Full Tilt Flemish
(...with training wheels)
To help English speakers learn the pronunciation, grammar, and rhythm of Flemish-Dutch, Calidocious Inc. proposes a simplified way to use Flemish pronouns (words that stand for things, like the words 'it', 'he', or 'she'). and gender assignment. This modified style of Standard-Dutch is called 'California Dutch', and is also nicknamed 'Sideways Dutch' or 'Dot Dutch'.
The new lingo makes use of several 'old-fashioned' pronouns from 'Medieval', or 'Middle, Dutch', which was spoken from about 1100 until about 1491, ie. the year just before Columbus returned from the 'New' World. In particular, the Middle Dutch pronouns for 'you', both singular and plural, (the equivalents of 'thou', 'ye' , and 'thy' in Middle English), are added back into Modern Dutch. Several of the pronoun changes also mimic pronouns used in various modern-day Flemish dialects of Dutch, or in the Limburgish language which is spoken in the Limburg regions of Flanders and Holland.
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'California Dutch' may alternantely be described as 'Standard Dutch', spoken with a Flemish accent, and suplemented with several colloquial Flemish, Limburgish, and Northern Dutch pronouns. Traits of the Flemish variant of Dutch that are important in California Dutch include: 1.Use of (mostly) three genders, 2. Rolling of 'r's' (with one trill) in the French manner, 3. Softening of 'g's so they are less gutteral, 4. Softening of terminal '-tie's so they are pronounced 'sie' instead of 'tsie', and terminal '-isch' so it is pronounced '-ies', 5. Extensive substitution of 'u' and 'uw' for 'jou' and 'jouw' ('you' and 'yours'- singular-informal), 6. Use of 'du̇'-('you-singular-informal' and pronounced 'duh') in place of 'je' after simple verbs, 7. Use of variants of the Middle Dutchl/Limburgish pronouns 'gij/ge' for 'you-plural-informal' pronouns.
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There is one aspect of California Dutch that resembles 'Standard Dutch' more than 'Flemish Dutch'- it is reduced declension of possessive pronouns, where, for example the word 'my' is 'mijn'-before neuter gender nouns and 'mijne'-before common gender nouns. In 'Flemish Dutch' possessive pronouns usually decline, particularly if they are the penultimate (second to last) words in a sentence, whereas in 'Standard Dutch' they usually don't decline.
In 'California Dutch' posessive pronouns "stretch" but usually don't fully decline. For example, when used as a penultimate word, the possessive pronoun 'mijn' is slightly elongated to 'my'n'-(pronounced as a single-syllable 'my-n', and 'my'n' is used for both common-gender and neuter nouns.
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Although the changes to 'Standard Dutch' may initially seem to add, rather than decrease the complexity of Standard Dutch, they allow students to make all pronoun choices based on rules, rather than on arbitrary speaker preferences (which vary from community to community in Flanders). They also make writtien Dutch nearly 100% phonectic, ie. "what you see, is (almost) always what you say".
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The seven grammatical and/or stylistic differences between 'California Dutch' and both 'Standard ABN Dutch'- (General Proper Dutch) and 'Flemish Dutch' are: 1. Reduction of almost all subject, object, possessive, and reflexive pronouns to one syllable, 2. Increased use of contraction of post-verb subject, object, and possessive pronouns, (which is a reason for the nickname 'Sideways Dutch'), 3. Contraction of the first word in triple-or-more word adjective-noun constructions and the penultimate word in triple or more word verb constructions 4. Reduction of the use of pronoun homonyms (by increasing the overall number of pronouns), 5. Redefinintion of the often ambiguous {male/female) genders of Modern Dutch mono-syllable Common-Gender pronouns which refer to inanimate objects, 6. More extensive and consistent use of commas to set off subordinate clauses, as is done in English, and 7. Spelling modifications to help clairify pronunciations and to help indicate the tempo of speech- (which is the reason for the nickname 'Dot Dutch'}. Written 'California Dutch' is over 99% phonetic, with the exception of capitalized proper names.
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A counter-intuitive feature of the changes is that even though 'California Dutch' in general strives to shorten pronouns, prounouns are usually as long/distinctive as they can be, as long as they don't impede sentence flow. For example: the subject pronoun 'jij'-(you) is always preferred before a verb, as opposed to the condensed, post-verb, forms 'je' or 'du̇', as long as the more lengthy pre-verb form 'jij' doesn't impede the flow of a spoken sentence.
