Tom Kando
I just returned from the Netherlands.
We were nearly two weeks in that lovely country. It was delightful. We spent most of our time visiting with relatives and good old friends whom we had not seen in years. We enjoyed excellent Dutch cuisine, including many varieties of cheese and my favorite appetizers: herring and Carpaccio. There were concerts (Bach’s Brandenburg concertos), boat rides through the Amsterdam canals, strolling on the beach, lounging around sidewalk cafés and more. My wife Anita keeps saying: “Europeans are a café society. Why can’t Americans be more like that?”
However, I discovered something quite odd, something that shocked me:
I have long admired the Dutch for being brilliantly multi-lingual. A large majority of them are fluent in English, among other languages. This is quite convenient for American visitors. However, over the past couple of decades, the country’s entire higher education system has become Anglicized. Today, a majority of the curriculum at most Dutch universities is taught in English.
I had no idea.
My discovery that Dutch higher education is now largely in English was fortuitous. We met a nice and very intelligent young American who is a student at the University of Groningen. He has been in Holland for several months, but he still hardly speaks a word of Dutch. I asked him how he manages to attend a Dutch university. No problem, he said, since all his classes are in English.
This floored me. I learned from further conversation and some superficial research that a majority of university courses in the Netherlands are now taught in English.
(see for example Dutch Universities Teach in English and Best English-Taught Universities in the Netherlands)
The percentage is exceptionally high at my alma mater, the University of Amsterdam. Other universities whose curriculum is largely in English include Delft, Utrecht, Leiden, Groningen and Eindhoven (at the latter institution, 100% of the courses are in English).
As I said, I have always admired the Dutch’s linguistic versatility, which I share. At the Gymnasium (grades seven through twelve) we all learned six languages for five or six years (Dutch, English, French, German, Latin and Greek). Marvelous.
But now, there is the wholesale transition from Dutch to English as the country’s primary language in higher education.
There are those who argue that this is “pragmatic” and well-advised. The Dutch have always been pragmatic. Today, English is the world’s Lingua Franca, especially in science and technology. There is nothing wrong with a “world language.” It probably helps international cooperation and progress. Additionally, the Netherlands benefit financially, as 15% of that country’s university students are international students.
However, this makes me sad. I am sad that after having lived in Holland for several months, our American friend at the University of Groningen still hardly speaks any Dutch. And this probably goes for most of the thousands of other foreign students in Holland. (When I moved to Amsterdam at age fourteen, I was fluent in less than one year).
And what about the Dutch kids who complete their secondary education, and who wish to go on to the university, but still struggle with English? (I was such a student). But now, you can’t complete a university degree in Holland unless you have total mastery of English? This is weird.
I haven’t examined the data in great detail. I assume that Holland’s transition to English has gone farthest in the technological sector, and (hopefully) less so in the humanities. Would it make sense to offer all or most of the curriculum in Dutch history, literature, the arts, even philosophy and sociology only in English? This feels like a betrayal, the betrayal of Dutch culture. You get to learn about Rembrandt and Van Gogh in English, when you could do so in their native language? Not to mention the incredibly rich past and present Dutch literature.
* * * * * * *
There may also be a creeping anglicization of the Dutch language under way. I just read Bert Wagendorp’s:
Phoenix: De memoires van Abel Sikkink (2022). This is a wonderful book about a Dutch immigrant to America in the 19th century. Wagendorp is an excellent writer. But throughout the book there are many instances of the anglicization of the Dutch language. Here are just a few of the many anglicisms I found in this book:
P. 314: een boot arriveerde in de haven, Why not “kwam aan?”
P. 331: een immens huis. Why not “enorm?”
P. 336: competitie. Why not “wedstrijd?”
P. 342 superioriteitsgevoel. Why not “ meerderwaardigheids complex?”
P. 342: hypocriet: Why not “huichelaar?”
I don’t recommend the linguistic chauvinism of the French, who go too far in their protectiveness of the purity of their language. But I do believe that Dutch is an excellent language, and that it should continue to be used vigorously. The Netherlands are a vibrant but small country of less than eighteen million people. Its economic, political and cultural contributions to the world are disproportionately large. I hope that it does not turn its back on its cultural and linguistic identity for the sake of profit and expediency.
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9 comments:
This is very interesting. If I were part of a smallish language group I too would be saddened by this sort of thing. It seems that many languages have been lost and more are in danger all the time. I recently read BRAIDING SWEETGRASS, a collection of essays by a Native American botanist, that includes some eye-opening ideas about the way language reflects--and influences--culture. The author argues that the loss of her tribe's native language also erases an entire worldview reflected in that language's vocabulary (especially verbs and pronouns). And yet, one can certainly understand why this would be happening in a world ever more dominated by English...
To teach Dutch littérature (poetry!!!) in English seems to me a total non-sens. Hungary (whose attitude towards safeguarding the langage is quasi psychotic) has curricula specially prepared for foreign students, at certain universities.
Why not create huge sections for foreign students to profit from the international demand?
Hi Tom,
Enjoyed your observations about the language of the Dutch universities—and sadly don't think it's much different in Germany.
