Gijsbert Rutten

Letters as loot : a sociolinguistic approach to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch

The study of letter writing is at the heart of the historical-sociolinguistic enterprise. Private letters, in particular, offer an unprecedented view on language history. This book presents an in-depth study of the language of letters focussing on a unique collection of Dutch private letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which comprises letters from the lower, middle and upper ranks, written by men as well as women.The monograph discusses the key issues of formulaic language and the degree of orality of private letters, it questions the importance of letter-writing manuals, and reveals remarkable patterns of social, regional and gender variation in a wide range of linguistic features. Arguing for writing experience as an important factor in historical linguistics generally, the book offers numerous new perspectives on the history of Dutch.The book is of interest to a wide readership, ranging from scholars of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, Germanic linguistics, sociology and social history to (advanced) graduate and postgraduate students in courses on language variation and change. The e-book edition of this title is made available as Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND license.

Historical sociolinguistics: the field and its future

Abstract This article introduces the new Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics by situating it in the developing field of historical sociolinguistics. The landmark paper of Weinreich et al. (1968), which paid increased attention to extralinguistic factors in the explanation of language variation and change, served as an important basis for the gradual development and expansion of historical sociolinguistics as a separate (sub)field of inquiry, notably since the influential work of Romaine (1982). This article traces the development of the field of historical sociolinguistics and considers some of its basic principles and assumptions, including the uniformitarian principle and the so-called bad data problem. Also, an overview is provided of some of the directions recent research has taken, both in terms of the different types of data used, and in terms of important approaches, themes and topics that are relevant to many studies within the field. The article concludes with considerations of the necessarily multidisciplinary nature of historical sociolinguistics, and invites authors from various research traditions to submit original research articles to the journal, and thus help to further the development of the fascinating field of historical sociolinguistics.

Chapter 6. Spelling and identity in the Southern Netherlands (1750–1830)

At the reunification of the Low Countries in 1815, after more than two centuries of political separation, Northern and Southern varieties of Dutch once again came into renewed and intensified contact. The language area had been split since the Northern revolt against the Spanish regime at the end of the sixteenth century, after which the North entered its Golden Age as the independent Republic of the Seven United Provinces, while the Flemish South remained under foreign control, as part of the Spanish, Austrian, and French empires. The brief reunion under the crown of William I of Orange, commonly known as the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815–1830), gave rise to a number of remarkable language guidebooks aimed at native speakers of “Flemish” Southern Dutch, setting out to teach them “Hollandic” Northern Dutch.1 Given such publications, we might be tempted to look back upon Northern Hollandic and Southern Flemish as two distinct and mutually incomprehensible languages in 1815. However, while there must certainly have been communicative difficulties among users of different spoken varieties, the actual linguistic differences in written and printed texts are minimal. The main points of divergence between North and South in the early nineteenth century are minor orthographical issues, devoid of oral connotations. This chapter will examine these orthographical issues, situate them within the sociolinguistic landscape of early-nineteenth-century Flanders, and show how apparently insignificant differences were often portrayed as represent-

Extending the scope of construction grammar

The field of constructionist linguistics is rapidly expanding, as research on a broad variety of language phenomena is increasingly informed by constructionist ideas about grammar. This volume is comprised of 11 original research articles representing several emerging new research directions in construction grammar, which, together, offer a rich picture of the various directions in which the field seems to be moving.

The sociolinguistics of spelling: A corpus-based case study of orthographical variation in nineteenth-century Dutch in Flanders

The reunion of the Northern and Southern Low Countries under William I (1814–1830) marked the beginning of a renewed and intensified linguistic contact between the North and the South of the Dutch linguistic area. Two writing traditions usually regarded as different came into close contact, giving rise to intense spelling debates in Flanders. The Northern provinces had had an official orthography since 1804, whereas competing spelling systems existed the South. In the contemporary language debates, several orthographical features were repeatedly brought to the fore, and developed into strong markers of regional, social and religious identities. The present paper attempts to reconstruct the sociolinguistic landscape of the Southern Netherlands in the early nineteenth century, by focusing on normative publications, metalinguistic debates, and private language planning initiatives between 1814 and 1830. Special attention will be paid to the role of orthography in processes of identity formation. Furthermore, aiming to shed more light on some of the sociolinguistic principles at work, we will compare the metalinguistic discourse to actual language use, as represented in a specially compiled diachronic corpus of court files, including police reports, witness interrogation reports, and high court indictments. An analysis of the results will uncover, among other things, clear indications of an ongoing process of levelling and a gradual convergence towards Northern linguistic norms.