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The nine most noticable vocabulary deviations from Standard Dutch are: 1. Elimination of the two-syllable subject, object, and posessive pronoun 'jullie' (y'all/y'all's). 2. Restriction of the use of the object pronoun 'jou' (you-singular-informal) and the 3. possessive pronoun 'jouw' (yours-singular-informal) to just emphatic, reflexive, abstract.(such as in instructions), or end-of-sentence use. 4. Repurposing of the colloquial Dutch pronoun 'd'r'-(her) to become the object pronoun 'you-plural-informal-object', 5. Reintroduction of the 'Middle Dutch' pronouns 'Dù' (You-singular-object-emphatic where the grave accent indicates slight emphasis), and 6. 'Gîj/gij' (pre-verb) or ' ge/ ġe ' (post-verb)- ('You-plural subject'- where the circomflex-accent indicates a gutteral 'g+juh' sound, and where the over-dot indicates the word is slurred onto the terminal consonant of a preceding verb). 7. Use of the Flemish 'you-singular-informal-subject' pronoun 'du̇- which sounds like 'duh'- after simple verbs, 8, 9, 10. Use of the colloquial Flemish 'aai' based, possessive pronouns: 9. 'æ̇i'- (yours-singular-informal as a penultimate-word following a consonant-ended-preposition before a neuter one-or-two-syllable noun). 'æ̇i' is pronounced as a single-syllable dipthong, 'aye-ih', and is slurred together with the final consonant of the preceding preposition. 10. Use of the posessive pronoun 'æ̂i' in the same way before common-gender words. In addition to slurring together with the final consonant of a preceeding verb, 'æ̂i' also has a hint of a 'juh' sound, as if 'eye-jih' were condensed to a single syllable, and 10, Use of the colloquial nominative pronoun 'de/'t æie'-('yours'-singular-informal and pronounced 'eye-uh'), 11. Elimination of all uses of 'hem' (he/it) to refer to nouns that used to be feminine in Standard Dutch and are still feminine in Standard Flemish. 12. Use of 'u-based', 2nd person, singular and plural, object or possessive, pronouns following prepositions*. They include 'u̇'-(you-singular-informal-object, with a short 'uu' sound ,, 'u̇w'-(yours-singular-informal-default possessive), 'uẇe'-(yours-singular-informal-penultimate-word posessive before a common-gender one-or-two syllable noun, and , 'ü'- (you-plural-informal- object). All of them are slurred together with the final consonant of the preceeding preposition*. 13. Use of 'u'- (you-singular-informal-object end-of-sentence following words ending in consonants). 14. Use of 'uw/uẁe/de-het uwe'' as the non-emphatic forms of 'yours-plural-informal' (where uẁe (with a reverse accent instead of an overdot) is pronounced as fast as a monosyllable, with the 'uw' emphasized and the final 'e' demphasized). And 15. Use of 'œu̇r'-(pronounced as a dipthong 'eu-uu-r' and derived from Limburgish) as the emphatic possessive form.
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*Note: In order to simplify discussion about the unique ways California Dutch pronouns work, the term 'preposition(s)*',with an asterisk, will be used from here on to mean 'preposition(s) ending in a consonant'- which is almost all prepositions. Following the exceptional vowel-ended prepositions 'behalve'-(except), 'na'-(after), 'mee'-(with), and 'bij'-(by) pronouns usually behave like they do in Standard Dutch.
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All the changes are meant to be so slight that during speech a Dutch speaker from Holland might not recognize them as being "non-Flemish", and a Fleming would just think you were from some obscure community in south-eastern Holland near the Flemish border. In writing, however, the changes are noticable. The written and spoken changes can be considered to be a hypothetical dialect of Dutch that might have evolved in the Dutch colony of 'New Netherland' (which now is roughly New York State), similarly to how American English evolved from British English..
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In addition to the 'jullie/jou/jouw' eliminations/abbreviations that are based on 'Middle Dutch' and modern 'Flemish Dutch', several of the other grammatical/spelling changes can be found in "old fashioned" Standard Dutch books written before the mid 1900s.. A 1920 translation of the book 'Smoke Bellew' by Jack London is used as a reference at the end of this web page.
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The most "foreign" sounding of the California Dutch changes to Standard Dutch is the repurposing of the colloquial Dutch (and not Flemish) pronoun 'd'r' (her) to become 'you-plural-informal-object'. There are four variants of the pronoun: 1. 'Emphatic form 'dì |