Years ago I noticed this trend in the northern schools—particularly Flensburg, which attracts a lot of Scandinavian students. but I suspect that it is endemic.
Aren't you glad we were there in the "good old days" when studying at the University of Vienna was a true Austrian experience?
That post was informative thoughtful and provocative. Thanks, Tom.
Wat je in je blog schrijft over de invasie van het Engels in het Nederlandse onderwijs is interessant. Het speelt nu ook een rol in de politieke discussies in aanloop naar de verkiezingen voor de Tweede Kamer... Gisteren was er een eerste debat op de TV tussen de kopstukken van de vier kansrijkste partijen, en daar kwam dat ook ter sprake. Een van hen (Pieter Omtzigt) stelde dat hij wel kon begrijpen dat de invloed van het Engels op zijn plaats was in de technische en exacte opleidingen, maar veel minder in de humaniora zoals psychologie en sociologie. Niemand sprak hem daarbij tegen. Het schijnt dat die invasie van het Engels op universitair niveau met name wordt gedreven doordat het voor universiteiten financiële voordeliger is om buitenlandse studenten aan te trekken... En in het bedrijfsleven wordt het gebruik van Engels aantrekkelijk gemaakt doordat - vanwege vergrijzing van de Nederlandse bevolking - er steeds meer buitenlandse arbeidskrachten de arbeidsmarkt moeten komen versterken.
Ook in de eigen familie merken we hoe min of meer vanzelf sprekend het ons valt om de conversaties in het Engels te voeren, zodra en omdat de Australische vrouw van onze kleinzoon Enzo er bij is. Zij wil best Nederlands leren, maar op die manier stimuleren we dat niet bepaald.
Overigens valt het me op dat jij in je blog naar aanleiding van het boek van Bert Wagendorp enkele voorbeelden aandraagt van anglicismen, waarvan ik eerder aan hun herkomst uit het Frans herken: “arriveren” = “arriveren”; “immens” = “immense”; "competitie” = “competition”; en “hypocriet” = “hypocrite”. Ben je dat wel met me eens?
Overigens is het onvermijdelijke uitsterven van talen in het algemeen een boeiend onderwerp. Op Google zocht ik naar “talen sterven uit”. En daarbij komen heel wat boeiende vragen tevoorschijn, zoals: “Welke talen sterven uit?” (3000 van de 7000); “Wat gaat er verloren als een taal uitsterft?”(cultuur en identiteit). “Wat zijn de 3 belangrijkste talen?” (Mandarijn Chinees, 1248 miljoen sprekers; Spaans 437 miljoen; Engels 372 miljoen en Arabisch 298 miljoen). Daar kan je dus wel in enkele blogs boeiend over uitweiden.
You will be interested in this reaction from my son at Central European University in Vienna:
“Yep. Deniz has a high school classmate who teaches marketing in Amsterdam (after training in London). Several of our PhDs have made good careers for themselves in Maastricht and Utrecht. I know an American historian of physics/materials science who went from Rice to Maastricht and is doing just fine. (He got an ERC grant.) Less representative, but a Swiss acquaintance from grad school has spent his career in the Netherlands.”
Welcome home. Sounds like a great visit. Amazing for language switch!
Cheers
Quantity vs quality - always first.
Thank you all for your comments. This is what keeps doing our blog worthwhile. We may not have a huge readership, but it is such an intelligent readership. A great contrast with the thousands of comments that follow most of the online “articles of the hour” on my computer log-in page (yahoo)!
And another thought: AI has not yet taken over the world. Both my articles and your comments are (presumably) written by people. We may enjoy this for perhaps another three years?
Science Thrillers and Paul bring up the issue of the death of languages. Such loss. Thousands of languages are disappearing. I reckon that Dutch is not one of them, at this time. It is still spoken in half of Belgium, segments of South Africa and parts of the former Dutch colonies such as Suriname and a few Caribbean islands.
Csaba makes important points: Why not create separate native and English sections of important courses that enroll many foreign students? And by the way, Hungarian is in much greater peril than Dutch. That country has a smaller and declining population. Its language is impossibly “different” and therefore difficult to master. I was once able to speak it and write in it, but no longer.
Marjorie reminds us that Holland is not alone in deliberately anglicizing themselves. The Scandinavians, the Swiss and other Germanic countries are doing likewise (although the Dutch seem to be doing this the most).
Paul reminds us that this issue, like everything else at this time, is being politicized. Sometimes, those who fret about the displacement of their native tongues are accused of being nativists, populists, chauvinists, i.e. right-wing reactionaries, which can be an effective strategy.
Paul writes that my examples of the anglicization of Dutch appear to be more French than English etymology.
I anticipated such criticism. My examples are not the best. However, Wagendorp’s book contains dozens of (other) cases where someone like me might use an old-fashioned Dutch word instead of its Franco-English synonym. For instance “inlichtingen” instead ‘of “informatie.”
As to the total number of people who speak various languages: There is no question that Mandarin has the largest number of FIRST speakers, but when including English second-speakers (for example hundreds of millions of Indians and Africans) English is number one. And even counting only English first-speakers, the number is probably nearly twice the 372 million mentioned by Paul. After all, the US + the UK + Canada + Australia alone already = 460 million. But I quibble.
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