Vroegmoderne relativa : naar een diachrone constructiegrammatica

This article discusses three changes in the history of Dutch relativization characterized by a change from the relativizer’s initial consonant from D to W: the relative pronoun dat > wat, the relative adverb daar > waar, and the relative pronominal adverb daar+PREP > waar+PREP. Previous studies claim that in the change from D to W-forms the (in)definiteness of the relativizer’s antecedent played a crucial role. Here, it is argued that such an account suffers from empirical and theoretical flaws. A different approach is taken based upon construction grammar. The changes are accounted for by using the concept of construction specialization: language users’ tendency to pair a unique form with a unique meaning or function. It is shown that language users gradually widen the possible contexts of a construction by taking small analogical steps such as the use of a new verb in the construction. Frequency analyses are also taken into account. Next, it is argued that language users aim at maximally formal differences between similar constructions when construction specialization is at work. Finally, a diachronic construction network is developed in order to combine diachronic linguistics and construction grammar. • 1 Dat en wat, daar en waar Over de geschiedenis van de Nederlandse relativa zijn enkele pionierende artikelen verschenen (Van der Horst 1988, 1993; Van der Horst & Storm 1991; Schoonenboom 1997; De Schutter & Kloots 2000; Van der Wal 2002, 2003). Aan het onzijdig relativum (dat, wat, hetgeen) is ook uitgebreider aandacht besteed (Schoonenboom 2000). Er bestaat echter nog veel onduidelijkheid, met name over de verandering van daarnaar waarin het relatief bijwoord (het huis d/waar ik woon) en het voornaamwoordelijk bijwoord (de stoel d/waar ik op zit). In die verandering lijkt de achttiende eeuw belangrijk (Van der Horst & Storm 1991; Van der Wal 2002, 2003). Daarom is gekozen voor een analyse van daaren waarin een * Universiteit Leiden & Vrije Universiteit Brussel; g.j.rutten@hum.leidenuniv.nl. Het artikel is mede gefinancierd door de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), project Historical linguistics “from below” – new perspectives on the history of Dutch. Ik dank Ronny Boogaart, Marijke van der Wal en de leden van de Constructiegrammatica-leesgroep voor commentaar op een eerdere versie, als ook de redactie van Nederlandse Taalkunde en een externe beoordelaar.

The Practice of Letter Writing: Skills, Models, and Early Modern Dutch Manuals

Abstract In this paper, formulaic language in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch private letters is compared with formulae presented in letter-writing manuals. The most frequent formulae in the Dutch letters show a striking similarity with those found in private letters from other language areas. Such an eye-catching similarity points clearly to a shared European epistolary tradition which has been the topic of various previous studies. Being aware of this widespread tradition, we address the question of how letter writers acquired the formulae characteristic of that tradition by first discussing briefly literacy in the Dutch Republic and by subsequently taking into consideration the possible influence of theory and models provided in letter-writing manuals. After having established similarities and differences between the ‘theory’ of the more modest manuals or schoolbooks and actual practice of private letters, we conclude that direct influence of letter-writing manuals on the actual practice is not very likely. In the same vein as claims made for other languages, we furthermore argue that letter-writing conventions such as formulae were rather acquired by active participation in writing practice.

Change, contact and conventions in the history of Dutch

The paper discusses variation and change in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury Dutch, reviewing the importance of two types of explanation, the first focusing on dialect contact resulting from immigration as the locus of change, the second stressing the importance of writing conventions. u sing a unique corpus of private letters from all social ranks, we discuss various phonological and morphosyntactic variables. We argue that ego-documents offer unique opportunities for historical (socio)linguistics, providing an unprecedented view of the vernacular. a t the same time, writers did not consistently put their local dialect to paper. Writing practices such as morphological and syllabic orthographic principles caused the written code to move away from the vernacular. s upralocalization and graphemization, which are topics at the core of historical sociolinguistics, have to be taken into account by anyone interested in the communicative strategies which ordinary people used when they needed to write. a t the same time, since supralocalization and graphemization may impede research on spoken language phenomena, they should also be addressed by researchers primarily interested in spoken language phenomena such as dialect contact.

Chaos and Standards. Orthography in the Southern Netherlands (1720-1830)

Abstract This paper discusses metalinguistic discourse and orthographical practice in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in the southern Netherlands (‘Flanders’). Whereas a lot is known about Dutch language standardization in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, what happened after that, especially in the southern territories, is still partly uncharted territory. This contribution will examine and challenge the myths of language decline and linguistic chaos that are often associated with eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Flanders. The authors show that there was a vivid and coherent normative tradition, especially on the level of orthography, and that even a case of apparent orthographical disorder, such as the so-called accent spelling, can be counted as an instance of language standardization in the eighteenth-century southern Netherlands.