in other service industries where a cheapskate attitude to other professions prevails. Myself, I’ve seen enough shoddy translations to know that we translators are particularly susceptible to a downgrading of our professional appreciation.

Oh well,  whilst companies are losing valuable foreign business on account of their short-sighted vision, I can at least go to bed at night safe in the knowledge that my veranda will be dry for a long while to come.

Gedogen: he who pays the piper calls the tune

Together, the regeerakkoord and the gedoogakkoord make up the coalition pact drawn up by three parties in the newly formed Netherlands’ government. The ‘agreements’ have been struck between the Liberals (VVD), the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) after many months of bargaining and bartering. Whilst the concept of a regeerakkoord (≈ coalition agreement) is more easily grasped, the term gedoogakkoord is more difficult to fathom. The reason is that gedogen is one of those archetypal Dutch words which, at worst, is untranslatable and, at best, is open to an assortment of interpretations.

The Dutch-English Van Dale dictionary’s definition of the word is ‘to tolerate’, in context: een aantal kamerleden gedoogt deze regering, which it translates into English as ‘a number of members of the house are tolerating this government’, which just sounds a bit too clumsy. Nevertheless, depending on the situation, the word can express many moods, from positive to negative, though in Dutch usage it generally conveys the latter. A gedoogzone voor tippelprostitutie, for example, is an area where ‘streetwalking’ is permitted. Drugs policy in the Netherlands is one of passive tolerance: gedoogbeleid. In other words, the authorities turn a blind eye to an activity which - by the standards of the day - is generally unacceptable, but which is otherwise considered a necessary evil in the interests of law and order. 

The political gedoogakkoord is an agreement designed to keep a minority government in power, in this case the VVD-CDA coalition, which has the implicit support of the PVV: together the three parties have a one-seat majority in parliament. This means that Geert Wilders gives his blessing to bills tabled by the two government parties which meet his approval. As such, the gedoogakkoord can best be translated as a ‘policy of tacit support’. But who exactly is supporting who? Is the PVV simply propping up the government? An opposition party leader in this week’s debate on the new government’s declaration put it this way: de VVD-CDA coalitie regeert, maar de PVV regisseert. In other words, the tail is wagging the dog.

So does ‘tolerate’ mean the same as ‘support’? Some would say the term gedoogsteun – a combination of the words gedogen (tolerate) and steun (support) - is paradoxical. Jan Kluitenbrouwer, in his column in Onze Taal (the Dutch linguists’ magazine), refers to the term as an oxymoron (where words of a contradictory meaning are used in conjunction). Geert Wilders actually has to give his active support to keep the VVD-CDA coalition in power, so he can hardly be said to be ‘tolerating’ or ‘looking the other way’ when it comes to voting on something which he finds acceptable or not. And who exactly is tolerating and supporting who? It could be said that the two government parties are there to keep Geert Wilders in power, so the gedoogsteun actually works in his favour.  

It’s all very confusing and all very Dutch. Whilst a minority administration in Scotland, for example, run by the Scottish Nationalists seems to get by on a bill-by-bill basis - without the need for the tacit support of any one particular party - the Dutch Liberal and Christian Democrat parties have made a conscious decision to seek out the ‘toleration’ of the controversial Geert Wilders and his right-wing PVV party to stay in power.

Toleration or support, who knows where this new Dutch government is going?

My guess is it will all end in tears.